TRon

Reality is our first team is now worse than it was in December. Of the £10M Kinnear allegedly was handed for transfers, the club have spunked a whopping f*** all, not counting profit from the sales of our best player and a whinging French c***. harper or given? given is better, although its a lot closer than some people think. nolan or butt, geremi, smith or the ever reliable barton? thats easy. lovenkrands or n'zogbia? a player who wouldnt have ever kicked a ball for us again or anybody? easy. taylor is very versatile and a decent player who'll add depth. if kinnear was handed £10 million then blame him if you're not happy. I've seen you made this point a few times already, but up until this week N'Zogbia was willing to play for us and arguably one of our few players capable of creating anything resembling a goalscoring opportunity, which is something you completely fail to consider.. Not to mention one of the few players who could run 10 yards without needing an inhaler. Not to mention that he was a whinging little s*** who has been trying to get away from the club for the past three years, Or that despite running around the pitch aimlessly with his wonderful "pace," he was a complete headless chicken who's produced about as much as Damien f***ing Duff over the past three years. That's bollocks though. He's produced vastly more despite having no more than a dozen games in the same position. Same numbers of goals and assists. Roughly the same number of appearances (around 60 over the past 3 years) because Duff has been injured so often. Zog is case in point #1 of the "OMG he's got pace he's got to be awesome" syndrome. What other positive qualities are there to his game other than being able to take on his man once in a blue moon? Duff also creates smooth, creative moves maybe once every couple of games. But when he does it it's a one-off. Zog just looks better because he's moving really fast when he's doing it. Neither contributes enough. How on Earth do you come to the conclusion that they have the same number of assists? I'd count the number of games N'Zogbia has played on the left wing if I could be bothered. Bet it's no more than 15. Because they both have an assist and a goal apiece this season. They're both players who rarely produce anything of substance. As for Zog, he's played around 15 games on the left wing this season alone. Charlie got seven assists last season. Duff has one in the past two years. Your last sentence is ludicrous. I count seven (3 wins, 3 draws, 1 defeat, including our best run of the season). So I went and actually did the research. Dear God I don't believe I bothered to dig all of this up. Duff has 67 apps, 5 goals, and 6 assists in the past three seasons. Zog has 68 apps, 5 goals, and 10 assists. So yeah he does assist more. Still pretty piss poor records for both though. As for Zog's games started on left wing this year Coventry City Away Win Arsenal Away Loss Spurs Home (CC) Loss Blackburn Home Loss Everton Away Draw Wigan Home Draw Chelsea Away Draw Boro Away Draw Stoke Home Draw Portsmouth Away Win Spurs Home Win Wigan Away Loss Liverpool Home Loss The two Hull fiascos Blackburn Away Loss That's sixteen starts on the left wing. Ludicrous? Most of those 68 games of Charlie's have been at left back so it's a ludicrous comparison in terms of goals and assists, yet he still manages to come out on top. They're also largely in fits and starts rather than a consistent run in the team which makes a massive difference in terms of form and confidence. I've underestimated the amount of games he's played there, you're right, but some of them in there are wrong, the two Hull games and the two Wigan games mainly. He was having a superb run before Wigan (a), was shuffled to LB for the despicable Duff and that's where this current fiasco with him started and ended, at the JJB. "Most" of his games? Wake up man! The whole idea of using Zog as a left back only even started under Big Sam last season. He's played the majority of his games on the wing. Incidentally, Charlie's scored 3 of his 5 goals from the left back position. Would you rather make a comparison based solely on both players' starts while playing in their preferred positions? I can guarantee you it wont' be any more favorable. Face it, the only reason you love the despicable French waster so much is because Damien Duff occasionally kept him out of the team The team's results with Charlie on the left are far better than with Duff there, I'd be happy to see a comparison but since the club's worst run of form for 40 years started and ended with Damien Duff's return and subsequent binning, I reckon I'm right. You've got it the wrong way round. I despise Duff because his name has been used by idiot managers to ruin the best young player we've had in 15 years - that and he's been one of the worst players to play for Newcastle in my time supporting the club of course. It's pointless man. You get the same criticisms of Martins, despite the fact when he's out of the side we look like a fucking Championship team, full of a bunch of one-paced wonders passing the ball carefully sideways and getting beat.

But no one said he was that good. Just better than Duff, something that only other clubs seem to appreciate. The fact he moved to Wigan shows he just wanted a first team place.

Why would he want to play for us as Duff's understudy?

Good assessment. I could have stood losing Zog and Given if we'd used the cash to bring in quality players but we didn't.

Zog opens up games by running past players and taking them on. Duff looks like he's on a stationary bike in contrast and I'm interested to see how Lovenkrands actually uses his alleged pace because I haven't seen him go by anyone in his limited time on the pitch. Fuck the stats I prefer using my own eyes to judge a player and £8m says I'm right and the 'Zog is shit' camp is wrong.

Short term fight against relegation we have probably strengthened slightly, if only in adding balance and depth. Long term we have de-valued the squad as Given and Zog were desirable players to other clubs, I'm not sure the three brought in will be by the next transfer window. Taylor looks the best bet. This is hardly the Wenger blueprint we were promised, more like the Stoke City one from where I'm standing.

Reality is our first team is now worse than it was in December. Of the £10M Kinnear allegedly was handed for transfers, the club have spunked a whopping f*** all, not counting profit from the sales of our best player and a whinging French c***. harper or given? given is better, although its a lot closer than some people think. nolan or butt, geremi, smith or the ever reliable barton? thats easy. lovenkrands or n'zogbia? a player who wouldnt have ever kicked a ball for us again or anybody? easy. taylor is very versatile and a decent player who'll add depth. if kinnear was handed £10 million then blame him if you're not happy. I've seen you made this point a few times already, but up until this week N'Zogbia was willing to play for us and arguably one of our few players capable of creating anything resembling a goalscoring opportunity, which is something you completely fail to consider.. Not to mention one of the few players who could run 10 yards without needing an inhaler.

The window in my bathroom's still open. Is that any help? There must be a stinky turd labelled "NUFC" floating in the pan. I think it just got flushed down the toilet at 5pm.

The window in my bathroom's still open. Is that any help?

I have no intention of joining the NUSC or other pressure groups because they aren't in a position to provide solutions, all they can do is make the current situation even more miserable. I can't begin to express my disgust at the way this club is going though. A manager who should have been here a month, and instead is now wrecking our squad with his crass handling of players. All the talk of a Wenger blueprint ending with signing a journeyman from Bolton. The laughable last minute attempt to sign Johnson from City after handing over Given. All the useless talk about Veloso and M'bia (the next Viera according to Joe) then bidding £4m. Absolute joke.

Could we have made a serious bid for Darren Bent? Yes.

We got £8m for him he can't have been that bad. Or maybe Steve Bruce is stupider than Joe Kinnear?

We wanted Johnson as part of the Given deal, but Man City said that they could get more money for him by just selling him. I guess part of our master plan was to try it! I realise we have a bunch of Delboys in charge but I'm not sure even they are that incompetent.

Why was it so important to supposedly chase Johnson rather than Donadel or Veloso? Or Bent?

The three players we've brought in are distinctly average, with Taylor probably being the one I'm happiest about, at least he's young. We won't ever get back the £4m we spent on Nolan though.

I think we might get a draw at best. Everyone is going to be deflated and unmotivated following this shambolic transfer window.

He tried, didn't he? Also, on deadline day in our situation, showing intent isn't at the top of our priorities, staying up is. Michael Johnson would have done little to nothing to help us do that, yet now everyone are certain that we're going. Had he signed, I bet you that the tone on the forum would have been completely different. Somehow I had this feeling we would 'try' but fail to make the signings at the end of the window. I was pretty sure that we would manage to sell Given and Zog though. If we could find buyers I'm pretty sure Enrique and Xisco would have been out the door as well.

To be fair, with a complete cretin in charge there is no way we were ever going to buy foreigners with potential and promise - Kinnear's a more 'good old English clogger' type of manager. The fact Xisco has barely been given a chance shows this. Despite the speculation I'm not sure that Donadel or Veloso are JFK type signings Which is why I said it was bollocks at the time. Kinnear probably breaks into a cold sweat at the prospect of managing Scottish or Welsh players, let alone some Portuguese international.

At one point he said Wise was doing the buying and selling. It has been said that Wise has been sacked. Perhaps that explains the shit business. It certainly does, as Joe likes to sign players he can have a game of darts with over a pint. These fancy dan Veloso's wouldn't be much up for it would they?

He has looked a broken man of late, wouldnt be suprised to see him walk. Hope so. That would instantaneously make this the best transfer window ever. If Kinnears walks then who will take this job. What difference does it make, we're getting relegated anyway

Maybe they just didn't come off as planned? A bit like when we were quoted £10m for "the next Viera" M'Bia then offered £4m. Funny how deals like that don't usually come off.

Because it was bollocks just like the Veloso yarn.

Where did those two loan signings go?? Which ones were they again? Not been in long from work and I'm just trying to work out what has and hasn't happened. I'll be fucked if I'm wading through the last 54 pages. Wasn't it last week when Kinnear said two loan signings were practically done and dusted? I lose track of the bullshit during the transfer window there's that much of it. Gladly have managed to resist the urge to tune into SSN today as well, as I fully expected things to turn out as they have done. Been great fun on here though! This place is going to be mental tonight. Not a great window by any stretch but we've lost 2 players who had no intention of playing for us again and brought 3 players in who do want to be here. No doubt if Ashley had sanctioned a huge bid for Johnson and got him, he'd have been criticised for 'panic-buying' and throwing away the cash recklessly. Not bad but not great. I'd have liked a very good CM with the £8m spare but there you go. The problem with buying lots of players when there's an injury crisis is that you're left with them when everyone's fit. Is Johnson going to be this window's Shweinsteiger? "Oooh we nearly had him but..."