ohmelads

We shouldn't buy him just because he's available. There are plenty of defenders available for around £2m. Some will go on to be very good, some will go on to be very bad and there will be many in between. We landed Gooch as a desperate panic buy after our failure to make any signings in January. We needed someone, anyone, and Gooch was available on loan. His signing did not come as a result of months of scouting and checks, someone hit the panic button and some unknown from the Belgian league came in to help us out during our injury crisis. If he turns out to be good then it's a total fluke.

Why is Luque consistently absent from both the first team and the reserves? Is this down to him or you?

I would select something like this: ---------------------Given--------------- Solano----Onyewu--Taylor------Duff Milner------Butt-----N'Zogbia---Luque --------------Martins--Dyer------------- Not that Luque will ever play nor Parker be dropped. Duff doesn't really deserve a place on current form but we need a left back and you could argue he does need the games to find form at this club, as many have argued for Luque. The two have been a real disappointment. Emre and maybe youngsters coming off the bench depending on how things go.

Not good enough. I'd rather give a youngster like Carroll a chance in our remaining games.

This lad may come good, but the manner of his transfer should raise alarm bells. I'm surprised people haven't factored this in and said 'hang on a minute'. Here we have a cheap last-minute loan signing brought in during the middle of an injury crisis. Does this strike you as a player thoroughly researched by the club or a panic signing because we simply had to get someone? And really what are the chances that we have flukily found the man we need. It's desperate transfer business. As I say, he might come good but it would be a bit of a fluke if you ask me. I'm not convinced the club know what they are doing.

Why must we always sign (apparent) quality in midfield and attack yet never in defence? When we sign midfielders or strikers as half-measures people are furious. Players like Amdy Faye or Sibierski. Yet when it comes to defenders people make cases for bringing them in. The defence must be measured just as strictly as other areas of the team. Would you have it if we brought in players like this in midfield or up front? I recognise the club's lack of a major transfer budget and the probably departure of Bramble and/or Moore. However we all know rightly the club will once again spend most of the budget in midfield or attack, don't we? I'm sure we have enough money to put a decent defence together. I'm equally sure it won't happen.

Even if he plays poorly the regular games may raise his value a bit. Who knows, he may even come good with his first ever run of league games at this club. Duff needs to learn to fight for his place, something he has never had to do at Newcastle. N'Zogbia can be tried in the centre, see if he really is up to playing in that position. Let's face it we no longer have anything to play for. I'm all for giving a few of the hungry kids a chance, they'll give 100% and will gain valuable experience. A few of the first-teamers need a reality check and I'd definitely drop some of the bigger names. It's as good a time as any to finally give Luque a run of league games.

To be fair they've been pretty fortunate with injuries this season. In central defence two or three serious injuries could totally cripple them as they only have Carragher, Agger and Hyppia. No doubt they've improved as a squad though.

Barcelona were very lucky to come away with a draw against a weakened Real team. I'm never a fan of a three man defence and it was totally exposed there. Van Nistelrooy's running gave them all sorts of problems. I had a feeling Real would get something even though they've been hammered by the press. Barcelona have been average for quite a while and all too reliant on ridiculous refeering decisions to help them out.

Parker's been OK. No better or worse than the majority of the squad. The media hyped him up ridiculously and when he didn't meet those standards many fans were let down and labelled him s****. Similar to Jenas really. As a result of his captaincy and his manager's faith in him he's sometimes been played when he should have been rested or when others were in better form (eg the Butt-Emre partnership that sent us on a decent run). If you look at it objectively he's done alright for us but we know he can do a lot better.

Emre looks like he's on his way as a result of the racism allegations, and Bayern have shown interest in him before (apparently). We would need to replace him, and Hargreaves would like to play in the Premiership. So someone has put two and two together and decided to create another bollocks football rumour.

I watched that game and it's true, Sevilla were hungry for a third, Kanoute missed an open goal and Alves hit the bar. That said, they had 10 men against Barcelona's 9. But in the first half Barca were given an extremely fortunate pen (Barca have had way too many dodgy decisions this season) which resulted in a red card for Sevilla after only 15 minutes. Even a man down they more than matched Barca and even scored twice to go in front before Barca lost two players to equally dubious red cards. Not that Barca can complain, as Ronaldinho's goal was offside. The ref and linesmen had a shocker basically. But I've seen them outplay Barcelona and Real Madrid this season and their positive approach to football means they don't show anyone too much respect. They definitely seem to be the team to beat in the UEFA Cup, along with Benfica, Werder Bremen and one or two others. I recently watched them destroy Atletico 3-1 at home, despite playing 60 minutes with ten men. They've really got the bit between their teeth, they began that game playing at 100 miles an hour and Atletico just couldnt cope with it. They like to play at a tempo which teams find hard to match. They're an attractive team to watch. Unlike teams like Bolton who cope without big money players by playing physical football, Ramos has got them outplaying the top teams.

I think Solano will go back at RB, Taylor LB with Gooch and Bramble in the centre. Milner will return with Duff continuing on the other side. Zog will continue his return from injury with another second half appearance. I'm confident that's how it'll go and personally that's the team I'd pick.

How often do we ever have these selection crises? This is Newcastle. Expect the team to pick itself within a few weeks of the season's start after a spate of injuries. Anybody who thinks I'm overreacting should ask themselves when was the last time a Newcastle manager had serious selection headaches. If I was Glenn I'd be more worried about keeping 11 of the said players fit than worrying about who is better than who. I'll be very grateful if we can get most of these players on the same field.

You're making an assumption based on tabloid speculation. In other words commenting on something you know nowt about. I guess we jus have to wait and see, until we know more it's not worth comparing it to anything. As for Spain, go there and watch games in the stadiums and bars. Racism is a big problem over there and the worst thing is they don't even realise it. Making monkey noises is just seen as a bit of craic over there, I've heard people making these noises and then saying it's just a bit of fun and that they're not racist. Totally different standards, but hardly surprising in a country where blacks are extremely rare in comparison with England. The Sevilla - Betis thing has been brewing for a while. Betis felt Sevilla's president had insulted them. They told him if he wanted to come and see the game at their stadium he would have to do so sitting in front of a sculpture of Betis' president. Ridiculously petty.

It's all hypothetical but were we to reach the final, even if he did get an injury, he'd have 3 months in which to get fit again for the new season. In games like that it's always a case of putting out your strongest, most experienced team and we saw what Owen is capable of with 7 goals in 10 games. If we did get that far I could see us playing tough opposition like Werder Bremen, Sevilla or Benfica and clinical finishing would be crucial because we're not good enough to create bucketloads of chances against sides like that. Owen is still one of the best finishers around and in situations like that you need someone who will take any chances that come their way.

Come on Alkmaar.

Those who are saying a goal or even a hat-trick would not prove anything are often the same people who say games like this are "a chance" for him to prove himself. You can't have it both ways. If you're saying the opposition is too sh*te to judge him then why are you also saying it's his chance. A chance is something that can put you in contention for the first team, yet in all honesty I think it would take a hell of a performance for that to happen. Whatever your opinion on Luque or any other players, they can only beat what's put in front of them. I can't remember the last time he started a league game anyway, but in the UEFA Cup this year he's done alright. Nowt special, but not bad either. You can usually spot someone's agenda by the nature of their posts. When he took pretty much his only chance to give us a 1-0 win in Palermo, some people said the ball was planted on his head and he couldn't miss. If Van Nistelrooy scored that goal the same people would be talking about his great movement and ability to lose his man. Any true Newcastle fan should be hoping for a good performance from Luque tonight. I don't understand and certainly don't respect fans who hope for their own players to mess up because of some childish player-bias.

I suppose that's because Fabregas plays in the centre and his game is far more about orchestrating play than running at defenders all day, teasing and taunting them and inviting challenges.

Messi is 3 years younger than Robinho and already a better player. His low centre of gravity, superb balance, great acceleration and excellent ball control mean he can jink past players in tight spaces. He reminds me a little bit of Paul Gascoigne. The problem with this is it does invite tackles. He wins a lot of free kicks but his legs seem to take a lot of punishment in the process. I guess Messi's only weakness is that he could chip in with a few more goals for a player in his position, but looking at his age it's not a major concern. I think Messi would be far more likely to succeed in England because he's got an intelligent footballing brain, as well as being a crowd pleaser. Too much of what Robinho does is very individual and while it looks pretty, doesn't have enough end product. He's 22 and still needs quite a bit of football education but the raw ingredients are there, he has superb skill.

He's got electric pace and ridiculous ball skill but he's also very lightweight and despite Real publically saying they are trying to bulk him up (a la Ronaldo in his early days), there's little evidence of it. His final ball can often let him down too. It's tough to say how he'd do over here, but he is definitely one of the best in the world at beating his man. A lot of people still talk about him as a 'future star' but he is already 22. He needs to start producing soon.

Just because he's overrated and past his best it doesn't mean he's shit and certainly doesn't mean he shouldn't be in the England squad. There are some far inferior midfielders in the England squad as we speak.

Never rated Stephern Warnock at all.

Regarding strikers we may well be in a position of beggars can't be choosers. Personally I believe the bulk of our money should be going into defence, both now and in summer. Therefore, Mido would be worth the risk in my opinion.

In a perfect world I'd agree with you. Diarra would come here, sit on our bench and once in a while come in when two of Butt/Emre/Parker are tired or injured. Handy backup that costs nothing. But he's already a backup player at Chelsea and realistically he would be unlikely to get many more chances here than he would there. We don't have the luxury they do of fielding a B team in the cups yet at Chelsea he would be playing in those games. With us it'll be a case of putting our best team out in all games from here until the end of the season. He would likely start against Notts Forest for example, yet I doubt we'd play him against Reading. Indeed, the only way to fit him in the team and take a gamble on him would be to deny an established first teamer like Butt, Emre or Parker his place in the team. Diarra has no Premiership experience and it's unlikely he would fit right in and start playing like Makelele, in fact I suspect he wouldn't be as reliable as those we already have. This would be an unnecessary signing and might even have a negative impact on things. I doubt we'll be getting any loan deals from Man Utd for a while for obvious reasons and if we bring in Diarra I expect we wouldn't be getting many more from them either. As for all this mid-table club stuff, I'm not rejecting the concept of loan deals. But bringing a player in for the sake of it isn't necessarily so straight-forward. In the longer term Chelsea are a club who we could potentially loan promising talents from, talents we need in vital positions (left back for example). We should be looking at the kind of loan players who wil be on the fringes of our first team or even in the first team, not just luxury backup. Fulham loaned Wayne Bridge, Spurs loaned Mido, Fulham have just loaned Montella. These were astute loan deals in positions where these clubs felt they needed strengthening. These are the sort of deals we need to be looking at for the remainder of this season, defenders and strikers. There are many big clubs with oversized squads, just look at Real Madrid or Inter Milan for example, we should be scouring these clubs for left backs or young strikers because they could do a real job for us right now.