STM

Heard some idiot on the radio on the way home saying that we performed poorly and had no width. I thought we played some good football today. Given- 6.5 Had barely anything to do all game, couple of comfortable stops. Beye- 8 Best game yet, defensively and attacking. Won us the corner that he scored from. Taylor- 7 Very powerful, never put a foot wrong. Rozehnal- 6.5 At fault for the goal but otherwise very composed. N'Zogbia- 7.5 Involved in alot of our attacking play. Geremi- 7 Worked hard throughout, calming influence. Butt- 4 Gave the ball away 4 times in the time he was on the pitch. Barton- 7 By far our best passer of the ball today. Lunatic foul let him down. Milner- 8.5 Never lost the ball once, the heart and soul of our attacking performance today. MOM Smith- 7 Worked hard, held the ball up nicely and won his share of headers. Martins- 7.5 Could of had a couple. Deserved his goal. Subs: Viduka- 7 Inspired in the first, tired in the second. Enjoyed the game. We completely dominated a team who beat Spurs last weekend.

Well first of all i believe that playing the way that has been mentioned is natural and would work but that doesn't mean to say that the system we are playing now deosn't work. I think N'Zogbia's a very good left back and Milner is very good on the left of midfield. It's the fact that playing this way weakens our right side thats the problem. However, if Sam is easing Enrique into the premierleague i have no problem with what he is doing. When Duff becomes fully fit, at minimum, i'd like to see Milner shifted to the right to make way for him. I believe we have more important areas of concern than this situation though.

Give him all the time he wants while we have others that can play in his position. Might be good to get him on the bench on saturday though. The fact that he is back in the reserves suggests its now about fitness and not worring over his injury. Therefor games coming thick and fast might not be a bad thing. No need to risk though.

This. What it does is sends a message to all of the players to say that they played well and deserved to keep their place.

Smith- Hardworking, experianced, versitile and highley rated by ALOT of managers. Emre- Gifted player constantly played in wrong positions. Milner- As you say gives 100% and has one of the best cross conversion records in the prem. N'Zogbia- Class, played in defence. Butt- Highley experianced and disciplined. Massive pedigree, was one of our best players last year. Geremi- Rarely loses the ball, wins tackles, gets quite a few assists and is a leader. Barton- I rate him very highly, give him time and he will prove me correct (hopefully). Duff- Quality player, fitness has let him down. My point is that positive and negative slants can be put on anything in football. It all depends what type of person you are. For me with the quality we have we should be looking for top 8, if we dont make it, it won't be down to talent. I would say mine a pretty realistic, yours are extremely optimistic. Of course you would say your opinons are realistic. Thats why they are opinions because we believe them to be true/real. I deliberatley made mine sound optimistic just to prove what a can be done with positive comments. Personally, i believe we have as good a players as most of the top ten. If i wanted to i could go through the top 10 clubs and pull out negative points of most players. One thing is for sure though, our midfield is not as good as the top four. As for the rest i don't see a massive difference anywhere.

Smith- Hardworking, experianced, versitile and highley rated by ALOT of managers. Emre- Gifted player constantly played in wrong positions. Milner- As you say gives 100% and has one of the best cross conversion records in the prem. N'Zogbia- Class, played in defence. Butt- Highley experianced and disciplined. Massive pedigree, was one of our best players last year. Geremi- Rarely loses the ball, wins tackles, gets quite a few assists and is a leader. Barton- I rate him very highly, give him time and he will prove me correct (hopefully). Duff- Quality player, fitness has let him down. My point is that positive and negative slants can be put on anything in football. It all depends what type of person you are. For me with the quality we have we should be looking for top 8, if we dont make it, it won't be down to talent. I appreciate your sentiments. But our midfield is the weakest in the top teams. Lennon Routledge Malbranque Taarabt Zokora Jenas Huddlestone Tainio Boateng Ghaly As far as im concerned there is very little difference between ours and spurs, apart from depth. Yet they were touted for 4th, how does that work? Even if you believe Spurs midfield to better than ours which you are entitled to, there isn't a huge gulf. Yet the expectations were so different. I believe there to be barely anything between ours and the other teams that have been mentioned. The differences as i've mentioned is down to consitancy, teamwork and motivation. Spurs weren't in my calculations when I started the thread hence the title dear. Pardon me. I thought it ment into assumption of who we'd expect in the top 10. It works even better for my arguement though because spurs have a better midfield than half of the teams in the top 10 anyway.

Smith- Hardworking, experianced, versitile and highley rated by ALOT of managers. Emre- Gifted player constantly played in wrong positions. Milner- As you say gives 100% and has one of the best cross conversion records in the prem. N'Zogbia- Class, played in defence. Butt- Highley experianced and disciplined. Massive pedigree, was one of our best players last year. Geremi- Rarely loses the ball, wins tackles, gets quite a few assists and is a leader. Barton- I rate him very highly, give him time and he will prove me correct (hopefully). Duff- Quality player, fitness has let him down. My point is that positive and negative slants can be put on anything in football. It all depends what type of person you are. For me with the quality we have we should be looking for top 8, if we dont make it, it won't be down to talent. I appreciate your sentiments. But our midfield is the weakest in the top teams. Lennon Routledge Malbranque Taarabt Zokora Jenas Huddlestone Tainio Boateng Ghaly As far as im concerned there is very little difference between ours and spurs, apart from depth. Yet they were touted for 4th, how does that work? Even if you believe Spurs midfield to better than ours which you are entitled to, there isn't a huge gulf. Yet the expectations were so different. I believe there to be barely anything between ours and the other teams that have been mentioned. The differences as i've mentioned is down to consitancy, teamwork and motivation.

Smith- Hardworking, experianced, versitile and highley rated by ALOT of managers. Emre- Gifted player constantly played in wrong positions. Milner- As you say gives 100% and has one of the best cross conversion records in the prem. N'Zogbia- Class, played in defence. Butt- Highley experianced and disciplined. Massive pedigree, was one of our best players last year. Geremi- Rarely loses the ball, wins tackles, gets quite a few assists and is a leader. Barton- I rate him very highly, give him time and he will prove me correct (hopefully). Duff- Quality player, fitness has let him down. My point is that positive and negative slants can be put on anything in football. It all depends what type of person you are. For me with the quality we have we should be looking for top 8, if we dont make it, it won't be down to talent.

The reality sometimes is actually real. [Parky/] No, you've lost me. The Allardyce out crew are ignoring some of the home truths/realities reg our squad. Our midfield doesn't stand up to proper scrutiny. I'm not part of the Sam out crew, but it is his fault. I was dead against the buying of Barton and Smith, they're all hardwork and no quality. Barton has a great deal of quality. Barton is a grafter, always has been. He's never been a good technical player and his passing has always been dodgy. IN YOUR OPINION. Had you ever seen him play before he joined us? and i'm not talking about on telly. I have and he's anything but. He has a good pass and has scored 7 goals with 5 assists last season. Might not be Ronaldo but thats not bad for a "grafter".

The reality sometimes is actually real. [Parky/] No, you've lost me. The Allardyce out crew are ignoring some of the home truths/realities reg our squad. Our midfield doesn't stand up to proper scrutiny. I'm not part of the Sam out crew, but it is his fault. I was dead against the buying of Barton and Smith, they're all hardwork and no quality. Barton has a great deal of quality.

Yes but it is easy to be negative. How comes is it that Sunderland are showing more teamwork than us, yet they have ALOT worse players. I'd argue that Emre is extremely talented and being utilised wrong. That Butt brings experiance and discipline to our midfield. That Smith... ok, ok i think he would be better as a striker. We need to concentrate in getting the correct combination of players and playing as a unit, like we did at the start ot the season. Suprise suprise when we did that we picked up result, albeit (to me) in a rather disapointing fashion. In my opinion too many new players will just give us the same problems.

Aye. Even if we look at Villa. Barry Gardner Reo- Coker Petrov Young I honestly would rather have that lot. :-[ You say that as if it is a surprise. England international Barry, former U21 captain NRC and current top form player Young? Gardner is promising. Hardly gets a start, 3 PL goals already this season. Even Petrov is producing the goods at the moment. You also forgot Maloney, who is a quality player who gets - for some reason - hardly a look in. Came on as sub against arseluck iirc (the little fella?) and looked quite tidy imo. That's the one. He's a decent player. Scored against Fulham. Fans love him, would love to see him get a decent run out What Villa has is teamwork, motivation, cohesion, consistancy AND some individual talent. Newcastle are not lacking the individual talent just all of the rest. I think its a mixture; where you have technique (emre) you lack fitness and bottle. Where you have motivation (smith) you lack tehnique and pace. I think we have some very average players and some under-performing ones. Thats what MANAGEMENT is for. Players like Keane didn't rip defences apart with their pace, just like players such as Henry didn't win cruching tackles. It's up to the manager to take the individual talents, mentality and attributes and make them work together as a team. If we choose our players selectively, get the correct blend and play them consistantly i have no doubt that results will change. i.e if your going to have an Emre in our side you need a Smith in their to balance it out etc.

Aye. Even if we look at Villa. Barry Gardner Reo- Coker Petrov Young I honestly would rather have that lot. :-[ You say that as if it is a surprise. England international Barry, former U21 captain NRC and current top form player Young? Gardner is promising. Hardly gets a start, 3 PL goals already this season. Even Petrov is producing the goods at the moment. You also forgot Maloney, who is a quality player who gets - for some reason - hardly a look in. Came on as sub against arseluck iirc (the little fella?) and looked quite tidy imo. That's the one. He's a decent player. Scored against Fulham. Fans love him, would love to see him get a decent run out What Villa has is teamwork, motivation, cohesion, consistancy AND some individual talent. Newcastle are not lacking the individual talent just all of the rest.

That's not forgetting the fact we have Emre, Duff, Butt and Smith to add to that lot.

N'Zogbia Geremi Barton Milner Would be my first choice midfield. Should they been given a run of games i believe they would be BETTER than some of those other clubs. Therefore i wouldn't swap them, they just need time to gel.

Really enjoyed hearing him speak. He really does come across an incredibley troubled lad, i have a horrible feeling it's a matter of time before something else happens with him. I also feel he may go to jail. Sometimes decent people have a hot temper or conflicted views about "the right thing to do" in troubled situations. He someone who definately needs some severe counciling.

TBF Maik Taylors save was a world class one, Given has made plenty of them in the past. If a striker tries his luck from 30 yards and doesn't score does that automatically mean he isn't world class anymore? Look at Anelka, he missed an open goal but i'm not going to start claiming he has lost his talent. Given can't be expected to make those types of saves every week, especially condsidering he has just returned from injury. I agree there have been a few flying in recently but regardless of form or talent they were goals that MOST keepers would not have saved.

I completely agreed with him. There is no excuse for the players of that calibre not to qualify for the Euros, it's poor management that has cost us really, although i didn't expect him to say that. Notice it's "Newcastles Micheal Owen" when he's a blithering idiot. Fucking shit journalism.

Smiths the type of player that is fine to have in away games against the best sides, where you want to stifle the opposition. At home however, he should be played up top or not at all. For me he's given us more than Viduka has so far this season. He was outstanding against Everton up front with Oba in a simple 442, i suggest we go back to basics.

Think that is fair comment. A don't think hes had a "terrible" game for us yet. In fact i thought he was excellent against Everton.

Btw how do you think Robbo or Dawson played today?? Nothing special TBH. "Robbo's" kicking was woeful (as usual) and Dawson didn't have a bad game defensively but because he scored so he must be the best centre half in the premierleague now eh? He headed the ball, thats his job for f*** sake.

TBF it was obvious that he didn't know where he was playing. He's PROVEN in the past that he is a very capable right back, so i wouldn't pin too much of the blame on him.

Looked good yesterday IMO. Wasn't the reason behind us losing at all. He was never beaten down their right and always made an attempt to get forward.

Martin Jol is ANOTHER one of the premierships average managers.

I'm caught up in two mind sets at the moment. On the one hand, i was happy with the appointment of Sam and content with the seasons performances so far (up until portsmouth). I was pleased with the changes he made throughout the club in the summer and the solid style he was trying to implement. However now half of my brain is saying that the last few performances have been something that you would expect from the likes of Souness and Roeder. Mishaped formations, poor motivation and woeful substitutions. This has really got me wondering whether he is capable. The question is should we stick by him? Personally, i don't see much other choice at the moment. Unless we believe we are going to convince Mourinho, Capello etc to join then it would be a waste of time sacking him. We would be simple firing and hireing like we have done so many times in the past. What i would like to see is the hierarchy at Newcastle to come out and say Sam is the manager for the foreseeable future, this would take pressure off and allow Sam and the players to perform. However, all this wouldn't be needed if Sam picked a simple side and stuck to it.