Theregulars

When Asprilla completed his hat-trick against Barcelona.

I detest Arsenal. Ever since Wenger took over most players there turn into one or more of divers, fakers, niggly foulers, foul-mouthed tossers, players who constantly hassle the referee and usually get away with it and just general cheats, including some bright lights along the way like Ian Wright and Patrick Vieira. Pricks. This season the baton is being carried by Eboue and Flamini. I also hate Everton, mainly because their players on paper, up until this season at least, are largely shite yet they still do well. It's not so bad anymore, but when they first got into the champions league on the back of fouling, bruising and just general attempting to batter teams down it was annoying. I also hate Tim Cahill. I've also never forgiven them for that time they beat us 2-1 at their place when Gravesen committed one of the most ridiculous fouls of all time on Bernard at 1-1, got away with it and then they won a penalty which won the game and effectively stumped our title challenge that year. Bah. I also hate Boro and Fulham because their presence in the EPL is pointless.

Alan Smith is not a decent player to bring on. He's not a decent player to start, have on the bench, in you squad, in your club, near your training ground... he's bought on mercifully with ten minutes left when we are winning comfortably to justify his incomprehensible hype, transfer fee and wages. He's piss poor, has been all season, no rational NUFC fan could claim anything otherwise having watched him this campaign. Sell, sell, sell. Useless. Don't really care about Duff - would like to see him in this new team to see if he does OK, but hasn't really done much at all. Think Milner in Geremi's role could be canny.

I honestly think it's a lot down to the fact we finally dropped Alan Smith.

Man shirt disasters... I got 17 Bellamy a week before he changed to ten, 27 woodgate a few months for he changed briefly to number 6 and moved to madrid. I did once get one saying 0 Souness.

by unless I mean unlike. My bad.

I still think he's awesome but in three years he's never been fit enough to have a good run in the team and kick on. Starting to run out of patience. Think Keegan will keep him though because he clearly likes what he brings to the team, and I think KK could get the best out of him to be fair, unless the other excuses for managers he's had to work under.

Man I got Viana on the back of my shirt once. And Kluivert.

Fairly sure it will be the same team as yesterday, perhaps with Emre or N'Zogbia coming in for Barton (both very preferable). Would also not like to see Geremi in the team as he's crap.

Also somehow, some way it's Alan Smith's fault.

How can we hide our shit central midfield? Ummmmmm..... not pick the same players who make it shit week in week out? I might be onto something but I'm not entirely sure.

You just know he's going to play tonight. Milner's injured so Smith will be given that right-wing role he's so adept at filling. Based on all the games Keegan has been in charge since his return, how can he not possibly look to try Viduka-Martins ahead of both of them? I'm trying to see Keegan in a positive light but it's getting horribly difficult. Perhaps after another 0-3 tonight with Smith managing one shot into the crowd he might realise, but I'm not holding my breath. I look away every time he has the ball. Maybe if we all did that live, observing an eerie silence at SJP and away grounds, somebody would get the message. Or something. Oh God just get Alan Smith out of my team.

Do tell me, just where has Smith's scrapping and defending from the front got us so far? NOWHERE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Wake up and smell the rotting turd that is Alan Smith's NUFC career. If we really want to defend from the front, play Faye up front. I daresay he'd score more goals than Smith anyway (and he has done from the back). Scrapping and fighting is what we need in defence and central midfield (although I still don't advocate Smith here, as his scrapping is useless anyway), wingers, one CM and strikers over creativity and goals. THERE IS NO NEED FOR SMITH TO PLAY. EVER.

Think Wilko was probably lower during all his time out injured.

I know it's wrong but there's a bastard in side of me that hopes he'll pick up some form of injury, not horrendous, just enough to keep him out for the rest of the season but serious enough so that it keeps recurring next season. He hasn't picked up a booking in a while which is annoying me. I would seriously support the idea of booing him, just to get him out of the team. Words cannot convey how much I hate this man.

On the Dalglish front I think his major issue was that he based all his plans around Shearer and was completely tactically hamstrung when Shearer got injured, so Tomasson suddenly had to bear the burden and completely went missing. However, I totally agree that not backing Robson sufficiently after we finished 3rd and sacking him at a completely useless timei s the root of all this - Souness was a total gobshite, I think even Freddy knew that, but nobody else was available/ebverybody else turned us down. That has seen the beginning of this monumental slide. That said, even Souness had us clear of relegation.

I almost don't know why I still bother: Harper Beye Faye Cacapa/Taylor/Diatta (Taylor/Cacapa both as unreliable as the other, don't know anything about the latter) Enrique Milner Geremi Emre (if injured Barton for pure lack of other option) N'Zogbia Martins Owen/Carroll/Viduka If Milner doesn't make it, I'd say Lua Lua, not Duff, because he's been pants. Just as long as Smith is nowhere near the line-up we'll have a chance, but he'll probably be asked to play every position because he's obviously amazing and we just don't realise it. Don't want Barton to play but if Emre is injured nobody else has legs. However, fully expect to see the same disappointing, non-sensical starting 11 that has seen us fall into probable relegation.

To be fair it seems like all you are saying is he'd do better at a club with lower expectations because they wouldn't mind it so much that he's so ball-burstingly useless.

Pressue or no pressure, there's no excuse for how piss poorly the players we've invested in have performed and there's no excuse for the continuously daft team selections. Sure, the pressure is high, but it wouldn't be so high if the players and management et al hadn't dumped themselves in this situation in the first place. Also, if I got paid as much as they do, I reckon I could make a good fist of playing in front of 52,000 people a week and representing and admittedly over-bearing public fan base.

I don't care for all this excuse-making on his behalf. Great, he tries 100% - I'd rather have a player who tried 5% and actually did something once in a while. The fact that some of our other players don't give as much and run around as much as him is totally immaterial. The plain fact is that he is useless. A half'fit, unmotivated Mark Viduka, with 3 goals to his name or whatever it is, has already scored 3 goals or whatever it is more than Smith will probably ever score for us. Giving 100% isn't a solid enough basis to get in the team, everybody should do it regardless. The fact that some don't while he does speaks more about our desperate transfer policy than it does as a justification for picking him. There is no justification. He is crap. Nobody can dispute this.

We all know he's better than Smith. We all know he should start ahead of Smith. We all know he won't. End.

I don't think I could possibly be a Toon fan and say we won't win. But I have as much doubt as I possibly can, within reason.

Keegan's words are encouraging - we need to ditch the Allardyce approach and just give it a try. Every man and his dog knows that they're superior to us on every position on the park, and should get spanked if Torres and Gerrard play, but if we play like we did last week and actually convert similar chances into goals, it shouldn't be too cringeworthy to watch.