Cronky

I just find it disgraceful he wasn't there with all the other Ex England managers, still maybe they forgot Kevin Keegan managed England which would be quite easy to forget considering how out of depth he was in international management. Wooooaaaaahhhh, controversial! I aspect you're right. Yeah you may have a point, IF (and that's a big if I never saw him) Hoddle was there then every living England manager attended except Keegan. I'm not Keegan's greatest fan, but in his defence, if he'd attended the service, it would have been a major and unwanted distraction to the occasion, with all that's going on at the club. He's barely been seen in public for months, and the media would have been round him likes bees to a honeypot. My guess is that some informal discussion took place with Keegan beforehand, with a mutual decision that he wouldn't attend.

I agree with this, at least partly. He's only there as the least worst option at the moment. The trouble is we're then losing his ability to create from the middle. Hughton is having to juggle with scarce resources, and given that we're 6-1-1, it's hard to criticise. Having watched Guthrie out in the wing, he's even worse.

He started 2 games for Donny & was a late sub in one game. Is he a right winger? He seem to have played in most postions for 2nd XI. I wish he had his brother pace. He looks like he's got his brother's tunnel vision...let's hope not though. I don't think pace is his problem, but the tunnel vision might be. It may be partly down to a young sub's urge to do something spectacular whenever the rare opportunity to impress comes round. If it's a character trait, I hope it can be coached out, because I actually think he has more natural ability than his brother. I suspect that the main reason why Hughton is reluctant to use him at the moment is the defensive side. Not seen enough of Kazenga to really say, but I'm not sure that he helps his full back out much.

I don't get how, if all the stoppages over the whole 45 minutes added up to four minutes added time, enough could happen in those 4 minutes to result in another 3 minutes being added on. This is a grey area which could do with a bit of sorting out, although it'll never be perfect. Refs will add time on for goal celebrations in injury time, but not in normal time, which doesn't seem consistent. I've also noticed that they'll always wait for an attack to finish, or for an attacking set piece to be completed, before blowing up, even if it means going over the time. It'd be a bit more fair if they blew up regardless of where the ball was.

I wouldn't blame Given for wanting to leave, but he could and should have waited till the end of the season, instead of agitating for a move when the club were in trouble. He left half way because if he'd waited until the end of the season, another keeper might have become available to City and he'd have missed his chance.

Both hanging by a thread? EDIT:And both Shi'ite Saddam was a Sunni. Nya nya.

For a lad of that size and strength, Ranger really is very, very quick. That's what makes him exceptional. Of course, he's not the finished article, but the raw material could scarcely be more promising. If we don't go up this year, I'm pretty sure the Premiership clubs will be in for him.

I'd have been more impressed with Bellamy is he'd confronted that fan before he was pinned down by four stewards.

A larger than life character, experience of living and working in the North-East, popular with the fans, successful experience in management, a much-travelled character who's probably picked up lots of different ideas - he ticks a lot of boxes. Yeah, he's a bold choice that might just come off. I don't particularly want another Ron Manager.

Last season, somehow I always felt he was holding the team back, despite a good defensive contribution. It's like he's a non-leader in a leader's position. He makes predictable, conservative choices on the ball and never looks completely confident, despite his experience. Unlike Smith, I often feel he's passing the buck to his team-mates.

Trouble is, the Keegan issue is closely linked with the ownership issue, even now. It was Keegan's walkout and the aftermath which initially prompted Ashley to try and sell, and the ensuing instability led to relegation. It's the fact that so many fans hold Ashley entirely responsible for this mess that has led to him baling out. His handling of the Keegan situation is the main reason why his competence and suitability for ownership is held in question by so many. However, I do feel that the longer the current situation carries on, the less sense it makes for Ashley to go. The only interest has been shown by people who clearly don't have anything like Ashley's financial muscle. The pressure for Ashley to go often feels like his punishment rather than a rational step. Are we really going to better off in the long term under a cash-strapped local businessman? I know it's unrealistic in the current atmosphere, but I'd have rather seen Ashley given the chance to learn from his mistakes and carry on.

Maybe a suspended punishment for the celebration, just to give the right message to all players. Goal celebrations have been getting a bit out of hand in recent years and they need to draw the line somewhere.

Sky Sports have said that none of the current Premiership clubs would be infringing the 'youngster' rule at present. The financial measures also look fairly toothless. What really needs to change is clubs like Man City and Chelsea spending money that has no relation to their actual income, due to subsidies from a sugardaddy. It sounds like a group of measures designed to head off the stricter proposals that are in the pipeline from UEFA. Nothing else.

The only way they can penalise a player retrospectively is if video evidence shows conclusively that there was no contact at all. That's not the case with Eduardo. It was a daft, impulsive decision which hopefully they'll have learned from.

More tripe. Your far flung location sees you detached from reality but really, there is no excuse given the power of the internet. When Keegan was appointed by fat ash the reality is that people saw him as a manager with some talent who may turn the team into a decent one and who may see us up near the top 6 or so and looking like challengers. Babbling on the way you do about Keegan being seen as a god or something merely goes to show your knowledge of the club and it's supporters is limited to what you read in the media. Love the reference to YOU SUPPORTERS by the way. That tells a story. I suggest you stick to stuff about australia and leave the Newcastle stuff to those more clued up. A rather angry and irrational response which rather confirms what macca was saying. Keegan has a status which, in many people's eyes, puts him beyond criticism. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen him described as a 'legend'. I've also found that when you criticise the man, the response is often one of moral outrage, as though you'd pissed on the steps of the Vatican rather than made an observation about a human being who is as flawed as the rest of us.

We looked a bit ponderous and lacking in pace. It doesn't look like a problem in the Championship, but watching a bit of Premiership football over the weekend did bring home to me the difference in tempo between the two leagues. Not a defeatist whinge, just an observation.

For our best passer, Barton hardly found a team-mate all bloody match. A few went astray, but he's still our best passer. Sometimes the execution was poor, but sometimes I felt the receiver failed to anticipate. They were flat-footed instead of running into space.

In which case either John Bez or his source are talking through their arse. You don't pick up a current Spanish Under 21 international striker for 500K.

Good result of course, but still a bit frustrating, because we wasted a lot of possession. Nolan seemed to have taken over Butt's role of hanging on to the ball too long and then playing a team mate into trouble. Guthrie couldn't find a role. It seems a bit of a waste to have Barton wide left. He did okay, but he's our best passer and I'd like to see him more central asap. On the bright side, I thought Ranger did very well considering he was having to make everything happen on his own. I just hope we get promoted this season, because otherwise we'll probably lose him.

It may well have been a mistake to have a manager answering to a DOF, or to restrict the transfer budget, but that's not quite the point. Keegan didn't walk out because of those things specifically, but because he claimed a player or players were brought in who he didn't want. I'd agree that Keegan didn't like working under Wise, or with the lack of transfer money. That was obvious during his outburst after the Chelsea game. If he'd been employed initially on a different understanding, then that would have been the time to resign. It's therefore hard to escape the conclusion from later events that he was waiting for the opportunity to resign in circumstances where he could actually claim compensation - ie when a player came in without his agreement. Given that he met Xisco and talked about his plans for the club, the only realistic candidate seems to be Gonzalez. In which case it's no wonder that Ashley isn't prepared to settle.

If true, the bit about the Americans dealing direct with Ashley rather than through Seymour Pierce is interesting. Harris has said more than once that he thinks there should be a strong local presence in the ownership of the club. It's reasonable to surmise that he favours Moat. Personally, I think local ownership is a mixed blessing. You often hear that the club should be owned by someone who understands the place of the club in the region, but it's not clear exactly what decisions would be different in the case of a local owner. If anything, we need owners that can resist the pressure and not get sucked into decisions that are driven more by hope and emotion than common sense. A big problem with Shepherd was that, as a fan, he couldn't resist meddling in footballing decisions and showed favouritism to Shearer as the fans' hero. You could look at Ashley and say that he, as an outsider, hasn't done very well. My view is that his overall strategy was fine in the circumstances that the club were in, but his fatal blunder was appointing Keegan - a man whose motivation was suspect, who was unsuited to a long-term approach or working within a team, and whose chief asset was his standing with the fans. In that decision, Ashley was paying too much attention to local opinion, not too little. Of course, some may disagree.

Chopra didn't look strong enough for the Premiership, and didn't quite have the pace to compensate for that weakness. Defenders were just able to bully him off the ball.

To be fair, we're even shorter on centre-backs. Even shorter on winger, only got 1. 2, lovenkrand's i class as a winger Lovenkrands is far and away better up front, which he proved at Rangers. but we need wingers, i don't want raylor no where near our midfield But Lovenkrands is is not that great on the wing. No he's crap, people just think he's a winger becauuse he's fast and left footed, his crossing and passing are shocking, I'd prefer raylor tbh, got alot of our assists this term. sound's just like our only winger, (as his passing and crossing is shocking as well) Jonas' passing is surprising good, he plays alot of dangerous through balls, I never understand where people get this concept that he can't pass at all, he's no Alonso but he's fairly decent. I'd agree that Jonas can pass, but he seems to have a problem when he has to loft the ball. His crosses tend to be too hard and low, as though he doesn't have the right kind of 'golf shot' technique in his armoury. Maybe it's something to do with those long, spindly legs of his.

This is a good point. Joe Cole is clearly the better all round player, but Lennon or SWP add pace to a midfield which otherwise is a bit lacking. Cole is more likely to be the understudy to Gerrard.

Couldn't agree more. Johnson get unfair flak for the goals against Slovenia and Croatia but on both occassions, the centre backs just watched the striker head the ball. Terry was slow against Slovenia and caught ball watching against Croatia. Terry still looks nervous in an England shirt, and ends up making mistakes which he'd never do when playing for his club. There was an instance where Johnson got stick for climbing over Eduardo and risking a penalty, when in fact Terry had failed to pick Eduardo up in the first place.