ohmelads

I agree entirely. Clearly one team and one set of fans will be more up for this game than the other, and if anything can tip the balance in our favour, this'd be it. We should harness this energy, set our stall out early and tell them to attack. Playing a cautious game only makes the players and fans nervous, and then it all starts to go wrong. Our players will go out with a lot more adrenaline, but that can quickly turn to fear. If we play (or at least aim to) on the front foot, we might make a positive start to the game and grow in confidence. I'd like to see a front line of Viduka, Martins and Owen, as a statement that we're not messing about hoping others do favours for us. They might also be able to cause a few problems. What could be tricky is if Hull go a couple of goals down, because you can be sure news will quickly get onto the pitch. Then you've got the scenario where you don't know whether to attack or defend, and that'd be dangerous for us.

If Owen is fit, I'd definitely start with Owen, Martins and Viduka as a front three, with Lovenkrands coming off the bench to replace tired legs and inject pace and energy. That front three pulled us out of the sh*t last season, and it's the only combination of our strikers that has ever reaped rewards for us on a remotely consistent basis. This isn't the time to mess around or experiment.

This

You probably know this already but Roppongi is your best bet, full of foreigners and western bars, there's a good few British & Irish pubs around there that show Premier League games. I'll be watching from Seoul. Haven't decided where yet. Midnight kickoff, gonna be absolutely hammered.

I have to agree. While we might not condone money dominating the game, we have to accept that nothing can be done to stop it, short of making the Premier league less competitive in Europe. Meddling with things does not always make them better. Our league is producing teams who year on year play at the highest level in the world, we're the most watched league in the world with the highest attendances. Are we really in dire need of change, just because there happen to be 4 teams who are better than the others? I completely agree with Apisith about the loan system. It just encourages big clubs to buy up all the young talent and farm them back out to the small teams. As a result, less money is filtered down to the lower clubs because these players are bought on the cheap before they are established. As things stand, these players gain experience at small clubs anyway, but they're contracted to the big clubs and are getting that experience on loan. Big clubs save money, and the small clubs lose out.

You're right that a centre forward in that role would give them an extra dimension, but isn't it a bit premature to say their style isn't effective? They're on course to win La Liga and are in the final of the Champions League. Should they beat Man Utd, you'd have to hold your hands up and say it is indeed effective. You could say this is their true test, but the same could be said of Man Utd. On paper, it's a great matchup, a clash of the titans. I just hope they don't show each other too much respect, as Man Utd and Chelsea did last May. I think it's too close to call, but I'm surprised why people have Man Utd down as such strong favourites.

The Premier League is where all the money is these days, and you only need to look at the dominance of English teams on the tournament over the last few years to see that, these days, the Premier League is the place to be. As for which league is most entertaining, that's entirely subjective, but Premier League fans generally travel in big numbers, unlike fans in Spain, providing an element of home and away support at every game. When an away team scores in the Premier league there's a roar, but in Spain the fans hardly travel so if the home team concedes there is sometimes just a silence. Also, the Premier League is starting to become more competitive. Man Utd may win it again this year, but in the last few years we've seen it switch from Arsenal to Chelsea to Man Utd, with Liverpool threatening this year. Spain has been a two horse race for a while. I do believe the Spanish league provides more flicks and tricks than the Premier League, for the simple reason that players have more freedom to 'try things'. In the Premier League there is little room or space and so even the great players will only do a few dribbles or tricks in a game. There can be a downside to having such a fast and physical league - it denies the freedom of expression. Robinho for example is a lot less exciting on the eye than he was in Spain. But for all the flicks and tricks, you also see a lot of passing it about in defence in Spain, something Premier League defenders don't have the luxury of doing. And lastly there's the element of diving and playacting which can make La Liga very frustrating to watch. Right now there is no denying that the Premier League is top dog and looks like it will remain so at least for the new few years, because of all the money being poured into it. As for what kind of football you like to see, it's a purely individual choice. There are good and bad sides to each league, but they're both great leagues to watch IMO.

Seeing as we're so lacking in quality, I'd adjust the formation to get our most dangerous players all on the park, as Keegan did successfully at the back end of last season. Graft alone will not keep us in the Premier League, you see teams of grafters going down every season. Those who do survive in spite of a lack of quality, teams like Stoke and Bolton, do so by employing a well-drilled system that makes them hard to play against. IF we stay up, it'll be because we get our quality players playing to a decent enough level. Players like Martins, Viduka, Owen and Gutierrez. It's much too late for us to install a system like Bolton (under Allardyce), or Stoke this season. The fact the 4-3-3 worked quite well last season with Viduka, Martins and Owen, presents a very strong case for bringing it back. Keegan employed that when we were playing very poorly and it turned things around. If it can release Gutierrez from his midfield duties a little bit more, we might be able to get him in more dangerous areas. In Owen's defence, he's come in against Man Utd and Chelsea at home, and two tough away games against in-form sides. He's been poor and deserves his criticism, but I do believe that as a team we'll get more chances at home against Pompey, Boro and Fulham than we did in any of those games. When you're on the back foot Owen's not much use, but at home against relatively weaker teams is when he tends to make his mark.

I agree with you that Ashley has to go before we ever see genuine long term planning (or indeed planning of any kind) at this club. But I don't think there's any denying that we're knee deep in the proverbial. A quick look at the fixture list suggests this relegation fight is guaranteed to go right to the wire, perhaps even to the last day of the season.

It's easy to see Park as just a cog in a well-oiled machine, but playing for both PSV and South Korea in the past he has thrived on the responsibility of being one of the star players expected to create an opening in tight games. The difference nowadays is he has notably lost his pace since the PSV days when he caused AC Milan all sorts of problems in the CL semis. Back then he was not only a hard worker but could also beat a man, and his off the ball movement combined with his pace made him a great all round player. It was this form which earned him his move to Man Utd. I disagree that merchndising in the far-east had much if anything to do with his move. Anyone who has been to the far east will know that Man Utd were already huge long before Park arrived. A certain Mr Beckham had a lot to do with this. In the poorer regions of Asia many fans wear fakes anyway, while in Korea and Japan many fans don't buy shirts but follow the Premier League passively and, yes, the vast majority call themselves Man Utd fans. I'd say the move did more for Park Ji Sung's balance than it did for Man Utd's. In South Korea his face is everywhere, usually advertising Nike or Budweiser, and there's no doubt Man Utd gain exposure from him, but they had that exposure anyway through Beckham. Also let's not forget that although Asia is a massive continent, relatively speaking Korea is a very small country with only about 40 million people. This idea that Japanese or Chinese people will buy Man Utd shirts because they see an Asian face is a pretty racist one. With the exception of South Korea, Beckham was a much, much bigger PR machine in Asia than Park Ji Sung. Anyway, back to the football and Park is one of those players who knows his own limitations and operates within them, and for this reason he's fantastic team player. So many talented players give the ball away and invite pressure onto their team, either because too much pressure is put upon them to create openings or because they believe they are better than they are (Robert for example was a bit of both). But one of the features of Man Utd under Alex Ferguson is they almost never give the ball away easily. Park's not just a hardworker, but his movement off the ball is fantastic, he wins the ball back and most importantly doesn't lose the ball. If you watch closely, Park has a hand in a lot of Man Utd goals or chances, he just isn't usually the one with the incisive dribble, pass or strike that breaks the deadlock, hence he doesn't make any headlines. Were he to move down to a club like ours, his role would resemble more the role he had at PSV. At Man Utd he can operate within his limitations and be a very neat and tidy player on the ball, while a nuisance for the opposition off it. In a black and white shirt, he'd be asked to take more risks and try to make more openings, and these days he just doesn't have the pace he had at PSV to go on mazy dribbles. I think we'd see him giving the ball away more often and his shortcomings more exposed. Saying that, at the right price I'd definitely have him here.

I think it's looking increasingly likely (or even obvious) that the only way forward will be a change in ownership, and any group looking to achieve that is doing the right thing for the club in my eyes. I don't think NUSC deserve the flak they're getting. I'm glad someone has decided to make a stand and said enough is enough. At the end of the day, you're never going to achieve meaningful dialogue with the club unless you get their attention, and the only way you're going to get their attention quickly is by ruffling a few feathers. As for Ashley, I fear he is cutting his losses and won't invest any more money in something he sees as a lost cause. Witness the January transfer window for example, where we made a fairly handsome profit while the club was (and still is) flirting with relegation. It just doesn't add up, whatever excuses Llambias comes out with. I think he'd sell up tomorrow if a decent bid came in and until that happens I think we're a club in limbo without any kind of long term direction. We've even offered Joe Kinnear a new contract. I don't believe there's much at all NUSC can do, but I applaud them for trying.

UK: St James' Park Joker Park Stadium of sh*te Anfield Goodison Park The New Den Reebok Stadium Millenium Stadium Outside the UK: Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid (Spain) Camp Nou, Barcelona (Spain) Ramon de Carranza, Cadiz (Spain) Helmantico, Salamanca (Spain) Mestalla, Valencia (Spain) Vicente Calderon, Madrid (Spain) Suwon World Cup Stadium, Suwon (South Korea) Seoul World Cup Stadium, Seoul (South Korea) Busan World Cup Stadium, Busan (South Korea)

Too many to say but a few spring to mind. NUFC: Shearer, Solano, Lee Non-NUFC: Zidane, Redondo, Maldini, Ronaldo

In our current situation, a proven Premier League grafter who hardly ever gets injured and is coming on the cheap is exactly what we need. We're not going to attract any better, it's almost February and we're 2 points off bottom. If we're buying players on the cheap, then players proven at this level are what we want. We can't afford any gambles.

Most of us would agree that 20m spent well could probably stave off relegation and save Ashley a huge financial loss, but for whatever reason he doesn't seem to see it the same way. Perhaps he is just skint, or perhaps he is just cutting his losses because he sees the club as a lost cause now. He was naive enough to go into the season investing absolutely nothing in the playing squad, so I wouldn't put anything past him. There's every chance we'd spunk the money on flops yet again but at least it'd bring some bodies in instead of trying untried kids who were never deemed good enough before.

bealios, I agree with you about moaning fans, it annoys me too but it's a problem facing Premier League clubs up and down the country, not just Newcastle. Football has changed and it has attracted different kinds of people to games; as a result atmospheres all over the country have suffered over the past couple of decades. I can't believe that a few fans moaning at half time has caused all this chaos at our club, rather I think it's a symptom of the trouble we're in. Some posts might be knee jerk but on the whole I think another defeat to poor opposition has brought our persistent problems to light. Yet again. Man Utd don't win loads of trophies because they have amazing fans. In fact if you look abroad, there are big clubs with large fanbases and famous support who, like us, underperform. You could even argue that Newcastle the club has taken its fanbase for granted over the years - not many other clubs would bring 50,000 fans a week in to watch a team finish in the bottom half year on year. I'm not sure what our net spend was last summer but if you factor in the money for Emre, Rozenhal, Milner, Faye etc we probably broke even on transfers. We might even have made a profit. How many Premier League clubs spent less than us on transfers last season? Any at all? And that was before Ashley had any plans to leave the club, so his 20m a year promise looks quite empty on the evidence we've seen. If Ashley is still here in September then I fully expect we'll still have Kinnear or if not then another manager no other club wanted. Managers will look at our net transfer spending under Ashley and see that he has spent virtually nothing on players in the time he's been here. They will see that Allardyce was fired just 6 months into the job, and that even the man they appointed left within a year citing major interference over transfer policy. Under the current ownership, no decent manager would touch us with a bargepole. The only difference now is that Ashley has taken the club off the market but it feels very much like a token gesture and I for one don't see him suddenly investing the money that is required to replace the likes of Given, N'Zogbia and Owen, let alone strengthening the other areas of our squad. If you were a decent manager you'd be mental to take the Newcastle job under Ashley this summer. I agree that we might as well stick with Kinnear until the end of the season, as a means of maintaining some sort of stability at the club, but unless we get someone competent in at the top then I think this situation will keep repeating itself.

I think our best hope for change on all of those fronts will be change coming from the top down. A new owner, be it a shrewd operator or a billionaire with an open wallet, is the most likely thing to turn this club around. The chaos at the club stems from uncertainty at the top. The uncertainty over the owner means no job security for incoming managers and likely no transfer funds to go with it, not to mention a board that apparently interferes with transfer activities. Only Joe Kinnear would take the job in that climate of uncertainty. And such an obviously short-term management appointment followed by poor investment in the team is causing yet more uncertainty with the players,. With some of our better players heading out the door, this will only serve to convince players elsewhere that this isn't the club to come to, and the negativity trickes all the way down to the bottom. The only way I see us reversing this spiral is a new owner who can demonstrate he is committed to the club's long term future. That will attract half-decent managers and that stability will in turn attract half-decent players, and only from there might we start to see some progress in the right direction. I don't believe the fans have had any role in the club's current situation and, sadly, I don't think we can have much role in turning it around either. I think those who suggest relegation might help the club to change its ways should be careful what they wish for. There are absolutely no guarantees we'll come back up at the first, second or even third time of asking. It could spell disaster for the club. My main hope is that we survive in the Premiership and a new owner with real long term ambitions comes in the summer.

We've done well to get our money back on Rozehnal. He made a couple of blunders yesterday and he was all over the place for Ronaldo's goal. Had he not been ballwatching he'd have followed Ronaldo's run, but he left himself in no-mans-land and he was no use to anybody. Put it this way, if we were linked with him as a new signing, would you be impressed by that performance?

Is it necessarily such good news that a man with no footballing credentials to speak of would want to take a more hands-on approach at a football club? It's well rumoured that Chelsea lost Mourinho because of Abramovich getting 'hands-on' in his business, and Benitez left Valencia because the board wouldn't get off his case. If you believe Bobby Robson, Gary Speed was basically sold behind his manager's back by a rich chairman who decided he knew best. Of course, there is logic in the idea that a billionaire who dedicates more time to our club could mean greater investment. But until we know more it's not necessarily something to be pleased about IMO

Since when did Harry Redknapp become such hot property that you would want to spend millions sacking your current coach and further millions bringing him in, along with all the upheaval, controversy and risk that involves, in the middle of January? I guess Portsmouth are doing alright under his guidance, a bit like Bolton not long ago under the guidance of one Sam Allardyce...

A thought provoking post, certainly, but surely it was Sam's apparent inability to learn from his errors that was one of the chief sources of concern. As I've tried to get across in other posts, while "Rome wasn't built in a day", there was evidence from relatively early on that it was in the process of being built. In Sam's case, exactly what on-field evidence was there that we were moving in the right direction? Imo, precious little ... in fact, none, as the month of December demonstrated clearly. Did I want Sam to go? For the most part (and probably for the want of courage), no. Do I, in retrospect, think that he had to go? Yes, so long as Mort and Ashley have a genuine blueprint for moving the club forward (even if, bizarrrely, Arry proves to be an early piece of the puzzle). There was precious little progress to be seen anywhere and that was a major concern. But it's the timing of events that leaves me scratching my head. Why sack him now? By the time a new manager is installed he may well have a matter of days to sign his own players, and he'll still be working with a squad many of whom are still settling at the club or indeed settling in this league. Our choice of managers is greatly reduced at this time of year too. Do we rush into it and run the risk of appointing the wrong man due to limited time and availability of candidates? Or do we soldier on with a caretaker until the summer and scour the market for a new man? Neither sounds too appealing to me, I don't see why we couldn't give him another 20 or so games and if there is still no improvement, make the transition in the summer. That would seem the logical thing to do, unless the board do have something big up their sleeve.

Haven't had the time to read the general concensus but I'm not impressed by what has happened. My gut feeling is it's the wrong decision. I didn't want him in the first place and the football has been awful, but unlike Souness and Roeder this guy had a decent CV and that on its own merits at least some benefit of the doubt, something I seldom afforded the previous two clowns. Is 21 games enough to judge any manager? Espescially after he overhauled the squad, something which anybody coming in probably had to do. Unless we have a top manager lined up to come in right now, with financial backing, I don't see where this makes sense on any level. I don't believe we were or are in danger of relegation, nor do I believe anybody will come in now and charge us into Europe. This only serves to make the managerial position at Newcastle look even less appetising to any potential suitors. Is it any wonder our fans have a short-term mentality, that our players don't take each new manager seriously? The turnover is ridiculous and the ripples spread throughout the club. Players know they can swiftly oust any manager they don't like, something which will likely undermine the authority of the next manager who comes in. Souness and Roeder outstayed their welcome and I wanted them out sharply, but at least Allardyce deserved a shot in my eyes and I don't think 21 games is a fair crack of the whip. We're 11th in the table, is it really such a crisis? I got the impression weeks ago that he was a dead man walking, I thought the board were waiting for events to shape their thinking, waiting for circumstances to force their hand. Yet in the end I think they've panicked and acted prematurely. I don't think his position had become untenable at all. As soon as we hit a rough patch he's gone, and the board have come off looking very hypocritical in my view. As for Allardyce, he made a lot of mistakes in his short time here and I'm sure he'll regret not picking a team and sticking with it. Unlike the previous two managers whose teams selected themselves (due to massive injury lists), Allardyce had a wealth of choice and it turned out to be his undoing. But management is a trial by error process in many ways, some signings don't work out and they're moved on, some do and a squad of reliable performers is gradually formed. Until someone is given the time to do that, we will continue on this course.

He's not exactly Park Ji Sung, I can't see millions of Koreans rushing out to buy toon shirts for Jae-Jin Cho! In fact I honestly think it'd have very little impact. Believe it or not I've seen very few people wearing football shirts here.

pistonism I see you're in Gyeonggi-Do, me too. I don't suppose you know any good bars in Seoul to catch the Newcastle games? I wouldn't leave your cell phone number on here mate, although I suppose the little charvas back home will be running up a huge bill if they try calling that!

I'm in South Korea at the moment, I asked my Korean friend if he knew anything about us buying a Korean player and he instantly said Jae-Jin Cho's name. He seems well known enough, but he didn't think he was that good a player, thought it was a strange signing for us. That's about all I could find out what with my Korean being very poor and his English not exactly fluent! I'll try and ask around, see if I can find out any more info about him. Not exactly an inspiring signing though, surely even with Martins' departure to the ACN we have enough strikers to get us through this season? Viduka, Smith, Owen, Ameobi should get us through 5 months. I do subscribe to the view that we should be looking to find Owen's replacement now, as I don't see him staying beyond the summer. Shola's clearly not in Sam's plans either and Viduka is getting on. Therefore we should be looking at signing a top quality Owen replacement now or just sticking with what we've got and looking at a summer signing. This would suit neither approach and as poor as Ameobi is I'd be shocked if this guy can come straight into the Prem and play significantly betterr. A bizarre move to say the least.