madras

Why do we keep showing one way loyalty to players who have never given a monkey's chuff about us in the past? Fat Fred kept trying to sign Carrick and Matt Jansen based on their north east heritage. Carrick preferred West Ham and Jansen chose Blackburn. So of course, now he's playing for Man U's first team, Carrick is suddenly going to give it all up to come 'home'. The only time I know that we've looked at Carrick was when we needed a replacement for Butt, Robson wanted Carrick but Shepherd told him he'd have to wait until January to get him as his contract was up that Summer, we signed Butt for around the same money West Ham wanted for Carrick and he went to Spurs later that Summer. can you back that up ? Yes. you got me there...i thought he went to spuds for more than that. then again even at spurs he never imprssed me so where does that leave us ?

Why do we keep showing one way loyalty to players who have never given a monkey's chuff about us in the past? Fat Fred kept trying to sign Carrick and Matt Jansen based on their north east heritage. Carrick preferred West Ham and Jansen chose Blackburn. So of course, now he's playing for Man U's first team, Carrick is suddenly going to give it all up to come 'home'. The only time I know that we've looked at Carrick was when we needed a replacement for Butt, Robson wanted Carrick but Shepherd told him he'd have to wait until January to get him as his contract was up that Summer, we signed Butt for around the same money West Ham wanted for Carrick and he went to Spurs later that Summer. can you back that up ?

carrick is in the right team where he is,as a player i never particularly rated at west ham or spuds, he fits right in at man utd. time to pick passes,always accurate. he could be one of those who has to be in the right team.

get rugby union refs in or at least get refs in who'll stand up(it's been the smae since i was a kid) the laws are already set out (i believe...no doubt i'll get contrdicted by one of the black/green/yellow shirted blind bastards on here). it's the piss takingly simple stuff that winds people up which is so easily stamped out... ...shouting and effing and blinding...ungentlemanly conduct/foul and abusive language..take action ....failure to retreat for a free kick etc....tell once then book(the whole wall if necessary)....is the rule about advancing the ball 10yds still active ? the referee should walk into each dressing room before the game and say "anything you want brought to my attention shall be done by your captain,shout at me,swear at me..booked or off. dead balls,retreat immediatly 10 yds,i'll tell you once ,if you don't do it..booked." we may have a couple of weeks with loads sent off but if kept with the players will realise this and not do it.

jol...this thread is the equivilant of telling a starving man that you're steak wasn't rare enough.

fuck off you piss taking twat. (surely i don't need to add a smiley)

---------Neville---Carsley-------- Osman-------------------Pienaar --------------Cahill---------------- I'd like to see us play something similar: -------- Geremi - Faye -------- Milner ------------------ Duff/Zog ----------- Smith/Duff ---------- Owen/Martins Which is basically how we used to play pre Shearer under Keegan. the movement under keegans first spell newcastle teams meant it was hard to work out a clear formation. pav/hislop/hooper was in goal...cole/ferdinand was up front(till shearer came) and in between was very mobile and fluid.

I can't believe anyone would be mad enough to build a team around a player like Michael Owen, who looks a. distinctly like he doesn't give a s*** and b. past it. I worry that his name/reputation will convince Keegan to give it another go rather than move on. If KK has a chance to sign a better player, or someone he feels will be more beneficial to the team and the way he intends to get us playing, Owen will make way. He may not peddle him but he will drop him or have him fighting for his place like everyone else which will be based on merit. I don't think Keegan will have been impressed with Owen, a player he has never really rated even when he was in his pomp. I can see the two parting ways, club and player. It wouldn't surprise me to see Sven come in for him and for us to take a loss. I'm not so sure. I mean he made Owen captain, plus Owen has scored a couple of late (and more which have been unfairly ruled off-side). Plus he's a good selling point for bringing players in... especially when you don't have European football. I personally believe his decision to make Owen Captain was more of a peace gesture and to thwart the media from causing trouble between the two and their much publicized difference of opinions relating back to their time together with England. That and to motivate Owen, a player who Keegan would need onside to make his job a little easier and to fire in the goals to take us through to the end of the season. Hasn't quite happened like that but I would hazard a good guess those are very good reasons behind his decision making. Make no mistake about it, KK can be very ruthless. He got rid of the player (David Kelly) who saved us from relegation and whose goals helped fire us to promotion because he didn't believe he was good enough for the Premier League or quite what he had in mind as to how he'd have us playing once we got there. He also sold fans' favourite Andy Cole to our then rivals Manchester United because he wanted to change the way we played which would mean bringing in a player with those different qualities and a different presence we talked about. Sir Les. And on that subject, KK took his number 9 shirt off him and handed it to Shearer, which is something Shearer stipulated if he was to sign for us. Don't be fooled by the nice guy image and the media persona. None of which means anything. History doesn't always repeat itself you know. true but he does have a reputation for being cute and cuddly to the cameras but being quite ruthless with the playing staff at all his clubs.

but it would take more than 10-15 secs as when he's checking one incident another has occured and corners will get weird "right it's a penalty because the defence committed 6 fouls while the attack only committed 4 fouls" i'm all for having refs as that random variable....like the weather.

i honestly don't think the standard has got any worse since i started watching football in the 70's

don't bother trying to go down the proven successful method then, buy average players instead and go down Can't wait until 6 years time and these 17 year old kids are all going to be the next Gazza, guaranteed £85M spent in 3 years = zero success As I've said, we need to spend well, not necessarily big. spend well ? Of course you do, everybody thinks they are spending well otherwise they wouldn't spend. Plenty of people said openly that we spent well when we bought Boumsong and Luque. So why blame the fat b****** when they turned out to be s**** ? Plenty of people also said we sold well when we peddled Robert and Bellamy for 4m quid. You need to buy big to be successful though. Its extremely rare for a club to bring through a nucleus of young players who all become top quality together, the only ones I can think of is the manure set ie Neville, Beckham, Scholes etc.........the Leeds team of the 70's, and the Everton team of the early to mid 80's, and even then they still bought big players, proven internationals There are lots more who buy quality/trophy players, having a cheque book is part of football, I don't understand people who don't think we should try and capatilise on our fanbase. just out of curiosity NE5 how much debt do you reckon it is safe to rack up in this glory chase ? oh, I don't think manure, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea will be worried too much about their accumulated debts As TT has just said, lets spend nothing [stop speculating] and see how far that gets us. arsenal and manure have the turnover to comfortably finance those debts(also year on year opersting profits)...chelsea have abramovic. liverpool have gillett and hicks whom the fans are trying to get rid of cos they have saddled the club with loads of debt that has the fans bricking it as many don't think they can sustain the debt and still challange for anything.

don't bother trying to go down the proven successful method then, buy average players instead and go down Can't wait until 6 years time and these 17 year old kids are all going to be the next Gazza, guaranteed £85M spent in 3 years = zero success As I've said, we need to spend well, not necessarily big. spend well ? Of course you do, everybody thinks they are spending well otherwise they wouldn't spend. Plenty of people said openly that we spent well when we bought Boumsong and Luque. So why blame the fat b****** when they turned out to be s**** ? Plenty of people also said we sold well when we peddled Robert and Bellamy for 4m quid. You need to buy big to be successful though. Its extremely rare for a club to bring through a nucleus of young players who all become top quality together, the only ones I can think of is the manure set ie Neville, Beckham, Scholes etc.........the Leeds team of the 70's, and the Everton team of the early to mid 80's, and even then they still bought big players, proven internationals There are lots more who buy quality/trophy players, having a cheque book is part of football, I don't understand people who don't think we should try and capatilise on our fanbase. just out of curiosity NE5 how much debt do you reckon it is safe to rack up in this glory chase ?

out of curiosity hakka which is your nearest league club and how far away is it ?

So your not allowed to support a team if your not born there? People can't choose where they are born, but surely they have the right to choose which team they want to support? what country are you from ? honest qusetion and after you answer my back up question will clarify why i'm asking I'm English, born in England too. do you support England ? if so ,why ? Can already see where this is leading, but hey. Yes I support England. I'm English through and through and to support England is to support my fellow countrymen. I also like to see Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland do well in major competitions. Have to say it is a bit different with league football. Let's face it, your not exactly cheering on a starting 11 of local lads at every football ground, in fact these days it's quite a novelty to have a local lad in your starting line, or even an English one for that matter for some clubs. From the stance some people are taking, you could say it’s acceptable to be a part of a football club as a staff member if your not local or from this country, but its not acceptable to be fan if your not local. Why is this? the idea is they represent a geographical area...thats why the vast majority are named after said area and also why the vast majority of football crowds are drawn from said area (yes even man utd). given a footballing world of your view ,only 4 or 5 clubs would still be in existence as everyone (without the geo-pull of the local team)would just support those that they like.....which in 99% of cases are the succesful ones (coincidence ?....i think not). Football has evolved though, clubs are more like brands these days. I live in an area where there isn't a Premier League club for 100's of miles. I made the decision to support Newcastle United as a child as I fell in love with the club, and from a child I've continued to support the club until today (I'm 26 now, supported them for over 15 years). Would you say that as an adult now I should stop supporting Newcastle? simply because of your argument? Also, I believe bigger clubs need more than local support, revenue speaking. If you took away the TV money and shirt sales money etc. from non-local fans I'm sure it would make a massive dent in football clubs income which would seriously hamper any audacious plans to spend big. Would you sacrifice that source of income for Newcastle to maintain the "you should only support your local club" attitude? a) why do you have to support a premiership club ? it's thinking like that that keeps lower league clubs down and in danger of diappearing.i can understand not giving your primary allegance to someone in the beezer homes league or whatever. i followed my nearest league club,as did many of my friends (lincoln city,sheff wed,coventry,hartlepool,doncaster and carlisle) b) would it be a bad thing if the big clubs didn't get all the money ? surely it would even things up. would i sacrifice it....yes. it's my belief football in general would benefit through it aswell. oh and no i don't think you should change your club but i still cannot understand how you can support a team you've no connection with in the first place....even as akid i couldn't and had numerous arguments with liverpool,man utd and leeds (yes i'm that old) supporting. mates.

yes and no. he maybe should be given a chance because what we have isn't working,more so than the stats. Well the stats equally show that Butt isn't working. not if he played in the games where geremi won aswell. keefaz point is valid about those teams we played with butt and without geremi and it's almost like the rest of the team didn't matter. tho Butt didn't play as defensive midfielder when he was alongside Geremi, more often than not Geremi sat back and gave Butt licence to go forward and not have to track back and run about as much. Since Butt has moved back to DM he's looked terrible. he's done his own thing of winning the ball but is now left having to find 40yd passes as no-one wants to take resposiblity creativly.......like when he first came. i don't think he's that much better than geremi when it comes to winning the ball, what sets them apart is that on the ball butt is s**** and geremi is comfortable. he can spot runs and pick a pass more easily which starts off attacking moves. i think there is some of the"great when he's out" creeping in here. definitely not, i was saying this earlier in the season. So was I. So was James with all his stats in hand back then FWIW. well you were both wrong then aswell then

2005-06

He looked quite sharp when he returned but his end product has been zero. He also looks like one of those players you can count on least when it gets tough. I've not given up hope on Duff working out for us, because his class is sometimes evident. He's another player mightily handicapped by our central midfield/strikers. He at least looked interested and was involved plenty against Man Utd, although most of our initial threat came down the right thanks to Milner and Beye. This is why I think it won't take ridiculous numbers of changes to make us compete again, because we have players who will look infinitely better with some quality players to feed off. Obviously some of them aren't good enough - both central midfielders and the target men we've been playing, and we're still crying out for a proper centre half/left-back. A lot of our players aren't beyond saving though. Duff has lost a bit of pace, but he could still play his part here. Not now though, and not at left-wing. Where do you think Duff could play for us, if not at left-wing? I think he should be sat on the bench at the moment, then tried in behind Owen/Martins if one gets injured or the partnership doesn't work/isn't given a chance. He looks to me to be a player who now needs pace around him to function properly, because he seems to have the eye for a bit of pass-n-move, unlike any of our other midfielders. At Blackburn in particular he had all the tricks and a lot more pace than he has now, which meant he still performed to an exceptional level because he could do a lot by himself - much like I've seen N'Zogbia do for us. Now that he's lost that extra yard, he struggles to beat people to the byline and looks to have started to model his game on feeding balls into the strikers and then running off them - quite probably the way he was trained to play at Chelsea. Unless our playing style alters dramatically away from what it is now and what I expect Keegan to play (fairly direct attacking football with two wingers and two mobile central midfielders, fullbacks bombing on, etc.) then I'm struggling to see him as a first choice player. Sitting on the left-flank I get to see a fair bit of Duff from a good vantage point and I'm yet to see him square up to a man, take it past him to the byline and swing a ball in. All of his crosses come from stationary positions, making it nigh-on impossible for the strikers to do anything worthwhile with them. The best game I've seen Duff have was AZ home last season, when him and Martins linked nicely together and Duff was often in acres of space (more to do with AZ's formation than anything, IIRC) - but that was a one-off because AZ played in such a strange fashion. It's a puzzle, but for me there's only one winner between Duff and N'Zogbia for that LW spot in the current climate. I agree with that. Another point, Duff seemed to have much more power at Blackburn too, remember he used to hit unstoppable shots into the top corner every few weeks or so. Now his shots look unbelievably feeble. This might be related to his loss of pace - ie, legs have gone. i think it's as much related to that he is soooo very out wide these days. if he comes inside the full back rarely comes outside and to recieve the ball instead of it being played quick it's normally been played via midfiled with 3 players having several touches so the oppo can squeeze the play meaning whoever is out wide has to go to the touch line tryiong to find space (this happens regardless of who we have playing wide)

yes and no. he maybe should be given a chance because what we have isn't working,more so than the stats. Well the stats equally show that Butt isn't working. not if he played in the games where geremi won aswell. keefaz point is valid about those teams we played with butt and without geremi and it's almost like the rest of the team didn't matter. tho Butt didn't play as defensive midfielder when he was alongside Geremi, more often than not Geremi sat back and gave Butt licence to go forward and not have to track back and run about as much. Since Butt has moved back to DM he's looked terrible. he's done his own thing of winning the ball but is now left having to find 40yd passes as no-one wants to take resposiblity creativly.......like when he first came. i don't think he's that much better than geremi when it comes to winning the ball, what sets them apart is that on the ball butt is s**** and geremi is comfortable. he can spot runs and pick a pass more easily which starts off attacking moves. i think there is some of the"great when he's out" creeping in here.

4 he posted the...........come on do you think i'm that daft (anything could happen in the next 17mins though)

yes and no. he maybe should be given a chance because what we have isn't working,more so than the stats. Well the stats equally show that Butt isn't working. not if he played in the games where geremi won aswell. keefaz point is valid about those teams we played with butt and without geremi and it's almost like the rest of the team didn't matter. tho Butt didn't play as defensive midfielder when he was alongside Geremi, more often than not Geremi sat back and gave Butt licence to go forward and not have to track back and run about as much. Since Butt has moved back to DM he's looked terrible. he's done his own thing of winning the ball but is now left having to find 40yd passes as no-one wants to take resposiblity creativly.......like when he first came.

yes and no. he maybe should be given a chance because what we have isn't working,more so than the stats. Well the stats equally show that Butt isn't working. not if he played in the games where geremi won aswell. keefaz point is valid about those teams we played with butt and without geremi and it's almost like the rest of the team didn't matter.

yes and no. he maybe should be given a chance because what we have isn't working,more so than the stats.

how dare you go destroying stats like that. don't you know all some people have for comfort is numbers ? Didn't Butt play most of those piss easy games as well? probably,makes the stats even stupider.

how dare you go destroying stats like that. don't you know all some people have for comfort is numbers ?

Agreed. In playing terms, he HAS to be a better bet than Carr or Zog, by virtue of the fact that i) he can use his left foot to kick the ball and ii) he has played a lot of games at left back, and knows what the hell he's supposed to be doing there. There's GOT to be something behind the scenes here. On the rare occasions I've seen him play, he's looked like what I think he is, a young player coming to terms with a new league. He's done pretty well, albeit there are things to work on. How he's supposed to get used to the league without playing in it is something else I don't get. Rumours are that he is unhappy. i don't want to know if he said he's never going back again. but really it's secand hand news, you're just part of the chain yet you think you go your own way. we have our dreams for NUFCbut these stories don't stop somehow.