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I was simply offering an angle regarding Robert's rapid fall from grace - ie. post-NUFC - and how Souness played a part in it, and i'm of the opinion that Souness trampled over Robert's reputation as a player prior to him leaving here, and approaching the later stages of his career he was going to find it hard to re-ignite his career elsewhere. Souness has that unique ability of being able to demotivate a player after he finishes putting them through the ringer. I thought my earlier post would provide a healthy diversion from the usual cliched 'lazy French bugger' atuff, or the 'oh, i loved him' stuff that will no doubt rear it's head somewhere down the track/within this thread. As i said earlier he was was at the wrong end of his playing days, when & after he ran into Souness. Having no prospect of playing on the international stage, and most likely playing at a lesser club & probably as a bit-part player because he was about leave here/and did depart here with a reputation as being 'damaged goods'. This is a far cry isn't it Dave, from having previously plyed his trade, and being a major contributor as a player as well, at club whose majority of fans had taken him into thier hearts. You could probably throw Robert's personality into the mix as well, as he appeared to be 3 parts aloof & arrogant & egotistical and 1 part volatile/mentally fragile, because one could make a case that his temperament only served to magnify the effects of what has been mentioned in the section highlighted. James: Perhaps you could offer the same line towards those who still take some sort of satisfaction when dancing on the proverbial footballing grave of a player who made a cracking contribution here.

In his prime, before running into Souness, a decent percentage of PSG followers, and a fair degree of our supporters in particular would disagree with your blanket assessment/throw-away remark. Some people just can't get over having seen that 'good bloke's' - aka. Souness - ego rubbed up the wrong way. What next....................... too many off-target long distance shots, or how about having too many corners getting past the near-post defenders. Of course the same player's productivity - ie. goals & assists - over the long haul suggests otherwise, especially during his career here.

He was unlucky to have run into Souness at the wrong end of his career, unlike Dunn & Bellamy who have both picked up the pieces of their once shattered reputations as players because the latter two in the end had time on their side in terms of finding 1. a club which is going somewhere and 2. a manager who simply believed in them as footballers while appreciating that they didn't fit the embodiment of what a perfect player is. Can certainly take a while for a player to regenerate a shattered reputation, as a player that is, when a manager speaks ill of their footballing ability via the press at every given opportunity, and all the while shooting two birds with one stone by painting them to be a 'cancer within the dressing room'. It's a tough ask to come back from that, especially for a player approaching the twighlight stages of his career. It's a shame Robert, like Bellamy & Dunn respectively, didn't have the same time at his disposal. As a player, ability-wise, and as a person who genuinely had a love for the club - and foreigners like that are hard to come by where Newcastle United are concerned - it was appropriate that he served out his career here..... depending on form & injuries or simply being overtaken by emerging talent of course. What for he did for this club, Robert didn't deserve to run into the shitebag that was Souness and the aforementioned manager's warped ideology of what constitutes a 'proper player'.

An accurate summary. Two words was all that were needed. On a similar note, i always had respect - and i still do - for Gullit because he had the professional integrity to walk into Shepherd's office and admit that he blew his opportunity in the manager's hotseat, before declining a golden handshake. It takes a man with a sense of honour to do that. Souness on the other hand is an honourless pig.

Hence his exploits at Napoli have also been mentioned. It's not as if Maradona was just a 'Two Tournament Wonder'.

Our first signing should be Lennon, if there's truth to the rumours about Ramos being prepared to let him go in the Summer, provided that Mort and Ashley deliver on whatever assurances that were presented to Keegan prior to KK signing on the dotted line. We need somebody who can scare the shit out of defenders, a winger who can get to the by-lines and cut it back into the box, and he is a different player to the dribbling & long-shooting N'Zogbia. Although both have quality about them on the ball as pure 'ball-carrying' wingers the subtle variations in both players' repetoires would make an ideal left-right punch out on the wings. Of course keeping NZogbia on the books is key, provided the damage incurred by McKay - as N'Zogbia's cheif head turner - can't be reversed. Keegan employs his central midfielders to crash the box - ie. to look for shooting opportunities - and Lennon fits the bill perfectly as a player who can supply the sort of low/direct cut-back balls i'm talking about. Lennon has the tools in his armory that would contribute to the transformation of this side imo.

Purely due to the strength of the current Argentinian squad & the talent they have coming through the U'21 ranks, and this refers to every position on the park, Messi will never have the same opportunity as Maradona did - the opportunity to win a WC virtually off his own boots. One could make a similar case with relation to Maradona's exploits at Napoli, as another poster has already mentioned, and i agree with every word typed in the post i speak of. Therein lies the footballing beauty of Maradona, and what he achieved as a footballer in terms of titles & cups won. As a point of comparison, as far as both of them making a similar impact on ther biggest stages, Messi will never be in the same league imo.

Too much supporter and press driven hype/obsession & player pressure associated with the no.9 jersey imo.

And who do you think established a newly formed home-base for them? Probably the same mischief making bugger whose been releasing snippets to the likes of Oliver and the London rags, in a concerted bid to garner interest in his client. N'Zogbia's young & naive, and he's under the wing of a greedy head turner. It's agents who are the biggest mercenaries - i liken them to arms traders who jump from one battlefield/continent to another looking for their next opportunistic payday, but they're legal, and the players are corruptable and profitable commodities............... to agents players are used guns from previous battlefields, their place is to be re-used and profiteered upon when the agent/dealer sees fit.

At one stage i thought he'd retire as a one-club player, for us unfortunately. Pieces just kept falling into place for him in recent times ie. Souness' mismanagement of the striking force - thanks to some much debated about input from the useless Scottish b****** himself - and of course the long-term injury suffered by Owen. Circumstances continued to allow Ameobi to float around the starting eleven for a few years. Ameobi's most notable contribution, and it's what i'll always remember him most for: Unfortunately that was his *alleged double against Sunderland. One could make a strong argument that his goal bound efforts that day kept the useless Scottish b****** in the job. *if one doesn't discount Caldwell's involvement

Absolutely agree re: Roeder. Two managers, in the form Roeder & Allardyce, who chose not to develop on the early promise imo has only served in knocking down the price we'll eventually receive. I'm of the opinion that should Roeder have played him at LW, and had he enjoyed a break-out second year to compliment the form showed after Souness' departure, this would've only sped-up his departure. During & at the end of his introductory/rookie season - ie. the season mentioned above - the "Arsenal are interested' story was already doing the rounds. Somebody had to feeding the rumour talk to the London rags, and of course to Oliver. IMO McKay, on the back of N'Zogbia's late-season form as previously mentioned, was alreasy working on an outgoing transfer deal quite some time ago.

Upside - unfullfilled potential. Still very much a rough diamond and unlike several respected few - ie. HTT - i was never of the opinion that his stint at left-back has/or will contribute to him becoming a more rounded player. Very early on i thought that his over reliance on what is his greatest strength - ie. his dribbling game & the ability to beat defenders - would become a liability for the team because in the attacking sense he is more of a one-dimensional/instinctive attacking weapon and doesn't have that measured & varied short-medium passing game which attacking minded fullbacks need as a 'get out of jail' card when they're pressured in their own half. An instinctive & one-dimensionsal attacker like N'Zogbia, who also had that invaluable knack of knowing when to drift inside & to find space inside the box - had the makings of a Pires 10 goal winger imo and they're hard to find, and should have been developed in his preferred position. Downside - The obvious, his association with Willie McKay - a notorious peddler of French/African players who seeks frequent moves for his young chargers. For a bloke like McKay, we're a feeder club - a high paying club, a vessel used to expose promising players like N'Zogbia to the bigger stages ie. Arsenal & Spurs. Going by earlier posts saying that N'Zogbia had an over inflated upinion of himself. Who do you think pumped all that hot air into the player's head, all the whille reminding him - while playing 2nd fiddle to Duff - that he was too good for the club and that he was destined for bigger things. I'd also bet that McKay, in looking after his own self-serving interests by establishing a residential base for N'Zogbia's family.... an immigrant family, helped set them up with a shack in London because somewhere down the track 'the family separation line', curently being peddled, would inevitably rear it's head as a convenient excuse to get out of town, or more accurately to secure a lucrative move to somebody like Spurs or in the best case scenario Arsenal. Keegan, if N'Zogbia does get his wish in the Summer, should effectively place a black-ban on all McKay represented players, regardless of their ability. If Veterre recommends such a player Keegan should say 'no..... not interested'. While we're just a mid-low table club, especially if Mort & Ashley don't take pre-emptive steps to nullafy this during the upcoming transfer window, Newcastle United will just be Willie Mckay's meal-ticket if we travel down the road of signing his 'most promising youngsters' or 'his top clients - ability wise - who he is seeking to bring to the premiership, and on to greater things soon after ala Chimbonda'. McKay represented types are more trouble than they're worth, as Wigan duly discovered. How can a manager carry a club during a rebuilding phase, and that is Keegan's current task & struggle, while utilising and placing an element of trust - ie. that they'll stay for journey as he tries to build a team that will hopefully contend - onto those players whose representative as i mentioned earlier is a notorious 'player peddler'.

......... and i suppose that Fat Freddy Shepherd was the stringpuller with regards to the club's shambolic dealings in & around January.

I didn't say he was, I said Dawson plays the physical, dominant defender role better, he's a lot better in the air and doesn't get pushed around as easily, on the down side he makes even more errors than Taylor. On par I reckon which isn't good enough, we really need to be looking for a centre back who can pass the ball around anyway. That's a pretty convenient & easy throw-away comment to make really. I can't think of many current EPL centrehalves at the moment who punch well below their weight as Taylor does - ie. their physical game (being able to smother a frontman out of a game) not measuring up to their listed physical attributes, height & physical build etc. Fair enough though, we should be looking at better alternatives as compared with these two ie. Taylor & Dawson.

One has to wonder how badly his game has suffered - ie. athletically wise, and this conincides with his inability to consistently cope with athletic & quick strikers one-on-one - in the wake of his bout with glandular fever a few years back while at Forest. He was out of action alot longer - virtually a whole season when you look at his ensuing injury/absence record soonafter while at the same club - when compared with Scott Parker. At one stage, prior to missing alot of football as mentioned above, he garnered himself a big reputation within the U21 circles and of course thanks to form at Forest - especially in the season - i think it was possibly 02/03 - when they were bundled in their promotion play-off. I think Spurs signed him on this basis, his reputation that is. This is understandable, he was afterall 'the next big thing' at one point - there was even talk of him training with the senior England team. Not properly doing their homework on the player in question is what Spurs were guilty of because he clearly hasn't measured up to the hype which has previously been heaped upon him. The period of prolonged injury seems to be the mitigating factor in this instance. One has to question just how much his athleticism/agility/speed etc has suffered since, because he battled a heap of upper-leg muscle injuries prior to moving to Spurs

No wonder the team produced a littany of poor 2nd half performances under Big Sam. It's hardly an exorcise in motivation, from a half-time teamtalk standpoint, to ram a truckload of I.T/ProZone psuedo-talk down the players' throats.

Couldn't agree more, especially with the sections placed in bold.

With what exactly? given our much reduced & Fizzy Pop League induced status and the player recruiting potential that would ensue............... a set of 'reach' types from the 2nd division and lower leagues as i can't see Championship clubs parting with their best youngsters cheaply, and similar types from the continent? 'Yo-Yo' club status beckons in that case. That is being a team who will rack-up frequent flyer points between the top flight and the Fizzy Pop League in conjuction with relegation & promotion later down the track, ala Sunderland. Apart from that it will take us years to get back up imo. I've said before it'll be a tough ask to get rival championship clubs to offload their best players straight on our doorstep, and for our youngsters already coming through and those who could possibly form part of the team's spine - ie. especially those from the continent in the form of Baheng - a traditionally tough & physical 'blue-collar' league is a big step-up from the Reserves and the relevant youth leagues. Leeds and Forest have both struggled to deal with the cut-throat 1st Div, the latter in rect years had their best crack at promotion at the time when Hart was manager - when they were blessed with a set of up & comers like Harewood, Reid & Dawson for starters, and of course they also had Collins there as a mentor/leadership figure. They still blew it, despite being a very good football-playing side - arguably the best in the play-offs that year imo. The pressure was too much for their much praised youngsters, and i rate their talent coming through at the time a damn sight more highly than our current crop. Life in the Fizzy Pop League will present a massive culture-shock for the players involved, both for those who come through the reserve ranks and those who survive the end-of-season cull/sell-off. The current batch of players - ie. 1st teamers & reserve teamers alike - right now are just two teams making up the numbers in their respective leagues. As teams go, result-driven reputations that is, they currently don't have a set of crosshairs drawn on their backs. Status-wise, for us being a traditionally big-club that is, it's a different kettle of fish in the Championship. We'll become the only significant brand name within it, even though we'll be something of a laughing stock, especially amongst fellow champioship supporters in particular, we'll effectively be the flagship club within the Championship. And with this Tall Poppy-like Syndrome in effect, every other team will raise their respective effort levels just a little bit more when they meet us come matchday. We'll go from just being 'another struggling mid-low table team struggling to realising it potential within our current division' to becoming in effect 'The Hunted - the club which every other Championship side will seek to take down on a weekly basis'. For this reason FA-Cup fuelled intensity looms for us, and that's on a weekly basis. With this is mind a tough slog back to the top flight waits in the wings imo. A quick hiatus within the realms of The Championship is far from a foregone conclusion, or as you partly see it relegation will act as something of a unique opportunity which to build a new & exciting team brimming up and coming talent.

And an insignificant footballer, with the football ability to match his status as a player, in Marc Bosman played a major part in that. A contract today isn't worth the price of the ink ink that was used to pen the zeros that inhabit any contract deal. The Bosman System has played a significant role in the mercenary-attitude among players today - ie. players can jump ship almost when they choose... the uttered word of 'Bosman' by his agent as a trigger/threat is enough for a club to relucantly part ways with an integral & important player who is in-demand elsewhere - and of course the predatory practices of their agents who of course influence & turn the heads of their chargers in the hope of securing more frequent & lucrative commission-based pay-offs down the track.

Likewise, however there are many who will dismiss that as being fiction based on their brief & unsuccessful pairing last season. A long passing game to a pair of 'small forwards' like these two, having them feed on scraps via 2nd opportunities ie. centrehalves not effectively dealing with the high stuff & clearing their line, was ill-fated from the outset, esepcially where one is essentially at the moment a 'one dimensional forward' whose game revolves around running at opponents from deep before unleashing an effort on goal, and the other - ie. Owen - is pretty much an off-the-ball goal sneak who relies on having a deeper playing forward alongside. That sort of s*** 'lump it up the middle' football in effect negated Martins' main strengths, strengths which should compliment Owen's now reduced repetoire which is more reliant on his intelligence off-the-ball & his predatory instincts as being an all-out striker. Somebody ,who can run at defenses & shoot from range, in the mould of Martins, draws defenders forward from the rearguard-line causing the defensive line - ie. through the middle - to become fractured, creating seams in the defensive line. It's this sort of space which opens up between the defending centrehalves, where they're more vulnerable to diagonal off-the-ball runs when the 'out-and-striker' is playing off the last defender....... the sort of expoitable space a 'goal-sneak' like Owen thrives on. In a short passing system, or in a balanced passing game that would also utilise his ability to burn a high-defending rearguard line, enough opportunities will open up for Martins in 'the hole' when he does drop back. These are the opportunities you want to see arise when one of your frontmen has the two-pronged ability in their armory when it comes to beating his man and being able to shoot with both feet from distance. Leeds, for a time anyway, built their lead-up passing game around getting Yeboah into similar positions. I'm not of the belief that you're front pairing has to be a target-man/little man combination. As long as they possess varying strengths that will both present match-up & formational questions to the defending opposition, that's enough. It's about providing varying threats via your strikeforce, scaring the the s*** out of them in more than just one way. Along similar lines, provided that the team's pattern of play suited, i was in favour of a move for Defoe when we were reportedly sniffing around during the recent Summer when Roeder was at the helm. At the time i felt an Owen/Defoe pairing would work, and i'm of the same opinion re: Owen & Martins.

"The Hunted" A big club, status wise that is, going down into the Fizzy Pop League means that everybody else will raise their effort level against us. Every weekend will become like an FA Cup tie. A tough slog to get back up.

I'll give you that one, Ashley actually gained a majority shareholding on the morning of the 7th, it still doesn't tie in the sale of Parker to the purchase of Barton, the time difference is 9 days. Back to the Viduka signing, which eventually went through on the 8th, and this goes hand-in-hand with the whole debate as to when Mort & Ashley were effectively running things, prior to June 7th that is. It's bloody hard for a then acting chairman - ie. FS - to run things from the confines of hospital bed, or his sickbed at home if he was indeed an out-patient while all this to-and-fro-ing was happening at the time with regards to incoming & outgoing transfers. It's a matter of when you do or don't believe Mort was effectively guiding the ship, post May 23.

I alway try to highlight an edit, I've known people change posts after a reply has been made to the original and moan when a question isn't answered. mackems.gif You need to these days Mick. It's not unknown to have members on this very forum dismantle one argument based on a singular & innocent typo.

The significant mistake, amidst all the transfer strategy cautiousness delivered by Mort & Ashley which has already been cited, which may well bring about our relegation. That mistake is the one that counts the most. That one month will go down as a 'not to do' blueprint for other clubs to go by. If we survive the drop, and if Keegan isn't sufficiently backed - surely promises must've have been made when considering the manner in which Keegan originally left - in the Summer as far as i'm concerned Ashley can bring in the scaffolders have them remove his "...... Direct" advertising and sell-up & bugger off, sooner rather than later that is. *Yet some many people still can't see the point. I guess 'not being Freddy Shepherd' is one factor, along with all the other stuff ie. Ashley's "i stand as the leader of Toon Army - i bleed as they do" warcry in the press and by getting down & dirty in the terraces and generally coming across as your everyday grassroots supporter.... and the debt reduction issue is also a relevant point, which weighs in Ashley & Mort's favour at the minute.

The defending of them in this case might have something to do with Parker being sold on 6th June, Ashley not owning the club until 15th June only to find we no longer have a hold up in the Barton transfer a day later on the 16th June. Edit, s***, I was wrong with one of my dates, Barton signed the day before Ashley gained full control, he signed on 14th June, Mort only became chairman on 24th June. bold piece in your quote box: a typo already edited in my original post. You must've posted while i was editing.