Wullie

Smith is diabolical. Not sure you can say much else. Nowt about him in the slightest.

Absolutely! Spot on. A total class act.

What I don't get is the attraction with doing it in front of/with your mates or worse, watching them doing it while you toss yourself off. No thank you very much.

It's clearly Richards, KD. And even if they weren't sure, you reckon the paper would take a chance on "all blacks look the same" and chance a libel suit? Howay.

"sickening". What a joke. Ridiculous isn't it? They're usually bad but that article is particuarly pathetic. Reads like it was written by Mary Whitehouse's mother. Bit rich coming from the News of the World.

Micah Richards getting into the roasting thing now. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2312_micah.shtml How good it feels to have this sort of shit raging again and none of them play for us.

If you've never seen Phillipe's goal, you're in for a great surprise.

Does it have the Andy Gray commentary from the Peacock goal? "The linesman cannot see it, I don't see how he can give the goal, it's not over the line..." *sees it from another angle* oh looks in doesn't it?" Have you never even seen the goals Mike?

Fuck me! Almost worth bumping this: http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?topic=37205.0

The 5-0 or the smash-yourself-in-the-face-with-a-brick-till-you-can-no-longer-feel-pain-Schmeichel-vs-Ferdinand-and-then-the-smarmy-French-psycho-pops-up-at-the-back-post?

Lovely goal from Parker.

Craig Gordon. Nine million pounds. mackems.gif Kenwyne Jones is a cheat too, so have that, you dog wanking turd.

Andy Cole.

Please don't patronise me Chris. Playing Charlie at left back and Milner in front of him, the team creates nowt. Zilch. Zero. Teams who aren't shite like Fulham and Birmingham will score once and that's job done. Like Arsenal? Well, as long as we keep relying on our centre backs to save us because our striker is scared to shoot, we're laughing.

So how come we've done just as well with 4-3-3 as we have with 4-4-2? Individually certain players' games might benefit more from 4-4-2 but the team as a whole hasn't shown it can and will any more than 4-3-3 has or hasn't so I think "10 times better" is exaggerating things personally, sorry Johnny. How have we? You're going to have to explain that one to me I'm afraid. Cos we got a point against Arsenal minus their best players? Boro fucking beat them. They played 4-4-2 for the record. We've played 4-3-3 more than once. Yep. Birmingham - could have gone either way, took us a penalty and a set piece to get anything. Fulham - shite. Derby - shite. Reading - shite. Blackburn - better than previous but still poor We got well beaten. Boro - poor. Mackems - shite. Villa - you guessed it. So we've got Arsenal and one half at Bolton, Birmingham too if you push your luck. You are forgetting that the goals and better spells against Birmingham and Sunderland and Fulham occurred in 442 conditions. Good point actually, after the introduction of a certain *insert boring inaccurate cliches about him being shite and fat* Australian in two cases.

So how come we've done just as well with 4-3-3 as we have with 4-4-2? Individually certain players' games might benefit more from 4-4-2 but the team as a whole hasn't shown it can and will any more than 4-3-3 has or hasn't so I think "10 times better" is exaggerating things personally, sorry Johnny. How have we? You're going to have to explain that one to me I'm afraid. Cos we got a point against Arsenal minus their best players? Boro fucking beat them. They played 4-4-2 for the record. We've played 4-3-3 more than once. Yep. Birmingham - could have gone either way, took us a penalty and a set piece to get anything. Fulham - shite. Derby - shite. Reading - shite. Blackburn - better than previous but still poor, we got well beaten. Boro - poor. Mackems - shite. Villa - you guessed it. So we've got Arsenal and one half at Bolton, Birmingham too if you push your luck. I count twelve goals from ten games, including two pens, about three flukes and an own goal. Not good enough.

Please don't patronise me Chris. Playing Charlie at left back and Milner in front of him, the team creates nowt. Zilch. Zero. Teams who aren't shite like Fulham and Birmingham will score once and that's job done.

So how come we've done just as well with 4-3-3 as we have with 4-4-2? Individually certain players' games might benefit more from 4-4-2 but the team as a whole hasn't shown it can and will any more than 4-3-3 has or hasn't so I think "10 times better" is exaggerating things personally, sorry Johnny. How have we? You're going to have to explain that one to me I'm afraid. Cos we got a point against Arsenal minus their best players? Boro fucking beat them. They played 4-4-2 for the record.

I think you two need to read johnnypd's post on the last page. All our players apart from a couple of distinctly under-performing ones suit 4-4-2.

Well exfuckinscuse me Sam, you big daft wallybrains but he used to, and he was pretty good out there anarl! Made his name at Leeds on the left and has played there more times for England under 21s than he has on the right and pretty soon he'll have played more times on the left than on the right for us too. I agree with the manager and think he makes a great point regarding jinking back which on the right would mean he's using his weaker foot where as on the left he's using his stronger foot. Furthermore with N'Zogbia behind him we now have a strong and diverse left-flank which let me remind you tore into Arsenal's very own strong right-flank and to good effect. Just because the right-flank isn't very good doesn't mean we should take Milner away from there to the right, that would even the two flanks up. Give me one strong flank over none. Or we could have two strong flanks? Just a thought like. I have more faith in N'Zogbia and Milner than Enrique and N'Zogbia at the moment. If we had a decent right-winger, Milner on the left wouldn't even be an issue in my opinion. On what grounds? No it wouldn't be an issue, N'Zogbia should be there, Milner or not. Why should he be in there automatically? He's actually performing as good as he has done for us at left-back, he has 3 goals and as a duo him and Milner are forming quite an understanding down that flank. Because Milner isn't naturally left-footed, is that why N'Zogbia should be in there? N'Zogbia's not performing anywhere near as well as he has for us, that's rubbish. He should be on the left wing because he's the best left winger we have by a mile. Our best attacking threat at LB has me pulling my hair out. In what way are they developing an understanding exactly? Two half decent games against Birmingham and Arsenal, in which they created not an awful lot? Great.

Well exfuckinscuse me Sam, you big daft wallybrains but he used to, and he was pretty good out there anarl! Made his name at Leeds on the left and has played there more times for England under 21s than he has on the right and pretty soon he'll have played more times on the left than on the right for us too. I agree with the manager and think he makes a great point regarding jinking back which on the right would mean he's using his weaker foot where as on the left he's using his stronger foot. Furthermore with N'Zogbia behind him we now have a strong and diverse left-flank which let me remind you tore into Arsenal's very own strong right-flank and to good effect. Just because the right-flank isn't very good doesn't mean we should take Milner away from there to the right, that would even the two flanks up. Give me one strong flank over none. Or we could have two strong flanks? Just a thought like. I have more faith in N'Zogbia and Milner than Enrique and N'Zogbia at the moment. If we had a decent right-winger, Milner on the left wouldn't even be an issue in my opinion. On what grounds? No it wouldn't be an issue, N'Zogbia should be there, Milner or not.

When you put it like that then I would have to agree. But when you put all those individual players together in the same team and ask them to play 4-4-2, I think you'll find they won't work as well as you'd think or that much better than they would in 4-3-3, if at all. And I'll tell you why - for us to get success in 4-4-2 those wingers and forwards need service and we lack someone in midfield to provide the service, i.e. a playmaker. Don't mention Emre, his passing is poor as is his selection of passing, he prefers to run with the ball anyway. He's actually more suited to a 4-3-3 formation. Barton doesn't look like a playmaker to me either, he's more of an action man type midfielder, box to box. Butt is a destroyer and Geremi isn't your man either. In short we don't have the players to keep the ball and feed those wingers and strikers. Up front we don't quite have the forwards either who will put away those crosses and get into the box, Viduka hasn't the legs to get in there these days or the fitness to stay in the team, Owen doesn't have the fitness either and can easily be marked by a good defender. Keep him outside the box and he's pretty much a wasted shirt. As for Martins, he doesn't have the brains to make the right runs for crosses. We can't thread them through either because we don't have a player in midfield to do it while even on the flanks, our crossing is average to say the least and in Milner, we have the wing version of Owen really. Push him back and he's a wasted shirt as he lacks the pace to pin his marker back. This isn't helped by a lack of pace and attaking flair at right-back. At least on the left with Milner and N'Zogbia we can pin the full-back deeper into his own half as we did with Sagna, an electric attacking full-back. The others? Smith isn't a penalty box striker and Ameobi, well... Sorry but I just don't see how 4-4-2 will work for us with the players we have. On paper and individually speaking it could as you've highlighted, but in practice, the results have been mixed. Indeed we've done better with 4-3-3 and that's because it masks our weaknesses and actually allows us to benefit from them. 4-3-3 squeezes the opposition and can force them deep where we can exploit them from set play or by ariel bombardment, we don't have to have good heading ability in there, the idea is to force the opposition into making mistakes which our extra numbers due to the 6 attacking players will capitalise on. You don't need a playmaker or wingers in 4-3-3 to get some joy from it either. Because the opposition sits deep, their own attack therefore gets cut off so they revert long or their passes fail to reach the forwards, meaning the ball is coming back to us without us having to win it, increasing our possession despite the team not being the best with the ball which we have enjoyed the majority of in quite a few of our games, even against Arsenal. In 4-4-2 you have to scrap for the ball first and when you win it keep it and look for openings, always open to the counter or being outplayed in the middle. In 4-3-3 you don't have to be great on the ball as the opposition will give you it back if you force them deep. You don't need to be great on the wings either because that ball being flung in doesn't have to be precise and you don't need pace either as you're penning the opposition in and picking them off. That's what happened against Arsenal basically and Fulham away. It's not pretty but it works. Ideally we'll get width, creativity and mobility in Jan and beyond, which will make us stronger and able to play in a number of ways going forward. For now though 4-3-3 as it is better than 4-4-2 as it is, for me anyway. Good post, it's clear we don't have the personal to pull a 4-4-2 off at the moment, not just that, with all the new players we have it's much easier to play as a unit playing 4-3-3 in comparison to a 4-4-2. Is it?

Well exfuckinscuse me Sam, you big daft wallybrains but he used to, and he was pretty good out there anarl! Made his name at Leeds on the left and has played there more times for England under 21s than he has on the right and pretty soon he'll have played more times on the left than on the right for us too. I agree with the manager and think he makes a great point regarding jinking back which on the right would mean he's using his weaker foot where as on the left he's using his stronger foot. Furthermore with N'Zogbia behind him we now have a strong and diverse left-flank which let me remind you tore into Arsenal's very own strong right-flank and to good effect. Just because the right-flank isn't very good doesn't mean we should take Milner away from there to the right, that would even the two flanks up. Give me one strong flank over none. Or we could have two strong flanks? Just a thought like.

Beeb: 1652: GOAL Reading 2-1 Sunderland Keeper Craig Gordon think he's palmed away Stephen Hunt's far-post volley but the linesman has other ideas. The goal stands - and Roy Keane will be fuming for the second week running.

mackems.gif Oh wonderful. Cheers Scotty. Bottom half now Till tomorrow.