Mick

Keegan often said of himself that he wasn't a naturally gifted player and that he had to work very hard at his game, Milner does the same, he works very hard. He's no Keegan but as long as he is willing to work hard then he'll do OK.

I'll be interested to see what he does with his formations, the last couple of games have been encouraging for me, he's tried his preferred 4-3-3 and dropped it because it wasn't working. I think he'll use different formations again but I think he'll have to do more work on the players to get the best out of them. I'll also be interested to see what happens when he spends big money on individuals, when he will be under pressure to get the best out of players who cost the same as Boumsong and Luque.

I probably wanted a good centre-half to help Taylor, and possibly a couple of full-backs to replace Carr and Babayaro. What we've got has gone far beyond that and the good thing it that Allardyce hasn't just thrown them in without any thought, he's doing his best to make sure thay have everything in place to do well before they are played. That part of Allardyce's man-management has been top draw stuff, I didn't expect it from him.

I agree with all of that, not all of the players we've brought in are going to be good players for us, at least I don't expect all of them to do it but so far I've got no complaints. We've seen all of the major work done and now it's just going to be a bit of fine tuning with a couple of players at a time to improve on the work already done. At the start of the window I had high hopes but I'm still surprised at how well we've done. The job isn't finished but at least we now have something to work with instead of a total rebuild.

I would have thought that whatever was best for James Milner would also be best for the team.

93% think he's good enough, I doubt many of our players would do as well in a poll as that.

I was taking the piss with the winner thing, Milner has had to put up with more than most of our player from our previous two managers, first Souness told us that we'd not win anything with a team of James Milner's, that must have been a right kick in the balls for him, no matter how it was meant. Then Roeder tried to peddle him to Villa yet at no time has he let any of that get to him, he's just got his head down and battled on. He's got loads of bottle from what I can see and it he retains it then he can go on to become a very good footballer for us, he's not fast but niether was Nobby and he was one of the best right wingers I've ever seen play for Newcastle, if not the best.

Winning anything with the mackems is a negative, not a plus.

I'll accept that, what has Given won?

What have Barton and Given won to make them winners?

I don't know his reason for not moving on but I wouldn't want to move if I was doing what he's doing.

8 people thought not.

I'd hate to play on the wing for us.

5 games in is a bit early to say how the season is going to go especially when you see how some clubs have had a poor start to the season due to the fixture list. Derby looks as if they'll not do too well and some of the other strugglers may be OK once they've had a few more games to adjust. I thought Man U had signed really good players but they've not done too well so far but they are a team that could go on a long unbeaten run, just like any of last season’s top 4, so far Liverpool look to have got the best balance but they've looked good before and fell away after a good start. The European places look like they'll be really fought over, probably more so than for a long time as so many clubs look as if they could do well. Spurs don't seem to have moved forwards, they've been more like Newcastle than Newcastle so far and may have shot themselves in the foot a bit. I think we'll know more about the teams in a couple of months when all of the new players have been tried and some possibly failed by then.

Is Mort a better chairman than Shepherd because he's spent more cash this year then Shepherd spent last year? has he ? Remind us how much we got for Dyer and Parker again ? Interesting you are now considering this criteria, having in the past insinuated it was completely irrelevant. mackems.gif Anyway, I thought you said it is our money and not theirs mackems.gif NE5, to be honest, regardless of whether i agree or disagree with your points, i think its only fair that someone points out to you that following everything you say with one of those laughing emoticons only serves to make you appear extremely patronising and smarmy, it's no way to conduct a discussion if you want any respect I take your point, but I only do it when posts don't make sense, and MICK usually isn't a person who applies consistent logic The question in bold has nothing to do with my logic, it's about yours and you clearly don't want to answer it so I'll leave it as the silence is answer enough.

I agree with all of that.

Harpers ambition might be to play regularly for Newcastle, how would packing his bags help him achieve that? How? it isn’t a hard one to come up with an answer for, if he makes a move to another club which will require him to pack his bags he is going to get far more games under his belt than he is living under the Messiah's shadow see that word that starts with "N" and ends with "castle"? obviously not. IMO it should be done by overall form in training and matches. If harper has 1 bad game but overall has been playing very well, and has been doing just as good as shay in training, he plays. Are you trying to insult my intelligence? If you are well done! Because I cannot see what you are driving at by the bit in bold above… See the bit in bold, Ariel, blue and underlined.

It could put us top if results went our way, doom monger.

You'll have to blame Sibierski for this one.

I'm not asking you to give an answer based on whatever criteria you may think I base my opinion on, I'm asking you to anwer based on the criteria you have repeatedly used. A simple yes or no based on your own criteria will do. Yes or no?

And Ozzie's idol was appointed and supported to the tune of almost £50 million by whose idol?

We've brought in something like £14.5 million through selling players, Mort has sold those two players for something like £14 million so it looks like Mort has made profits on 2 players who most fans couldn't wait to get rid of so it looks like two excellent pieces of business. We've spent something in the region of £23 million on players which means our net spend is in the region of £8.5 million. You have always used Freddy backing his managers as a sign of approval for him so does Mort spending more make him better? It's a simple question using the method you've used for years to back Shepherd, you've used it in this thread, even on this page. Roeder had a net spend of £7.64 million. Edit, when have I ever said it was our money?

Given kicks no better than Harper, if we're going to pick up on individual mistakes, they both make them. I don't see a lot of difference between the two keepers when they've both had a good run of games. I like both keepers but would reward Harper because he hasn't let us down, he deserves games more than anybody else at our club.

Is Mort a better chairman than Shepherd because he's spent more cash this year then Shepherd spent last year?

That's what happened last season and look how we struggled.