greydos

Good post. Up until a few days ago everyone on here seemed happy with the way it was going, of course we would have preferred to have spent more money and got cover for our fullbacks but one thing that wasn't in doubt was the quality of the players that had come into the club, so much so that people expect Xisco to be class just because of how good the others have been. Without this set up would we have known that Jonas was prepared to buy out his contract? Or would we have managed to not only find a bright young lad like Bassong but manage to get him here on a trial so the manager can get a good look at him? Someone has been on the ball behind the scenes to make these things happen and it would be a shame to lose that. The only good thing about getting rid of Wise would be an end to the constant media circus claiming everyone is stabbing each other in the back. there were plenty of people not happy with the way we were heading. a couple of posters, afar, unbelievable and me got a lot of criticism for highlighting concerns earlier in the window. i don't think Wise has anything to do with getting in Jonas or Bassong, that was probably more to do with the likes of Vetere & Fucillo (scouting) and Jiminez & Llambias (negotiations). There's no reason why the former two can't be retained as scouts as keegan has worked with scouts all his career. I'm not sure Keegan's ire is necessarily directed at the former two, more likely the latter two. while they got in a few players they also missed out on plenty more leaving us with a good number fewer than what we needed. i bet when they missed out on Modric, despite having the owner of his club and his agent in the city, that Keegan was pissed off but was given assurances that things would change. they didn't so Keegan got upset. though there could be more to it than that, or it could be different. The comment about the way it was going was in regards to the recruitment team and the standard of players we've pulled in, although feel free to give yourself another self congratulatory pat on the back for showing concern about not getting enough players in. that's not like you Baggio. disappointing that you resort to crap like this because you can't construct an adequate response. Because you misunderstood the point I was making? As I said, people were disappointed that we didn't strengthen further but nobody had a problem with the set up and the quality of player being brought in, it's only since Keegan threw his toys out of the pram that people seem outraged at the likes of Dennis Wise. i understood the point, it was just wrong. plenty of folks had complaints about the way the club was heading. the mistake you're making is assuming the issue is a matter of the quality of players brought in, i don't think anyone has said that. there were criticisms about keegan not being involved in negotiations, there were criticisms the club wasn't 'pushing the boat out' during negotiations, going that extra mile to secure quality players, there were criticisms over the length of time things were taking, there were criticisms over the amount of money spent and amount of top players brought in ( i think only Jonas and Coloccini are top quality players, Guthrie & Bassong might be in a few years but not now) about communication with the fans, about the kinds of players we'd missed out on and so on. you chose to ignore all that in order to underline a point. it's not self-congratulary to say this, it's stating the facts. JPD you got it absolutely right!! I got slated as a negative nit-picking idiot for merely suggesting it was "curious" that KK said in an interview Wise phoned him and told him he'd got this guy called spiderman IN. KK then said he went and looked him up and he seemed good. The problem i had was not the director of football and Vetere et al scouting players, it was the possibility that the guys were signed before KK okayed them. I think the main problem with NUFC at the moment is that Ashley's bought the club, seen that it was an unsuccesful business and thought, 'i know, i'm a successful businessman, i'll run NUFC like a business'. So he put men in charge of different areas of the company, just like he would any other business. But this is football. Yes it's a business, but one like no others. The characters involved were schooled a certain way. Whether it's sound business princples or not (in terms of pure business, not sports business) in football you HAVE to let one man take care of all the serious football-related matters if his short, 3 year contract, reputation and livelihood depends on it (not saying KK or any other manager's a pauper, merely making the point that you're not guaranteed a managerial job for as long as the company exists and has enough profit to employ you, unlike in a normal business). Please all ignore my post anyway, i'm an insane ranting doomonger

if Ashley tried to get involved in the sale of ANY player he did wrong. This is the manager's choice, and his alone. Ashley won't make the team good on the pitch, Keegan will, with Keegan's chosen tools. Regardless of whether fan X, Y or Z sees a need for a certain player or not. And regardless of whether Ashley agrees with that fan's opinion. Benitez won the champion's league with Djimi Traore and Vladimir Smicer, 2 truly woeful players. But they were useful in the match that got them the champion's league. Crap players do not ALWAYS give crap performances, sometimes they knock out a rare stellar one in a useful situation. I'm not using that as an argument to back keegan on smith, milner and barton. I'm merely saying that the best person, no sorry, the ONLY person who should judge whether a player is worth keeping at a club, especially our club, is KEVIN KEEGAN!! As for Kaka's OP, you prefer to keep Ashley's team because of 4 serious games and 6 pre-season friendlies (and the 4 signings didn't even play in all of these) as opposed to Keegan's 30 year history in football as twice European player of the year and the glorious manager that made us the best football playing club in England?! I always try to respect posters and their views and never try to offend anybody, so i'll merely say: Kaka, i think your view is mistaken.

As one of the vanguard who stuck by Keegan when the s*** was flying last season, nothing depresses me more than the thought he's gone. Unfortunately for all his virtues, KK is a man who wants his own way even when he is wrong sometimes. Wise and Co have done very well in the transfer market and they should be trusted to get on with it, and KK should stick to doing what he does best, coaching, motivating and leading his players. When you start questioning the guy who is bank-rolling the club or demanding certain players are kept you are stepping on serious toes. It would be great if all this could be smoothed over but with it becoming public, I don't think there's any chance. We all know how highly strung he is and how high maintenance he is too. He's stubborn, cantankerous and is emotionally up and down, that's the price you pay with KK though, he's worth the hassle. You do not sell players behind a manager's back though or try to, or make promises and break them, not with KK not with anyone, regardless of the setup. This if anything is the core issue I feel. Yes we had a good transfer window

That's one of the great things about the New Board, they keep our business out of the press

I love the New Board!! The New Board Rule!! I'm so glad Fat Freddy Fletcher and his well-intentioned backing of his managers stuff has gone. That was rubbish. I hated watching my team in the champion's league and uefa cup more seasons than not. I hated aspiration. I loathed having one of the world's most respected managers at the helm. I love mediocrity. I love low spending on transfers. I love screwing over a good manager. I love Mike Ashley!!

Seems like a good guess. Although a few weeks back i was being slaughtered for saying i was "curious" with the transfers in of Jonas and Colo. Apparently the 'obstacles' you speak of aren't obstacles at all. KK's been in complete control of signings. Met the players and seen them play before they signed and everything. So i couldn't possibly work out what obstacles you're referring to

You're right, there was no wow signing

I'm pretty sure Ashley said "we've got the 5th highest wage bill in the league and so 5th is where we should be/will be aiming". He said something along those lines at the start of the summer after one of KK's earliest 'summit meetings'. I in turn, upon hearing the owner of my club, let myself hold a few ambitions for our club and signings. I, as others, have been let down by a poor transfer window. Alas, i'm resigned to floating around internet message boards as a drifting doomonger, my only solice knowing that there are a few other doomongers out there with me who will always look back on the summer of 2008 as when we lost the ability to be respected by other newcastle fans for venting our honest and reasonable feelings about the club we love. (violins were playing in the background of the preceding paragraph)

WE've hardly imporoved the midfield. We've lost Faye as a viable DM and brought in Guthrie in place of Emre. Whilst the latter counts as being better in terms of on the pitch time, the end product he is capable of is unproven. Emre chipped in with a couple of goals and assists in his time here. This doesn't warrant improving the midfield for me until the season's over and we can see what Guthrie's done in comparison. As far as i'm concerned the CM is weaker as we have to play butt in DM. Keeping Faye would have made us much stronger. Wing personnel has improved, wing options has not! We've let a 1 first team winger out, and 1 reserve winger (Troisi). We've brought in 1 winger. That's 2 options out, 1 option in. But granted that option is better than what we had previously. The thread-maker seems obsessed in arguing that us "doomongers" desire mega bucks trophy-wow signings. It's Bollo**s!! I made a list of non-trophy players who i'd have been perfectly happy with that's gone to other clubs for not great amounts of money that would have made this window a success. Even some players who haven't moved but would be cheap. I'll reproduce it here for your benefit, but needless to say some excuse will be given that'll mean it was impossible for us to get these lads in, as we've done so poorly in the last couple of years (though 2 argentinian internationals decided to come) Sidwell, Shorey, Malbranque, Seb Larsson (still in championship) Giles Barnes (another pacy wing option for RM instead of Geremi) Carlos Cuellar (quality and relatively cheap) Wright-Phillips Kompany It remains to be seen whether these reports (now carried on the BBC website) that Keegan's had an angry meeting with Ashley and possibly resigning are true. However, if there is some substance to them, it shows Keegan's got the same impression of this window as the "doomongers" do. Interesting times ahead...

Phew, someone is still thinking straight. But will we get into Europe without adding enough quality first up? I agree with what another poster said earlier, it hurts more that there are players who other teams have signed, who aren't necessarily in a better position than us and not for huge amounts of money. I'm thinking: Malbranque Sidwell Shorey Kompany Wright-Phillips Seb Larsson (Championship ffs, could have gotten him in surely) Giles Barnes (i'd kill for a young pacy right-winger to understudy to our first choice Geremi at RM) Carlos Cuellar Finnan I'm sure there are many others i can't think of at this moment who would have strengthened our first team or squad and wouldn't have cost the earth.

When Robinho gets his many goals and assists and turns in inevitably good performances for the club the one thought that will reassure me is that my injury-ravaged weakened and lop-sided newcastle team are better off without him cause he's only interested in sterling. Keegan said after Milner went in the next few days we'd be stronger as a club. Well, i didn't rate Milner a huge amount but the only play i think we're stronger is on the budget/balance sheet, not on the pitch!

This thread's just typical. After months of being told "we've still got time, judge on september 2nd" september 2nd finally arrives and our fears are proved true, that we have NOWHERE NEAR enough players, and we're told "window's over, let's forget about it and not discuss it until january". Bo*****s!! Our squad is FAR too small. F*** do i care if other clubs wished they'd have got in more too? I don't support other clubs, i support Newcastle!! We need far more players and putting up a squad list where players are repeated in multiple positions just proves it. If 2 of the players who are covering more than one role get injured (like Geremi, Duff, Bassong) we can be literally F*****!! Why don't we list our squad with a player's name appearing once and see how weak we really are. Pathetic transfer window. Might as well have been called the "give your self a handicap window"

If we're going with 433 then there's no place for Zog for me, he just hasn't performed well enough in the middle and is far too lightweight to play there. I would've had Barton in there ahead of Gonzales but he's going to be out for quite a while I assume? And there's no way I'm putting Butt or Duff in there. If we play the 433 we did last year then Zoggy could fill in Martin's role, mostly staying out left and providing the pace threat in behind.

He may have meant the kind of direction where when we make a pass to our right winger the ball has a chance of making back to one of our players again, as opposed to being ruthlessly stepped over and then tackled into touch. With Young and Milner out wide Villa fans are going to see so much cutting in it'll be like a Tony Montana Coke party!!

Against. Football more than ever is a business. Businesses are always (and should be always) free to sell their assets whenever they like. As far as i'm concerned the window's a restraint of trade. Just as the EU sorted Bosman out allowing him to move to another country at the end of his contract for employment, wouldn't surprise me if in a few years they made a ruling on this window system we have now.

All the 'New Board Brown-nosers' have been banging the 'we've still got time...i'm confident we'll bring in the players...blah blah blah' all summer. We now get to a day and a half left (after they told us it's taking this long cause deals take months) and we're still told we've got time (but deals take months don't they?!) Remind me of that story (fictitious) where the King sat on the shore thinking he could push the tide back. The waves came in and rose and rose, and his advisors told him to get up and leave as he couldn't do it. He thought he ''still had time'' too. Silly F***** drowned tho!

Taylor man of the match? Are you insane? Did you not see him jockeying and standing off Nasri about eight yards from our goal before the third? Or his lack of awareness to track denilson's run properly? Or the fact that he almost gave away another penalty? He was s**** man, dogshit. Guthrie wasn't much better either, awful for the first goal. I am insane. I am nuts. I am clearly bonkers. I am a weird transsexual arsenal fan masquerading as a toon fan for the joy of it. If i wasn't so crazily insane i'd write something constructive but all i can think about is eating my fingers off and washing them down with some balsamic vinegar tinged with mosquito blood. From what i saw, Guthrie spent the whole 90+ mins in that 5 second period not tracking Eboue like a truman show loop. What a poor poor game the lad had. Not tracking on a loop. Almost as mad as me he is. But not quite. Cause i'm insane

I see Taylor making those blocks which in one way show great commitment and bravery, but in another way make you wonder why he's not closer to a striker and is looking like "last man standing" so often. Taylor isn't good at man-marking IMO, for a CB that's not a weakness you can carry. The blocks he made were when nasri, fabregas and vela when he dropped off were runing at the defence from deep. You can't manmark CMs as a centre back, it's not right. truth be told Guthrie and Butt should have been chasing back making tackles but htey weren't. I'm not saying Taylor's perfect, or even good (i think Bassong's going to be better at CB than him, but given 5 yeasr of further education his best footballing years from 27-32 will be good ones i feel, very good ones). I'm saying Taylor did at least as well as Colo today, who stepped out to make so many challenges and missed them. If you go high up the park to win a tackle, you have to make it. Colo didn't plenty of times and left holes in behind. But he's new, and he'll learn. He was clearly tired and stretched his calf out on the 78 min mark. Also, Colo daudled on the ball at one point and adebayor almost got in when it needed a quick pass back to shay or a clearance. I'd love to have heard the comments on here if taylor or (dare i say it) bramble would have done that.

Fair enough lads. I'll be interested to see the Opta stats on the amount of shots Taylor blocked. I counted 3 in the second half where he sprinted out to a shot and blocked it from a corner. And fair play not many people will have seen football played with that fluidity of passing and movement at high speed so that's a slightly unfair comment i feel. I've just txt my mate that i feel this year we're going to improve on last year, possibly significantly (signings depending) whereas Arsenal will achieve about the same as last year in terms of position in league and cup attempts. So, in a perverse way, i'll likely be happier than arsenal fans at the end of the season.

Kaka in future by all means debate with me, that's great and what this forum's for. I'm glad you've been entertained like i have watching the team we love for the last 2 hours. But please in future do not feel you have to question my sanity or throw other insults at me. I respect you and would like the same mate. cheers

Taylor was better than Colo by some distance for me. STrong in the air, positionally good and saved what should have been a goal when Colo stepped up to challenge Vela, got turned and it ended up with Walcott 8 yards out hitting it wide at the near post because Taylor's positioning covered half the goal the other side of Shay. Guthrie's passing is immense, just wish he had players with better end product to give it to. I think you must have lost your mind. Coloccini was playing at centre back by himself today. Of course Coloccini stepped up to challenge Vela, he was stepping up to challenge their attackers all game! And he was winning a lot of tackles. That is what you are supposed to do. If it was left to Taylor he would keep backing off till he ended up in the goal with the ball. That is not how to defend. This is why he seems to be invisible half the time. It is because he never steps up to tackle anyone or try to win the ball or apply pressure. He keeps backing off again and again and so ends up in awful positions where he is way too deep in the box. It's terrible defending by a bad defender. I can't believe you've just watched that game and can come out saying Taylor played better. It's quite startling.It's amazing to me. Have to agree. Thought Taylor was subpar. There was a run of play where Adebayor had the ball on the right wing and Taylor just kept backing off and backing off. Jonas came in and actually pressured him for the ball and forced him to make a pass under pressure. And he's still holding his f***ing arms out. I have to disagree my friend. If a striker drops off so deep into his own midfield that he's got midfielders ahead of him, you don't as a CB chase him that far up the pitch. Colo's challenge on Vela was near the half way line at a time when the rest of our defence were closer to the 18 yard box. If this was 2 years ago we'd have been slating Boumsong for chasing strikers wherever they go on the pitch to try and win the ball. But as it's flavour of the month Colo he's praised for trying to win the ball (Even though he never, and from the 39th minute onwards he lost more of those he stepped out for than he won). It pains some people on here to praise the unfashionable players, but Taylor won a LOT in the air today, and got many blocks in. HE stepped out of the line cleverly to deflect many arsenal shots for corners in the second half (Caused by an absent CM pairing not tracking their men). I'm happy to stick my neck on the line: Taylor played better than Colo and Beye. I'll watch the full 90 mins again twice this week and update my opinion if i think it should change. oh, on the adebayor thing, if he'd gone in at him there was a good chance adebayor would have been 2v1 against Bassong as last man as Colo was up and out of the defence again. With taylor's lack of pace against Ade i thought it was a good ploy to back off and actually he did well although a free kick was wrongly given against him. If it was a Ferdinand or Toure with more pace against Adebayor fair enough go in against him. What Taylor could hav done better mind was back off but only show him the touchline and force him down there. Taylor backed off towards goal however (tactic many CBs are taught). The lad does have a bright future tho.

It's true, just as our defence will (generally) benefit from having a Colo in it. Someone with presence, quality and footballing authority. We need a Colo in our centre midfield. Just a guaranteed very solid (potentially) world class player. But we have Butt and Guthrie. The former should only play in a midfield 3. The latter should be the equivalent of Freddie Flintoff bowling: first change.

Was late when they did they second and third. Same as Beye. Or did you meant that he was our man of misery? I don't understand what you're saying here? The second goal was because Guthrie didn't track back with his man causing Taylor to have to come across off his man and Beye couldn't pick up Taylor's man quick enough. When you're having to make a decision on whether to cover the midfield runner or your attacker whilst sprinting backwards within 2 or 3 seconds it's difficult to make a decision. As far as i'm concerned he made the right one, you step over and take the free man and hope your full back, with a better view of the situation than you (more of a panorama as he's behind the play) anticipates quickly and takes your man. Beye never. Will have another view of the third goal and post in response to that a bit later.

He played last year after the same incident towards the end of the season and wasn't roundly booed. Arsenal fans are idiots. Most of the cockney crowd have probably had as many fights as Barton if not more.

Taylor was better than Colo by some distance for me. STrong in the air, positionally good and saved what should have been a goal when Colo stepped up to challenge Vela, got turned and it ended up with Walcott 8 yards out hitting it wide at the near post because Taylor's positioning covered half the goal the other side of Shay. Guthrie's passing is immense, just wish he had players with better end product to give it to.