TRon

100% true.

Short of match practice and Hughton played him wide left, when everyone knows he's no winger. That's the problem with this 4-5-1 pallaver, not only is it ineffective, the players suffer as a result as well.

All said and done i would have took that score before the kick off so fair do's. Ranger and Carroll might be worth perservering with. I thought Lovenkrands was disappointing against cardiff, I don't know how he played here but he got subbed so he can't have been exactly on fire.

West Brom are showing the benefits of signing a decent forward on loan, we are going to have to do likewise to stay in there.

Shame we had to wait for the second half for the penny to drop but better late than never.

Just don't pick him until he's earned it, we have plenty of other options in that position. Let's have players who will run for 90 mins on the pitch.

Just get the points and that will do today, it's been grim from start to finish.

This. He clearly is only playing half-arsed and just doesn't deserve the shirt.

In reality nothing much has changed, Ashley is still asking more for the club than anyone is willing to pay when you take the debt into account. Or perhaps there are people willing to pay what he's asking, but the stumbling block is Barclays and the overdraft. It seems quite a reasonable conclusion to draw that Mort et al can meet the asking price, but are reticent to have to pay off an extra £25m to reduce the overdraft down to Barclays's standard £10m for a Championship club. That money could represent all and more of what they had put aside for transfers and I'd have thought they'd have been very wary indeed of the public reaction should they take over and then have nothing to spend on bringing new players in. Given the general mood of the fans, I'd suggest that any takeover without the means to significantly improve the playing staff would be doomed from the start as the fans simply wouldn't accept it, rightly or wrongly. The overdraft is still a debt, Barclays aren't obliged to loan money to anyone so they have every right to be a stumbling block if Moat or any other buyer is relying on their money to buy the club. Your point? How many times do you want me to make it? So you're trying to say that the actions of Barclays bank are Ashley's responsibility? If you buy a business then you take on its debts as well as its assets, anyone with a brain knows this. It's hardly Ashley's fault that the person who wants to buy his business and with whom he has agreed a price is struggling to prove that he can run it once it's his. Moat would have been aware of the level of the overdraft having done due diligence and it doesn't appear to be a secret that Barclays's standard overdraft for a Championship club is £10m, yet he seems to not have made allowances for that, perhaps he assumed that "We're Newcastle Utd "Big Club"TM, that won't apply to us!". Whatever he thought, it's not Ashley's fault, yet despite that he seems to have done what he can to resolve the issue, firstly by reducing the overdraft and secondly seemingly negotiating a deal with Barclays to let us keep it at £25m, which is two and a half times the amount that they would give to any other club in the same division. It seems to me that if anyone should be getting shit over this it's Moat (just realised I called him Mort before ), but don't let that stop you from believing Ashley is the root of all evil. My calf is hurting today for no apparent reason, perhaps that is Mike Ashley's fault and all, the bastard!!! As it stands, Moat can't afford the club and no one else is buying at that price. So either Ashley sells at the best price he can get or stop putting the club up for sale every six months. Is that too much to ask? Every time the fat bastard puts it on the market we are in limbo for months at a time. Who's choice is that?

At least it won't change the shape, shouldn't make too much difference.

In reality nothing much has changed, Ashley is still asking more for the club than anyone is willing to pay when you take the debt into account. Or perhaps there are people willing to pay what he's asking, but the stumbling block is Barclays and the overdraft. It seems quite a reasonable conclusion to draw that Mort et al can meet the asking price, but are reticent to have to pay off an extra £25m to reduce the overdraft down to Barclays's standard £10m for a Championship club. That money could represent all and more of what they had put aside for transfers and I'd have thought they'd have been very wary indeed of the public reaction should they take over and then have nothing to spend on bringing new players in. Given the general mood of the fans, I'd suggest that any takeover without the means to significantly improve the playing staff would be doomed from the start as the fans simply wouldn't accept it, rightly or wrongly. The overdraft is still a debt, Barclays aren't obliged to loan money to anyone so they have every right to be a stumbling block if Moat or any other buyer is relying on their money to buy the club. Your point? How many times do you want me to make it?

In reality nothing much has changed, Ashley is still asking more for the club than anyone is willing to pay when you take the debt into account. Or perhaps there are people willing to pay what he's asking, but the stumbling block is Barclays and the overdraft. It seems quite a reasonable conclusion to draw that Mort et al can meet the asking price, but are reticent to have to pay off an extra £25m to reduce the overdraft down to Barclays's standard £10m for a Championship club. That money could represent all and more of what they had put aside for transfers and I'd have thought they'd have been very wary indeed of the public reaction should they take over and then have nothing to spend on bringing new players in. Given the general mood of the fans, I'd suggest that any takeover without the means to significantly improve the playing staff would be doomed from the start as the fans simply wouldn't accept it, rightly or wrongly. The overdraft is still a debt, Barclays aren't obliged to loan money to anyone so they have every right to be a stumbling block if Moat or any other buyer is relying on their money to buy the club.

i'd prefer heskey or walcott. goals are overrated. bent might just be the signing of the summer. 1 or 2 decent signings in january and they can finish top half. Bent would have been ours if we had stayed up... and Mike Ashley actually bought anyone.

In reality nothing much has changed, Ashley is still asking more for the club than anyone is willing to pay when you take the debt into account.

I don't really see how Butt can possib;y start today considering the players Hughton will have to leave out to accomodate him. Hughton can fiddle about by sticking his senior midfielders like Nolan or Smith up front, but it it hasn't worked so far, and besides it's clear that without Smith in front of the back four there is no real protection if the pressure is on.

Funny you mentioned the 50k a week midfielders, as after they were dominated and over run on Wednesday, the Blackpool manager was crowing about how his players were on half the wages of their Newcastle counterparts. Hughton definitely got his money's worth out of that lot then.

Based on what? Based on common sense? You don't think Ranger or Carroll have the ability to put the ball in the back of the net from five yards? Carroll's already scored a couple of cracking headers which a lot of strikers wouldn't be able to pull off. I just don't think Lovenkrands is the answer to all our problems which some people seem to think, he's no better than the other strikers at the club, if at all better. I'd love him to do well I just don't think he's that good, hence the lack of interest from other clubs. Carroll and Ranger man one's never scored, the other averages 1 in 5 It's not like we have a glut of goal scoring strikers to choose from to be fair.

Assuming we go for two strikers I'd like to see Carroll and Ranger given a go together. We are at home against a relatively weak side so we should be able to push plenty of men forward and those two would cause plenty of problems for Plymouth if we do. This really is a no brainer selection issue, Hughton's decisions will reveal a lot about his managerial credentials today.

I think it's time to either use Lua Lua or move him on. If the coaching staff at Newcastle don't rate him high enough to play any significant role on a match day then we can only assume he doesn't have what it takes. This is the Championship, a level where he should be able to make an impact yet we are playing central midfielders on the wing and bringing on Geremi as a substitute when we are getting over run like we did against Blackpool. We are desperate for a right wing option at the moment, even to come off the bench, and if he's not up to it, ship him out and get one in.

I would edit it but I can't be arsed

JUst going by that it looks like there was very little pressure on them when they were around our box. The player i would have thought responsible for that was just ambling around. Interesting to see how many players Blackburn were throwing into our box for the second goal as well, wish we could see us doing that more often rather than a gaggle of central midfielders all standing in the middle of the pitch.

I was watching that on tv and jumped so high I nearly went through the ceiling...one of my all time favourite goals. It helped that Ian St John who was co-commenting on Ch 5 nearly had a stroke he was so angry it was a 97-98 league game, was channel 5 even on the air then? confusing it with zeljeznicar (spelling ?) i think. I'm probably mixing it up with the Champions lague qualifier with the Croatian team.

I was watching that on tv and jumped so high I nearly went through the ceiling...one of my all time favourite goals. It helped that Ian St John who was co-commenting on Ch 5 nearly had a stroke he was so angry

The question also needs to be asked why is it that Alan Smith looks better in that position despite being a striker by trade? Even Fergie ditched Butt a decade ago and played Smith there instead.

Why? Didn't he have Nicky Butt alongside him to play that role?