Taylor Swift

We better all fucking hope this is true.

Better that he's gone now rather than letting him spend some cash then having to sack him a month or two later. I can see why Mort and Ashley did it now instead of waiting. If they can get a new manager within a week or two, that'll give the new man a couple of weeks to sign players (and Sven showed that it doesn't take long if you know who you want from the start).

Houllier anyone? He was my man before BS took over and he'd be a big step up, although I wonder whether his negative tactics will be given a chance here by the majority of the fans.

Alan Oliver was right :lol: Mutual consent though, so maybe BS couldn't handle it anymore? Either that or they've got someone significantly better lined up. It'd be a fucking joke if we ended up hiring someone like Jol, who's slightly better at best.

If we buy a quality AMC (VdV/Deco/Diego in the £15m range) and a RM (someone like Simao who costed Ath Madrid £15m in the summer), we'll actually be better than Pompey. And with regards to Pompey's strikers, Kanu < Viduka Utaka = Martins Nugent = Smith/Ameobi Benjani < Owen. Benjani's more lucky than good, and Owen has a more all-rounded game whilst Benjani is pace and fuck all else. Baggio's right in that Pompey set up their game to exploit the pace of their strikers (Utaka and Benjani) and that's why they're scoring goals and winning games.

The only difference between Pompey's squad and ours is the midfield. Their defence is the same as ours, they've got a similar quality keeper and their strikers aren't special (Kanu, Benjani, Utaka and Nugent). They've got quality in the middle of the park, but it's not going to take a massive sum of money to fix this problem for us. A good quality AMC and a RM will put us on their level imo. And that's not going to cost £100m

Laursen or Diarra. Both will be worth the money. TT's already mentioned what's wrong with Ashton and the rest of them are just average (except the bloke I've never seen so can't comment).

If we get 2-3 top tier players (AMC, RM and maybe a striker), we'll have everything we need imo. The players starting now (Milner, Duff, Geremi, Viduka etc.) will drop off to bench and become squad players, which will mean we have squad depth. We don't need to spend that much. Certainly not £100m anyway

Didn't Mort say that we were looking to sign young players who can be at the squad for a long time. The three players we've signed so far fits in with the profile

We're losing players to the ANC, so if he comes in and does okay, he'll be a good squad player in the end. It's almost a Spurs-like way of doing things, just keep buying new players and selling ones that aren't doing well. Cacapa is already near the end of his career so I see this as a good way of shoring things up for the future. PS. £2.5m isn't going to hurt his budget by much, so it'll be a good deal if he's alright.

I thought Kadar 'wasn't on the radar' for Sam?

Do you know 'Ngo' means stupid in Thai? Gonna be a laugh for the Thai commentators if this kid actually makes it

It's only a reserve game you know.

He is a rock-solid defender, would love him here. The only positive thing to come out of O'Leary's era?

That forum's so shittily designed it's unbelievable that they've got 600+ users online atm (more than this one's ever had!). I appreciate this forum's clean and simple design more with each foray made into a different forum on the net.

We'll take Mellberg, that's alright

Laursen would be amazing but there's no way he's leaving Villa imo.

I'd like a loan with a view to a permanent move. It's a win-win situation for us.

If we get Diarra, we'd be one attacking cf away from being able to play good football imo. Though I still think that Emre can do the job if given a prolonged run

I thought he started dropping too deep at the end of his stay here. Because we had no one pacey up front, the opposition's defence always tended to play a really high line, which meant Robert was never further up enough to whip in one of his trademark crosses. It's a shame he left in the circumstances he did though. One thing I have to say though, his corners were fucking shite. If people now think Milner/Emre's corners never got past the first man, they should have seen Robert's in the last season or so. Shiteness personified

And when I say overrated, I'm not saying he's shit, I'm just saying that the expectations that we (Newcastle fans) have for him are already quite high. He's a good young player, but beware of the phenomenon I mentioned, and also realize that this is only a small step in the right direction.

To be honest i dont think Taylor will make it as a big premiership defender, he has all the attributes to be an excellent defender but i think he's a bit slow up top. Not as slow as Bramble but slow. The other problem i thnk he has is that he's not sure what type of defender he should be, with Faye he needs to be the one who reads the game and gets good positioning but if he plays with anyone else he needs to be the commited defender, i dont think theres another defender in the permiership whi has that problem. Finding his feet. Give him time. I do agree with you that he has a few problems which is why I hesitate to make him a regular starter but Rich is right in that he's got loads of potential and we don't have anyone better at the club atm so he's gotta start. I'm also pretty sure that with his contract up in the air, he'll perform better now that more responsibility is placed on his shoulders.

agree with all of that

I don't think I'd consider Taylor a starter atm. He had one good game against a Championship side. He's got a long way to go before he proves that he's capable of starting for us because in the previous few games that he's played, he's been as dodgy as he has been all season. Even though he's shown small signs of improvement, I'd really like to see him step up his game now that Faye's gonna be gone. It'll be a big month for him. The fact that we'll be left with two relative newcomers to the league means the onus is truly on Taylor to hold the fort until Faye comes back. It is really a big month for him and a big chance for him to prove that he deserves a new and improved contract.

The four or five that I had to talk myself into were probably Viduka, Emre, Barton, Cacapa and Taylor. Cacapa and Viduka are the most dodgy ones but I reckon they're good enough to help us finish in the top 6.