TRon

Mmm... The same shit team who got a great 1-0 win at Everton and have since been took over by a new owner and have signed Barton SWP and Ferdinand... Not saying they ate worldbeaters but let's not get carried away... Classic NUFC banana skin awaiting us in front of the watching millions... I think we need to remember that despite the results we have been over run for large periods in all 4 games this season... Would love to say I don't have your fear as well, but, no, have it in spades. Barton is bound to have a major impact on the game as well. Just hope to God that it's the 'have fight with Taraabt and both get sent off' kind, rather than the 'sets up two, then scores the third' kind. I'm reckoning a red card myself. Although another possibility is he is almost anonymous. That would do too. I just have this feeling that Barton and SWP will be totally underwhelming and our midfield will be fizzing all around them. I think a sneaky away win is definitely possible.

Cabaye looks like he'll be a great player for us, but I'm still more excited about Ben Arfa. Both of them paying together is the most exciting thing of all though Makes a change not to be pinning all of our hopes/optimism on the fitness of one foreign gem Isn't that pretty much what we're doing though? Love what I've seen from Cabaye so far, but if he's got two of Ba, Shola, Best and Lovenkrands starting up top ahead of him he's not going to do much damage tbh. Cabaye AND Ben Arfa That's my point though, without some sort of quality in front of him I fear Cabaye won't be as effective as he could be. I was going to say the same thing myself in response to Rich's post. I am pinning my hopes on Ba showing what he's capable of now the fasting business is over.

Excellent post.

Same here. I really can't be bothered even thinking about signings in January after the failure to get the striker we needed this summer. I just hope Ba and Best step up to the mark and we can just get on with enjoying what was promising to be a very interesting season.

I'm sure there's one called BenArfa BenArfa as well. Or something like that.

When do you play Forest ? It isn't a premier league team, no ? (What division ?) We play them on the 20th September, it's a League Cup game. Nottingham Forest are a Championship team. That's just brilliant news. Barely two weeks away

Quite funny to think that we might soon have a surplus of options at full-back. Raylor/Simpson/Santon/Perch/Saylor @ RB; & Ferguson/Santon/Raylor @ LB ...and Paul Dummett. Admittedly, they are of varying quality, but considering we barely had bodies to throw in those positions not so long ago it is still quite the turnaround. CB looking a bit threadbare. Two of the three left backs you mentioned are right footed. Even the genuine left footer is not sure whether he's a full back or a winger, so while the right back area is well covered in a poor quality sort of way, left back is still very questionable. Although Santon might prove all the fears misguided if he excels there.

I said this earlier, but if you are only willing to spend £8-10m and pay 50k a week you aren't going to get a proven striker unless he's past his sell by date. For that price all you can buy is promise such as Maiga or Connor Wickham and with promising players there is always a risk. It's the market we want to trade in so why complain about it?

Shola, Lovenkrands and Best are among our four current best strikers. How can our B targets not be better options than them? Well any transfer is a gamble, and it's possible to spend a lot of money and not end up with a better option. But I find the way you've put the dilemma quite strange. Instead of looking at the players you don't rate that highly and saying we can find someone better, shouldn't we be aiming to get in the best player that we can possibly land? At the least, better than Ba, who I assume you feel is our best striker at the moment. To put it another way, if all we end up with is someone marginally better than our weaker players (as you define them), would it not be better to wait? Unless what we've seen of Ba is very misleading we are still missing a Bellamy type of player who will run down the channels and play off the big man. The two we have are Ben Arfa possibly, and Lovenkrands who is not fit for this level. Relying on Ben Arfa to be fit for most of this season is optimistic at this time when no one knows how completely he's recovered from a serious setback. So yes we should have brought someone in. Even Bellamy himself if no one else was available. I'm sure he would have preferred first team football here to sitting on Liverpool's bench. Don't forget Obertan was hinting that he hoped to move into a more advanced striking role when we bought him. /Not that I'd particularly want him there myself on what I've seen (and I can't see him getting many games up front now Barton has gone), but you never know. I saw Obertan playing up front in one game and he was sat back on his heels whenever there was a header flick on from the striker. I don't think he's a natural forward and I doubt he'll get many goals. Lovenkrands is the closest we've got and he's abysmal. We might just have to hope Vukic or Sammy step up quicker than we hoped, although neither are genuine strikers either.

I don't think it should be hard to drop Taylor. He's done the job asked of him manfully but he's still a very limited player who won't offer any of the options Santon does. We've missed Jose's ability to bring the ball out of defence and Santon will give us that again. Get him in.

I have a feeling Mehdi Abeid will prove to be a quality addition before the season is out. Speculation at this point, but when talking about the strength of the squad he might be worth considering.

Seriously it's great that we now have two French posters here. They offer great insight into the abilities of our French players.

Shola, Lovenkrands and Best are among our four current best strikers. How can our B targets not be better options than them? Well any transfer is a gamble, and it's possible to spend a lot of money and not end up with a better option. But I find the way you've put the dilemma quite strange. Instead of looking at the players you don't rate that highly and saying we can find someone better, shouldn't we be aiming to get in the best player that we can possibly land? At the least, better than Ba, who I assume you feel is our best striker at the moment. To put it another way, if all we end up with is someone marginally better than our weaker players (as you define them), would it not be better to wait? Unless what we've seen of Ba is very misleading we are still missing a Bellamy type of player who will run down the channels and play off the big man. The two we have are Ben Arfa possibly, and Lovenkrands who is not fit for this level. Relying on Ben Arfa to be fit for most of this season is optimistic at this time when no one knows how completely he's recovered from a serious setback. So yes we should have brought someone in. Even Bellamy himself if no one else was available. I'm sure he would have preferred first team football here to sitting on Liverpool's bench.

Pretty ironic saying people need to let it go when you sound pretty bitter there. What's bitter about it? It seems to be far more based on reason than championing Barton's value based on his now legendary twitter crap.

Shola, Lovenkrands and Best are among our four current best strikers. How can our B targets not be better options than them?

I must admit, despite liking some of Bendtner's attributes I could never convince myself enough about them to actually post here recommending we sign him when we had the chance. He's always seemed like a shit finisher to me and I hate that in a striker. Even now if you pushed me would I rather have him or Ba, I'd still plump for Ba tbh.

Which is one of the major reasons I was happy to see us sell Nolan, as though he did well as an individual, as a team we could never move forward while he was in our midfield because of the football we would end up playing to accommodate him. Carroll is a good striker but not for a team which is built around a passing game.

I agree our attempts were rubbish, but even more worryingly I think we were serious. It seems pretty obvious that the transfer market is a difficult place to do business. There are differering agendas from players, their agents and the clubs themselves and they all have to be dealt with. We seem to be ok at identifying and closing in on release clauses and free transfers. We can also pick out a bargain. But to me we have demonstrated that there is a lack of the right sort of negotiating expertise in our structure. There are times when a bit of flexibility is required. One of the journos (Edwards?) said we are always looking for the perfect deal when, at times, you have to bite the bullet and pay a full price for a player you really need - and I think that view is right. Couldn't agree more. What annoys me, and I suspect a lot of other people, is that "the perfect deal" is sometimes paying a bit more to get a component you need rather than look at it in isolation. If we had to spend an extra £2m on signing a striker it would probably have been worth at least that just in finishing several places higher in the league table, generating excitement and therefore higher gates and so on. I just don't understand our mentality sometimes. By all means work within a budget, but when you've banked so much money from sales why not invest a bit more in the players who will take you on a level? It makes business sense to do so for most people. I'm not entirely sure it was a case of just offering a higher price, but more worryingly that extra nous is needed when the target player's club do not want to sell. Lets face it any idiot can transact a deal when the club wants to sell but we seem to lack someone with the the ability to make it happen when they don't. During the last days of the transfer window the only forwards who moved were discards and if we are aiming higher than that then we need someone involved who is capable of making it happen. Ruiz is the one I can't get my head around. If there were no players of the right quality available then fair enough, but why wait all summer then bid for Ruiz at the last minute? Because we were hoping to sign Mobidu Maiga despite Socheaux telling us repeatedly that they weren't going to sell without getting a replacement? What utter s***. Did we bid for him ? I think Sky need to keep some kind of frenzy going on the last night to maintain audience figures. They could have probably said early on that no one was going to be signed but that doesn't keep the large Newcastle interest going, so the mad presenters spout a load of guff and the punters keep viewing. Jim White strings the audience along building up their hopes and keeps them watching the adverts. Considering his name had never been mentioned until the last day and no one from the club has mentioned him at all I wonder if there was ever anything in the Ruiz story apart from Sky feeding internet sites and vice versa. Cue hysteria and much wailing but nothing of any substance. If Sky made up that crap about us having a helicopter waiting to whisk Ruiz to Newcastle then I'm surprised our board didn't call them on it and deny it outright. It would have totally blown Sky's credibility out of the water to make up such a lie, so the fact that no one from the club has denied it means: a) it was true b) Llambias was happy for the story to run even if it was complete bollocks either way the board don't come out of it very well do they?

I agree our attempts were rubbish, but even more worryingly I think we were serious. It seems pretty obvious that the transfer market is a difficult place to do business. There are differering agendas from players, their agents and the clubs themselves and they all have to be dealt with. We seem to be ok at identifying and closing in on release clauses and free transfers. We can also pick out a bargain. But to me we have demonstrated that there is a lack of the right sort of negotiating expertise in our structure. There are times when a bit of flexibility is required. One of the journos (Edwards?) said we are always looking for the perfect deal when, at times, you have to bite the bullet and pay a full price for a player you really need - and I think that view is right. Couldn't agree more. What annoys me, and I suspect a lot of other people, is that "the perfect deal" is sometimes paying a bit more to get a component you need rather than look at it in isolation. If we had to spend an extra £2m on signing a striker it would probably have been worth at least that just in finishing several places higher in the league table, generating excitement and therefore higher gates and so on. I just don't understand our mentality sometimes. By all means work within a budget, but when you've banked so much money from sales why not invest a bit more in the players who will take you on a level? It makes business sense to do so for most people. I'm not entirely sure it was a case of just offering a higher price, but more worryingly that extra nous is needed when the target player's club do not want to sell. Lets face it any idiot can transact a deal when the club wants to sell but we seem to lack someone with the the ability to make it happen when they don't. During the last days of the transfer window the only forwards who moved were discards and if we are aiming higher than that then we need someone involved who is capable of making it happen. Ruiz is the one I can't get my head around. If there were no players of the right quality available then fair enough, but why wait all summer then bid for Ruiz at the last minute? Because we were hoping to sign Mobidu Maiga despite Socheaux telling us repeatedly that they weren't going to sell without getting a replacement? What utter shit.

You think? No one wanted him on a free transfer, why do you think he's going to go to a better club when he's a year older and you've got to pay a transfer fee if you want him? Fair point but I don't see him lasting at QPR for a variety of reasons and think he'll be attractive to more people next year when other clubs who had already spent their budget this window may find the funds or see a gap that needs plugging that they didn't see this month. Wouldn't even surprise me to see him go abroad. So when he's a year older, on higher wages, suddenly clubs will become more interested in signing Barton? Seriously, Barton fanboys need to get past their delusions that he is as highly rated by other clubs as he is by them. He's had his best season for 4 years and still there were no takers from any established top flight club even on a free. He might be a hoot on twitter but on the pitch it's a pretty expensive package for a midfielder who struggles in his natural position these days.

I agree our attempts were rubbish, but even more worryingly I think we were serious. It seems pretty obvious that the transfer market is a difficult place to do business. There are differering agendas from players, their agents and the clubs themselves and they all have to be dealt with. We seem to be ok at identifying and closing in on release clauses and free transfers. We can also pick out a bargain. But to me we have demonstrated that there is a lack of the right sort of negotiating expertise in our structure. There are times when a bit of flexibility is required. One of the journos (Edwards?) said we are always looking for the perfect deal when, at times, you have to bite the bullet and pay a full price for a player you really need - and I think that view is right. Couldn't agree more. What annoys me, and I suspect a lot of other people, is that "the perfect deal" is sometimes paying a bit more to get a component you need rather than look at it in isolation. If we had to spend an extra £2m on signing a striker it would probably have been worth at least that just in finishing several places higher in the league table, generating excitement and therefore higher gates and so on. I just don't understand our mentality sometimes. By all means work within a budget, but when you've banked so much money from sales why not invest a bit more in the players who will take you on a level? It makes business sense to do so for most people.

The questions are all valid but it's a bit pointless even attempting to answer them IMO. When you have had 7 months to replace your main striker but failed in several attempts due mostly to not wanting to spend the money to persuade clubs to sell, or wasting too much time on targets who had no interest in coming, then there really isn't any justification which would satisfy fans. Action speaks louder than words and our rubbish attempts to bring in the much needed striker said everything about how serious we were.

If he's played at left back for Mourinho at Inter Milan and won praise from the special one, then he can obviously do a job there. Ideally we'll buy a genuine left back at some point and he can move across to the right. Or maybe Shane Ferguson will push for the left back spot. Santon will add a lot going forward in any case, and he seems to have the Enrique knack of matching opposing wingers stride for stride then dispossessing them.

Hopefully he's just as averse to leaving Newcastle as Shola. In which case the board can offer him a £100/week rise and he'll gladly take it. knocking back a 150k a week offer from King Kunny Dalglish.

That would vindicate the board's policy of not communicating with the fans then. They could turn round and say there is no point seeing as the fans already know the answers.