Rich

How French does he want to be!? Eurgh. In other news: in the background a certain shirt got me interested, "DYER 8" - in the European style, our next UEFA match is 13 days away. IS THE BLING KING BACK ON TIME!? That was more interesting than anything Sibierski said, tbh.

To extend the debate further: would people have rather had the likes of Sutton, Hartson or Kanu for a season instead of Sibierski?

If you believe we paid £5m for Sibierksi, then you're as thick as shit, seriously.

So Portsmouth get the lightning-quick Douala on loan for a year, a player I've wanted here for ages, and we sign Antoine Sibierksi... a 32-year-old no-mark on a 1-year deal... Words are beginning to fail me with this...

Shepherd will get lynched if we don't get anyone else in, I don't think people should give up on a new signing or two just yet.

Nobody was claiming we should keep him anyway, to be fair.

I can't trust your opinion when you say about Arsenal being a man-down after Parlour's sending-off, completely ignoring Bellamy's red card in the same game, because of Ashley Cole. Not to mention that Larry was a sub that night! That PROVES that you have a gash memory and renders your entire argument null and void... otherwise known as it's dead late and I can't be arsed to argue more tonight.

Exactly! TTM did a cracking job of reigniting the debate.

When you said Robert could dribble and to say he was only lethargic at points towards the end of his Newcastle career defies belief. He made a living out of cutting inside and losing the ball because of his lack of ability to take his man on. Robert made himself with a set-piece, too, against Man Utd... so to say they came later doesn't register with me, either. As for pace... he was relatively quick, but certainly nothing spectacular, I refuse to accept his game was BUILT around pace... it was built around long-shots, freekicks, corners and moments of individual magic. You go on to say Luque is about strength... are you for real here? Have you seen him play for us? Skill? He's hardly Ronaldinho, to me he looks clunky in possession and doesn't have a natural flair for anything out of the ordinary: Luque made his name scoring powerful shots, as you mentioned, can't disagree there. If Luque was played in Robert's position we'd see a lot more similarities in the way they play, it was proven to some extent in Luque's debut against Man Utd, he was like an identikit version of Larry, but it's never worked out for him since that injury and probably never will. To say he's "NOTHING" like him is a bit of a stretch, and to call other people's opinions "tosh" is arseholic behaviour of the highest proportion. :wink: We've established that Luque hasn't offered anything like what Robert has because he quite simply hasn't done the business/played the games, but this debate rages on - and I appreciate you for bringing it back in such an utterly moronic fashion Let's break it down, though: Luque/Robert's Similarities Powerful shooting. Good crossers of the ball. Both fairly quick, but not spectacularly fast. Good goalscoring records from the left-hand side. Limited dribbling ability. Both fairly workshy by traditional Geordie standards. Set-piece takers. Play the same position. Cost the same amount of money. Both not favoured by their managers (Souness/Roeder) Both destined to have left for far less than we paid for them. Both joined from a foreign county/league of origin in their home country. Outcasts of their national teams while at NUFC. Signed at very similar ages. A few of these are fairly gash, but they're facts

I haven't gone down any road, mate. I just don't think there is any similarity at all between the contributions of L Robert and A Luque. Zero. I can't see it. I never believed he was a lazy bastard, he became disenchanted with Souness like everybody else did, but I recall how he turned the performances of the team around when Souness did start to select him. He became hacked off again after one poor display ( again when the team performed badly ) caused Souness to make him the scapegoat. The bottom line for me is that Robert was a very good player for us for the majority of his time at the club. Luque has so far done absolutely nowt at all and because of his shit attitude is unlikely to do anything either. For the merry sake of Jesus, I never claimed there was any similarity between the contributions, I swear I didn't. I compared them technically and positionally and in a few other ways, but I never mentioned anything about contribution in the posts you took exception to. I'm not quite that daft. That's all I was upset about, you've argued with something I had never implied in the first place. We share exactly the same opinion about how good Robert was and how bad Luque has been, that's not in question, all I've done is try and offer up some balanced reasons about why Luque has been so bad for people to discuss. Yet you called my original post ridiculous and then compared me to HTT! Surely you can see why that would wind me up... especially the latter one, I mean howay, low blow or what? :wink: Andy, calm down man. I haven't taken exception to anything you've posted. If you didn't say what I thought you did then ok, I apologise. I take the point that Souness got rid of Robert because he thought he was a lazy bastard and has replaced him with a player who turns out to really be a lazy bastard. I realise now the comparison to grassroots was way below the belt, I understand I'm risking a ban for a couple of days for posting such a thing, or even a permanent IP ban come to think of it. I'm really sorry about that one. It's no bother, I'm not an admin these days anyway so I wouldn't be the one to enforce it :wink: And anyway, did you realise you've just posted something civil... borderline canny!? You'll be doing your reputation on here all sorts of damage with that one, should have stuck it in a PM. I appreciate it though, mate. Just glad I don't disagree with you on much else! But aye, everyone else, I reckon Luque should be sold and replaced ASAP, he's obviously never going to make it. Put that in your pipes and smoke it! Especially you, SLK... Doctors appointment next week then. Must be developing a split personality, or something. :winking: Aye, HTT's hacked your account more like... the swine. I fear this sidetrack could kill the thread, we need someone controversial in here and quick.

I haven't gone down any road, mate. I just don't think there is any similarity at all between the contributions of L Robert and A Luque. Zero. I can't see it. I never believed he was a lazy bastard, he became disenchanted with Souness like everybody else did, but I recall how he turned the performances of the team around when Souness did start to select him. He became hacked off again after one poor display ( again when the team performed badly ) caused Souness to make him the scapegoat. The bottom line for me is that Robert was a very good player for us for the majority of his time at the club. Luque has so far done absolutely nowt at all and because of his shit attitude is unlikely to do anything either. For the merry sake of Jesus, I never claimed there was any similarity between the contributions, I swear I didn't. I compared them technically and positionally and in a few other ways, but I never mentioned anything about contribution in the posts you took exception to. I'm not quite that daft. That's all I was upset about, you've argued with something I had never implied in the first place. We share exactly the same opinion about how good Robert was and how bad Luque has been, that's not in question, all I've done is try and offer up some balanced reasons about why Luque has been so bad for people to discuss. Yet you called my original post ridiculous and then compared me to HTT! Surely you can see why that would wind me up... especially the latter one, I mean howay, low blow or what? :wink: Andy, calm down man. I haven't taken exception to anything you've posted. If you didn't say what I thought you did then ok, I apologise. I take the point that Souness got rid of Robert because he thought he was a lazy bastard and has replaced him with a player who turns out to really be a lazy bastard. I realise now the comparison to grassroots was way below the belt, I understand I'm risking a ban for a couple of days for posting such a thing, or even a permanent IP ban come to think of it. I'm really sorry about that one. It's no bother, I'm not an admin these days anyway so I wouldn't be the one to enforce it :wink: And anyway, did you realise you've just posted something civil... borderline canny!? You'll be doing your reputation on here all sorts of damage with that one, should have stuck it in a PM. I appreciate it though, mate. Just glad I don't disagree with you on much else! But aye, everyone else, I reckon Luque should be sold and replaced ASAP, he's obviously never going to make it. Put that in your pipes and smoke it! Especially you, SLK...

I haven't gone down any road, mate. I just don't think there is any similarity at all between the contributions of L Robert and A Luque. Zero. I can't see it. I never believed he was a lazy bastard, he became disenchanted with Souness like everybody else did, but I recall how he turned the performances of the team around when Souness did start to select him. He became hacked off again after one poor display ( again when the team performed badly ) caused Souness to make him the scapegoat. The bottom line for me is that Robert was a very good player for us for the majority of his time at the club. Luque has so far done absolutely nowt at all and because of his shit attitude is unlikely to do anything either. For the merry sake of Jesus, I never claimed there was any similarity between the contributions, I swear I didn't. I compared them technically and positionally and in a few other ways, but I never mentioned anything about contribution in the posts you took exception to. I'm not quite that daft. That's all I was upset about, you've argued with something I had never implied in the first place. We share exactly the same opinion about how good Robert was and how bad Luque has been, that's not in question, all I've done is try and offer up some balanced reasons about why Luque has been so bad for people to discuss. Yet you called my original post ridiculous and then compared me to HTT! Surely you can see why that would wind me up... especially the latter one, I mean howay, low blow or what? :wink:

I'm only trying to offer up some constructive debate for people, without any sniping. Howay, just because it doesn't agree with your philosophy on this particular matter doesn't mean I'm not still a fountain of knowledge and common sense :wink:. Bad craic that instead of debating my points or, heaven forbid, perhaps seeing my point of view and conceding that I just might be right you've went down the road you've taken. I am honestly disappointed - I used to love you, man - loved you like an angry Uncle.

From open play I don't remember Robert offering as much as people make out, his dribbling was atrocious and he often passed poorly or lost posession, in his early days (as Nut says) he was a lot better from open play, but for the most part his threat came from set-pieces, first-time crosses and long-shots. I was still a huge fan of his, though, and he did brilliantly in a hell of a lot of games for us. I'm no Luque fan either, he frustrates me as much as anyone, but all I'm trying to do is to make people see things from a balanced perspective instead of having double standards: do you think Robert would have been half-as effective played as a lone striker, or paired with the likes of Ameobi/Milner/an ageing Shearer? In the game against Man Utd a half-fit Luque looked a very similar sort of player to Robert (evidence can be seen via NUFC.co.uk and reading match reports), he put in some good balls, took set-pieces and had a couple of difficult chances at the back-post, also had a goal rightly disallowed, but his contribution from open-play was generally poor (too much dwelling, ala Robert) - but then it all went horribly wrong and for whatever reason he's never looked like recovering his form and probably never will now that Zoggy and Duff are around. It's easy to say he's "crap", but there are mitigating factors about it - he can't have just turned shite overnight.

Robert got a good run in the team because he started like a house on fire. Luque didn't. Also, we didn't really have any competition for Robert's place, there's plenty for Luque's. You've just repeated exactly what I said in the post you quoted, bravo :wink: Luque didn't start badly against Man Utd and then got crocked, so unlike a lot of his problems the bad start wasn't exactly of his own fault.

Robert got a good run in the first team in his favoured position, through thick and thin, a luxury Luque hasn't been afforded at Newcastle. Not saying he undoubtedly would offer as much as Larry did, but there's more to the argument than contribution, you can't just look at it on that level because it isn't a valid basis for comparison with the way Luque's career has gone. We're just lucky that these days we have other players we can pick ahead of Luque when he does invariably play poorly, when Robert was here he was an automatic choice every week because he had absolutely no competition until Viana arrived - and even then Hugo wasn't a left-winger. Of course, he still did a hell of a lot of good for the team on a lot of occasions, though. And Luque's record is alright for the games he has actually started - apparently out of position as well, he's got a few goals/assists to his name.

In "one of the most ridiculous things I've read" (:wink:) you later argued with something that wasn't there - after someone else took the responsibility of explaining to you what they thought my post meant and you took that as Gospel because you couldn't be arsed to wait for my explanation. What are you on about, ducking questions? You said that Souness let a player ( Robert ) go for near nowt and then brought in quite probably the nearest thing to him ( Luque ). I think that's bollocks. If you think it's bollocks too then why are you making out that the two players are similar. " The nearest thing to him for the same price " means what exactly? Already explained this, like... I was talking about style of play, in that Luque is supposedly a left-winger, who doesn't fancy defending much and who has crossing and shooting as his two major strengths, sound familiar? Robert wasn't that great at dribbling and his first touch wasn't that great, which is also very similar to Luque. Despite what they have/haven't offered you're telling me that Robert and Luque aren't similar players when they're on the football pitch in how they play/try to play the game, respectively? I thought you'd be able to tell from the tone of my post and what I said about Souness that I didn't think it was a good move, but obviously not. Other similarities I could offer are that they both joined in August in the region of £10M, are foreign, are left-footed, both set-piece takers, play the same role on the pitch, joined from the leagues their country of origin and have become outcasts of their national teams. All that bollocks as well? My point was that Souness was daft enough to sell Robert for nothing and replace him with Luque for a bomb (which is exactly what happened), which has turned out to be like selling a Gibson and replacing him with an Epiphone copy of a Gibson: a poor version of what we already had, but nontheless an attempted replica, because the Scotsman knew how much Robert's style of play added to the team - but he'd be fucked if he was going to put up with Wor Laurent off the pitch... For whatever reason, Luque hasn't had anywhere near the same impact, some people will blame the injury he got, or him being played out of position and others will just say it's because he can't be arsed/doesn't have the bottle - or maybe he's just not that good (which history would apparently deny.) At the end of the day, though, he still plays the game like Robert did and it would be far more noticeable if we saw him on the left-flank (like he played against Man Utd that one time), but this isn't going to happen with Duff and N'Zogbia here - and I'd pick them ahead of him every time anyway. Despite his brilliance there were days when Robert was just as bad as Luque has been for us so far - surely that is undeniable, which does lend credence to the theory that Luque "might" improve if he's played in his correct position, Robert might have struggled just as much being played up-front, but probably not. But aye, still don't know how you read into that what you did after the rest of my post had explained my point. There is no similarity between Laurent Robert and Luque. Also, when Souness signed Luque he said he had signed a 'proper' player for the left, which indicates he wasn't expecting Luque to be a hearltess heap of shite. Also, I'd say that over half of the people on here who bang on about Luque claim he's a striker, or at least that he's not an out and out wide man but someone who 'performs' in a kind of left sided striker mode. Whatever that is....... No similarity at all. Right then, despite all of the similarities I just mentioned, most of them pure facts, in your eyes there are none... and Luque is a heartless piece of shite, where Robert wasn't? Dunno what planet you're on, mate, but I have to say it's always such a fucking pleasure debating with you, I like it so much that I'm off to bang my head against a brick wall to recreate the effect.

In "one of the most ridiculous things I've read" (:wink:) you later argued with something that wasn't there - after someone else took the responsibility of explaining to you what they thought my post meant and you took that as Gospel because you couldn't be arsed to wait for my explanation. What are you on about, ducking questions? You said that Souness let a player ( Robert ) go for near nowt and then brought in quite probably the nearest thing to him ( Luque ). I think that's bollocks. If you think it's bollocks too then why are you making out that the two players are similar. " The nearest thing to him for the same price " means what exactly? Already explained this, like... I was talking about style of play, in that Luque is supposedly a left-winger, who doesn't fancy defending much and who has crossing and shooting as his two major strengths, sound familiar? Robert wasn't that great at dribbling and his first touch wasn't that great, which is also very similar to Luque. Despite what they have/haven't offered you're telling me that Robert and Luque aren't similar players when they're on the football pitch in how they play/try to play the game, respectively? I thought you'd be able to tell from the tone of my post and what I said about Souness that I didn't think it was a good move, but obviously not. Other similarities I could offer are that they both joined in August in the region of £10M, are foreign, are left-footed, both set-piece takers, play the same role on the pitch, joined from the leagues their country of origin and have become outcasts of their national teams. All that bollocks as well? My point was that Souness was daft enough to sell Robert for nothing and replace him with Luque for a bomb (which is exactly what happened), which has turned out to be like selling a Gibson and replacing him with an Epiphone copy of a Gibson: a poor version of what we already had, but nontheless an attempted replica, because the Scotsman knew how much Robert's style of play added to the team - but he'd be fucked if he was going to put up with Wor Laurent off the pitch... For whatever reason, Luque hasn't had anywhere near the same impact, some people will blame the injury he got, or him being played out of position and others will just say it's because he can't be arsed/doesn't have the bottle - or maybe he's just not that good (which history would apparently deny.) At the end of the day, though, he still plays the game like Robert did and it would be far more noticeable if we saw him on the left-flank (like he played against Man Utd that one time), but this isn't going to happen with Duff and N'Zogbia here - and I'd pick them ahead of him every time anyway. Despite his brilliance there were days when Robert was just as bad as Luque has been for us so far - surely that is undeniable, which does lend credence to the theory that Luque "might" improve if he's played in his correct position, Robert might have struggled just as much being played up-front, but probably not. But aye, still don't know how you read into that what you did after the rest of my post had explained my point.

Just messing about, it's a quiet Friday night in - arguing with another forum member seems like a good way to kill the time: for the bloke that's always asking people to respond to his points instead of ducking them you've done a cracking job of completely ignoring my response to this: In "one of the most ridiculous things I've read" (:wink:) you later argued with something that wasn't there - after someone else took the responsibility of explaining to you what they thought my post meant and you took that as Gospel because you couldn't be arsed to wait for my explanation.

He doesn't have the attributes to be a man in the PL would be more accurate. Apology accepted. :wink:

Was the least offensive/most comedic insult I could muster.

Well aye, but it's just such an incredible thing to say. I know not everybody rated Robert but he produced for this club. He had his problems with Souness, but even when that twat was manager Robert changed the way we played when he was eventually selected. Some people have bloody short memories. Robert scored and created more goals than the rest of the midfield combined, comparing his contribution with that of Luque is one of the most ridiculous things I've read. Agree totally. I think most people who continue to defend Luque are basing their opinions on snippets they've seen on tv of his time in La Liga rather than on his contributions in black & white. He's looked a poor player almost from day 1. I know he's had a bad injury and he's still settling in etc etc but he's produced virtually nothing when he's had his (limited) chances. Time to bite the bullet and take another big loss on another failure I'm afraid. Wish it had worked out. It hasn't. There's nothing to suggest it will happen. Sell him on for as much as we can as soon as we find someone to fill his shoes. I suggest we could get someone from the Championship to replace Luque's contribution. I said nothing about end-product/contribution, you pair of tarts. If you'd bothered to read the rest of my post, I was merely comparing the fact that Souness thought Robert was useless (which he obviously fucking wasn't, loved the bloke when he was here and he was a massive player for us) and replaced him with exactly the same type of footballer: only a worse version, for the same price that we paid for Robert originally - while selling the Frenchman on for next to nothing. I cannot believe that you've taken my post completely out of context and thought I was trying to defend Luque by comparing him with Robert. I really don't know how you can take that to be defending Souness/Luque, it's completely the opposite. Souness sold a quality player for whom we paid £9.5m for nowt and then bought Luque, a player in the same mould of Robert style-wise, for £9.5m - and Luque has never looked like being the player Robert was for us. That's why it was a laugh... and that's why I called Souness a c*nt for it.

I remember one where he let the ball drop over his shoulder and couldn't bring it down. But it'd be harsh to criticise that. He general touch on the ball was excellent, imo. Aye, gross overexaggeration tmonkey from what I saw last night. Thought Milner was pretty good, looked extremely lively and he was involved in a lot of what we did right. That freekick was a pearler, as well. As for Luque, I really can't be arsed to debate on a grandiose level because no fucker ever changes their opinions/listens anyway so it'd be a complete waste of time, but I thought he was played out of position last night and suffered because of it. However, that doesn't account for the numerous shoddy passes and miscontrols that we saw from him. He did win a few balls in the air against Ndeki mind, and could hardly be criticised for "not trying", I thought he was putting more effort in than I've seen from him so far entirely. Still not convinced he'll make it, but I hope he does - although I can't see him getting near a game in his preferred position, which is a real shame. He's obviously not a shite player but on the other hand he's hardly some technical wizard, like others are making him out to be - and he's not all that quick, either. He's similar to Robert in that shooting/crossing is his real strength (haven't really seen it yet, like), but technically he's not brilliant: touch, dribbling, control, etc. I still maintain that he could be useful when played in his correct position, but it will never happen because of N'Zogbia, Duff and now Martins being at the club. The biggest laugh for me is that Souness let a £9.5m player go for near nowt and then brought in quite probably the nearest thing to him for the same fucking price. What a fucking joke that Magnum PI c*nt is.

Freekick, surely? Couldn't be offside from a goal kick last time I checked. Never saw the highlights of the second half on Football First... in the ground I thought Luque was onside when he scored, glad to see I was right. Thought he did alright in his brief stint, despite getting half-a-dozen long balls to contest for against their huge defence.

Born in Rake Lane Hospital, North Shields, raised on the fine streets of Wallsend and later North Shields.