Mick

You should sort your priorities out.

I'll have a look to see if it's repeated on Sunday as I'll have nowt better to do.

Did I miss the bastard Bill?

The rest of the article has very little to do with us. http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2135757,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=5 On Tuesday afternoon Freddy Shepherd finally parted company with Newcastle United. The Chief Geordie of all the World had a somewhat chequered time of it during his reign as chairgadgie at St James', what with the fake sheikh, bulging bonuses and so on. But when this was put to one of his loyal servants in the local press corps the response was predictable: "You know, the supporters at Newcastle don't care about any of that stuff as long as the team is playing well."

I wouldn't mind seeing 1 kid in each area of the team regularly included with the first team squad, 1 in defence and I'd prefer Edgar out of that lot, 1 in midfield and at the minute it would be Troisi and one up front, it would have to be Carrol as he seems to be the only 1. They can be included in the squad and train with them but we shouldn't rely too much on them, at least they'll continue to develop and get the odd game but not too many.

A certain top German manager would train his players to play many different formations then just send them out without any tactics, he'd let the players dictate how they played the game and he'd bring on a substitute on if he needed to change anything.

How does 7 not look bad to anyone? That is including the kids, yet still does not give us cover in each position. I said 7 doesn't look too bad numerically, I didn't mean that 7, that's why I mentioned the 3 that I thought was good enough. If we have 7 good defenders then I think we'll have enough.

He played on the right of midfield and he looked comfortable on the ball, he looked as if he'd been playing in the first team for years, it didn't seem to worry him that he was playing in front of 30,000 people. He tackled well, moved with the ball under pressure and most of his passes were good. He wasn't making any massive runs with the ball but he covered the whole length of the pitch, helped out in defence and wasn't scared to get up the field.

7 defenders doesn't look too bad numerically, out of those 7 I'd only really rate 3, Edgar, Taylor and Rozenhal.

I would like to think that those three players will have to battle it out and whoever plays is whoever is on form, that would make a change from the last few seasons.

I totally agree about the team and defenders, the prozak remark wasn't aimed at anybody, it was just a bit of bait.

Carr wasn't wearing a heart monitor, it was a Defribulator.

I'm not sure if we were better than expected or if they were worse but I saw a few things which I liked, the game was played at a good pace and some of our play was excellent, I can't remember Geremi getting a pass wrong all game and he looked strong. I didn't expect him to play that well but he wasn't the only one as we had quite a few plusses. I know it was only a friendly but we had something that we were missing last season but I can't quite work out what it was yet. The players worked for each other, our passing was mainly good, I don't know if that is because we didn't have Bramble hoofing it. I'm not sure we're having a honeymoon period but you could be right as we used so many players that nobody was left out, they all played a part, we obviously can't do that during a normal match. We still need the defenders but I've got more confidence today than I had yesterday that the rest of the team looks good, seeing us play the way we did gave me confidence, yesterday it was just hope. Young Troisi looked comfortable with the ball, I hope we can help him develop because he looks like he can play a bit.

I'd like to move this thread in a different direction. Do the Prozac Munchers ©Obi. think things look brighter today then they did yesterday? I think they do, I wasn't slashing my wrists anyway but I think we're close to having a good team and we seem to have a manager who knows what he's doing, the future is looking bright for us if we can get what we need in defence and pad out the squad.

Very few foreign players come to this country and pick up the pace of the game straight away, Luque needs a run of games before we can say for sure if his good enough or not, personally, I'd like to know one way or the other.

Carr should only play if we've got nothing else for that position.

I think he'd be wasted in that position, he's got a lot more to offer.

The picture on .com now is as funny as f**k.

You can have a go at Luque all you want, if he keeps scoring goals then that's good enough for me, he'll probably develop his game if he gets something like a run in the team.

I thought our defence was OK while Rozenhal was on the pitch then I thought we were a bit Shaky, Huntington give me no confidence at all.

I thought he was solid, I enjoyed watching him.

Warren Barton?

Bobby pissed him about, he was an easy target to bring off, no wonder his head dropped at times.

Nobby has probably been my favourite player since he joined us, he's getting on now but he's still the cleverest footballer at our club by a country mile, I’ll be gutted when he does go, I would hope that with him we can find a job for the boys because he’s got loads of skill to pass on to others.

It's not a question of "judgement". It's a question of preference. Take a risk with Ashley? Blunder further down the road to oblivion with Shepherd? (This may help: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/preference) coming from a person who backed Souness until the day he was sacked ? Still think we were on course for success with him as manager ? And your idol Tina Arsprilla, who scored 2 goals in a season ? You don't have much of a success rate with taking risks do you mackems.gif The cheeky bastard tried to deny it, he claimed the mod's changed his posts, at least I think that was him.