The College Dropout

If his wife is very ill then I can't see what sort of chat could ever resolve the issue. If the wife is very ill, going to Argentina, the top country regarding medical science will certainly help. Eh? Argentina the top country in medical science? Thought the country was on its knees financially. 1. Colo is loaded. There's great doctors and hospitals in 99% of countries on this planet............ if you're loaded. 2. Being around family/loved ones is good for your health.

Aye, negative to cabs is he's rather petulant and his mind can drift away from the team into his own issues. But aye Taylor's clearly a daft lad like and i'm sure the others know it. Shame, he's a warrior like. Fully agreed with the most whole-hearted player tag. Would love us to go for 5-6 years with the same captain. Unless you've got like a Man Utd. like players committee of older players you need some steady captains and VC.

Taylor isn't one to throw in the towel or act petulant.

Doesn't need to be sharp. Taylor will encourage team-mates to at the very least, battle. He gives 100% till the end.

Might as well make Tiote captain, he's constantly fouling people and out of position to allow attacker to waltz through but as long as he's catching the eye its all good... TBF Wor Cheik is always in the middle of the battle. Win, lose or red card.

Steven Taylor. Proper Newcastle lad. Would wear the armband with extreme pride. Definitely him as club captain then Cabaye a VC. Honestly, Cabaye would have the armband most of the time anyway.

I reckon we let him go for a nominal fee but have a clause where if he signs for a European/Brazilian club we must receive £5m/or the value of the rest of his contract in compensation.

Rather he was unhappy and we didn't get relegated personally. This. He's a professional footballer. He needs to get on for what he's paid to do. Easier said than done. Can anyone honestly say there is nothing in their personal life that would make you miss work if it went tits up? I know I cant. Only in a few certain jobs could you get compassionate leave. I'm hardly a millionaire and I get compassionate leave. If my family buggered off to Argentina, i'd have to leave like. This is what Colo is trying to do.

If you're in IT or some lark, you can under-perform for a while and nobody will notice.

As we concede 4 goals tomorrow and he's HAULED OFF.

Which ties in with what his father has said. Hmmm while still making sure he doesn't lose out, he'd have handed in a transfer request if so. A transfer request is pretty hostile like.

A family crisis is a family crisis people. If it's true I doubt we'll have a proper compromise. Worst case scenario, he buggers off to Argentina and we stop paying him. He's trying to go the gentleman route.

We are fooked either way. We can't decent money from him from where he wants to go and if he stays he'll continue to under-perform because he's not happy.

Speak for yourself. £35m. I was very happy. Would've sold at 25 tbh

The professional thing is handle it "in" house.

Aye, he's been very poor since the Derby. Getting sent off for violent conduct and generally costing us goals and points. Makes a lot of sense now.

No smoke without fire imo. His agent is one person in his inner circle who would want him to stay. Going to Argentina is no-moolah for him.

|He scored at least 3 goals in a 4-4-2 last season. The debut and the 2 against Chelsea.

That might be true but he's been playing on right wing ffs. He didn't even play down the middle against Everton. Give him a run down the middle and he'll get goals as it's his natural position as proved last season. He started the season up front. We switch formations all the time too, he's had loads of minutes in a 4-4-2. He's also started numerous games in cup competitions.

You're looking at it from the view of us playing crap as a whole because of Ba (or him contributing) and i'm looking at it that we played crap despite Ba scoring loads. You haven't mentioned once how Cisse has been poor. The long ball doesn't work well for Ba either, he's good at the flick-ons from a big man but isn't good at doing that himself. I don't know why some fans can't understand that Pardew saw Ba as the safe bet goalscorer after 5 or so matches. Like I said, when he came off the bench and scored twice and he kept his place in the team through the middle. Did he earn that or did we pander? Cisse hasn't been playing well and has hardly looked like scoring ffs. This pandering shit is idiotic. Ba was scoring. Pards thought if we could stop conceding, we would start winning because of Ba's goals again. You know? The thing that got us in a strong position before Cisse came last season. If Cisse was scoring and he got moved out wide, then yes maybe, we pandered to Ba. But he hasn't.

Agree entirely, which makes it all the more baffling that we pandered to his demands to play centrally. That was only ever done to put himself in the shop window so he could engineer a move under his release clause. If we'd have stuck him wide and played Cisse through the middle then not only would the team have looked better but Chelsea would probably never have wanted Ba either. We shot ourselves in BOTH feet with that one. For the final time, he played centrally because he scored goals. Started the season 4-4-2 he scored some goals but results where poorish. Went to Everton, he got dropped, came off the bench and scored twice. He earned the role and never looked back.

We need a clean sheet, Pardew knows this and he'll start if fit.

Disagree about his passing. Like I said earlier, no Paul Scholes but could zip it about nice and quick. He was always pretty good for us. You look at all our attacking players those days and you can't say they didn't do well for us overall. Solano, Robert, Dyer, Speed, Shearer & Bellamy where consistently among the leagues best attackers for 3 or so years. He did have another 10/15% of potential that he didn't unlock. Would've got him a lot closer to the very best PL players.

I understand what you're saying but it's like looking at a car from 50 yards away and saying it looks fine to me. It's only when you get up close and look under the hood that you see the real problems. Playing poor formations and making crazy substitutions aren't something that can be explained by inexperience. It's a failure to read the game which is more worrying. I haven't even touched on playing a style which is not suited to the players we have, but on that maybe you could argue he doesn't have good enough players yet. Again, not something I accept, as for me there's been no sign after a year that we've even attempted to coach a more fluid passing style. We'll see. But you learn. Reading of the game can be improved, so can substitutions. I'm pretty sure Fellaini scored something like 15 goals playing behind the striker in his 2nd season. Tim Cahill came back and played that role for the followed 2 season despite not scoring for long stretches. Moyes only brought Fellaini back into that position after they lost the FA Cup semi-final. He's got it together now. I'm sure Pardew will improve with time. Time i'm sure he'll get if we avoid relegation this year.

I especially agree with the first point. Give a decent manager 6 years without relegation and they'd do pretty well. That's why fans often know the players better than management. I don't think Mou is a genius manager and I do think there's a vast difference in aptitude. However, opportunity and experience is far more important than aptitude. Some managers just aren't a good "fit" for certain clubs. A manager does need a club/side to be in their image. Sam Allardyce could only ever manage a side like Newcastle coming up from the Championship. Souness? The worst manager of NUFC. Decimated a good team and replaced them with the type of overpaid, over-the-hill, under-performing players that would get us relegated in the end. We should have never sacked SBR imo.