alexthegreat

Hes now a joke of Andreas Andersson proportions. You know with absolute certainty that when he gets the ball he will contrive to do absolutely anything except stick the ball in the corner of the net.

Hatem Ben Arfa walking down the middle of the road rather than the pavement on Gosforth High Street at about 8.15am this morning, while wearing his NUFC tracksuit. Not spotted by me, but by a lass at work, who said she nearly hit him.

After the City debacle hes played 442 for 3 matches, conceeded 1 goal from a set piece and got 7 points. Switch to 443 and we've conceeded 6 in a game and a half and will get no points. He should have kept on with what he was doing, back to 442 v Cardiff please.

Went to my first gateshead match on Tuesday. Within 2 minutes of the kick off I'd seen one of the best goals I've seen live. I'd strongly recommend going to a well known video site and typing in "Carl Magnay's 40 Yard strike against Chester FC"

luton, left midfield ? Yeah, well remembered. I don't know if he was left midfield, but he scored against us to ditch us out of the cup on Sky when we were favourites in 94. I've a feeling he was man of the match as well. I was still quite young, we didn't often lose at that time, and I actually thought we were going to win it.

Nearly at the point where I'd have him in ahead of Jonas. He will make loads of mistakes and frustrate, but even before today he has shown that he can make things happen, whereas Jonas can't.

Scott Oakes

I just think he has far more to work with at the moment than he did last year. These are the players who started more than 14 league matches last season: Cisse 35 Jonas 34 Santon 31 Cabaye 25 Krul 24 Taylor 24 Tiote 22 Coloccini 22 Williamson 19 Perch 19 (Ba 19) Simpson 18 Anita 17 Ben Arfa 16 I really don't rate about 5 or 6 of those players. Our most common starting XI last season would look something like this: Cisse Ba Jonas Cabaye / Anita Tiote / Perch HBA Santon Coloccini Taylor / Williamson Simpson Krul Although that isn't really representative of what we put out as nearly half those players started less than 50% of the games. Which in itself shows what an ever changing side we had last season. Ben Arfa missed most of the first half of the season, Ba was gone for the second half, Coloccini missed nearly half the season, Cabaye missed quite a few games too. I expect our strongest side was only available a handful of times. And we had this side out yesterday: Remy Cisse HBA Cabaye Sissoko Anita Santon Coloccini Mbiwa Debuchy Krul If you take Jonas, Simpson, Perch, and Williamson out and replace them with Debuchy, Mbiwa, Anita, and Remy then we will hit less long balls and play better passing football from the back as they are better footballers. We also put out the same back 4 and goalkeeper for the 3rd game in a row, something we rarely managed last season. I don't think Pardew has had some sort of epiphany or lucky break, he just had far more to work with yesterday than he did at any stage last season. Hopefully we'll have our best players available for as long as possible, as we did at the start of the 2011/12 season.

Really good yesterday, I feared he could be a disaster this season following his performance at City. He's definitely very talented, and there seems to be a bit of spikeyness to his character which might not do him any harm. It's very refreshing to see an entire back 4 that is so comfortable on the ball, and with Anita playing well in front of them. It's such a contrast to Williamson and Simpson starting the build ups, with Tiote in front of them, Perch often involved at some point, and the punts from Krul that inevitably went with that. Only 1 set piece goal conceeded in 3 games is encouraging as well. The lack of aerial presence at centre back is the most obvious weakness, and it's not an insignificant one unfortunately (though Debuchy seems to be able to get his head on it now and again). Over the course of the season I think Pardew will have to decide when Taylor comes in to the side when everyones fit, but the best teams in this league even rotate their defence a bit and Taylor's fitness means he probably isn't capable of a full season anyway. It certainly looks as if we are going to have one of our better defensive units this season, and if they keep developing together then it could look very impressive indeed.

I thought we made them look horrible and he deserves some credit for that. Oh absolutely, I'm not taking anything away from the team, I'm just saying it's a step in the right direction but we're nowhere near the level we should be at. What level are you expecting of this squad? From this squad? Considering we have better players than the season we finished 5th I'd say realistically top 9. Competing with Everton behind the top 6-7 clubs. And you think we are nowhere near that level (finishing 7-9th) this season? I don't think we're that far off really, and the thing that would stop us getting there is not Pardew imho, but similar to last year, injuries hitting the first team. Absolute travesty we couldn't get a few more players in over the summer. Football is a fickle game. Beating Fulham at home with a last minute goal and then another late winner to Villa shows improvement it doesn't show much more than that at the moment. I don't see us as a top 8 team at the moment. I think we still lack a bit and rely to much on Ben Arfa. Maybe I'm just hard to please, but people are getting way ahead of themselves. With that said we definitely have a squad capable of a top 8 finish. Form since we got the new players in January: WWLWLWLLWLDLDWL LDWW 8 wins, 3 draws, 8 defeats These players have shown top 8 form for the eqivalent of half a season now. With Remy, a fit Ben Arfa and Coloccini, and the likes of Debuchy, Mbiwa, and Anita having improved a great deal since January, we should look a decent side, if a little light up front. Is 8 wins and 8 defeats really top 8 form? 27 points from 19 games? 54 points comfortably gets you 8th place the last 3 seasons. Indeed, and Robson got us 5th place in 2004 with just 56 points.

I thought we made them look horrible and he deserves some credit for that. Oh absolutely, I'm not taking anything away from the team, I'm just saying it's a step in the right direction but we're nowhere near the level we should be at. What level are you expecting of this squad? From this squad? Considering we have better players than the season we finished 5th I'd say realistically top 9. Competing with Everton behind the top 6-7 clubs. And you think we are nowhere near that level (finishing 7-9th) this season? I don't think we're that far off really, and the thing that would stop us getting there is not Pardew imho, but similar to last year, injuries hitting the first team. Absolute travesty we couldn't get a few more players in over the summer. Football is a fickle game. Beating Fulham at home with a last minute goal and then another late winner to Villa shows improvement it doesn't show much more than that at the moment. I don't see us as a top 8 team at the moment. I think we still lack a bit and rely to much on Ben Arfa. Maybe I'm just hard to please, but people are getting way ahead of themselves. With that said we definitely have a squad capable of a top 8 finish. Form since we got the new players in January: WWLWLWLLWLDLDWL LDWW 8 wins, 3 draws, 8 defeats These players have shown top 8 form for the eqivalent of half a season now. With Remy, a fit Ben Arfa and Coloccini, and the likes of Debuchy, Mbiwa, and Anita having improved a great deal since January, we should look a decent side, if a little light up front.

Obviously really really hope he signs. It was first reported that we were going to give him a new deal back in February: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2284104/Newcastle-keen-sign-Hatem-Ben-Arfa-long-term-deal-Liverpool-interest.html 7 months on and nothing has happened. He will have 18 months left on his contract if he hasn't signed a contract by January, and is the only one of our valuable players who's contract has got to that stage, so considering a new offer for him would have been a priority for some time. Or it would have been if we had a semi competent director of football anyway. HBA may not want to sign - he may think his talents deserve a better stage, and in all honesty it would be hard to disagree. We also might not want him to sign. We appear to do fake bids for players, we have also done fake contract offers (Nolan). .COM seemed convinced we've been determined to cash in on our most valuable assets for the whole summer (although that doesn't necessarily mean it's true). Just really hope this ends in him signing a new deal.

Very happy with that - he is shocking and I am not even sure he is good enough for the Championship. Get what we can for him. They have took the p*ss out of the fans all summer and I was as gullible as the rest until recently. It is staggering what they have got away with and JFK actually gets money for his "job". An absolute shambles and embarrassment all round. Hope he enjoyed his piss up in St Tropez

yeah you're right. I'm predicting we'll have the chopper on standby for Jermaine Defoe, only to find that "we simply left it too late" again.

We should have a fair idea what to expect tomorrow.

Unfortunately for him and us the financial crash put paid to that plan though, so he has had to settle for plan B since then which is to run the club like his other brand acquisitions, ie for the sole benefit of his baby Sports Direct. Having moved onto plan B though, if he can continue to run the club at a break even level or even at a profit while getting free advertising and revenue for selling club branded merchandise through Sports Direct (how much of that does the club see I wonder?), why should he sell? Just read this. Exactly right on why he bought us imo

I remember being told that the reason he bought the club was because on the face of it, it looked good value, so he was going to hang on to it for literally no more than a year or two then flog it on at a profit. There were rumours of him looking to sell almost as soon as he took over, which most fans, me included, dismissed as bollocks. Louise Talyor reported this in the Guardian in Feb 2008 (6 months before the wheels came off): I was later told that the unnamed consortium was Barry Moat, and although he only got mentioned in the papers in July - August 2009. Ashley all but confirmed this with one of his rare quotes at the time: 2 years ago in summer 2009 takes us back to summer 2007 - which is practically the day he bought us. I'm pretty certain he was looking for a quick profit but grossly miscalculated. As a consequence he has been stuck with us for 6 years. I suppose we could make up for his disappointment a bit with some quality football, but that was in short supply last season. I saw 2 seperate people at the match yesterday who said they had heard that he had lost interest, was looking to sell, and we weren't signing anyone. I've no idea if that's true or not but he wasnt at either of the first 2 home matches. Basically he must be absolutely sick of NUFC.

I think the fact that we were playing against one of the most bone idle strike forces the league has ever seen will have helped the keeper's distribution quite a bit.

Form since we got the new players in January: WWLWLWLLWLDLDWL LDW 7 wins, 3 draws, 8 defeats Still not quite good enough, but not that far off. Hardly deserving of the slaughtering he gets on here, or the daft face at the top of the forum. Although on the other hand, it is fair to there has been no momentum at any stage during that run, it followed some genuinely terrible results, and included 2 of the worst results I've seen. We looked a good side today aside from the centre forward and left wing positions. Remy is going to make a difference. The quality he showed in his appearance really highlighted the utter rubbish we've had to tolerate in forward positions. If we were to add a left winger and a striker we could go to Villa looking for a 4th clean sheet in a row and with a dangerous looking forward line to go with it. We aren't that far off being a decent side.

Well this is the problem with transfer gossip - a few years a go I actually did know someone who was inside the dressing roon at SJP. Everything he told me about injuries, off the field bust ups etc was dead right, but almost nothing he heard about transfers ever materialised. The thing is that the people involved in the deals are often deceiving to each other, and the players involved in the moves don't even know whats going on. So how could anyone ever have 100% accurate inside knowledge on a transfer, unless the player is actually on his way and literally the only thing left is to sign on the dotted line?

Think it's 5 years since Keegan tried to flog Shola only to be scuppered by his failed medical, yet we're still plugging away with him in 2013 at the start of a new season. Played 45 mins midweek so I'm expecting him to look absolutely shot after 25 mins. However if we can get vastly improved performances from Marveaux and Cisse then we should still look quite decent. Big if though, in my opinion.

Think I saw someone say on another thread that he needs to play in a team that stretches defences and I think that is dead right. Pardew normally lines us up with a right footed full back and a totally ineffective right footed winger on the left, and a left footed winger on the right. Then theres usually 2 central midfielders who rarely go anywhere near the strikers, and there still isn't a proper target man at the club. It's no wonder he struggles.

from .COM: While fans at SJP mocked him on Saturday, it's reported that our Director of F****all attended the Valenciennes versus Olympique Marseille game in France. That finished in a 1-0 victory for the visitors, for whom alleged toon target Andre Ayew played 90 minutes in a left midfield role. The 23 year-old French born winger is a Ghanain international and also plays as a central striker. WIndow watch: PSG play waiting game The desire of Newcastle to cash in on Yohan Cabaye before the current transfer window shuts has produced only one firm bid from Arsenal for the midfielder to date. However Paris SG continue to be linked with a bid for the French international and a second possible target at SJP emerged over the weekend with confirmation that the Parisians are engaged in trying to recruit a right back. PSG officials watched their top target Ricardo van Rhijn return to the Ajax side that drew 3-3 at Heerenveen on Friday, but are also reportedly keeping tabs on United's Mathieu Debuchy

If that is the team then the back 4 and midfield should be able to play some decent football. Hopefully the forwards can exceed my expectations and produce a performance that is slightly better than abysmal. Think we could play some good football but be let down by a lack of leadership, leaky defending and poor finishing, predicting 1-2.

not particularly looking forward to seeing the Sissoho - Tiote midfield pairing but I'm pretty sure we'll see it at some point.