Cronky

Dummett looks like a top quality full back in the making. Potentially far better than anyone we've got at the moment. We should be giving him experience at every opportunity. Regardless of how you rate Dummett at the moment, it's not like either Santon or Debuchy are looking all that great.

Brummie is actually saying that the behaviour of the clubs is inexcusable, regardless of the context of their decision. Your point is correct though. The financial penalties for relegation or missing out on the CL (if that’s what you’ve budgeted for) are huge. Until that situation changes, we can expect clubs to be very risk-averse. Thirty or so years ago, the game was played at a different pace and the demands on players’ fitness weren’t as great. Teams could play in midweek without putting themselves at as big a disadvantage at the weekend, as is now the case. That’s another factor. Given that all the club has done here is be honest about a situation that openly affects every club in the Premiership, I found the general reaction here a bit annoying.

unless its Newcastle who blatantly admit it in a public domain and for me that is inexcusable and frankly a kick in the teeth to all paying fans ,boycotting is the only way to show him we will not tolerate it anymore . What's there to admit? Every Premiership club has the League as its priority and will rest players during the cups. We all know that. Why demand honesty from the club and then complain when you get it?

Doesn't every Premiership club prioritise the League over the cups?

Stevie G seems to have acquired a lot of uncoolness recently, so him.

Agreed. I reckon Arsenal and Chelsea have an advantage over the rest with their managers experience. City too as most of their players have won the league too. AVB takes the Europa League seriously too which would be a factor. If Arsenal can sign another striker or maybe another CB, they'll come very close to winning it or actually win it. I think Arsene has a huge advantage over everybody else. His team is settled and he's only adding in pockets of class. I agree about Arsenal. Giroud has really improved and whilst they could have done with buying another striker, his form could make a big difference. There's no-one better than Wenger at bringing out the best in individual players.

I'd say we're passing the ball through the midfield much better. That's one significant positive. We don't have a dominating defender so we do look quite vulnerable. Given the players we've got, that's not going to improve much, so we may have to rely on the attack. And not wishing to go over old ground, but we ought to try something other than Cisse.

On what basis is Debuchy better than he is showing? Because he did well in the french league? Thats a poor league and getting poorer by the second outside of the artificial clubs of PSG and Monaco. Because he's a French international? Thats not much of a reference these days. The problem with Cabaye is he doesn't want to be here so why the hell would he put much effort in. Because I watched him several times and he could run, hold a position, put a cross in, and make proper decisions. I know people have decided amongst themselves that the French league is poor, but I don't believe it is the step up in class to Hull City that is making an accomplished footballer play like he has taken poorly cut hallucinogenic drugs. At times he panics, like he's not used to the Premiership yet. The pace is that bit faster and he needs to concentrate that much harder in order not to be out of position. I think in English football, full backs are often faced with opponents running straight at them, whereas on the continent they're more inclined to pass their way round a defence. I suspect that Debuchy is still getting used to that. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that he'll adjust. It's a test of him mentally as well as physically.

Virtually all of our squad are here simply because we offered them more money than anywhere else. Of course there's going to be no leadership when none of the players truly want to wear the shirt. I don't think our lot are any more mercenary than the average set of Premiership footballers. The problem is that, since Nolan left, we don't have a natural leader-type who's a first team regular. Colo seemed to get the job by default - there really wasn't anyone else at the time. Trouble is, he's not particularly vocal, his commitment has been shaky in recent months, and his concentration can waver, as yesterday. The only player who really seems to shout is Krul, and I'm not sure it's all constructive. There are issues with making a goalkeeper captain anyway. But perhaps because his command of English is the best out of our huge foreign contingent, he finds it easier to let off steam to his team-mates. I don't think there's an easy answer, because I look at the first team and I can't see the alternatives. Possibly Sissoko but there may be a language issue there. There may also be problems in effectively demoting Colo. But given recent events, I can't see that either Colo or Cabaye are in a good position to start laying down the law with their team mates on the pitch.

I really don't get the idea of setting a deadline by which he must score. Suppose he's crap against Leeds but manages to get a tap in?

It felt like there was a lack of leadership on the pitch - an issue that's been aired before, I know. It really showed in our defending. It doesn't help that Colo and his possible successor Cabaye, have both wanted to leave the club in recent times. We need someone of strength and commitment out there.

Terrible defending for all three goals. Debuchy was way out of position for the first. For the second, Colo got distracted, lost his man and made no attempt to recover. Ben Arfa tracked back for the third but didn't try hard enough to stop the cross. In attack, I'm not sure if Campbell is ready, but I'd like to see him given a start against Leeds, see how he does. I daresay he's very raw, but he's just the sort of player we need up there. Benny didn't look mentally up for it. All the praise from last week seemed to have gone to his head, and talking about becoming a Newcastle legend isn't great preparation. Just get your head down and concentrate, man.

I'd give Dummett a run at left back and let Debuchy and Santon fight it out for right back. Right now, I'd have Santon ahead.

I just think he's been promoted to his highest level of incompetence. He doesn't have enough to his game to hack it for a team that's trying to get into the top half of the Premiership. It feels like he half knows it, but isn't battling hard enough, like he's bought into the idea that the service is the problem, not him. Form is nothing to do with it. This can happen to certain strikers, who can score prolifically at one level, and be suddenly out of their depth at another. The crinklies among us will remember the classic case of Ted MacDougall, who scored something like 42 and 37 league goals in two successive seasons in the Third Tier, got snapped up by Man U, and then sunk without trace. It's very hard to tell what Pardew's real thoughts are. If there was a chance of getting rid of him for a decent price, we should have taken it and replaced him. We seem very conservative, and reluctant to let players go, but skilful trading can be very beneficial.

Well if he keeps picking him, he's bound to score eventually. Then many of his supporters will say isn't it great we persisted with him, he's proved the doubters wrong. That's the trouble with the thinking that develops around so-called 'goalscorers'. The purpose of the team is to win matches, not to get one particular player scoring.

Anything particularly juicy about us? Well, plenty, but nothing that would come as a complete surprise. IIRC he talks about a split between the younger members of the squad, centred around himself and Dyer, and the older members, centred around Shearer. He speaks highly about Shearer's ability as a footballer (before his fitness declined), but paints a picture of him as stand-offish with the younger members of the squad, and a bit of a bully. He also says there was tension between Shearer and Sir Bob, who were almost in competition as twin heroes to the supporters. Bellamy hero-worships Sir Bob, and is rather more sympathetic to Souness than one might expect. That's the gist of it.

I've just read Bellamy's book. Not outstanding, but far better than the average footballing memoir. The section on his time at our club is well worth a read.

If anything, I'd have said Shearer was better at heading in open play rather than set pieces. In open play, his ability to read the game and time his runs to exactly where the ball was going to end up was quite uncanny. Sir Les might have had a better leap on him, but no-one was better than Shearer at arriving at the right place at the right time, and getting the better of defenders, one way or another.

Classic English centre forward, I'd say. Strong, quick, good in the air with a powerful shot. A great spearhead in that side of 96. Technically not that great though. That's what separated him and Shearer.

I'm not sure about crossing becoming less effective, but Barca (and to a lesser extent Arsenal) have had a big influence with their emphasis on keeping possession, a useful by-product of which is the opposition being starved of the ball. A cross aimed at a centre forward turns possession into a 50-50 battle, so they often seem to prefer to keep the ball on the deck even when they've got behind the defence and are pulling the ball back. The emphasis is on maintaining control. The other thing that occurs to me is that whilst the striker, midfield and full back positions can be made more flexible, teams do still need to protect the centre of their defence with two centre backs. The CBs can't afford to stray too far away from that area, following a roving striker. So you're now getting a situation - again, say with Barca - where they have virtually a six man midfield, outnumbering the opposition in that area whilst the opposition centre backs have to stand, watching and waiting with no-one to mark, unable to desert their area. Used correctly, that gives them a big advantage. So in other words, managers are starting to take advantage of the fact that the centre backs have to remain in place, even when they've got only one or even no strikers to mark.

I think the main reasoning behind the movement from 4-4-2 to 4-3-3 is to avoid players in relatively static positions who are waiting for the ball, which can be an issue with two wingers and a centre forward in a traditional 4-4-2. The emphasis is towards players in more fluid roles, making runs which open up space for one another. It's why I can't see any future for the idea of allowing Cisse to remain in a poacher's positiion, whilst wingers feed him with chances. It's too predictable and inflexible for the top level, these days.

I think the option of 4-3-3 / 4-5-1 has given managers more flexibility in how they put together a midfield. It's then easier to find roles for players like Hatem. 4-4-2 can be a bit of a straitjacket.

Yeah, I wonder about his attitude, and how well that's going down with his team-mates. He avoids difficult physical challenges and often looks like he's a bit above it all. He didn't seem to participate much in the goal celebrations. The Wonga episode looked like a bit of a pose, given other aspects of his lifestyle. None of the others, Muslim or not, felt the need for a public demonstration of their supposedly finer feelings. That thing of inviting a group of fans to his house looked like a rather naive publicity stunt proclaiming himself as a great guy, more than anything else. I'm all for footballers devoting part of their spare time to community work, but a line should be drawn at the point of their home lives, and the whole thing won't have impressed his team-mates, however good it looked in the papers. I just wonder if he's getting a bit isolated off the pitch, as well as on it. He was definitely in there for the group hug for one of the goals like, that's just plain wrong. On my recording, I can't see him at all in the second, and in the first, he arrives a bit late and it looks rather half-hearted. But I can accept there may be different opinions about whether he was 'participating much' in the celebrations. At the end of the day, that was one detail amongst others, in the making of a general point. Team spirit and solidarity is very important, and he looks a bit too full of himself. Watching it again I suppose Cisse didn't jump around that much in celebration, but is that not just his laid back style? If he's not committed to the cause then you would expect Pardew would be the first one to pick up on that. Maybe you are drawing too many conclusions based on what you think might be the situation. Well of course it's all speculation. As for Pardew, he's not going to have a go at one of his strikers when we're so light in the department, but it was interesting that in Gomis we seemed to be going for a player who would provide precisely what Cisse is not delivering ie an aggressive, physical presence up front. I had my tin hat on when I wrote the original post. I thought my points about his attitude to his team-mates as shown by the Wonga issue and the home invite issue, were more likely to cause a reaction. Whether he intended it or not, the first contains the message 'I'm a better Muslim than you', and the second suggests, 'I care more about the fans than you do'. They were gestures that may have got him some applause outside the club, but would probably have caused irritation within it. At the end of the day, his relationships with his team-mates will have a far bigger bearing on results than his relationships with supporters.

Sissoko was marking Benteke and totally lost him after some great movement by Benteke. Maybe so - but Benteke is one of their main central forwards so it should have been one of the CDs marking him.. They'd have already decided who was marking who, you can hardly blame the centre halves for sissoko losing him. Unfortunately, neither of our centre backs are great at defending set pieces. They've got other qualities, but that's not one of them. Sissoko may well be the best bet.

Yeah, I wonder about his attitude, and how well that's going down with his team-mates. He avoids difficult physical challenges and often looks like he's a bit above it all. He didn't seem to participate much in the goal celebrations. The Wonga episode looked like a bit of a pose, given other aspects of his lifestyle. None of the others, Muslim or not, felt the need for a public demonstration of their supposedly finer feelings. That thing of inviting a group of fans to his house looked like a rather naive publicity stunt proclaiming himself as a great guy, more than anything else. I'm all for footballers devoting part of their spare time to community work, but a line should be drawn at the point of their home lives, and the whole thing won't have impressed his team-mates, however good it looked in the papers. I just wonder if he's getting a bit isolated off the pitch, as well as on it. He was definitely in there for the group hug for one of the goals like, that's just plain wrong. On my recording, I can't see him at all in the second, and in the first, he arrives a bit late and it looks rather half-hearted. But I can accept there may be different opinions about whether he was 'participating much' in the celebrations. At the end of the day, that was one detail amongst others, in the making of a general point. Team spirit and solidarity is very important, and he looks a bit too full of himself.