Cronky

I get a bit concerned when people say that Shearer would be a good choice if he gets some experienced back room staff in. If he's going to be the manager, the buck will fall with him, and it will ultimately be his judgement on the line. I'm not saying he can't do it. Just that you won't remove the doubts about his inexperience just by tacking on the idea of a Venables or a Keegan alongside. It reminds me a bit of McClaren having Venables on board when he became England manager. Somehow it felt like a vote of no-confidence in his own judgement, and I do wonder whether all the chopping and changing that went on was down to those kinds of self-doubts. Having said that, I think Shearer's very much his own man, and he'll insist on appointing his own people. I think he'll be very confident about his own judgement. Whether that faith will stay intact once he's in the job - another matter. This is a very high pressure job.

It's all very sensible IMO. I wouldn't have mentioned the 'carpet football', because that can be a bit of a stick to beat the new manager with, but apart from that, it sounded very on the ball. The final paragraph was well worth stating. A manager who has fought their way up during their career to manage a Champions League side isn't likely to fancy starting all over again with us.

When Keegan left Man City, the players were complaining that his training was boring and old-fashioned. The game has moved on, and I don’t think his instinctive, unscientific approach would work any more. Shearer would be the better choice, but if it was between him and Hughes, you’d have to go for Hughes’s experience. He’s already proved himself. Neither Shearer nor Keegan are anybody’s number two. They like to have their own way, and a partnership wouldn’t work.

Yes, but you know why Keegan walked out, don't you?? Because he'd blown all the money. The team had already peaked, and there were only limited funds for re-building. He got out at the right time.

It's hard to imagine two people less deserving of the opportunity. Keegan walked out on us, and Shearer has kept us dangling on a string for the last few years.

I think Hughes is one of a number of managers that could do a good job for us. What worries me is that so many people seem to have their hearts set on a Mourinho-type big name that anyone of Hughes's standing is going to start off at a big disadvantage. The minute anything goes wrong, everyone will be on his back.

Souness wasn't a great choice as manager, but what he's said here is constructive and sensible. The bit about Shepherd interfering in transfer choices isn't exactly news, but hopefully it's a useful warning to Ashley.

I genuinely think that the guy is in it for the thrill of the ride, rather than as a business opportunity. In that sense, he's similar to Abramovich in his motivation. What he has to realise is that if we're going to get to a position where we can match the big four, he has to splash a bit more money than he has done up to now, and / or show a bit of patience with whoever he brings in. What comes across from the interview is that he never really wanted Allardyce. Sam is bound to have detected that, and I think it was also shown by the rather tentative way in which we spent money. It's difficult for a manager to perform well with that 'dead man walking' feeling. It would have been very difficult for Ashley to replace Allardyce in the summer. The take over didn't fully go through for a number of weeks, and new players had to be brought in during the summer transfer window. It all explains that rather strange atmosphere surrounding transfers at that time, where Allardyce didn't seem to know what was going on, and voiced public concerns about whether the new owners were moving quickly enough.

So your advice is to put money on Man U to win the Champion League ? Go for the double, man!

Anyone interested in omens? Probably not, but I'll go ahead anyway. The first time I ever saw Newcastle - 1968 - we lost 6-0 at Old Trafford. The right winger (in that case, Best) got a hat trick. That season, Man U won the European Cup. And the next season, we won our one and only trophy of the last 50 years.

Well that we didn't need. I'm narked with Cacapa. He can't help being slow, and that got exposed a bit. But for the second goal, he didn't take responsibility and passed to a man in a weaker position than himself. That really opened the floodgates. Our usual problems were there. No pace in attack. Poor passing in midfield. In the absence of Faye, a vacancy at centre back. One consolation - Enrique is a strong bugger. Rooney was bouncing off him.

Can't ask for more. We've held out, and had one or two good chances ourselves. In fact, we should have had a goal allowed. I'd like us to get a bit closer to them though. Butt frustrates the hell out of me. The number of good situations he wastes by giving the ball away is unbelievable.

I chose Shearer because he was as near as you can get to the complete package. He could play as a target man, or off another striker. He could head, he could finish from short or long range. His touch on the ball was decent. He was strong, hard-working and his reading of the game was impeccable. His only real weakness was a shortage of pace, but even then, at the peak of his career, he wasn't exactly slow. With all the others, you could spot a more significant flaw. Greaves couldn't head the ball and was a specialist finisher rather than a target man. Lineker didn't graft and his touch wasn't great. The British strikers that I'd put in the same class as Shearer weren't English - Law, Dalglish and Rush. Law in particular was a great player. No defender could keep him quiet for the full 90 minutes.

Sums the position up perfectly.

I go back to 1966, and yes, I'd say Shearer was the best. No-one else has had his all-round qualities.

What attracted Sven to City? Same two reasons that many other people accept job offers. He was out of work and City was the best job that was likely to be offered to him. Those two criteria don't apply to the likes of Mourinho and Hiddink. Let's face it, his reputation was damaged by his time at England - rather unfairly, but if your last job is perceived as a failure, you have a problem. This 'we can do better' syndrome does irritate me, I must admit. As I've said before, it's like a man dying of thirst in the desert, demanding Perrier instead of water. Either would do the job.

Redknapp seems to be in amongst a group of good British managers - including Moyes, Hughes, Curbishley, O'Neill - that lots of people on here have turned their noses up at over the last few seasons. The usual reasoning is that we should be going for a continental superstar in the league of Hiddink, Hitzfeld, Mourinho etc It's very unlikely that those kind of managers would be attracted to us at the moment, and the British managers I've mentioned are more than competent enough to get us moving forward again.

If someone comes in now, they’ve really got to hit the ground running and get hold of the situation quickly. There isn’t time to acclimatise to the English game, and that would rule out a lot of the foreign candidates mentioned like Klinsmann and Van Gaal (assuming they’d be remotely interested). Redknapp would be a good choice in the circumstances. He has the experience and the self-confidence to get to grips with everything quickly, and he’s done well in his previous posts.

I feel very concerned about the way this has happened. It sounds like we were only half-committed to Allardyce and weren't prepared to back him fully in the transfer market. The manager's morale then sinks and we end up with a row, because Allardyce began to realise that he was very likely to be replaced at the end of the season. We seem to be in a Chelsea-type situation, with the owner in the background but wiedling real power through his control of the purse-strings. That can be a bit unsettling to the manager, because the guy he's talking to isn't the one with real power. That bloke is in the stands, listening to the fans. You really wonder whether Mort and Ashley were in agreement on this.

I can't see us attracting any manager of reputation half way through the season. Not in our present state anyway. I'm also a bit fed up of the Messiah-Manager complex which we seem to get into on a regular basis. I think it'll be Pearson till the end of the season. If he does well, I'd give him the job permanently. If not, just go for the best available man and take it from there.

I'm surprised. I wonder whether there was some row about the release of funds during the transfer window. Ashley may have been holding on to his cash, wanting to wait till the end of the season to see whether he really wanted to back Allardyce long term.

http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/newcastleunited/news/tm_headline=flippin--brilliant-kazenga-is-new-gazza-&method=full&objectid=18639746&siteid=50081-name_page.html Thanks. That was a good little read. I do think the lad's got it.

Over the years, his left foot has improved, but only from being terrible to poor.

The most notable thing for me was how relaxed and confident he looked. There seemed to be no doubt in his head that he belonged out there, which is the sign of a great player in the making. The last one of our teenagers that gave me that impression was Gazza. And can we give our manager a bit of credit for a brave decision? 0-0 away in a Cup tie to a Championship side in the driving rain, and he pitches in a 17 year old. That took a bit of nerve.

He's a very different player from the one who scored that goal against Argentina. His pace has gone, and although his touch on the ball has improved, the overall package is not worth 100 grand a week. One of Freddie's sillier decisions, and that's saying something.