Rich

Didn't bother him when he strung Liverpool along.

Distin is walking anyway. Samaras will be off home (Not got the bottle to play in theis league unfortunately) Barton could end up at Newcastle, Everton, Villa Corradi is fucking shite and will be off to Italy to play for someone shite. Richards to Chelsea. Isaksson to anyone that will give him a game (And he'll be ace) Trabelsi to disappear to someone with a fat wallet Beasley back to PSV altho no-one will notice Vassel to whoever gets promoted (not Birmingham) Dunne to whoever makes a silly offer of far more than he's worth. Happy days :'( PS: I thought Liverpool have signed Mascherano permemantly from MSI, thats the reason there's no Premier League charge for them for playing him... Has Trabelsi been any good for you lot?

Surprised by how few people have said Lucas Neill or Matthew Upson, both a lot better than the vast majority (if not all) of our defenders and both with clauses in their contracts allowing them to leave West Ham if they get relegated. Along with Ashton and Tevez they'd be the main ones I hope we'd be in for.

A good defensive midfielder would be a boon, though.

The 2-2? I'm talking about the away game, mate.

He played at LB against Birmingham directly after, and had a shocker. Mind you, Huntington/Taylor didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either. When he came on at CB against Aston Villa he was once again excellent. We didn't just "drop him" right after the Man Utd game, is the point I'm getting at here. I do agree he should play ahead of Huntington/Ramage based on form.

I hope to see some genuine celebration there tonight, not just sarcastic cheering.

Something that has been eating at me for seasons now needs to be gotten off the old chest: Mark Van Bommel is an absolute stinking bastard cunt of the highest fucking order.

Aye, Man Utd have lost buckets of points this season because of Rio. Definite fallacy to say he costs them games.

Crikey, could a 40k+ attendance be on the horizon?

On current form it's Woodgate and Carragher, for me. Obviously we all know that Terry and Ferdinand are top-quality, but the former two have been absolutely colossal for their respective teams lately. Carragher is once again reproducing the form that made him instrumental in Liverpool's European title win of two seasons ago and Woodgate is playing regularly and showing everyone that he is possibly the best in the business, despite getting slower because of his multiple injuries. Woody and Carra fall down because of their lack of pace when compared to the likes of Ferdinand, but they make up for it with their reading of the game. Not exactly a bad pool of defenders for England to choose from, is it? Why is Dawson in the list, by the way? Tottenham's defence has hardly been rock-solid lately, has it? Doesn't get near the other 4, IMO.

I couldn't help but think "Sunderland" while reading that

According to Oliver there have only been 28,000 tickets sold for this one by today! Very, very surprised by that.

To think I only stumbled into the Arcade today. Curveball is immense.

Have I missed something? http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?action=arcade;sa=highscore;game=723 He's not only beaten it, he's annihilated it, the utter utter bastard. Bit of a Stick Cricket whizz from back in the old days. Lost 2 wickets on that go!

His subs seemed to work, in fairness. Liverpool should have been 3-0(+) up by the break, though.

He's just utterly frustrating, KD, after how good he used to be for your lot. He's always injured, he's lost most of his pace, he's doubled in size, his arrival coincided with our dimmest stage for a while (obviously not entirely his fault, like!), he makes numerous dodgy decisions on the field, has been culpable for numerous goals this season, never seems too arsed to be playing for us, he made dodgy gestures at the East Stand against Sheffield United.... he was apparently trying to engineer moves back South (to Spurs in particular) over the summer, etc. Just nowhere near good enough for a Premiership fullback.

Delighted to see Chelsea and Liverpool go through against their respective opposition. Also good to see that Valencia are in the next round. Just a shame that Lyon lost out to Roma in my eyes. Personally, I hope that Arsenal, Man Utd and Celtic join them in the quarters as well, though I accept it's highly unlikely that the Hoops will score in Milan, let alone get a score-draw or a win. We still have to play Arsenal and Chelsea, so personally I hope we have to play them when they are in between two European games.

My tickets came today and say "7.30pm" on them. Just mentioning this because I've heard from a few people that they had the wrong time printed on them. (Perhaps just the earlier editions did?)

05/06 - 30 appearances, 8 goals, 2 assists, 25 offsides, 80 fouls. 06/07 - 9 appearances, 3 goals, 1 assist, 16 fouls. And his performances were poor. He can't trap a ball, and for a big lad, he's shit in the air. And on the ground. Roeder was in charge for 30 games last season? Bugger me.

Ronaldo has been immense. Especially considering his age, as well, and the World Cup stuff preceeding this season. 16 league goals and 8 assists is fantastic, but BRV is right about his European performances. (3 assists in 6 games, no goals.) He's been the best player in the PL this season, I think.

Aye, but countless times there was opportunity to take it forward a few yards, cause someone to break free from the "two banks of four" to close them down and then pass the ball to the freed-up team-mate. It's fairly basic stuff, I would reckon. A lot of goals at the better clubs come from moves that are initiated by a centre-half carrying the ball into the usual open space in front of him (beyond the opposition striker/strikers) and causing an opposition midfielder to have to close him down, before either (rarely) continuing his run or playing a simple ball into a midfielder who now has more space to work in. The way we force our centre-backs to play (whether it be the crowd, our reputation or the coaching) is that they are too fearful of making a big rick and losing the ball and then being caught-out, instead of using them as an occasional platform to build attacks from. There were many, many occasions on Saturday where Titus or Oguchi could have taken some extra touches and looked for a simple ball, instead of stalling then attempting a far more difficult pass. Over the season at SJP I'd go so far as to say dozens and dozens. I do accept that it's a more risky strategy, especially when neither of them are exactly technically wonderful, but I also strongly believe that it's a tactic that would lead to us breaking more teams down at SJP as we force them to break free from the 4-4/4-1-4 When teams like 'Boro come and man-mark every single one of our front-six then more onus is placed on the fullbacks and the centre-halves to drive us forward. Taylor and Solano got forward a fair bit (even though Nobby's right foot was off-colour and Taylor was obviously coming inside a lot), but I really think that at this level our central defenders should be able to offer more than hopeful punts forward every time they have it. Sometimes it's about making your options, from what I see. People slate Parker because he has to move around on the ball a lot when he collects it from the defenders, but this is often because he has an opponent in very close proximity to him and not many options ahead of him (the same argument you've just made for the defence.) I do agree with those that say he often could release the ball faster, but he would improve a hell of a lot if he was given the ball in better areas from Titus/Gooch, or if one of them committed a midfielder towards them before releasing it.

I used to do similar things... add capital letters, commas, etc.

Howay man, all he does is pirouette, never passes forward, he should be a ballerina, etc. etc. etc. Repeat ad nauseum.

Well, another home game went by when our only visible tactics seemed to be (again) aiming for Milner from Shay's kicks and then a brief period in the second half where Milner and N'Zogbia switched. We also looked better from corners than we have done for a while. Apart from that, things just seem to be left to curdle. For example, Parker and Butt being unable to decide what role to play... Milner thinking that running at his fullback and attempting a cross is ALWAYS the best thing to do, Taylor thinking that passing to a double-marked N'Zogbia (tight to the byline) is a good option... Bramble and Gooch being shit-scared to bring the ball out of defence and play a simple forward pass... Given constantly clanging it upfield to nobody in particular... why Dyer never gets close to Martins for flick-downs and why even though we aim for Milner from the 'keeper, nobody gets near him to collect a knock-down, etc. Things like this should surely be gradually dying out and being coached, but they don't seem to be and the football we've played this season isn't as far removed from Souness-stuff as a lot of people seem to think. He's hardly brought us on leaps and bounds since Souness left, which is starting to get very worrying after a year.