Mick

I would play Dyer centre right with Nobby on the wing, Dyer can rip teams apart late in the game when people are knackered and he's still got loads of stamina.

Roeder not being made manager was no excuse for the summer transfer window, we were supposedly scouting Kuyt in April, if we could scout him then we could do the same with others. Not having the job is a poor excuse when the Kuyt scouting was fed from within the club, at least that's the way I remember it. On 18th April Roeder said "Our chief scout David Mills did not make it last night but he will probably go to De Kuip next Sunday to watch Kuyt and Feyenoord play Roosendaal." That's 4 months before the end of the transfer window, the blokes a ditherer, he must also forget what he's previously said or he would take more care to avoid looking daft. I don't know if his previous experience with the transfer window has made him over cautious, Repka for £5 million would be enough to make anybody think twice. Roeder doesn't seem to have a very good record at other clubs when it comes to bringing players in, he paid £5 to the mackems for Don Hutchison, at least I think it was him, he also took Bowyer to West Ham, Bowyer was shite when he played for them although I think he probably played as many games for Roeder as Owen has here. Edited to add the bit in blue

Baba should be rdy for the next game... Excellent.

The trouble with Bramble now is that he's always expected to make a cock-up, the players probably feel the same way. He's 90% a good defender but the last 10% is a massive problem and costly, I think he's always going to be a problem unless we had somebody like Woodgate next to him, somebody to pick up the pieces when he drops a clanger.

thought we looked the better side in the first half though fell apart in the second. think today showed some of the limitations of a martins-dyer frontline, that is, the failure to keep a hold of the ball up the field, and to bring our midfielders into the game. with butt and parker both sitting quite deep and not moving the ball forward, it meant dyer and martins have to drop back, and we end up looking toothless. It's a 90 minute game, we need the creativity that we were lacking until Nobby came on. Before Nobby came on we had nothing, Dyer is better running at defenders from deep, he's better at that because he's got stamina and the bottle to run at people, he opens a game up.

Arguably yes... but i still think we would have faired better if our defense was picked better. Appeared that Milner was our rare attacking outlet aswell - we lose SO much when Nobby is out of the team. Agreed.

Bramble doesn't give anyone confidence, he doesn't always make mistakes but we now expect it and just wait for something to happen, it doesn't always happen but he must have the other players shitting themselves just waiting for it to happen. You know it’s always just around the corner.

Let's be honest, we've had some very lucky wins lately, we're not as good as our league position. We've been lucky that the kids have come in and papered over the cracks by running on adrenalin, we've sneaked some results, we came undone today.

Souness-------> Robert. Roeder---------> Nobby.

Pity his boss isn't.

Dalglish had a good CV but he left Liverpool because the pressure of Heysel had got to him, I don't blame him for that, he left Blackburn because he didn't want to be involved in the day to day running of the club. Newcastle isn't the best place for anybody who can't take pressure, he seemed to openly cope with the pressure but didn't do a very good job. I personally didn't want him because of the style of play he seemed to favour, Dalglish the manager seemed to want football played differently to Dalglish the player. I also felt that Dalglish had been partly to blame for the situation Liverpool found themselves in later with Souness, Dalglish left a team that was past it's sell by date, Souness replaced them with rubbish. Liverpool had been fairly well known for selling players just before they started going down hill, Dalglish didn’t do that. Gullit was sacked at Chelsea, he won the Cup while manager but that was basically his CV. He was sacked and left with a reputation as somebody who had a massive ego, somebody who couldn't work with so called star players, he came here and did the same. I don't think many people were surprised when he left Newcastle, the only surprise was that he jumped before he was pushed. Strangely, I was reasonably happy when Gullit was appointed because I was sick of the crap football played under Dalglish, I suppose I fell for the idea of sexy football.

up until appointing Souness they were doing OK ? Correct mate ? Which is what seems to be is what is being said. Nobody defends the appointment of Souness, but like all bad appointments you can't put them right quickly, especially in football if you consider anything other than winning one of the 2 major trophies to be failure. If they have taken the club as far as they can, then they will go. But replacing them with better could prove pretty difficult and if they are replaced with worse, then that would be disastrous. It could easily happen. I realise some are prepared to take the chance on that, but there are lots of people who think such a thing is impossible, but it isn't. There are loads of clubs who have replaced directors and ended up with worse. Do you want a board of directors who don't back their managers or take risks on the clubs potential support again ? You said: "up until appointing Souness they were doing OK ? Here's the figures, what do you think? 1996-1997 2nd(Sir John & Shepherd). 1997-1998 13th. 1998-1999 13th. 1999-2000 11th. 2000-2001 11th. 2001-2002 4th. 2002-2003 3rd. 2003-2004 5th. 2004-2005 14th(Souness).

It doesn't matter what you think of who is to blame for our current situation, if you could go back in time to make sure we didn't end up where we are now, when would you go back to and what would you do? I'd go back the the time Keegan left the club, I'd contact Bobby Robson and ask him to come to Newcastle when his contract with Barcelona expired, I'd ask Keegan to stay on until that time, if he said no I'd appoint a caretaker, problem solved.

Ok, Shearer really is Mary Poppins, we're mugs for buying the clubs shirts and your lass is a dog. Once again, why not reply to the whole post in context. What do you think of buying those players, or is it unambitious Quite simply, if the board say they are ambitious then that will be fact.

Talk about clutching at straws. You're now defending the appointment of Souness, another sign of desperation from the Shepherd apologist. The record of Souness has been done a million times, you've done it yourself so I'll not spend any more time on that one. In fact everything you've mentioned has been done a million times. I'm not defending anything. Least of all the appointment of Souness. The one thing you have got right is when you agreed with me that he should never have got the time and money he did. I just think that you are a whinger who will moan at whatever they do when it doesn't suit you, with the same unrealistic outlook that all bandwagon jumpers have. What is your opinions on all the managers I mentioned, that you conveniently forget to mention ? You cannot say that I am an apologist for / and defending anyone when you continue to fail to respond to posts in full. See the bit in bold where you didn't defend the appointment of Souness. I've responded to every point you make, ask your brother to find the posts where he mentioned Liverpool and Arsenal failing when they appointed the managers you've mentioned although he didn't mention Joe Fagan or question George Graham, at least I don't remember that happening. I'm not wasting my time looking for the posts just so that I can prove I've actually covered what you demand. I've posted my thoughts on Dalglish and Gullit, go and find them if you're interested.

Ok, Shearer really is Mary Poppins, we're mugs for buying the clubs shirts and your lass is a dog.

Talk about clutching at straws. You're now defending the appointment of Souness, another sign of desperation from the Shepherd apologist. The record of Souness has been done a million times, you've done it yourself so I'll not spend any more time on that one. In fact everything you've mentioned has been done a million times.

Dyer, Milner and Nobby have all played left wing, even when just switching position during games. I'm sure Milner played as many games for Leeds on the left as he did on the right, we even signed him because of his form for Leeds. I would think Milner has played more on the left wing than Duff has at the back.

Any self-respecting person wouldn't have been sacked, they would have resigned. I've got a three hour drive tonight, if I knock somebody down and kill then and it's my fault I'll rightly do time for it, I would expect nothing else. Even if I didn't go out of my way to do it, I'd still be held responsible for my actions. I do a job which is very important to the company who employs me, if I screw up the way our Chairman did when appointing Souness, I'd resign before I was sacked, I would expect the sack, again quite rightly. We are all responsible for our actions, no matter if things happen that weren't intended. My employer is in the top 3 in the world at what we do, if my actions took us to 14th I'd be sacked without a single complaint from me.

I agree with most of that.

In an ideal world neither would I, if the circumstances were right to spend such vast sums on one player but you have to admit they were not right, the circumstances. I liken Owen's signing exactly to that of Boumsong - a panic signing. I see no difference between signing Boumsong at an inflated price to replace one player than doing the exact same with Owen to replace Shearer. At least we had the money to spend on Boumsong because of the money we got for Woodgate, and he wanted to join us and never had an injury record. Owen, we didn't have the money, he didn't want to join us and he is injury prone. If you were Chairman and you didn't have the money, the player didn't want to join, the player had a dodgy record of injuries, and there were other areas to strengthen first and foremost, would you sign him? Honestly? I can't think of one Chairman other than our own who would, Liverpool pulled out at 8m. Even the way we went about it was madness, they offer 8m, the player says he would only join us on loan and doesn't want to join us full-time, so what do we do? We offer 17m. Madness and it is that wrecklessness that is costing us big time and why so many have zero faith in the board. Agreed, Shepherd giving Souness the money to spend on those players was almost as crazy as the decision to appoint him.

I shouldn't have to tell a £multi-million business how to vet a players injury record, it wouldn't say he would be out for a year but it would have told them that he would miss a lot of games, obviously they didn't do that.

of course, getting another board who lack ambition like the old one, is impossible and simply will not happen to us No board with ambition would employ Souness and Roeder. You'll now come out with Liverpool employing Souness so I'll just remind you that Liverpool employed Souness after he'd been a success at Rangers, we employed him after he'd been a failure at Liverpool and beyond.

This isn't an easy one to answer, if shelling £15 million for Shearer was the reason for splitting up the team that Keegan built then yes it was a mistake. However, the reason for splitting up the team might have had more to do with floating the club, we'll never know.

a long term replacement for Alan Shearer is ill judged ? Who else would you say was capable of filling his boots ? Owen has spent more time in the treatment room since he's been here than Dyer - FACT.