ohmelads

Bellamy was a top player but the difference with Martins is he can create goals for himself and can lead the line in the absence of any other stars. It's clear to see Martins is not playing his natural game at the moment but he's making a bloody good first of it in difficult circumstances and to score 7 in 14 league games is a great start. Bellamy is a great player if you use him correctly, but Martins is doing superbly without the benefit of playing alongside big strikers such as Shearer or Kluivert. Martins would have been in his element alongside either of those. Indeed Shearer's skills were fading and Kluivert wasn't the most motivated, but Bellamy forged his reputation playing alongside Shearer when he was still a top class number 9 and I sincerely doubt Bellamy could play up front with Dyer or Sibierski and have the same impact Martins has had. He simply doesn't have the strength or aeriel ability to get to half of the balls Martins gets to and he is significantly easier to foul or knock off the ball than Oba. I'd say Bellamy's running is more intelligent but he hasn't always been this way and is a good few years older than Martins. Martins has had a very tough job, his natural game is to play off a big man but he's had to spend a lot of the time working hard to keep the ball and play in others. If we can get in the right partner for him in January there is still a lot more to come from Martins IMO. Of course Oba could improve in certain areas but so could all footballers. His finishing is slowly getting better and in time hopefully his runs will get better too. Physically he is all-rounded, so much pace and power and he's scoring headers too. With the ball at his feet he's demonstrated better awareness in recent games. I've wanted us to sign this guy for years and it was once just a pipe dream as he burst onto the scene with Inter. We've been the club to take a chance on him and give him a run in the team and we are beginning to reap the benefits.

Credit where it's due, Roeder has made the best of a messy situation, he's got the players believing in themselves again, the team has stopped leaking silly goals and things are looking up. He's a calm, pensive man in the face of crisis and they're qualities which have served him well. However, long-term I still don't think he's the man for the job. His tactical shortcomings cannot be overlooked and could hurt us in the transfer market. As I see it he may as well stay until we can find better, but I honestly see him as someone to steady the ship in the short term and nothing more. Realistically there aren't alternative managers around at the moment. These next three games are very tough and will tell us a lot about the current Newcastle side. The players seem up for the fight but there are a few tired legs out there and I wouldn't be too surprised if we got 0 points from the next 9. Similarly, I wouldn't be too surprised if we picked up 6 points or more. They're 3 games which could go either way and within a week attitudes may change significantly once again. That's the nature of a manager's job, and we as fans are all a bit fickle to some extent.

Weird. It's a good gesture but part of me thinks it's a clever publicity stunt. I took a browse on the guy's thread and he seems to be an informal mouthpiece for Randy Lerner.

Michael Dawson.

To be honest I'd rather throw Krul in than Srnicek.

Dawson was absolute pants once again. Hopefully he'll put in a similar performance at WHL.

Apparently Solano is playing through a groin injury as well.

I reckon he'll get into the box a lot more when he has a big striker alongside him to hold the ball up. The Martins/Dyer partnership has given me confidence that Owen and Martins could work together, although I still think Martins is most comfortable when he's alongside a bigger player. Martins is adding a lot to the team and is probably our most important player right now when you look at the squad. It was great to see King and Dawson shitting themselves whenever he closed them down, I remember one occasion where King panicked and punted it out for a corner even though he was about 20 yards from goal. A couple of times he intercepted their passes in defence and would have been through on goal if the ball hadn't squirmed away. He's started to make defences feel very uneasy. Put him alongside a big man to rough the defenders up a bit and we could have a nightmare for opposition defenders. As for Duff, I can't believe people are starting to write him off already. I'm very confident he'll come good. Even if he never matches the form of his Blackburn days he's still a top player. Give him a run in the side and let him settle and we'll have a quality winger on our hands, I'm sure of that.

I could never support Man Utd in a title race. Although Chelsea get up my nose, I still see them as the lesser of two evils. In terms of football played so far this season though, Man Utd deserve their place at the top.

He was poor, probably because he was asked to play left-wing. He kept drifting and leaving Huntington exposed.

Nobby Solano. Ever since he switched to right back he has just oozed class. Showed his intelligence today, gave confidence to the rest of the defence. He is the best thing to have happened to our defence this season. At times he had the fans in laughter as he took the piss out of Spurs. Another top performance.

Rarely have I seen such a decisive and one-sided game where the team hanging on has come out victorious. How we lost that I'll never know but it was a massive turning point in the title race. Schmeichel was simply incredible.

Didn't we offer Chopra a new contract and he decided to move on as a free agent? Don't remember us deciding to sell him.

If Duff passes fit, Glenn has a few decisions to make regarding form players versus pedigree. Parker/Butt, Baba/Huntington and Milner/Duff are some of the decisions he has to make. I'll be livid if he goes 4-5-1 again. I can see him going 4-4-2 with Sib back, Dyer on the right, and Parker in for Butt. Duff, if fit, replacing Milner and Baba replacing Huntington.

I'm more worried about Berbatov to be honest, hadn't even thought about Lennon. Their strikeforce looks better than ours (although Oba is looking very sharp) but I think we can win the midfield battle. I would continue with Huntington although I've got a feeling Glenn will put Babayaro in.

Patrick Kluivert.

I do get the feeling that what we're witnessing may be a purple patch from Butt. A month or so of decent-to-good performances do not erase two years of utter shite so I for one will not be surprised if it doesn't last. I agree with you in theory but time will tell if Butt really has made a difference or if other factors have been at play. As far as I'm concerned it's far too early to tell. A bit of praise for turning around his performances is what he deserves, but to credit him with the club's turnaround is over the top IMO. I do agree with your main point about getting the ball moving a lot faster in central midfield though, and in this regard he has done what Parker has failed to do in terms of quick pass-and-move one- and two-touch football. It is twice as easy to create chances when the opposition are backpeddling and don't have bodies behind the ball, Parker likes to take five or ten touches before releasing the ball which gives our wingers the nightmare problem of unlocking a ten-man defence when they finally do get the ball from him. Parker is a quality footballer though, with a superb tackle, lots of determination, a great engine, decent technique and decent enough vision. I honestly think he could do a good job in one of the full-back positions if need be, probably better than Ramage or Huntington.

Looks no bigger than Martins in the photo. Shouldn't we be looking for a someone more in the mould of a target man, seeing as Ameobi is out for the season and the only physical presence we have up front is Sibierski? It doesn't sound like there's much in the kitty.

I agree with your sentiments, I don't think any of our players had a less than decent game yesterday so to single Parker out for criticism is totally unfair. Things have picked up lately but I think the next four games will prove a big test for Roeder and his side and should give us all a reality check as to how good or bad the (available) Newcastle team actually is. Spurs home, Bolton and Everton away then Man Utd home. The Tottenham game is massive because if we win it I can see us picking up at least 7 points from those games, if we lose it and have to play two tough away games it could all fall apart again. I feel it's all about momentum now, the spirited nature of the Chelsea defeats shouldn't have knocked us off our stride but I feel the Tottenham game will probably set the tone for the christmas schedule.

While Baba offers a bit more going forward, Huntington offers much more defensively. On current form I'd keep the young lad in for Tottenham.

Solano has been true captain material lately and I would continue with him at right back regardless of when Carr returns. Therefore, as a guaranteed starter, I'd give him the armband. He showed today what an intelligent player he is and a calm head. He has the respect of the players and the fans which is essential. Parker's pirouette is his biggest shortcoming as a player and he needs to sort it out asap. He has a lot in his locker but the ability to turn defence into attack in an instant is what the Premiership is all about. He must release the ball much much quicker. At the moment he holds up our counter attacks and it isn't that surprising that we have been countering with greater urgency when he hasn't been in midfield. It's a minor nuisance to his game though, and on his day he is still a top quality central midfielder capable of bossing the midfield. Just because we haven't got our team to click yet I certainly wouldn't write him off, this was his first game back from injury. Like many I nominated him to be captain but I'd have to say he hasn't been the best choice. For me, going on this season's performances, Solano or Given should be captain. A captain needn't be a central player, Neville captains Man Utd from right back and they're top of the table.

Much as I don't rate Roeder, it's too easy to say he should have made subs when none of us know what would have happened. While there were other factors in our second half decline I believe Chelsea took a grip of the game by bringing on Lampard, Ballack and Drogba, and there's no point kidding ourselves otherwise. Three world class players like that were always going to cause us problems. I would have liked to have seen us match their fresh legs a bit earlier but looking at our bench I wasn't entirely sure. Rossi never looks up for the fight to me, he knows he's going in a few days and I always feel he would rather score the consolation in a 2-1 defeat than help the team win and make no name for himself. Similarly Luque knows he is on the brink of leaving and I don't think we'd have seen much from him. Sibierski would have given us the height but by withdrawing a midfielder we may have been overran by their superior midfield, who knows. Up until the 79th minute free kick I still thought it was anyone's game and let's not forget that we were beaten by a set-piece today, not because we were outplayed in any way at all.

Carragher is nothing to look at in terms of technique but his positioning, reading of the game and tackling make him the quality, reliable defender he is. Same goes for many other established defenders in England. I'm not that fussed if Huntington isn't demonstrating much technique right now, it doesn't mean it's not there. A teenage central defender thrust into the first team and told to play full back against Chelsea is likely to play within himself and always go for the simple ball. I see what you mean in the case of Ramage, he has very limited footballing ability, but I'd say Taylor at right back demonstrated decent technique for a central defender. Give Huntington time, he may come out of his shell a bit more. Off the ball Huntington looks a canny prospect to me, always switched on and never caught out by Kalou. He held his own tonight.

I'd have to see it again but I thought it was a free-kick (never a yellow card though). Had they not moved the ball I doubt they would have even attempted the shot they did. But I agree our players should have went mental as they were sneakily gaining crucial yards and changing the angle of the kick.

We were outdone by gamesmanship at the end of the day. Robben was fouled in a crossing position, but Chelsea casually rolled it a good few yards back and suddenly it was an inviting angle for a shot. Everybody was amazed that the ref didn't do anything about this, it was shortsightedness which probably cost us the game. Nevertheless I was amazed we only put a few men in the wall (what was it - three?) for a free-kick from that distance. When I saw Drogba lining up to take it I thought to myself 'surely that's not our wall'. It's no use blaming Parker, there should have been at least another man in that wall, probably two. It was a childish mistake and we were punished, even if Chelsea did cheat to get the angle they did.