TRon

. More than harsh where Taylor's concerned I think. I thought Taylor had a good game. Milner didn't provide much of an outlet, and Duff went predictably back into his shell after enjoying the friendlies.

His shooting was embarassing today. What's the point in having a powerful shot if you are going to panic and blast it high into the stands as soon as the opportunity presents itself?

That quality should never be under-rated as most good passing sides are built around it. He's still a work in progress, but a few of our midfielders could learn from him in this regard.

I haven't seen him before today, but while he eased himself into the game, one or two things he did had the stamp of class alright.

This is a special player. Not only bags of skill and pace but lion-hearted with it. It's a long time since Andy Gary has kissed a Newcastle player's arse but he was forced to pucker up a couple of times today.

Coloccini looked assured alongside Taylor who also put in a decent shift, and Guthrie looked very good at holding posession. Jonas was outstanding and I would urge Duff to try and follow his example. Whenever Jonas got the ball he went fot the Man U jugular, Duff after a good pre-season looked too scared to go at Man U with any real intent. I don't want to dwell on negatives though, as a team we generally did ok. We kept our shape and our heads for 90 mins and it's not often we can say that at Old Trafford. Well done lads.

KK has never given me the impression he really trusts Enrique, but I would imagine he'll be back in the side soon enough, because he is a proper full back and Zog isn't.

This is what leads to players getting booed onto the pitch.

Good post, sums up my thoughts and I didn't know that about Bassong's age. Cacapa by no stretch of the imagination is a PL def. dont think he's bad defender to be fair. Made a good impression start of last season, and after one game (where he was carrying an injury if i remember correctly) he got hammered. Was playing in a piss poor team that gave him/back 5 no protection at all. Not 1st choice, but not a bad back up. He's a good defender technically, but a bit lightweight for the Premier. Faye, in contrast was probably less good technically, but very strong and dominant.

What about Duff? I'm pretty sure KK will pick Duff ahead of Zog. I'm also pretty sure that after sparkling in pre-season friendlies, he'll disappear up his own arse against Man U.

Hopefully Bassong will prove a shrewd buy.

That's what i was arguing. Even if he wanted to be away, we should have been compensated properly for losing a first team defender with Premiership experience. £3-4m would have been more like it.

If KK wants to keep him that's fine by me. Like Taylor though, his performances have to back up that judgement this season.

Still cautious, athough I think we'll do ok. If the next couple of signings address the weak areas in the squad I'll be more than happy. At the moment top 10, with the right additions it could be top 6.

Best centre back we've had for a good while. But he's local and not great on CM2008, so he must be shit. I think it's you and a few others who take the local factor into account tbf.

To be fair to him he has had to act like the leader for the last couple of years due to being paired with utter dross. Maybe he just needs not be the main man for a while and mature a bit. Hope he comes up trumps. I think he needs to stop thinking he's the main man and just concentrate on his game. Anyway, he's committed his future here and he'll get a clean slate from me. Nothing would please me more than to see him have a great season and establish himself alongside Coloccini.

he's not going to score them from his sofa.

Which is why we need a striker. Smith and Ameobi also being gash and Viduka being a fat bastard, leaves us with just Martins. I don't want to be left relying on Owen's reliability or will he/won't he sign a contract saga.

I have been saying for a while that one of our top priorities should be a striker, preferably a target man. Even if Owen stays fit we still need that option because Viduka won't and Smith/Ameobi are not good enough assuming they stay.

Derdiyok or A.N. Other striker will do then.

tbf, every club hopes their best strikers are going to be fit? Well I'd love it if Viduka was available for 30 matches a season but I wouldn't want to plan a campaign around hope in that case.

He's back and 'keen to play' according to .com. Emphasises our lack of fit and available options up front which is no surprise. If Martins is ok then we should be alright. If not we haven't got a prayer.

I hope there's something in the rumours about Derdiyok because he's a striker. I haven't seen him play but the fact we are pinning our hopes on Martins being fit to start against Man U confirms we are short on fit and available options up front. That is likely to be a feature this season unless we strengthen.

Can't say i'd lose a great deal of respect for the man... but it really is a proper bizarre move - unless Faye has made it damn clear that he doesn't want to play for this club. Faye/Coloccini could have had the potential to be so solid. And with a fantastic tackler to the right of them in Beye, and Enrique (or whoever) to the left, it really would represent one of the best back fours in the Premier League. I don't dislike Taylor over-much, but he can certainly be a bit of a liability - he's definitely not of Faye's standard imo. KK has a track record of this though David Kelly and Andy Cole were both sold despite being one of our best performers, KK upgraded with his replacements each though so we soon forgot. If that happens then fair enough. If not we'll have weakened the first team IMO.

30 yrs old isn't really old for a defender, especially if it's only £2m you're talking about. Is Sol Campbell too old? What's his age out of interest?