STM

I would agree, because the whole bottom half of the table are all about trying to figure out ways of scraping together points. This includes "non conventional" types of tactics such as launching long throw ins into the box. Look at the teams in the Prem. A whole boat load of them are awful, but they stayed up and we didnt. Why is that? It's true, if we had this "boring" football last year, we may have picked up the odd point away from home and stayed up.

"Good football" is a bullshit term. I want "effective football". Do you think Stoke play that brand of "bad football" that you think will fail in the premiership? I can confirm to you that they don't, FFS they even use throw ins to lump it long! I'm not saying i want us to use this style of football, i'm saying that it can work and it's nonsense to think it can't.

Pretty much this. There's no doubting there are major improvements needed (if we get promoted) but i think what we have a achieved deserves recognition and Hughton deserves credit. Credit is all well and good but if you can show me how being nice to CH will stop us getting relegated next year I'm all ears. You are treating as if it's a fact that Hughton will get us relegated next year? Even though we are not even promoted yet. In his first full season in charge his record is brilliant, the only thing that has been poor is the style of football. Why not see who he would bring in during the summer and then judge how we would perform in the premiership?

Forest are a good team, throughout their 11 i have been very impressed. West Brom look like they will drop more points than us TBH, there defensive is as bad as our attack. Hopefully the introduction of Routledge, Best and Van Aanholt to a lesser extent will give us a different look to our team. Routledge and Jonas on the wings could be pivitol.

Pretty much this. There's no doubting there are major improvements needed (if we get promoted) but i think what we have a achieved deserves recognition and Hughton deserves credit.

OK, i agree with those points but aren't they just proof as to why we needed defensive cover (if that's the way Hughton has decided to set up his team)? I'm also not disagreeing that we play a defensive side, with a limited attacking outlook. What i'm trying to point out is that we are top of the league, which was the fans expectations (or at least what we wanted) at the start of the season. Yet it seems that because of the way we play, people want Hughton out.

We are top of the league because we have picked up more points than every other team. I genuinely don't understand Ronaldo? Are you annoyed by the style of football or the results?

I've never seen him go over without being touched first though. Although, i am very ignorant.

and being top of the league.

I voted Woodgate over Lescott on sheer talent but the likelyhood is that Capello will pick Lescott because he has been playing.

Very one eyed post, but heh, its your site, I think you will find you have more divers and cheats than us though if you are honest! That's the most one sided post i've ever heard TBH. So Jonas is a cheat despite the fact that almost every team tries to break his leg in every game. Fair enough he goes down easily but that isn't cheating. Apart from that i don't know anyone who is quick enough to dive in our squad, after all you need to beat a man to dive. As for Smith, Nolan, Butt etc they are all hard tackling players, if they foul then more often than not they get carded (often on reputation). They can hardly be considered cheats, dirty perhaps but not cheats.

Agreed, half our old squad are now playing in the premiership and doing alright. Alot of the sunderland squad are dross that they have had for ages or unproven foreigners.

Coloccini wasn't strong enough and he certainly wasn't quick enough last year, at times his positional play didn't look too good either (i think that was just because he was beaten to the ball for the first two reasons). This season he's been better but i think that's mainly because of the standard of opposition. The one thing i think he is good at is playing the ball in tricky situations. He's fairly calm in possession of the ball, especially alongside Enrique.

Hopefully West Ham will pull away which will drop the mackems further down. If it's still close in the last few games then anyone could go down. Sadly they are the best out of a bad bunch.

It's about numbers TBH. Although we've thrown up the odd excellent footballer in our time, we have never had alot of good footballers coming through. It's because the area hasn't got a big enough population, especially when you consider there are two big clubs in the near area.... newcastle and gateshead of course . As for Boro, they have brought through alot more players but it's argueable on whether they have been "good enough". However, with all that said, i've never been convinced by our youth set up.

This. It could quite easily be a boring 0-0 or a boring 2-0. Depends on us taking our chances.

We thought the away game was going to be tough, but in the end we turned them over pretty easily. Fingers crossed for the same again. pretty easily ? I watched that game and I distinctly remember Cardiff having a boatload of chances and Newcastle scrapping a 0-1 win by sheer luck. They had good possesion but had no real clear cut chances, they never really threatened from what I remember. We scored a good goal, nothing lucky about it. Another example of us being "outplayed" and "lucky to win", just like we have all season Winning games isn't a coincidence, neither is losing them.

This. Not sure why though, think it might be reflex.

I have a horrible feeling baout Williamson, despite being impressed by him in his first two games. I'm going on friday so that will give me a chance to look at him closer, perhaps i'm being harsh on him due to former defenders we have had. I voted Routledge because he's looks the sort that the fans might get behind if he beats a couple of players but it's close between them two.

You won't score a goal either you little fuck. Booed every time he touches the ball. Hope Colo has space in his fucking pocked for the little shit.

The way to judge a goalkeeper IMO is on the amount of mistakes they make i.e poor goal kicks, fumbling in the air, parrying into the path of strikers, that sort of thing. It's on this note why i think Harper is a good keeper because he doesn't make daft mistakes. If you try and judge keepers on good saves and statistics you will never get to the bottom of the situation. If i was England manager (shudder), i would be looking for someone who wouldn't make the mistakes in the big games. I voted for Green, Hart and Kirkland. (Kirkland is easily the most gifted keeper we've got)

He loves apparently, that's why he does it on the pitch.

Out of all the teams in the chamionship, we have been least outplayed. Rubbish. Nearly every game we're consistently under pressure. I bet you can't name more than 2/3 games we've dominated or created loads of chances. Good luck. It seems to me that a team which is outplayed constantly wouldn't be top of the league. I don't give a fuck how much pressure we are under, i care about results. We can have one shot on target in every game all season if it means we are top of the league. in a large percentage of the games i've watched this season that we've won the score could have been a hell of a lot different if the team took their chances. while we may be able to get away with letting teams have good chances in this league we will be murdered for it in the premiership. I agree with you but i will discuss that problem when/if we go up. By the way, there are plenty of team's who play a similar style in the premiership, not that our fans will except it. Is that what you do in real life, deal with problems at the last minute?? Christ. We are talking about Newcastle United who are not in the premiership, we are top of the chamionship. I'm talking about hughtons performances now. I will talk about that when there is something to talk about, keep up. What is the title of the thread? It's about Hughton, can you not read like? The difference is, i'm talking about him now, without the aid of your time machine or crystal ball. Can you read? Can you?

Out of all the teams in the chamionship, we have been least outplayed. Rubbish. Nearly every game we're consistently under pressure. I bet you can't name more than 2/3 games we've dominated or created loads of chances. Good luck. It seems to me that a team which is outplayed constantly wouldn't be top of the league. I don't give a fuck how much pressure we are under, i care about results. We can have one shot on target in every game all season if it means we are top of the league. in a large percentage of the games i've watched this season that we've won the score could have been a hell of a lot different if the team took their chances. while we may be able to get away with letting teams have good chances in this league we will be murdered for it in the premiership. I agree with you but i will discuss that problem when/if we go up. By the way, there are plenty of team's who play a similar style in the premiership, not that our fans will except it. Is that what you do in real life, deal with problems at the last minute?? Christ. We are talking about Newcastle United who are not in the premiership, we are top of the chamionship. I'm talking about hughtons performances now. I will talk about that when there is something to talk about, keep up. What is the title of the thread? It's about Hughton, can you not read like? The difference is, i'm talking about him now, without the aid of your time machine or crystal ball.

I was simply parroting Parky's assessment of our tactics there tbh. I have absolutely no problem with well argued critiques like you give yourself, it just seemed like this thread had descended into a match thread type slag fest with no thought whatsoever going into the criticisms. It goes without saying that the defending has set us apart in this league and is the main reason we are top. However if we blamed the midfield for poor defending last year you can't just ignore it as part of the improvement this season, and part of that is the coaching and tactics. We also have the 4th highest number of goals for. That has to come from somewhere and it can't just be from Nolan, Shola & Guthrie creating goals out of nothing and being lethal in front of goal, they're not the players you would have said that about before the season started. In fact a lot of the criticism Hughton is getting is from playing Nolan at all and from having Guthrie on the wing where he is getting his assists and goals. The team we have CAN play good football and we've seen it on occasion, however I think the main problem is that they just don't have the stamina to sustain it for much of the game, especially the central midfielders which are the key to it. I suppose you could blame Hughton for the fitness of the players, but generally I think it's just an inherent failing in those players and there's not a lot you can do about it. FWIW I have my doubts about Hughton myself, but I'm more concerned about his potential ability to motivate the players when things aren't going so well than his tactics. I'd be much happier if h e was the assistant manager. Why not just post the last para and save the essays? Nobody will read all of that. You're concerned about his "potential ability to motivate the players"....!!! Wake the fuck up. He'll be out on his ear after 12 games the most in the PL. We are not in the premiership. If I'm following you....You want to wait till CH fucks up in the PL....Why? I'd review the situation at the end of the season. But not halfway through the current one like you clearly would.