Benwell Lad

Yes Lillesroem. Played us off the park until Luque scored. Were you there ?

I take it you had been drinking before, during and after the games you believe Luque played and looked good ?!?! Were you at the mackem away game or Lillestrom home ? N No I only drink after the match as I like to see what is going on, which in Luque's case is a quality player who is low on confidence and finding it difficult to adapt to new surroundings. You obviously don't like him, but I reckon if he's given a run we may well see the quality come through. If we were in the top 4 and scoring freely I may think we should leave things as they are. We are'nt.

Luque has been a very good player, and in brief glimpses for us has looked good too. He needs a run, he needs confidence to express himself. I'd be right pissed off if Roeder was letting Alex Ferguson tell him what the pecking order should be and who should be on the bench etc. Let it go Roeder, give Luque a run, he has the potential to be one of our best players, letting him sulk on the sidelines is not good management.

Prefer TF's assessmants to the once great nufc.com which has now become too opinionated. Agree to a point, but what amazes me is how these opinions of where we went wrong gloss over the role our club captain played at the time. Once the greatest CF in the world he was allowed to become bigger than the club, and that should never happen and could not happen at a serious football club such as Arsenal, Man.Utd, Bayern Munich or others. Shearer was instrumental in getting rid of both SBR and our best player Bellamy. A friend of his, Souness took over. Another buddy MacDermott was brought in, and frankly it all started going down hill. Ultimately Shepherd must take the blame for allowing it to happen, lets face it he thought aligning himself to the big man would ensure his own popularity and survival. Time will probably prove this to be his biggest mistake. Also disagree with assessment of Martins. Give him service and he will score goals.

The vitriol and hatred Boro fans have always directed towards Geordies (an inferiority thing ?) has never been truly reciprocated as we've never actually been that bothered about them, they're just another opposition team. From our perspective it's never been a real derby. Now we give them a little bit back they start coming all sanctimonious. Pass the sick bag someone. That said have to agree our fans (especially at home) have become pretty insipid and the wit we were once famed for seems to have gone, replaced by the standard repetitive chants heard in every ground in the country. I'm surprised that Big Bung Allardyce got off so lightly. True like the smog said Man Utd fans are probably now the wittiest (hate to admit it) but they do come up with chants from a different angle. How have fans around the country let off Ronney and Ronald so lightly ? I reckon each time Rooney takes a free kick, corner etc chants of "Ro-Nald-Ho" and when Ronald does the same chants of "Roo-ney" could be the wind up they need. Be assured they'd be dishing it out big time if it were any other club's players involved.

I have seen the glimpses of Luque which suggest he is a top quality footballer. His goal against Lillestroem displayed the type of cutting edge quality we have lacked for a long time. His goal against the macums was cooly taken and his reaction (celebration ) afterwards almost said "please help me and believe in me". I think we need to continue helping him. Not making excuses for his generally poor performance, but this is a quality player going through a bad time - for whatever reason. He has too much quality not to come good eventually, we can help him through and hopefully watch him do it for us or we can risk letting him go and see him doing it for someone else. Please Luque regain your confidence and start turning it on for us.

That's just exactly what I thought ! It just seems so strange. The last person you'd have ever thought keane would work for is his long time adversary quinn ?? Stranger things have happened.

No they didn't, Crewe were 3-0 up and we came back and won 3-4, and we won the return leg 1-0. A Gavin Peacock masterclass iirc, or was that another game. Great player with great attitude anyway.