Shearer9

Better than Butt, play him in the middle though, not on the right wing. It was a shame he went off just before we won that free kick from right outside the area that Guthrie played into the wall.

Zog-Barton-Guthrie-Jonas is a very exciting prospect indeed. I do reckon though that Barton isn't going to come back in and immediatley set the world on fire. He's been out of football properly for a long time, and hasn't played that much in general since coming to Newcastle. I reckon he needs to be eased back in, but perhaps in a few games he could become first choice.

The pace is the key thing, he's even slower than Geremi. I have no problem with his effort and the way he sometimes wins tackles, but he's a poor passer and watching him start out with 2 yards or more on a player and then lose a race to the ball is just painful. Was it Fellani (cunt btw) who was about 2 yards behind him when they both started running towards a ball maybe 10 yards away, and Butt ended up taking him out for a yellow card? That was awful

There are times when Downing looks the business tbf, he goes through good and bad spells and I think it's OK to have him in the squad as backup to Cole and Young during those times. But Jenas will never have the tactical nous and ability to play for England.

Still pretty unbelievable that Heskey's getting callups instead of him. Also still no sight of Young or Agbonlahor.

I get really excited whenever the Zog gets on the ball, the encouraging thing is that his flaws aren't technical, they're all mental, so he can be re-taught how to distribute the ball. Also can't wait for him and Jonas bombing down the wings.

Tonight just illustrates a couple of things to me: 1. Not playing Zog in the midfield is criminal 2. Taylor can fuck off with his "I'm a footballer" act and go back to the bench, let someone (anyone else play there) That's pretty much it, unlucky result but we'd probably have had the belief to get forward and either take an early lead or respond to the goal if Keegan was in charge.

Tonight just illustrates a couple of things to me: 1. Not playing Zog in the midfield is criminal 2. Taylor can fuck off with his "I'm a footballer" act and go back to the bench, let someone (anyone else play there) That's pretty much it, unlucky result but we'd probably have had the belief to get forward and either take an early lead or respond to the goal if Keegan was in charge.

Did you lose the game?

Guthrie could face further action: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/7619485.stm Who do you reckon you could get better odds on playing for Newcastle again first? Guthrie or Barton?

Plus they don't have a bad team and have done reasonably well this season for a team with so much turmoil. They've also not lost at home this season.

Gareth Bale is going to turn out to be a fantastic player, in fact, he already is. I fancy him more as a winger but he tracks back and defends really well, gets forward into intelligent positions, has a great delivery(why they let Bentley take corners before him, I've no idea) and can score from free kicks. As for Spurs.... mackems.gif

They were definitely booed off there, find it hard to see them winning this match, although they do have Bentley to come in. Bent and Pavlyuchenko as a partnership is not going to pan out.

I said the same thing at the time of the Eduardo injury, you have to look at the incident itself and the intent of the player(s) involved when punishing it. The difference between Taylor's challenge and Guthrie's is that Guthrie was frustrated and went to hit the player. Not Keane-esque evil, but definitely malicious, probably deserves an extra game or 2.

When fully fit I reckon he does. He is just too stupid and looks so slow. He's a bit like 'Tino used to be, where he doesn't look like he's running fast but he is really. Like I mentioned as well, I don't think he is very intelligent a sa footbalelr, so finds himself in the wrogn positions at the wrong times. He'd do okay in the Championship but not for us. I just think we should all be aiming to stick together at the minute and the players we do have in our squad should be backed, or if not backed people should at least not boo them. No, that's just him running slow. It's nice that you're backing Shola, despite the fact that he's shit and it's depressing to see him here for another season, but booing of Shola and the protest aren't really linked in any way, he'd have got the same treatment if none of this Keegan shit had happened and we were losing 2-0 to Hull.

Most of these are too extreme to be practical, but I've read before that the reason the shirt rule exists when scoring goals is that players were doing it, getting the liner tangled up in the shirt and then it would take 2 mins to sort out before play started again. Surely they should be able to take the shirt off, just with the stipulation that they can't continue playing without it and that the referee can start play again in a timely manner. Away goals are also stupid, scrap them, keep penalty shootouts.

It's funny to me to see names like Hamann, Ball, Ireland, and Hart out there with names like Richards, Zabaleta, Kompany, Wright-Phillips, Jo, and Robinho. Massive gap in class between some of their players.

Scholes just looked old today, can't play in a 4-3-3 midfield, he needs to be the attacking CM in a 442. Anderson is very similar. That and the injury to Carrick + Hargreaves lack of fitness were a big part of the reason they got completely run over in midfield today.

Bassong or Gonzalez should be in instead of Ameobi

I thought that turned out to be a surprisingly good game, Liverpool looked really on form there even without Babel, Gerrard, and Torres in the starting XI. Alonso and Mascherano can really boss a midfield though, I'm not even sure Liverpool's best team would have Kuyt or Keane starting. I'd try something like this: -------------Torres ------Riera-Gerrard-Babel --------Alonso-Mascherano

BBC says Keegan didn't show up for this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/7599647.stm

Just thinking about it, this has to be 3 of the most dramatic off-field days the premiership has ever seen, what the hell is gonna happen tomorrow?

The amount of shit Curbishley has gotten is staggering, he singlehandedly kept a tiny club like Charlton in the prem for so many years, soon as he left they went down. Then he produced one of the greatest escapes in recent memory. Bilic may be a step up, but Curbishley is proven prem quality.

I'm also curious why there are references to Man City spending so much money, surely all this started to go down before any of the Robinho/Berbatov/take-over stuff went down. Sounds like a load of bollocks to me. Some of it may be right, but it surely is almost entirely made up.

Damn, was hoping that'd be it.