Rich

Lovenkrands is apparently at his most effective on the left side of a front 3. If he still has half the pace he had at Rangers him and Martins would be a scary prospect for defenders to face. Nothing wrong with your post, but it's a sad state how much emphasis pace and physical attributes has on the modern game. Not necessarily. People just think "quicker = better" automatically, not considering how to get these sorts of players into the best positions possible and having technically gifted players to get the best out of them. It's handy having one or two speed merchants in the team, but that's as far as it goes. The best teams aren't necessarily the quickest although they do tend to be able to play the game at a high tempo. EDIT: Even for the physical side of it, the best teams can still get by without it to a good extent. For every team like that there's a Stoke or a Portsmouth though.

Who plays the Owen role then though? IMO Lovenkrands is backup to Martins all being well. Can't see them being much use together.

I must admit to forgetting completely about Lovenkrands :-[ Still an unknown quantity like, but you'd hope he could "do" the Martins role in that formation to a certain extent. Wouldn't be in my first XI.

That was just a temporary measure with the players we currently have available. A genuine first XI would see me pick Beye in for S. Taylor, put Owen in for Butt and swap him with Nolan. I'd stick Barton in for R. Taylor on the right. Krul, S. Taylor, R. Taylor, Butt, Guthrie, Lovenkrands & Ameobi would be the subs, which starts to show the paucity of the squad.

I had to give mine up anyway with moving away on a much more permanent basis and not having the cash readily available in the summer, but have still managed to spend a couple of hundred quid on home games when I've been in that neck of the woods. Still can't get one next season though. I would if I could.

In reality I haven't a clue what Joe considers his best team or his favourite players and couldn't even begin to predict a starting XI if he had the whole squad fit and available for selection. I just know Xisco wouldn't get picked.

You'll notice I tailed off severely towards the end Harper Taylor Colocinni Bassong Enrique R. Taylor Butt Jonas Nolan Viduka Martins It's fucking awful having to choose between Butt, Duff and Smith like! I've gone for Butty as he'll no doubt be captain and Nolan might come to life given the freedom of that role (knows where the goal is, even moreso in comparison to playing Duff/Smith in there).

Seriously though, it appears the attacking players in particular believe in that system (do they just want to start?) from what Owen, Martins and Viduka have said about it and we're hardly pulling up trees with 4-4-2 and only one good winger.

Let's play fantasy football for a moment: Call me crazy, but a midfield three of Nolan - Butt - Jonas would excite the pants off me if we played that formation again, simply for how much more it could potentially offer than Geremi - Butt - Barton. Quicker and harder working on both sides of Butt, who many benefit again from having more cover in there and from having to do less running. I honestly think Jonas could be lethal in that position, as Barton saw a lot of the ball during that spell but didn't really take much advantage of the space he had and was obviously incapable of beating a man. I suppose most will say "R. Taylor - Nolan - Jonas" due to their hatred of Nicky Butt and his poor recent form and I wouldn't be averse to that being given a try either. We'd retain the set-piece threat that Geremi offered then, while having Taylor in positions to get the ball in like Gezza did last season. Obviously the sticking point is who plays the Owen role while he's out... probably Smith or Duff I would imagine, which wouldn't be quite as effective... but you'd still have Oba and the Duke up there to cover for that loss. In reality: Viduka will break down again or even if he doesn't Smith/Ameobi would get picked ahead of him, JFK would probably never play 4-3-3 and it's all just a load of bollocks really as there'll no doubt be other injuries to key players to cock up even the vague hope of it.

You're not an atypical NUFC fan though, as you've said recently. I'm talking about the regulars at games who don't frequent the likes of this place (i.e. the majority). Patronising view tbh Merely meant those that aren't addicted to the internet/stocked-up on to-the-minute news about NUFC and who generally aren't as negative as a lot on here are. Wish I was one of them again to be honest. Ignorance is bliss.

You're not an atypical NUFC fan though, as you've said recently. I'm talking about the regulars at games who don't frequent the likes of this place (i.e. the majority).

Basically, I can just imagine he reads a name on here he hasn't heard before, heads onto Wikipedia or whatever and does a quick read-up on them and then makes some comments like the ones above. "Oh I haven't seen him since he was a 5 year old at River Plate", etc.

He was talking about Juan Carlos Menseguez, who did play in Germany.

Might be a canny player to have on the right for away games in particular, where sometimes graft more than skill can be the trick. I'd prefer to see him playing than Duff. I don't think he's a bad signing really and agree that expectations shouldn't be too high because he's scored a few wondergoals against us.

De Mul is a decent shout but we don't need another Lw, and as JCM I've not seen him since his time in Germany has he improved? De Mul is a right winger... Nixon, I'm beginning to think you're a bit of a blagger ...I suspect I may be late to the party...

Oh great. A new one. It's the snow...

mackems.gif The fucking nerve

Seriously doubt that. What is there to show for it though? A failed £8m bid for Johnson and a failed £8m bid for a player that was probably worth £14m. If that email is from Ashley, he brought attention to himself and the club today deliberately and why would he do that unless he was going to have something to show for it? I don't believe those that say Ashley does what he does to sit back and laugh at us because he can, but it's starting to look more and more like he seriously couldn't care less what happened. Agree with most of that, up until the last line again. Don't think he stands to gain anything from "not caring" how we do. But like someone just said in the transfer thread, he really had the chance to win alot of people over today. He certainly would have went up in my estimations had he produced out of nowhere a couple of cracking buys/decent players to improve us further and keep us up. The fact that he didn't makes me wonder whether he actually cares about making things better. If he did, he would have at least brought one other face in. He might have tried to though, you never know. It's not Football Manager at the end of the day, deals are complicated, players are greedy, teams don't want to sell and we're hardly "in the money". I'd have loved some quality players in as much as anybody but I'd rather we didn't spend anything than brought in another Luque or a Boumsong for the money we did actually have. That would be even worse in the long run.

Seriously doubt that. There's something very much amiss though. Ashley is a fantastic businessman, he's proved that his whole life. Yet he's now completely bolloxed up the end of two transfer windows in a row, and we could now get relegated because of it. Lots of smoke and mirrors going on here IMO, I think it's pretty conceivable that we had no intention of signing anyone other than Taylor today. Yet they've gone to all this fuss to make it seem as though they've been busy working on deals all day, so they can now go "We worked tirelessly all day, but in the end we just couldn't get the deals done." I reckon they sat in the office doing shots all day tbh. Most definitely. I've been ill at ease with everything for a good while now, as far back as last February or so. I do think if you look around most PL message boards they'll be saying the same things about their dealmakers and chairmen though. Not saying he's not responsible, but there are mitigating circumstances at the minute (perhaps more than ever before in recent history.) It's not like the last lot didn't bungle windows and operate in an extremely similar fashion.

Seriously doubt that. What is there to show for it though? A failed £8m bid for Johnson and a failed £8m bid for a player that was probably worth £14m. If that email is from Ashley, he brought attention to himself and the club today deliberately and why would he do that unless he was going to have something to show for it? I don't believe those that say Ashley does what he does to sit back and laugh at us because he can, but it's starting to look more and more like he seriously couldn't care less what happened. Agree with most of that, up until the last line again. Don't think he stands to gain anything from "not caring" how we do.

Seriously doubt that.

I'll officially retire from life if that happens. For the benefit of Ash4. Not all doom and gloom today then.

Where did those two loan signings go?? Which ones were they again? Not been in long from work and I'm just trying to work out what has and hasn't happened. I'll be fucked if I'm wading through the last 54 pages. Wasn't it last week when Kinnear said two loan signings were practically done and dusted? I lose track of the bullshit during the transfer window there's that much of it. Gladly have managed to resist the urge to tune into SSN today as well, as I fully expected things to turn out as they have done. Been great fun on here though!

Where did those two loan signings go??

Apologies all.