ohmelads

No idea, just following the minute by minute thing. Racing have gone down to 10 men but they're hanging on.

Henry is just coming on for Messi to make his first league appearance for Barca. There are 30 mins left and they're being held 0-0 away to Racing Santander. Duscher, who we had on trial earlier this summer, is playing for the home side.

This game has come at a good time, a home game against weaker opposition just as Owen and Emre are returning from injury and Cacapa and Enrique are awaiting their full debuts. Seeing as Emre wasn't even in today's squad though, you have to wonder how far he is from playing. Maybe just a place on the bench for him. Given and Babayaro are back in training, wonder if they might get on?

I think we have to go 442 against Wigan, we can't afford to be dropping points by entering into a game of head tennis against poor teams, it simply levels out the playing field. Wigan, with the likes of Bramble, Heskey and Sibierski will be only too happy to pump it long, we have to get it down and play some football and ask some questions of their defence. Two wingers and two strikers and let's have a go at them.

Nani 1-0 screamer.

Well Chelsea and Liverpool seem to have reverted to 4-4-2 and Bolton certainly got found out in the second half of last season.

Jesus, what a poor performance. I know, I know. 3 games in, jesus wept, fickle, embarrassing fans, I'll throw the stock phrases in now so we can get on with talking about today's match. We were second best for most of the game. We need to determine what we're about. If we're aiming for top 6 or even top 8 we need to buck our ideas up and fast because we blagged a point today against a poor Boro outfit. If we're aiming to survive relegation or consolidate a mid-table position then that kind of head-tennis might be the right way to go, in which case it's a point well earned. I think with the team we've got, we should be producing more than that. We were away, and all things should be judged in context. But why are we playing a formation which does not suit our best players? Martins clearly doesn't like it and Owen is a penalty box player, leaving Milner once again as our only outlet, and once again he simply had too much to do on his own - he's not Maradona. I hate to say it, I don't want to say it, but we're looking increasingly like Bolton mk II on a bad day. An awful lot of work to be done. I don't want to criticise Sam because you can see what he's trying to do, but he still seems to have no idea what his best team is and that's a bit worrying. The true measure of him will be how he rectifies the problems we have, which popped up at Villa and were in clear evidence today. We simply can't seem to go forward without leaving the back door open and we end up just punting it long and fighting for the second balls, the scraps. When Sam joined many of us questioned whether he could change his ways with a bigger budget and better players, the jury is still very much out on that one. He'll need plenty of time to implement his ways, we needed to be playing 4-4-2 today and I hope he's man enough to accept that.

Tuncay on the bench is an interesting one.

Their team doesn't look as bad on paper as I thought it would, but how fit are Woodgate, Young, Mido etc? Hopefully we can take advantage of that and play a fast-paced game.

Now the dust has settled, I find it hard to hate Roeder. He's got a stubborn personality and can't accept his shortcomings, but given what he's been through and the fact he was always trying to do his best for the club, he doesn't deserve the flak he's getting now. Whingeing about injuries is clearly his coping strategy, he's obviously gutted at blowing the opportunity of a lifetime and can't get over it, but ultimately he was not up to such a massive job. He doesn't seem like the type of person I'd get on with but the abuse he gets is a bit childish really.

If we do sign Faye, we'll be well stocked in central midfield. Does anyone think that Geremi would then become our regular right back, at least until January? Bearing in mind he's captain, but then so is G.Neville who plays there. I think that'd be the sensible thing to do, assuming Faye is our last signing. At the moment I think Geremi is the best right back on our books.

Never understood how so many Newcastle fans rated him, I always put it down to the fact we had witnessed so many poor defenders over the years we had become used to it. A limited defender in every sense, but I suppose when you're playing in the same defence as Ramage you're going to look mint.

Diarra's not a right back, though he's played there a bit for Chelsea and France and has more than held his own. Playing Diarra there would be like playing Geremi, Solano or Taylor there, it'd be a makeshift solution really. I'd rather have Diarra than Faye for the simple reason that we already have experience in Butt, and need to be thinking more long term now that our squad has experience in every single position. Faye does have the added advantage of covering centre back though, it'd be great to know we have 4 quality centre backs.

Playing the Smogs is nowhere near as bad as playing the mackems. I love and hate derby days equally, it's just impossible to concentrate on anything, they're torture but at the same time I love the build up.

Yep. I tend to think this forum is not a great measure of the common feeling among fans in Newcastle. What you hear on here and what you hear in the pubs around town can often be very different. I put it down to the number of exiled fans posting on here and also the fact that people are influenced by others' views, they have time to read others' posts and make up their mind. I think on here people are more balanced than some of the crap you hear in the pubs/at the ground, but similarly people speak their real gut feelings a lot more in person and sometimes that can be better. I tend to think a lot of people on here don't say what they really feel or dilute their views to fall into line with the general opinion.

The Tottenham thing is partly jealousy and partly the current climate on this board with a couple of Spurs posters who have been on here for quite a while and made a name for themselves. I can't remember people banging on about their hatred for Spurs when we beat them 7-1, or indeed until a couple of years ago when they started playing some decent football. I seem to remember Chelsea were never popular up here. West Ham have also gained votes because of the Dyer incident, although we've always had issues with them ever since our fans petrol bombed the West Ham fans at St James' in the '80s, and last year their fans were singing songs about Roeder and his brain tumour. Doesn't surprise me they are high up the list, they hate us as well for obvious reasons.

As much as Owen has let us down (not his own fault), we owe it to ourselves to give him a season to show what he can do. He's arguably the one player in our squad who could make the difference between mid-table and top 6, or even eventually between top 6 and top 4. Other clubs, including ourselves, have spent vast amounts of money trying to get a player of Owen's calibre, and we certainly won't attract another one for a while. Spurs just spent £16M on Bent because they couldn't attract someone like Torres, it just shows the difficulty in clubs like us briding the gap on the bigger clubs. In Owen we could have that player already on our books and we'd be mugs to let him go after a handful of games just because he got injured. We're in a slightly precarious position with our strikers, two have clauses and one is getting old, which I think explains why people are stressing and saying we should pull the trigger now and get someone else in. In time that might prove to have been the right thing to do but if we don't give Owen a chance we'll never know, and he really could be one of the stars of our season. Last time he was fit he scored 7 goals in 10 games for us, he was the difference between the two sides in a few of those games.

A small outlay? 2M might well be insignificant in today's market but at the moment we still have not acquired a specialist right back. Is money the problem? Could we have saved 2M and use it elsewhere? There is more than enough physical presence in midfield (Smith, Geremi, Barton, Butt). By all account it won't be a bad signing, and I wouldn't complain. But by all accounts I think the time, energy and money spent on Faye should be spent on obtaining a new right back. Hard to disagree with that, to be honest. Certainly if we spend £8m total on Smith and Faye - essentially luxury signings - then you have to wonder why nothing has been spent on a right back when it's not only a weakness in our squad but also a glaring weakness in our first team. I've said before I'd rather we stick with Carr than panic and go for Johnson or someone, but with the kind of money it costs to buy Smith and Faye and all summer to find one you have to think that there would be a right back out there.

I'm not sure he will be cover, he might well be taking Butt's place over the course of the season. It seems he started out as a DM but Sam converted him to centre back and he mostly played there last season. But given Cacapa's pedigree (Lyon captain, Brazil caps) I think it'll be him (if he can stay fit) and Taylor with Rozehnal providing competition and therefore Faye seems to be a midfield signing with the added bonus of covering the defence.

I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to buying from Bolton to be fair as he knows all of their players inside out. He not only knows all about Faye but he knows how best to use him, and Faye knows his instructions, tactics and what-not. It's a low-risk signing because he knows exactly what he's getting. Quite a few managers do this when they switch clubs, as Mourinho did (with mixed results) bringing Carvalho and Ferreira, and this makes even more sense because Faye has Premiership experience. I think Sam's policy of buying experience makes perfect sense, though in the DM position we already have that in Butt, and I think it's somewhere we should be looking for a younger player who will improve and may a regular part of the side for years to come. But you can't have everything, and Faye will strengthen our squad both in defence and midfield for a small outlay, and provide some much needed height and physical presence to the midfield and team in general. He ticks a lot of boxes.

Man Utd to win would be better for us, no doubt about it.

Huge win for Real Madrid that, Atleti's team looks very strong on paper.

I'd prefer 4-4-2, but I think it'll be 4-3-3 with the same team as against Villa and Bolton. He still probably has another week in which to say Owen isn't fully fit, but when he is it'll pose a real dilemma about our regular formation. I'm all for versatility, but we can't switch the formation every week, I've never seen any side who do that and for obvious reasons. He'll need to get to know his best team and formation fairly soon, he's used 4-3-3 his entire career so I think he's gearing us up for that but I have to say I think it won't get the best out of our best players.

Agreed, he's been shocking every time I've seen him play since he left West Ham. If we're looking at signing a right back from Chelsea I'd much rather it be Paulo Ferreira. Don't rate Ferreira either. Another 'better than Carr' but we need to be looking to sort out this position for years to come and I don't think he'd be the answer. We need to be looking beyond these cheaper cast-offs, realistically we'll probably have to pay quite a bit of money and develop someone ourselves, as we're trying to do with Enrique on the left side.

Everything seems to be going right for City at the moment. You get the feeling though that the bubble will burst soon.