Thorpinho

If people have legitimate criticisms of the game then thats fine. For example a lot of girls i know don't like how obsessed people get by it, which is acceptable because they see people in pubs etc going mental at the tv. What pisses me off is when some idiots start saying "footballers are paid too much" and "the players are all primadonnas" when they know nothing about the finances of the game or anything about who the players are.

He would undoubtedly be successful here, although it would look really bad to sack yet another manager- surely Ashley/Mort would want to show some desire for stability rather than chopping and changing like under Shepherd. I can't work out though what Jose will do now though - never going to be Man U, Liverpool or Arsenal manager...Real Madrid is doubtful but anything can happen with those lunatics, Barcelona I guess is possible if Rijkaard messes things up. There just seem to be no obvious vacancies or managers who are doing badly at big clubs, although that will no doubt change in a few months time.

I have given up on caring whether he is fit or not. If he is then fine he is a quality finisher, if he isn't then play Martins. The whole "is owen fit this week" circus is boring and he is clearly going to continue to be an injury liability for his club side for the remainder of his career.

Is it just me or do we ALWAYS lose these type of games? I think we approached this game with a great deal of complaceny and tactical naivety. We are becoming desperate for Emre and Barton to get fit and perform in the midfield. I hope for Smith's sake he can play upfront because he is atrocious in midfield. Also is anyone surprised to see Owen go off? Im not - does anyone know when England's next game is because about two weeks before that Owen will magically be fit and on form again. Playing Ameobi is a complete waste of time, and to put Martins on the game is just going to be harmful to a player who clearly thrives on confidence and getting games and goals. All in all an absoulute shocker tonight - bad management, bad performances and rubbish football.

Derby didn't play any kind of physical or long ball game. We needed a good midfield player tonight to impose our own tempo on the game, instead we played a couple of destroyers and the most irrelevant midfield player i have ever seen in Smith - does he actually do anything??

Babayaro wins this by a mile. To describe him as incompetent would not do his shiteness justice.

Viduka may just be unfit at the moment, but in the games i have seen him play this season he has looked poor as a 'target man'. Martins actually seems to win more headers than Viduka!

Given is undoubtedly one of the top keepers around, particularly in terms of shot stopping and his lack of really bad errors which seems to be due to some good preparation and concentration ability. One key aspect of a keeper which people can sometimes overlook is distribution, which Given is poor at. I love to see a goalkeeper come to claim a cross then instantly throw it out a long way to a winger to break away. Schmeichel's long throws to the half way line or whatever were awesome.

I cannot understand how someone can berate Milner's crossing ability and then mention N'Zogbia - it really is unbelievable. N'Zogbia isn't very good at all at crossing, and compared to Milner his crossing his utter shite. Yet still people cream themselves over N'Zogbia and can't even acknowledge that Milner is a good player. N'Zogbia is allowed to be "raw, got some ability" but Milner isn't maradona by the age of 20 and is deemed as complete rubbish by a lot of people on here. Its depressing. Even more so is that Milner's fitness, committment and work rate are all arguably the best in our squad and he must be one of the fittest players in the league. After the criticism the likes of Dyer have got over the years for lacking theses attributes and people constantly whining about "when are we going to sign some fit players or some players who work hard", you would think that Milner must get some credit - but no he's completeley and utterly useless isn't he!

The views on Taylor on this board are hilarious - one half saying he's the next John Terry the other saying hes not fit to lace titus bramble's boots! Why does everything with Newcastle have to be so black and white? When we win we are 'gonna win the league' then when we lose we "are going down with the mackems", it gets ridiculous at times!

The only spurs players who would get in the team are Berbatov and Keane really. The rest are pretty average, with a defence thats actually now worse than Newcastle. Maybe Bale in a year or two.

I can see us beating Derby and West Ham, maybe sneaking it at the Emirates. Then I think we will get a reality check with losses to Man city and Everton.

It will be interesting to see how Allardyce fits in N'Zogbia once Enrique comes into the team. I can't really see him dropping any of the current first eleven midfield for N'Zogbia.

If you think N'Zogbia is better at this moment in time than Milner, or as somebody said above even Anderson then frankly you need your head examined. N'Zogbia has that raw turn of pace and dribble that could one day make him a star, but right now the lad has had a few good games and scored a couple - following on from absolutely shocking performances last season. And before anyone says "oh he had a crap manager last year" - Milner had the same manager and showed himself to be a class above N'Zogbia.

I would expect a reaction from them following a hammering against liverpool. Their gameplan may well be to frustrate us and play for a draw. With our lack of creativity this could well happen. As usual I imagine there will be massive build up and expectation of us to destroy them, then when it doesn't happen some peoples heads will explode on here saying oh my god we didnt beat derby allardyce out - just the way things go with following newcastle!

Milner had a bad game only because Melchiot had a brilliant game and didn't give him any space or time on the ball. How he had no assist attempts is strange though as i remember at least 2 times him making crosses into the box - surely thats an assist attempt??

I think somebody mentioned it above...would love for them to cut the music 10 minutes before start of all Prem home games. Not for carling cup though when ground is half empty. It would be so much better for players to be running out to a full st james' park with flags/banners etc and all the fans chanting, rather than some rubbish rock band playing when they are coming down the tunnel.

Fair enough my opinion of the lad may seem a bit ridiculous, but I genuinely look at him and can't help seeing a lot of the Jenas/Dyer attitude in him. Its true you can't blame him for being so arrogant but the point I was making is that it could well be his downfall and mean that one of the most amazingly talented ENGLISH teenagers of recent years fails to fulfil his potential. p.s back on the topic of the thread Krul is better than Schmeichel.

Its based on him turning up on football focus a while back with his cap on sideways or something and his trousers half way down his legs as well as the millions of eyebrow shavings, which is why I made the 50 cent comparison. He was incredibly arrogant in his post match interview, which is what I have based my opinion on. I would be happy to be wrong about him because he is a brilliant player.

Its such a shame Richards seems like a complete tosser and some kind of 50 cent wannabe. He's got the physical ability to be one the best centre backs of his generation, but I would not be at all surprised if he manages to surpass Bellamy by some distance in being a total W*nker throughout his career.

If we were going to spend a lot of money on one world class player we should be looking for a midfielder with pace and creativity to burn, someone who gets the crowd on their feet and can make something out of nothing. Basically buy Messi lol

It seems that some of the newspapers like the express, which was supportive of shepherd, are continuing to back their mate. Saying that fat freddy would have given 50 million to big sam is just trying to paint the new owners in a bad light.

I think he could do better than Leeds, would be better off at a Championship club or even a premiership side. The only advantage of Leeds would be if they still have the top coaches from recent years, particularly for young players. Krul will be arguably the best goalkeeper in the world eventually and needs good coaching to help him fulfil his potential.

As usual things at Newcastle are the wrong way round. It should be experienced freebies in centre midfield and money spent on the back line. But instead its spend 5.8 million on Barton for CM and peanuts on the defence. We never ever learn.

It sounds quite similar to the sort of thing they do at Real Madrid with their sporting directors and whatever else they have. I think its currently their old player Predrag Mijatovic, and he seems to do a lot more of the press stuff/commenting on performances etc. The president Calderon (could have his name wrong) seems to be a little bit more back seat but has the final say. Maybe Keegan could take this Mijatovic role, which would then give us a structure of Ashley financing it and hiding in his castle, Mort running business side of things and for example work on the stadium developments etc, then further down its Keegan as a sort of front man for the board, then allardyce concentrating solely on the players, their training and matches. I get the impression that Mort didn't quite realise how many questions he would have to answer on a day to day basis and would prefer a more low profile behind the scenes role. So from the boards perspective Keegan works, but Allardyce in all likelihood would hate having so many people above him and it would all end in tears.