chicago_shearer

Butt has been worse than Pattison today.

He isn't a scapegoat. It's that he's a rotation player turned into a regular first teamer because of poor transfer policy and some people expect too much from him. He's a decent young player in a league of Petrovs, Ronaldos, Bentleys, SWPS and Ashley Youngs. This isn't his level and people need to stop being sentimental and accept that fact. At the moment, I hope he can stop being so crap and help us work our way up the league. But next year, we need to cut him loose and upgrade to a real Premiership winger.

What Keegan really needs to do is drive James Milner out to Birmingham again, tell him he's being transferred, then at 23:59 tell him he's changed his mind and that he's playing on Sunday. Last time that happened Milner had a good spell and wasn't so shit.

Fingers crossed for Sibierski and/or Bernard.

Wish we had signed him instead of Hugo Viana back in the days when we were a good team and top European talent had some interest in joining.

All the vice-president's men won't save Newcastle What is it that Newcastle's dazzling raft of appointements are actually meant to do? http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/01/31/all_the_vicepresidents_men_won.html I kid you not, in the last 2 weeks the Jazz music editor AND now the celebrity gossip editor of the Guardian have both written articles slagging off Newcastle. I expect a piece by George Monbiot on how environmentally unfriendly the club is next week. I mean, FFS. It is beyond belief.

Hope we get Barnes. Would brighten up a fairly dismal window.

Butt wouldn't start for Fulham or Birmingham. He is past it.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm not giving up on Rozehnal and Cacapa. I don't know exactly why defenders who come to this club magically become shit, but get rid of them and they will inevitably sign for a team with decent midfielders and look capable. We need a right-winger, two central midfielders (one creative, one defensive) and a forward, at a minimum. If there is money and time, a left back and another creative midfielder would be preferred. Basically, the midfield needs to be gutted and rebuilt. Zoggy the only survivor.

Honestly, can someone please convince me that this is all down to training, tactics and confidence? Are there really top half players under there somewhere?

Why the f*** would you bet against the team you support? For the same reason you put Adebayor in your fantasy team. It eases the pain.

This team is so poor. It has nothing to do with tactics, or pride or anything like that. Just bad players.

Wow. Big changes. ttp://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/sport/latestsport/2008/01/28/jeff-s-in-no-rush-to-make-his-move-89520-20301124/ Profile of Jeff Vetere - former Rushden manager who went to Real Madrid.

Alexander Frei at Dortmund. Regular goal scorer, experienced, little risk of adapting to the league. Would be expensive and may not be interested, but more likely to sign than some of the names mentioned.

----------Given----------- Carr-Taylor-Cacapa-Jose Duff--Roz-Butt-N'Zogbia -------Smith-Owen------- Bench: Harper, Carroll, Ameobi, Lua Lua, Milner

Do not agree witrh this. Who in your opinion then are the bottom 6 that are on a par with us, our of interest? If you compare Birmingham or Fulham's options in midfield with our own, I don't think you'd find a number of players that are clearly inferior to our own. I just don't see Butt, Milner, Emre as particularly effective players given the standard set by the top half teams. They aren't top 6 (or even top half) material. As I said, I don't think we'll go down, but I'm not kidding myself that we're anything more than average in most areas.

You'd have to have an unreasonable amount of faith in the ability (and maybe the attitude) of our players to think we won't struggle without some new faces. With one or two exceptions, our players look and play like bottom 6 material. KK may be the messiah, but I can't see how he's going to take 6 years off Nicky Butt, give Milner the skills he needs to play his position, teach our defenders how to defend etc. Not to mention I'm not sure where the goals are coming from. Relegation seems unlikely, but a struggle is on the cards I'm afraid.

I will say this much; I did not expect our January signing to be Dennis Wise.

There are many reasons we have bad players, poor form and zero activity on the transfer front. Alan Shearer is not one of them.

Koumas probably would improve us.

I dunno. We just need to give KK some time to turn them back into footballers. Not a case of that! They make to many mistakes and are shocking tbh! Don't think he can get anymore out of them Exactly. This isn't a kneejerk based on today's performance, but players like Carr and Butt are past it. Occasionally the put in a good performance, but it has been many years since either of them were at their best. No other team aiming for the top 7 (City, Villa, Pompey, Blackburn) would have them anywhere near their first team squad. Then you have players like Enrique, N'Zogbia, Taylor and Milner who are too young, too inexperienced and too limited to be playing regularly. Necessity (brought on by injuries and poor transfer policy over the last few years) have made them into first team regulars, not merit. That applies more to some than others, and it doesn't mean they are bad players. But I don't think N'Zogbia (by far the best of the bunch) who is very promising and very talented, should be playing week in, week out. And I don't think he would be at another mid table club like Spurs or Man City. You really shouldn't be building a team around young players with very obvious limitations who then take big knocks to their confidence when they are unable to perform at the level of real professionals. We have players like Viduka, Owen, Duff, Martins, Emre, Beye, Faye who are good enough. And they should be playing better. But on the balance of things, I don't think there is enough quality and I don't expect Keegan to improve much on our current league position. Not his fault though.

Is it really a lack of belief or a lack of ability?

How did Milner do?

Aye, Milner has been terrible. You've watched ONE game, haven't you. Jesus. Which of Milner's recent performances have impressed you? What do you think he brings to the team? What does he bring to the team? He's the best right winger we have, he takes full backs on, and he creates space for others to support him. His crossing has been gash for the past few games, but he's not a bad player. I'd rather have him on the right that anyone else at this point. If we were jettisoning players after 2 or 3 indifferent games, we'd have an entirely empty first team. I don't think he's bad player either but it's gone beyond 2 or 3 indifferent games now. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he just needs to be rested for a couple of weeks after the amount of games he's played over the last 18 months, but fatigue aside he doesn't really offer enough to be a regular in a team hoping to compete with the top 6. He certainly doesn't offer pace, which is what we're going to need tomorrow and why i would have opted for Kazenga. I agree, but I don't know if we should be throwing Lua Lua at the deep end. What we need is a new signing in that position. Milner hasn't really made the leap from promising young player to Premiership regular successfully IMO. That may sound harsh, but it's a big question whether his positive attributes (skill with the ball) make up for the deficiencies (pace, passing & cross ability). He has the right attitude, which is why people like him, but there seems to be a big gap in between what he is capable of at the moment and what you expect from a player in his position in the Premiership. He is one of the players that should improve under Keegan, but in the short term we need a better option.