Zero

Probably he has the best tactical mind among all the managers since Sir Bobby Robson, honestly. He did make some faults but several tactical decisions ahs been fucking spot on.

That's a very classy defense from Enrique imo.

It is the sense of "insecure" that ruins the team. Everyone in the team, including Mark Hughes and may be except SWP and Robinho, know that they will very likely to be replaced in the coming January. You can see the players aren't really trying their best.

Agree with that. Technique can be improved but these two "natural talents" cannot.

Now Enrique must be playing at his best or we'll be fucked.

I'd prefer Henri Saivet if we are going to swap N'Zogbia - according to FM.

I don't think Bullard - Butt combination is much better than Guthrie - Butt...the major problem lies on Butt.

Bullard isn't a replacement for Butt. Get him in June but not now --- we deadly need a defensive midifielder to kick Butt out.

Chopra is way way better than Carroll. To be honest the only youngsters we could/should develop now is Kazenga and Kadar, probably Zambrela also. The others are just Coca-Cola materials.

That's why I don't think he would/should be blamed for not signing the contract now.

I think it's the opposite. If he signs the contract now he is valuing "safety" and "money" higher than his career. It is plain obvious that his career has went downhill in the last few years he needs to play in a top team in Europe to regain his status. Whether he can find such a club is a question but at least he should have a try and, if he fails, he can sign with us at June.

Na I really hope that happens. A "legend" in both club's history, definitely.

Taylor isn't a bad defender --- he is just not good enough to be a top class defender.

While 90k sounds like what we should offer as a reasonable deal, it is pretty obvious that Owen can get a 120k+ deal from other clubs due to free transfer.

A question: what if Keegan say "No"?

Exactly. IMO we should target Arsenal and Liverpool's youth players because these two clubs have very renouned junior development system while the youngsters have very limited chance in first team now - Liverpool doesn't rely on youth players anymore under Benitez while Arsenal is simply flooded with youth talents.

Very likely that's the case but the fact that we didn't sign any high-profile players these summer (apart from Jonas and Colo) suggest that either Keegan's targetting unrealistic players or Ashley didn't willing to spend the cash anymore.

I think the questions should be: 1. Should Keegan has the ultimate power to decide the transfer issue and 2. How to balance the power between Wise.co and Keegan While you can say that it's Ashley's fault to give Wise.co too much power on transfer issues, I also believe that it would be ridiculous if Wise doesn't have the power to sign a few players because honestly Keegan doesn't have enough up-to-date knowledges on spotting cheap and youth talents, which are deadly important for a club which doesn't have Euro competition. The fact that we have to pay way too much fees and wages for Duff / Smith etc which are overpriced (and useless) explains that we always tends to use money to attract "proven" players rather than spotting those who we really should rely on and develop at. I can see Keegan may probably targetting these kind of players as well. Colo, Jonas and Bassong has been fucking brilliant and I really cannot blame Wise.co for having the power to sign these players. They spotted them, evaluate them correctly and get the deal done on very reasonable price (in a sense robbery for Jonas).

Considering his cheap transfer fees (2m) I am hugely tempted to try other similar youth players who don't have chances to prove themselves in Big 4.

From what I saw in the match vs Man Utd. Not excellent but do creates some threat.

Hugely depends on Martins' availability. If he's not fit then very likely we can only get a draw at best. Lennon and Bentley both are in good form and I can see Butt concede a penalty again.

All these players jsut cost us totally 10m. Fucking brilliant business tbh. I wouldn't say Ashley's system is better but I definitely cannot see we bring in these kinda "economically efficient" players if Keegan has the say. More likely we will have established players in EPL like Dunne which will cost us a lot more.

JFK has been the most controversal manager I've seen for Newcastle so far.

Joey Barton. I prefer a Diop / Vieira type player. Barton isn't that good enough to cover the defense line. A very all-around player though.

We just need a replacement for Butt and our team will be very balanced. sadly that won't happen.