TRon

It is naivety like. Tiote, Ben Arfa and Simpson are perfect examples of the Ashley way. Buy a player with potential for relatively low figure. See how the player performs. If well, protect the asset. Await big bid, reply by stating the asset is on a long term contract and only silly money will be accepted. Accept larger offer. There's no point in anybody getting particularly fond of a star player because they'll be off within a couple of years for more than they were bought for. The policy is a very good model - just not without it's risks - the key one being morale imho. Hence the talks with Nolan. Pardew will be arguing for a core of players to be here for the long term to ensure morale is ok and Nolan is key to this. Nolan is the perfect Ashley player. Will score enough goals to help secure safety in the premier but still relatively cheap because no big club will want him.

Watch him hoy in a transfer request when Liverpool offer 8m in the summer. I think you can rest easy on that one. However well he's done this season there's a reason why Liverpool chase players like Carroll and Enrique rather than Nolan.

wouldn't that ambition at all costs have seen torres still wearing red ? they can afford more than we can right now, it's quite simple really. How? Their debts are vastly larger than ours. And they probably cottoned on to the fact that he looks finished. maybe they are going to take the gamble we did with owen etc, maybe their new owners are going to bankroll them. Maybe? So they can't afford more is what you're saying. They're doing what clubs who want to be successful do - speculate to accumulate. They've always done that in the Premiership era. We used to. Who do you think will come off the better for it? And it's nothing like Owen, couldn't be more different. Suarez and Carroll are on the way up, not down, for a start. and if it doesn't work,like it didn't for us, do you just keep on spending money that isn't yours ? owen wasn't on his way down, at real he scored whenever he played and played well, the injuries just after he arrived here were what fucked him. It will work though. The players they've got are too good. But their manager is capable of fucking things up and with this win there's a better chance that he will be given the job full time. Dalglish's defensive mindset at Newcastle produced football that would make Sam Allardyce wince. Let's see how he does when the money supply is cut. MON anyone?

He was trying to do the right things but got caught in possession a lot as a result. Really should learn to keep his mouth shut because he's just ended up putting his foot in it big time. While he didn't have a great game, I think he ended up trying to hard to be everywhere. Him and Guthrie just didn't work well enough as a pair.

Nolan makes intelligent runs and that's one thing that he does better than everyone else in this squad. I wouldn't judge everyone else too harshly on this game though as we had our defence, midfield and forward line up totally ravaged with no Best, Shola or Tiote as well.

Pretty much how I saw it. He got no change out of Collins in the air, but then neither did Kuqi when he came on. Rangers best moments were in the first half when he was running onto passes along the floor. He could have played in Loven on a couple of occasions maybe but the passes weren't really clear and he went for goal instead. Not the right game to judge him considering the midfield who were to provide the service didn't really show up.

No one ever goes down fighting. If they had any fight in them they'd stay up.

I know Ryan Taylor is shit but surely he could have put one shift in on the right wing rather than reorganise the whole team by sticking Colo in midfield?

Not so much concerned about Colo being in midfield as about his absence in defence. Williamson and Taylor makes me nervous.

That's not even the funny part...the idea that Ashley would even consider a player in that price bracket is the rib tickler.

The irony is that Simpson is one of the players who loves being a Newcastle player the most. To question his loyalty because he referred to Man U as United is just lauhgable. But then Stevie has always seemed a bit of a prick.

Joey is singing like a canary. Seems like he either wants out or is selling his story to the highest bidder/tabloid rag. Maybe him and Pardew should fuck off together now they have used this club to rebuild their crappy reputations.

Haven't been on there in ages but that just tempted me to have a look. Seeing Leazesmag's mind-numbing essays on the virtues of Freddie Shepherd just confirmed I wasn't really missing anything.

Barton's right in that there aren't many English midfielders with real creative ability, a lot of them are just runners who score goals. Technique wise Barton is streets ahead of the majority in this country. He's an idiot though, because if there was a chance of him getting called up he's booted it into touch with his slagging of current England stars.

When Tiote and a left back are considered Newcastle wank material is it any surprise? Try looking at from a self-confessed Keeganite viewpoint which I'm sure you are.

I had forgotten how good it felt to be a Newcastle supporter before HBA got injured We have done really well considering the setback.

His finishing skills might be weak, or he might just need a run of games rather than 15 min spells as a sub to show what he can do. Either way, if we give him a run we'll have our answer one way or the other.

As a stand in he's more than good enough to do a job. He's never going to dominate games on a regular basis but he has a decent all round game. The midfield version of Aaron Hughes if you like.

This is the main problem. I don't rate Best that highly, but if Shola gets injured we're left with Ranger and Kuqi as options. Hopefully we'll be safe before that happens. We are pretty much safe now, in which case I would look forward to seeing Ranger getting a start, I think he would do well.

Glad to see you're a big admirer of Ashley's signing policy. Nolan has surely proven one of Kinnear's most astute buys for this highly ambitious regime.

Kuqi's full debut inches ever closer.

Fair point. We don't really have a fast counter-attack in our locker and that needs addressing. Not sure about that, the whole move unfolded in a couple of seconds quite far up the pitch after a mistake by Wolves. There was no time for many people to get forward, we did brilliantly to exploit it so incisively. Fair enough, that goal wasn't the best illustration of what I was getting at. I just feel we often don't get the ball forward quickly enough when an opposition move breaks down in our half. I'm not talking about a long ball. I'm talking about players getting forward quickly into space and an accurate pass meeting those runs. In Sir Bob's side, with the likes of Bellamy, Dyer and Robert, we could really hit teams like that. Basically, we lack pace in midfield at the moment. Our only real box-to-box player, Nolan, isn't one for fast breaks. Maybe why HBA has been identified by Pardew as possibly playing as a second striker next season. He would provide the pace outlet very well down the centre.

I don't think anybody's that thick they haven't noticed Nolan's goals, in most cases a midfielder scoring 12 goals would have been put forward as an England candidate. But there's a reason everyone in the media has a wankfest over Gerrard and don't really consider Nolan seriously. While a lot of Newcastle fans don't like it, I agree with them. Which isn't to say Nolan hasn't done well, we just can't expect teams with higher aspirations to think he's the bees knees.

doesn't matter. it's one of those things you're not allowed to say. nolans fat and slow, simpson backs off all the time, steve taylor is honestly shit and it's nothing to do with people disliking him personally, we defend with a very high line....just stick with the orthodoxy and you'll be ok. It's not the case at all. Nolan does cover plenty of ground he just can't cover it as quickly as a lot of other midfielders. But then he can do a lot of things well that other midfielders can't. It just then becomes a trade off which qualities as a team you need.

He probably would but with no premier league goals to his name and limited experience Pardew isn't going to put him in ahead of Lovenkrands. It's catch 22 with the likes of Ranger and Vukic. Personally I think they'll bring far more to the team than some current first teamers but until they are proven they won't be picked ahead of them.