Taylor Swift

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.

I think I originally voted for about 6 until I talked myself into voting for about 6 more

Who? Owen, Duff, Barton, Geremi....all players which havent shown a great deal of anything as of yet. Would like to see something which resembles a performance from any of the afore mentioned. They're all shite. None of them would get into a team in the top 4, probably not even the top 6 or 8 at this point of time.

Arsenal's spending Amazing.

agreed... we're english if we couldn't complain then we'd just be bored and would have less excuses to visit the pub. supporting newcastle is character building, every match day i wake up with a strong belief that some how, without a doubt we gonna win. i also spend a good few minutes examining how the table will look *when* we win our next 3 games... but then, more often than not we don't win and we play shite so i bitch and moan about it until next game when i wake up with the same irrational feeling of imminent success, put my lucky pants on and keep my fingers crossed... but fuck it thats why i love football! That's me every time a game comes around.

Because every moment, decision, mistake, pass, shot etc. is analyzed on here in more detail and with more time, it's always the case that the forum will be over-sensitive to many issues. Because of the nature of a forum, you're always going to end up with a warped sense of negativity/positivity. If you weren't part of a forum who obsesses over the club, you might not have noticed a few of Butt's misplaced passes, or Rozehnal fucking up a couple of times. But, because you are part of this (or any) forum, someone's going to mention it eventually and that's why every mistake our players make is magnified on here. That's why when things are good, this forum is a brilliant place. And when things are going bad, well...

No right-footed set-piece taker in the team today.

I knew I was stretching it a bit with that comparison but Owen's just not looking like himself atm. Lethargic play and of course the not finishing chances thing. I know he's lost pace and all but that doesn't mean he's lost the ability to score. Which is why I still think, if he can remain fit, he is comparable to Shearer pre-SBR in that he was being used in the wrong way/strengths not played to.

Shearer before SBR imo. Needs the team to play in the right way.

It was tongue-in-cheek!!