TRon

it may not even be him, he may say to them to pass etc but if the players can't get through with passing at first with as tempting a target like carroll up there to lump it at its hardly surprising is it? Happens a lot with crouch on the field for other teams I was thinking that as well. Plus we don't have players who are comfortable on the ball, and some of them can't run. Not really a surprise when they hoof it just to get rid of the ball then is it?

I wonder if Hughton will actually make his mind up what style of football we are supposed to be playing now he is going to be made manager? He keeps talking about retaining the ball, then his players whack the ball 70 yards up the pitch towards two beanpoles. Perplexing.

Are you for real??? Would you turn the job down? Yes I would, my self respect means more to me than a few extra quid doing a job that I've got very little chance of succeeding at It wouldn't say much for Hughton's self respect if he thought he had no chance of succeeding. I don't blame him at all for wanting a crack at it, but he should never have been put in this position.

<b>What is there to negotiate</b>? You'd think Hughton was holding out for a better job the way he's going on Money probably. Mike: "You'll get 300k/year Chris" Hughton: "I'd like 500k please Mike" Mike: ""You'll get 300k/year and I want my shoes polished twice a week Chris" Hughton: "ok"

What is there to negotiate? You'd think Hughton was holding out for a better job the way he's going on

Enrique loses the ball sometimes because he tries to keep the ball on the deck rather than lump it long and high. Coloccini is often critcised for fannying about too long on the ball as well, but at least they are attempting to play the ball from the back. It's a shame some of those in front of them don't show for the ball a bit more then we might actually see some passing rather than players losing the ball because of lack of options.

Our midfield was the worst in the premiership last season and has only got worse. Yep. Bad though Harewood was, I don't think it should excuse the poor show from so many midfielders which has been a feature before Marlon turned up. The fact that both strikers were in a constant battle to win high balls and rarely had the ball played to feet shows just what a poor service they got.

Seems this way to me. Dunno if it's lack of confidence or just bad attitude. I hate to say it, but a Keegan-esque coach would probably help a lot at this time. they've just lost the ability to pass and move and seemed to go back to just booting it up the pitch and hope for the best, which simply hasnt and will not work. but i dont see what can be done about it, the midfield have been woefull the past few games but on paper its the only place where we have talent and if their not working then the team falls apart. i think already our team is looking way too thin and cracks are already starting to show, we had 3 right backs on the pitch on saturday,3 central midfielders ( although it was quite easy to forget about nolan) and 3 strikers, so we ended up with a team that had 4 people out of poistion ( as long as you allow Raylor to be called a right back) Imo, a passing game is based on confidence. If you don't have it, then you're liable to hump long balls up the pitch. I don't think we've had that kind of self-belief for about four years, or more. Our squad is the highest paid in the division, we are playing against second rate footballers now...if we still suffer from lack of confidence even at this level I give up.

Harewood's ball retention was shocking and Andy Carroll's wasn't much better. People were moaning about Ranger's lack of goals, but he held the ball up well when he played and we are missing that now imo.

Harewood was shit but we have been putting in poor performances before he arrived tbf even if the results glossed over the fact.

That must be why we play him on the wing then.

You may be right, but when he has two opposition and his team-mate is free 10 yards away he shouldn't try to fucking beat two men, he looks like he has frigging tunnel vision, has no awareness that his team-mates are free despite them and 4000 mental Geordies shouting it out to him. Gutierrez might be frustrating but we weren't exactly doing well before he came on either. In fact we were getting pissed on. I never said we weren't getting pissed on, I expressed an opinion about Guttierez based on what I saw of him yesterday. Based on what I saw yesterday I'd rather see Jonas starting left wing ahead of Lovenkrands every day of the week. Rather remarkably I made the comment that Lovenkrands should never be played on the wing when we signed him the first time and you won't be hearing me arguing for him to be played on the wing at any point in the future either. So basically Jonas is the best option like i said. We agree. If he gains some awareness instead of running around with blinkers on it will improve his game, yes. Yes, if he was better it would be great.

You may be right, but when he has two opposition and his team-mate is free 10 yards away he shouldn't try to fucking beat two men, he looks like he has frigging tunnel vision, has no awareness that his team-mates are free despite them and 4000 mental Geordies shouting it out to him. Gutierrez might be frustrating but we weren't exactly doing well before he came on either. In fact we were getting pissed on. I never said we weren't getting pissed on, I expressed an opinion about Guttierez based on what I saw of him yesterday. Based on what I saw yesterday I'd rather see Jonas starting left wing ahead of Lovenkrands every day of the week. Rather remarkably I made the comment that Lovenkrands should never be played on the wing when we signed him the first time and you won't be hearing me arguing for him to be played on the wing at any point in the future either. So basically Jonas is the best option like i said. We agree.

When people talk about the quality of our players, which ones are they referring to exactly? I'm struggling to name more than three who have looked any better than the opposition in their respective positions in this league. Well thats the whole point isnt it, that the players we have are better than what theyve shown this season. Guthrie, Barton, Jonas, smith, Nolan is a better midfield than any other championship side has available to them on paper. They've also individually put in performances, showing this is true in different games. None of them have been consistant, bar smith. Our midfield should be our strongest area in this league, so we are massively underperforming if we're not dominating the opposition in midfield. Then you add in Jose, Colo & Taylor. Harper behind them. Our foward line is our weakest area & Carroll/Ameobi had been stepping up pretty well until recently. We've actually been pretty awful since signing Harewood tbh. Anyway, this group of players should be far better than near every other side in this divison. Some are underperforming & recently most of them are. Doesnt mean they're all rubbish suddenly & the same standard as the opposition, it means theyre underperforming. Based on their reputations, we should never have got relegated last season as teams like Stoke and Hull had supposedly much weaker squads. Incidentally I don't think we are rubbish any more than we are "far better" than most other teams. I would say we are better than some sides but not by much, and there are quite a few teams in this league who have better midfielders than us, which might give a clue why we look second best sometimes. You say that midfield is our strongest area, I disagree. I think Nolan is too slow, we don't have effective wide players and Guthrie has failed to dominate any game this season. Only Smith has done a consistent job for me.

You may be right, but when he has two opposition and his team-mate is free 10 yards away he shouldn't try to fucking beat two men, he looks like he has frigging tunnel vision, has no awareness that his team-mates are free despite them and 4000 mental Geordies shouting it out to him. Gutierrez might be frustrating but we weren't exactly doing well before he came on either. In fact we were getting pissed on. I never said we weren't getting pissed on, I expressed an opinion about Guttierez based on what I saw of him yesterday. Based on what I saw yesterday I'd rather see Jonas starting left wing ahead of Lovenkrands every day of the week.

You may be right, but when he has two opposition and his team-mate is free 10 yards away he shouldn't try to fucking beat two men, he looks like he has frigging tunnel vision, has no awareness that his team-mates are free despite them and 4000 mental Geordies shouting it out to him. Gutierrez might be frustrating but we weren't exactly doing well before he came on either. In fact we were getting pissed on.

We've got a winger in LuaLua but he needs a number of games before we will know what he can do. He has loads of pace and he's direct but he hasn't got the experience or bottle to shout at his team mates for the ball, which will only come with games. LuaLua would have defenders shitting if he used his pace to run at them. Id play Jonas on the left wing as hes the best weve got in that position and I think hed play better if we had a threat on the other wing and we werent trying to play everything down one wing all of the time when we do play wide. Id also play Ranger and Lovenkrands up front and keep Carroll and Harewood to come off the bench in the second half if needed. Ranger was playing really well and just needs his first goal to go in and then I think hell become a much more dangerous player. Hes going to gain nothing from sitting on the bench at this time in his career, he needs games. Lovenkrands seems to have more pace and control than both Harewood and Carroll and Id expect him to do more with the ball if played to his feet than the other two. Our central midfield should be Smith and Guthrie from the start but Guthrie should be replaced in the second half as he doesnt have the stamina to play 90 minutes. Weve very little creativity in the centre of our midfield so we need something else to worry the opposition. The only thing we have to offer is playing the ball wide to spread play and were not doing that because of who we are playing. Agree with a lot of that, Ranger and Lovenkrands definitely need to be brought into the striking equation, as both Harewood and Carroll showed zero ball retention ability yesterday. I think Lua lua is probably going to be a waste of space though, he looks like he suffers from headless chicken syndrome.

I don't mind Forest looking good and giving them credit for it, it's us looking shite and playing woeful football that I have a problem with.

We might have the best squad in the league, but it's debateable. One thing is for sure, we are not so much better than the majority of the teams in this league that we can be confident of winning enough games. How many players can you name that stand out above the rest of the dross in this division for example?

So we should be happy that Ashley would have final say over the manager on all transfer dealings? Dont all owners though, otherwise every team would have every player they need or want? Someone has to approve the finance at some point. Not sure he means he picks the targets. Was just about to say this. An owner will always have final say, though that should really just be within financial constraints. However, I can still see Ashley signing players over the managers head, which isn't something every owner will and should do. especially one who hasn't got a clue about football.

He only came in because we didn't want to rely on Carroll and Ranger all season. After watching Carroll's pointless header's into empty space yesterday I'm not confident he's going to produce much either, other than nuisance value. They're both as bad as each other. Carroll's flick-ons were mostly poor all game long, but the odd good one he did manage to do, Harewood was making the wrong run or coming back from an offside position. Harewood looks to me like he'd be more effective running onto passes rather than fighting for high balls, although his attitude in general was shocking. Carroll was falling over his own feet at times and both of them had the first touch of a senile rhino. The big forest lad playing up front on his own put the wto of them to shame

Even if that's complete fabrication, you can still see the sense in it. Just because Ashley thinks the club is worth£100m/£200m/£400m or whatever, doesn't mean anyone else does. If ashley wants to sell he had better get on with it imo. From what I'm seeing from the team, automatic promotion is far from guaranteed and if we don't go up the shit will hit the fans.

He only came in because we didn't want to rely on Carroll and Ranger all season. After watching Carroll's pointless header's into empty space yesterday I'm not confident he's going to produce much either, other than nuisance value.

When lovenkrands plays in midfield it's like playing with three men in that area. well two and a half, as Nolan can't get up and down the pitch either due to lack of pace and stamina.

Every game we play seems to be against decent teams according to the wisdom on here. The truth is there are no decent teams, just a bunch of relatively fit teams who will run hard and we don't have enough quality to rise above them on a regular basis.