Thorpinho

He looked very assured when he first came in, but poor management from Allardyce really knocked his confidence and mistakes started to slip into his game. Not a first teamer, but a very valuable squad centre back. He wont be back i dont think.

I have said this before and will say it again - a lot of the time our much maligned defence is not to blame for conceded goals. The gap we have between the midfield and defence is criminal, and the top teams like Man Utd and Arsenal have a field day in this area. The defence clear it but it just keeps coming back because the centre of our midfield is SHITE. Given isn't shit, the defence these days isn't that shit. Its the midfield's fault and the sooner this is rectified in the transfer market the better.

He wont be sold today thats guaranteed. In the summer maybe, but only if he had a major sulk and demanded to go.

I hope he stays with Ferguson and repays him for making him the player he is. One day he will end up at Real Madrid though.

Football would be a much better place without Willie McKay.

Does anybody know what Jeff Vetere did at Real Madrid? I am personally not all that excited by the changes, but will judge this new management team on the players they either target or bring in. It is pessimistic of me to say, and based on absolutely nothing, but I just have a bad feeling that it wont work in the slightest.

I think the club will TRY to be ambitious but fail and lose out on any quality players to teams offering any sort of European football. We will be lucky to get anyone of any decent quality, despite the best intentions of KK and the depth of Mike Ashley's pockets.

bloody hell do you think that journo was having a wank over Ramos at the time he wrote that as well! I have completely and utterly given up reading any of the stories these tabloids write. I think we just have to laugh and get on with it.

i can see us taking a bit of a pasting, but grabbing one or 2 goals. Something like a 4-2 defeat or 5-3, then the media can wet themselves over "kamikaze" football headlines.

I must admit I never actually watch Middlesbrough these days as they are so boring...is Woody still the same player? I dont want to see us give the smoggies 8 million quid for a player who has lost his pace/confidence/ability etc. If its the old Woody then get him in.

I hate spurs because no matter how shit they play, no matter how much of a joke their defence is, they don't get the criticism they deserve. I am fucking sick of watching all the footy shows on tv like MOTD, soccer saturday etc etc and hearing "newcastle need to get the defence right its just not good enough" from one guy and then 30 seconds later Spurs are a good solid side they have talented defenders whilst they sit there and watch another 3 or 4 goals sailing past the pathetic Paul Robinson!!!!!!! That brings me onto another point about them - their fans sing englands number 1 at their keeper - are they really that stupid to think he is good? p.s they have Goldfish boy - thats a good reason to dislike them.

thats exactly what Spurs need, another incredibly injury prone centre back!

if anyone does manage to get the first 25 seconds of that would appreciate it being posted on here!

Could not agree more, especially about the difference between the cricket and football journalism. I would love to have the intelligence and insightful thinking about the game the cricket guys have transferred into football. If you read the back pages of tabloids there is rarely anything about actual football, just about players off the field behaviour, boardroom disputes, people wanting to leave clubs etc etc. They have totally forgotten the original point of it all - what happens on the pitch.

He was quality, i wonder how much our old Keegan years team would be worth these days with all the crazy prices for players. People are comparing Sir Les to Drogba who is worth around 25 m now i guess, Shearer at his best? 40+m?

It should be purely compensation for injuries. Effectively renting the players from clubs for tournaments doesn't really make much sense to me.

After seeing that picture can we start a VDV to Newcastle campaign please?

I think there is so much talent to be had from the likes of Germany and Holland before totally overspending on overrated English players. For example Defoe would possibly cost not too far off what you could get Huntelaar for! Imagine having a Diego or VDV...or both!!! Fuck it im starting a new FM game right now!

I have always thought that Milner's position would end up being a more central one rather than out wide. I think he is one of the current squad who will flourish under Keegan and a more attack minded team.

Even if we could tempt him here, as soon as he says he is leaving there would surely be a lot of clubs interested better than us. We would play him as a creative central midfielder - i can understand why you forgot that position as we haven't seen anyone play in it since Allardyce came here!

I would love it if we signed VDV but sadly not going to happen. I would also rather have Stephen Carr captain than Alan Smith. In fact i would rather play carr in midfield ahead of Smith.

It will be an absolute travesty if Enrique or the other defenders get dropped because of the Man U scoreline but the midfielders walk straight back into the team.

Yeah as i remember it those two 19 year olds weren't being "protected" by the midfield performance seen on saturday. No wonder our defence has no confidence when they are constantly blamed for the ineptitude of the rest of the side.

The defence was for the large part good enough against Man Utd. Man Utd got all their good positions from the space between midfield and defence. The pressure the defence came under and the scoreline was in my opinion entirely the fault of the central midfield players. Smith and Butt were awful - NOT Enrique.

When i looked at the team on sky sports i was momentarily happy as it looked like we were playing 4-4-2 with duff and milner wide and zoggy getting a go in the middle. But then i come on here to find that actually no we are playing a depressing defensive tactic again with 10 men once Smith gets the inevitable red card out the way early on