ohmelads

I agree he's the one I fear the most because he allows them to play different ways. He's got a bit of everything and if he can hold it up he'll bring those other players into play.

Ben Arfa and Santon have to come in. They've got a full international break to prepare for the game which hopefully gives them a chance to hit the ground running. To have those two in the starting lineup would give the team and the fans a boost. The big question is who to drop for Ben Arfa. Pardew sees him as a second striker but he seems versatile and Best and Ba are causing teams problems. I think eventually he will come in for Best but you want to stick with your form players. On that note I think Ben Arfa should come in on the right in place of Obertan who is very hit and miss. Perhaps Ben Arfa won't offer Simpson the most protection but neither does Obertan. There is also the possibility that Ben Arfa will threaten them down the right hand side and that will force Bale or whoever plays there to drop back and help out his own full back. We can't show too much fear and the best way to pin them back is to give them something to worry about if they bomb on too much. They will look to play a fast counter attacking game and we have to be cautious with our own full backs. I'd be happy to see us play a patient game, an end to end encounter doesn't suit us with the players they have. We shouldn't drop too deep but we should keep the full backs back at all times and try and open them up in midfield. That way when they counter there is always a back four there. It might not make for an exciting game but we would rather keep it tight and try and get the likes of Ben Arfa on the ball.

I don't think the squad is very strong. I look past the first team and I see substandard players in nearly all positions. I'd like to say the midfield looks good but we don't have a proper right winger at the club, Guthrie has always been hit or miss and injury prone and Gosling remains totally unproven. Cabaye's made an OK start and Tiote is a quality player, while I rate Gutierrez more than most simply for his team play. Up front we lack any punch and it'll only get worse with injuries. Defence looks decent although Simpson will always be an average full back and we could be caught short with injuries. Overall, it's hard to say because we don't really know anything about Marveaux and Ben Arfa and Gosling are coming back from very long term injuries and at this stage can't be counted upon. I think the lack of strikers will hurt us in tight games and that could be our undoing unless Ba can find his shooting boots. For me, a lot is riding on the return of Ben Arfa as he could be our biggest threat up front. If he gets an injury free run for months on end and forms a good partnership with Ba, we could be dangerous but it's looking a big IF at the moment. Too many unknowns at this stage due to new signings from abroad. Wait and see how they get on and if the team gels and they stay fit we should be OK for lower mid-table or a mid-table spot. Any higher than that and you need a regular goalscorer. Injuries to key players would really have us looking over our shoulders but the same is true of half the teams in the league.

Another massive blow. So that's a right winger, left back and striker we're looking for now then. Ignoring the first two results which papered over the cracks, it's obvious that this could be a long, hard season.

Couldn't care less about the politics. We're losing a good player who produced on the pitch for us. He won't be replaced. Not now, and probably not in 5 months time. We need a striker, left back, right winger - all Premier League first team quality. 3 signings, 6 days left. Does anyone seriously think we'll find better than Carroll, Enrique and Barton? Does anyone even think we'll sign 3 more players?? This is a massive blow, no point pretending otherwise.

No need for Ba, Best and Loven on the same bench. Vuckic has earned a shot from the bench, quite surprising he's missed both squads to accommodate three forwards. He has to get a chance against Scunthorpe, I'd start him for that game.

We've got a decent midfield, we have the potential to control the game there as we did last season but they're obviously going to target Ryan Taylor and get the ball down their right whenever they can. I think we'll sit deep when we lose the ball so he's not so exposed in one on one situations. Gutierrez will need to drop back and help out. I'd have Obertan up front, had a good cameo against Arsenal and offers vital pace on the counter. His presence will stop them holding a high line as Arsenal did against Ameobi and Ba. We virtually conceded the midfield in that game and let them pass it about in midfield. The two forwards got the ball 40 yards from goal and neither really held it up well. Pace and movement solves that problem, I don't think their centre backs will fancy a sprint against Obertan so they'll drop deeper which allows our midfield more breathing room and we can get the ball to the strikers further up the pitch. That happened to some extent in the Arsenal game after Obertan came on. Ameobi or Ba isn't an easy one. We know Ameobi's limitations, but none of our strikers have set the world alight in pre-season and Ba struggled last week. They fear Ameobi and in this kind of game, lacking a form striker, I'd go with a player who has proven he can not only handle the occasion but thrive under it. You see some players wilt in derby games but we've seen before how Ameobi responds against the mackems. Throwing Ba in seems a risk to me, you have to ask yourself who they will fear more. To be honest any strikeforce we put out is going to look toothless on current evidence. I'd like to see Vuckic on the bench, he's looked sharp in pre-season and offers an element of surprise.

We're drifting into Shefki Kuqi/Sibierski/Olivier Bernard/Ronny Johnsen territory here. The fans have every right to be nervous. We go into the season with this squad, we're going to ship goals and struggle to score them at the other end. Not a good mix for a football team. We've received a massive sum of money from the sales of Carroll, Nolan and Enrique. We've known about the left back vacancy for months and months now. We've known about the striker problem for EIGHT months. We cashed in on these players for big sums of money yet we are not prepared to pay decent money for replacements. Who wouldn't be nervous that we are now less than 2 weeks from deadline day and all we keep hearing is that the club won't reinvest a fraction of what we received to replace these players?

He had very little service and it was mostly poor balls, but he didn't help himself really as he didn't get himself into space - he didn't work the channels, come short or make diagonal runs. The service will be better against weaker opposition, and it's far too early to judge, but he'll have to improve his performance on that evidence. He was rightly taken off and Obertan's pace and running offered much more movement and threat in the final third.

At this stage he'd be worth a punt but the jury is out on him. Arsenal fans, from the ones I've met, don't seem to have a very good impression of his attitude or his ability. But when you look at our current strikeforce, who wouldn't welcome him? We're going nowhere under this owner and the general feeling is we take what we can get under the circumstances. There's not much in the kitty and with the influx of foreign players already, someone familiar with the Premier League and young enough that he might have his best days ahead of him isn't a bad shout. You can see there is ability there, he looks like he needs confidence and he could be a player if he had a run of games with the fans behind him. He's clearly not a natural finisher but he can be a handful when he's on form. We've been down this road before signing cast-offs from big teams and they haven't worked out for us, but with two weeks until the window closes and no money backing the manager, we could do worse than Bendtner.

Another two of our best players gone. This season will be a big, big struggle.

No question we will start this season weaker than we ended the last. Missing Nolan, Barton, and soon to be Enrique. Three of last season's key performers are missing, four if you include Carroll and the new players who have come in have major question marks over their fitness records. Given how we ended last season, that's very worrying. Not to mention we fought hard for many points last season based on a strong team spirit. Just days ago Pardew was talking about welcoming Barton back into the team and the contribution he makes. It's more clear than ever that, just like the managers before him, Pardew has no idea what's going on over his head. Until Mike Ashley is gone, we will go from one fiasco to another. People are saying this is the last straw for Barton but really this should be the last straw for Mike Ashley. A lot of other clubs wouldn't tolerate what has gone on at Newcastle over the past 4 years, you only have to look at what Man Utd and Liverpool did and they went through nothing close to what's happened here. Only mass boycotts will move Ashley - he'll drop his asking price and get out. People say it does more harm than good, but from where I'm standing, relegation is a distinct possibility anyway. I hope I'm wrong but I look at the current squad, take out Barton and Enrique and I don't see it handling more than a few injuries. I see injury prone players in key positions, a lack of proven quality and we're missing the most influential players from last season who were instrumental in keeping us up. I don't have much faith at all that they'll be adequately replaced and I fail to see how Pardew can maintain the respect of the dressing room when he clearly has no idea what's going on and has been publicly undermined like this.

It's true that all clubs make mistakes and there are some very dodgy people in football. It's also true that other clubs have been mismanaged. But you won't find many who have caused so much upheaval, angered their own fans, players and managers and embarrassed their club on such a scale, in such a short space of time, as Mike Ashley. You talk to fans of clubs up and down the country and we're a laughing stock because of what's gone on. Relegated with record attendances, a popular manager sacked, another dragged the club through the courts for buying players he didn't want based on youtube footage, we went a season with 5 different managers, including the retired and the totally inexperienced. A stadium wth a proud and long history turned into an email address as a blatant fuckoff to the fans. Mass fan protests, several current players and the former club captain slamming the club for the way it's run. I could go on. And all this in, what, 4 years? The man didn't even conduct proper due dilligence in buying the club. There are worse people than Mike Ashley in the world, but let's not pretend this is a normal way to run a football club.

There's nothing retrospective about it. If you go back earlier in the thread, myself and others were making the case for signing him back then. There was no need to wait for N'Zogbia, he's been available all summer. As many pointed out earlier in the thread, if you wait he will sign for a rival and that's what's happening now.

One big opportunity for us to sign a proven, in-form Premier League player at an affordable price, a good age, someone with qualities we need such as pace, skill and creativity. And it would seem we have gone for the cheaper option with Marveaux on a bosman, a player with major question marks over his injury record. Now I don't know anything about Marveaux other than Liverpool had a look and that, much like the Gosling signing, he's on the back of a serious injury and hasn't played in donkeys. But I'm pretty disappointed we've gone down this route seeing as we should have money to spend. Given how the Gosling signing went and the problems we've had with injury lists over the years, not to mention all our signings have come abroad, you'd have thought the N'Zogbia deal would be a much more attractive option and well worth the cost. According to Pardew, these bosman deals have set us back financially anyway, which makes even less sense why we didn't just go in for N'Zogbia. All we can do now is hope Marveaux is the business.

As many on here have pointed out, you can't wait until deadline day for a proven player who is on sale at a good price. The idea that we could sit on our hands and throw in a last minute cheeky bid was always unrealistic and naive. Quite simply, despite the near 40M from the sales of Carroll and Nolan, we seem unwilling to pay for a player who would improve us and would come to us, and instead would allow a rival to strengthen while we look for cheaper targets. Instead we are happy to sanction bosman deals for unproven foreign players or those with a very iffy injury record. We'll take a punt while they sign the real deal, a proven Premier League player. N'Zogbia should have been top of our list the moment he became available, he ticks all the boxes. If you ask me, it's a major disappointment if we miss out on him and as we seem to be struggling in our search for a striker and lost our top two scorers last season, it's a disappointing window so far.

As the saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We are not the only club interested. Sure there's agent talk and what not but let's be realistic here - he's just off the back of a very impressive season, he's young enough yet has plenty Premier League experience, and most of all he's available for sale at a decent price. Clubs will come knocking for a player like that, it would be foolish to assume we him 'in the bag' and can just sit back and let Wigan sweat. It might come off but we stand a very real risk of losing the player late in the day if we do that. It would leave us little to no time for a plan B. We can line up a plan B now, but who's to say he'll still be available when N'Zogbia is plucked from under our noses? And besides, I'd rather take a proven Premier League player, espescially given all the foreign imports we've brought in. Lose N'Zogbia and we'll be off shopping abroad again, because proven Premier League players don't come cheap - just look at the current prices they're going for. I think 9M for N'Zogbia represents smart business in the current climate and if we miss out I'll not be impressed.

just leave it vacant till we have someone to deserve it Well with the sale of our two top scorers last season, that should be happening in this window.

He must mean two new players besides first team replacements, surely? If we lose Enrique and Barton and bring two in it's not good enough. We'll do very well to replace those with better players who quickly settle into the team. Looking at our forward line, we obviously need another striker because if we're pinning our hopes on a striker with a sketchy injury history we could be seeing a lot of Lovenkrands and Ameobi again.

You're right and the risk is that we will lose out on him last minute and be left short of players. There's a reason clubs like Man Utd pay that bit extra and get them in early. Added bonus being that the player has a whole pre-season with the club, is better integrated in the dressing room, training etc, has more chance to work on his role in the team and also has less chance of injury. We've done the right thing getting players in early but we've also signed two bosmans, triggered a transfer clause and are targetting another transfer clause (Neil Taylor) to replace one of the best left backs in the league. I think people have a right to wonder why the club would drag its heels over bringing in a player such as N'Zogbia who is available at very good value and would command an important place in our first team. I know that a club like ours has to be slightly more wily than Man Utd in the transfer market but just as the Carroll and Milner sales left us short on players, I'm wary of it happening again. Ashley likes a game of brinkmanship but if bigger clubs miss their targets they will take a look at N'Zogbia - it is not a simple case of just sitting back and making Wigan sweat. If we get him on deadline day for 2m less then fair enough but is it worth risking a weak squad til January, or signing an inferior player, just to do so? Successful clubs generally don't think this way. So it's not to have depth at left back then? Also you say successful clubs don't wait to the last minute, then point to the sale of Carroll at the last minute that left us short, funnily enough sold to one of the most successful clubs in British football history to replace a player that was sold to one of the most successful British clubs of the last decade. Chelsea and Liverpool had no problem waiting so why judge it by what Man Utd have done? And look at the form of Carroll and Torres since, without a pre-season with their new teams they have been poor. Both were widely seen as panic signings. They may come good next season but when you look at the money spent, they bloody well should. Both are an example of what happens when you do your shopping on deadline day. As for Neil Taylor, I'd be happy as anyone if Enrique stays but at the moment it looks unlikely. Carroll was injured and Torres was out of form before he went there, do you honestly think if they bought them earlier in the window their form would have been any different? Look at the likes of Berbatov and Ashley Cole, both clubs were happy to wait until the window was nearly closed to push through the signings they want so the example that Man Utd get it done early isn't always the case. Ideally all of the new players would be here already but it just doesn't work like that, that's the same for any club too and not just Newcastle and the thought of paying an extra £2 million to get someone through the door a few weeks earlier is daft IMO. Btw if Enrique goes that doesn't mean Taylor will be the only left back brought into the club. Well Carroll and Torres were signed in the January window not the summer window. When they have had a full pre-season with their clubs then yes I predict they will fare better. Of course it's daft not to wait a few weeks, if the player is convinced to come to us. But is he? I can see him being in demand and it may be the club that pays more that gets him, that's business. At what price do we wait on these kinds of players, when the selling club is willing to do a deal at a decent price? There is logic in both arguments, either is a risk. You would risk losing out on the player late on and chase a replacement, fair enough. I'd risk paying that bit more to make sure I have a top player and don't lose him to a rival. I guess it depends how much the player wants to come here, as to how the club can swing it in our favour. The Carroll, Torres and Berbatov deals are fair examples but in all cases those clubs were reluctant to sell which dragged the deal on, not because the big clubs buying were holding out for a lower price. I don't think Wigan are reluctant to sell N'Zogbia, they've basically said he can go. As for Neil Taylor, I'll be amazed if we sign two new left backs. Most likely whoever comes in will be Enrique's replacement and Ferguson would be used as cover or a converted right back. If Neil Taylor came in then I would expect him to be the Enrique replacement. But anyway that's for a different thread.

Was that because they spent the whole time haggling ? As with Liverpool and Chelsea in the earlier examples, they did not wait til late August to get a cheaper deal, as people here are arguing we should do with N'Zogbia. In all of those cases, the selling club were very reluctant to sell. In N'Zogbia's case, the selling club are happy to let go. Perhaps some don't rate the player as highly which is fair enough, and wouldn't mind us targetting someone else. I'm just not convinced we can get a player as proven in the Premier League. Given our other signings have been players with fitness concerns or no Premier League experience, to bring in N'Zogbia after the season he's just had would be a big boost.

You're right and the risk is that we will lose out on him last minute and be left short of players. There's a reason clubs like Man Utd pay that bit extra and get them in early. Added bonus being that the player has a whole pre-season with the club, is better integrated in the dressing room, training etc, has more chance to work on his role in the team and also has less chance of injury. We've done the right thing getting players in early but we've also signed two bosmans, triggered a transfer clause and are targetting another transfer clause (Neil Taylor) to replace one of the best left backs in the league. I think people have a right to wonder why the club would drag its heels over bringing in a player such as N'Zogbia who is available at very good value and would command an important place in our first team. I know that a club like ours has to be slightly more wily than Man Utd in the transfer market but just as the Carroll and Milner sales left us short on players, I'm wary of it happening again. Ashley likes a game of brinkmanship but if bigger clubs miss their targets they will take a look at N'Zogbia - it is not a simple case of just sitting back and making Wigan sweat. If we get him on deadline day for 2m less then fair enough but is it worth risking a weak squad til January, or signing an inferior player, just to do so? Successful clubs generally don't think this way. So it's not to have depth at left back then? Also you say successful clubs don't wait to the last minute, then point to the sale of Carroll at the last minute that left us short, funnily enough sold to one of the most successful clubs in British football history to replace a player that was sold to one of the most successful British clubs of the last decade. Chelsea and Liverpool had no problem waiting so why judge it by what Man Utd have done? And look at the form of Carroll and Torres since, without a pre-season with their new teams they have been poor. Both were widely seen as panic signings. They may come good next season but when you look at the money spent, they bloody well should. Both are an example of what happens when you do your shopping on deadline day. As for Neil Taylor, I'd be happy as anyone if Enrique stays but at the moment it looks unlikely. At the moment he, or anyone else who comes in, looks likely to be Enrique's replacement, not back up or 'depth' as you put it.

You're right and the risk is that we will lose out on him last minute and be left short of players. There's a reason clubs like Man Utd pay that bit extra and get them in early. Added bonus being that the player has a whole pre-season with the club, is better integrated in the dressing room, training etc, has more chance to work on his role in the team and also has less chance of injury. We've done the right thing getting players in early but we've also signed two bosmans, triggered a transfer clause and are targetting another transfer clause (Neil Taylor) to replace one of the best left backs in the league. I think people have a right to wonder why the club would drag its heels over bringing in a player such as N'Zogbia who is available at very good value and would command an important place in our first team. I personally hope the deal is done quickly because I can see other clubs coming in if/when their targets go elsewhere. I know that a club like ours has to be slightly more wily than Man Utd in the transfer market but just as the Carroll and Milner sales left us short on players, I'm wary of it happening again. Ashley likes a game of brinkmanship but if bigger clubs miss their targets they will take a look at N'Zogbia - it is not a simple case of just sitting back and making Wigan sweat. If we get him on deadline day for 2m less then fair enough but is it worth risking a weak squad til January, or signing an inferior player, just to do so? Successful clubs generally don't think this way.

It's easy for us to say "ffs man just pay the extra 2m and get him signed up!" I assume (and hope that) it's harder for the people who actually have to sign off on that sort of money to make those decisions I'm sure it is, but I'm just looking at his history of brinkmanship to get the best financial deal, regardless of what is best for the manager and team. If say we stall all summer trying to make them sweat to save 1 or 2M in August, we do run the risk of ending up scraping around for whoever we can get in late August.

I think it's worth paying that bit extra to beat the competition and bring him in early in the window. There is a risk of us losing out on him, whether other clubs offer better terms or a big club misses its target and goes in for him. So far we've signed two foreigners with no Premier League experience, and two players with a very suspect injury record. We could really do with a proven Premier League player coming in espescially as we've lost Nolan and could lose Barton and Enrique. For the money, it's good value and he'd walk into the first team. You know what you're getting with N'Zogbia and it's a very good, proven player at a good age. However, with Gutierrez and Marveaux in the squad, and Ferguson as backup, will the club want to pay full wages to three wingers who all want first team football? Ben Arfa has supposedly been lined up for a number 10 role behind the striker, so that's filled too. We all know we need a squad, but cost-cutting has been the name of the game since Ashley came in. I wouldn't be surprised if Ashley looked at the squad, the cost and wages of Zog and went for a cheaper deal.