Mowen

What a depressingly shit and boring game. At least it went to pennos, that was the least I deserved after boring myself to death for what felt like an eternity.

Exactly. Fact is pretty much everyone who watches SSN will support England, but very few will give a fuck about Newcastle. It's the logical thing for them to broadcast; I'd imagine not much of the audience really cares whether or not he'll complete the full 90 against Blackburn and/or Watford.

The T-Bone was abys tonight. As per. Get rid!

Decent half, couple of half-chances. Owen looks as though he's not too far away from full fitness/sharpness. Oba's through ball for the disallowed goal was class as well, maybe an aspect of his play we'll start to see more of now there will be people in front of him more often? Thinking back to his ball for Duff at Wham as well. DJ - if you can get on to the site at work I'd reccomend http://www.sportinglife.com/football/popup/football365/ as a much more readable commentry update, they put something in about every minute and it gives you much more of a feel for the game than the beeb.

Would be reasonably pleased with that team. For all I've slated him over timme Carr hasn't been as much of a disaster at LB as he could have been - so far at least. Makes a bit of sense to stick with the same back 4.

Back to the main point; does anyone think we'd actually try and sign Bellas if he was available for a decent price, without selling Martins or Owen somewhere else? They're three good players who aren't particularly similar in styles but it would certainly be very unusual for a club to have its three leading strikers all so small. It really would make a creative CM an absolute priority.

A lot of judgements will be made on the Owen/Martins partnership before the season is over, it's inevitable.

No he's not. He's just been forced into that role this season because there's no one else. You can see that from his play inside the box, it's virtually non-existant half the time. His movement is poor. He isn't the goalscoring predator that you describe - that Owen is. Hopefully the goalscoring burden will be lifted off him when Owen returns. Ok, so if he's not an out and out goalscorer let's judge him purely as a supporting striker. In the role of supporting striker he's nowhere near as good as Bellamy regardless of whether or not he can "fill in" as an outright goalscorer better than Bellamy. Maybe not, but it's a bit harsh to say that when he's not played alongside a striker yet. Bellamy worked very hard for the team and did an excellent job for us but Martins, up top pretty much on his own, has had to be more selfish and go for goals himself more. He also hasn't, as was mentioned, had as good service as Bellas had. I loved him when he was here but I'm just not sure he'd be the same player second time around.

I think it's a tad unfair to compare how Bellamy did for us with how Martins has done for us so far in so much as Bellamy was playing with pretty much his perfect partner in terms of playing style and Oba has been playing with shit midfielders.

Why would we think otherwise? He was an average journeyman player, seems ot be a relatively ok coach, and fucking totally unproven scout. But yeah, lets send him round the world, rather than an actual scout. Genius, that. Why would you just assume he was going to be shit at it though? There's no reason to think otherwise, but there's also no reason to think he is.

What makes everyone think Lee Clark is a shit scout?

That's a great shout, as is the Viana one. I think Viana's edges it for me, if you hit enough long balls you're always going to put in some class ones (see: Titus Bramble), but the guile and class of Viana's pass makes it stand out for me.

Your point being? I would have voted for Berbatov instead of Rooney myself. I think his point is that Rooney is a far better player than Berbatov and ahead of him in pretty much any pecking order in the world except for this years PFA team of the season. It's a perfectly reasonable and logical comparison to make and I can't believe you need it explaining.

I thought he was from Newcastle? On what basis is he Scottish? Or is it just that if you're born close to Scotland you qualify?

I wouldn't be so sure about Spurs, like. I've been to WHL a fair few times as it hasn't been too tough to get tickets in the home end over the years (live in the south) and even been to a couple of school organised trips for next to nothing, been pretty quiet in my experience. Last time I was there was the 2-0 capitulation under Souness and the whole game was eerily quiet. We were made to sit all game as well.

Fratton Park is probably the (consistently) noisiest ground, mainly by vitue of being so small. Man U's away fans are pretty loud.

capable of becoming a decent defender? mate he's 31 this year They'll be saying the same thing of Bramble when he turns 31....

I think it's fairly obvious that passion is something that's down to a matter of personal opinion, but which takes into account a number of things that affect a persons mood and behaviour, even going as far as the feeling in the area during periods of success and failure (mainily the day/night after games, but can be extended). I would imagine a genuine desire to follow your team through thick and thin is a measure of passion: perhaps from a one-eyed view but one of the things that most exemplified passion in recent history imo was the performance of the NUFC fans at Cardiff when we were getting raped by Man U. I'm sure there have been many others by other teams, but you tend to remember things like that about your club more than others in my experience. Just about to press post and I've thought of another - Celtic taking 100,000 (reportedly, iirc) fans out for the Waffa Cup final in Portugal(?). That to me is a display of passionate fans.

Something along those lines for me. I'd probably have Bolton in there now, mainly as I can't see them leaving any time soon. I'm in the Wimbledon camp as well. Probably bring them in for Wolves and Coventry.

I can't believe you felt the need to quote the longest post I've ever seen in order to post an 11 word comment about it.

They might not be as good as Bramble (I would argue that a couple are/were better) but none of them have the potential to drop a bollock from nowhere the way Titus does. I've never seen as inconsistent defender.

Living in the past! Would you honestly rather a match-fixing cheating bastard team who shouldn't even be in the Champs League this year went through, rather than a team who happened to beat us to the title by virtue of getting more points in a season 10ish years ago?

madras - that line claims Spurs have an intereest in signing Titus

Exactly. How many times has he 'turned the corner' or gone on a run of 4-6 games where he's played well? He's a liability and always will be, and I'd imagine I'd always think I was in with a shout if I was a striker coming up against him. It can't inspire too much confidence in the rest of the defence either, wondering how far away the next cock-up is.