merlin

Mostly this - where I have doubts is the assumption that a few astute buys would bridge the gap with the Prem standard as KK and SbR did. The reason I say that is because under KK, the promotion side was streets ahead of this one in all round ability, and so only a few signings enabled it to do well ; SBR inherited a side which had some decent players in most departments but needed tweaking as well as morale lifting and he did both.. The current side has horrendous lack of ability for the top level in both midfield and attack - to rectify these problems will cost a fortune which we all know Ashley will NOT spend and the defence itself will not keep the side up - its hardly like Leeds in their pomp of the 60s/70s anyway, but the lack of support from the midfield and the inability of the forwards to keep the ball for any length of time under pressure will cause many problems for under=pressure defenders. The answer to the question is a qualified yes, but only if major improvements are made to the rest of the side.

This was always likely to happen - as I said earlier, NUFC have a long record of letting players slip after a long drawn-out transfer saga. He probably isn't the greatest player around, but more than likely one who would have helped secure promotion - so much for Hughton being confident of getting his targets......

Best that can be expected from a club which currently is amongst the also-rans. If you have low expectations for the club and its future, you won't be disappointed.

This - absolutely. Apart from SOMETIMES pulling the defence, Ameobi is not up to the required standard, and at 28, is past it from a Prem point of view. I would have sold him at least 4 years ago.

Lua Lua - not going to make it in my opinion. His namesake was a better player and, quite rightly, not rated as up to required standard by SBR. I do not think that ANY of the former juniors, with the possible exception of Carrol and Tozer, will make it as Prem players.

Been saying it for about 4 years. This...

Not really, the bounce made it difficult for the keeper. Not true - he was slow getting down & across goal ; I've seen redwoods go down faster from a chainsaw....

A decent game to watch, esp for neutrals, but the weaknesses in the side were shown up for all to see - WBA left us for dead with their movement & passing for the first 20 mins and they had clearly worked out that the right side of Newcastle's defence is the weakest, which resulted in the first goal and numerous other dangerous situations - our Central defenders did well to keep them out at times. Dorrans' looks streets ahead of any NUFC midfielder but the whole team looks to have benefited from Di Matteo's style of play. Nolan sums up the pedestrianism that is Newcastle's midfield - if ever there was sacrilege, it was someone on this site a few months ago, attempting to compare him with Robert Lee ; unbelievable, and I reckon Nolan will have ceased to be able to play at the top level long before Lee did - his fitness is poor but then, that could be directed at a number of players. Credit to the team for sticking at it and getting a great equalizer from Guthrie(another who struggled against the WBA midfield) and I was pleased for Lovenkrands who showed great professionalism and strength of character by playing after his father's death - but the WBA keeper takes the blame for his goal, a header that should really have been saved, and many on here would have been slamming Harper if HE had let it in. Harper himself had a good match and almost kept Bednar out when he had no right to do so - how anyone can call him a pub keeper merely illustrates the ignorance of the person who said it. The scoreline was probably fair in that there should have been at least 1 pen awarded to Newcastle, but nobody could have complained in WBA had won. Unless some additions are made to the squad in order to raise competition for places the side could start to fall away over the next few weeks ; Albion AND Forest(Davies was watching the match in the commentary box)will BOTH have taken heart from both the result and exposure of our limitations - promotion is far from certain at this point and with signings looking to be thin on the ground, a nervous 3 months beckons.

Do you actually hold a non-UK Passport ? If you think its so bad to have one, I assume you don't live in the UK ? If you think having a non-UK Passport is so good, I suggest you try entering Chile or Argentina on a Canadian one ; you will find that you have to pay US$100 for the privilege - UK Passport holders enter FREE....maybe other countries in the world don't share you opinion, but then maybe its because they know the Brits are so hard-up after the massive debts they've accrued over the last 10 years that they had better try not to deter them !! Also, its a good job you were referring to Irish PASSPORTS rather than Irish Credit - ask their public sector workers about the wages/pension cuts THEY have had to pay for Ireland's huge debts. Probably a sign of things to come in the UK after May......

O'Neill was born in Kilrea, N.Ireland, which makes him a citizen of the UK - for now.... His family WERE Nationalist, but that doesn't matter because he still holds a UK Passport - unless he has changed Nationality without telling anyone. He also holds the OBE, and if he really did have strong Nationalist feelings, he wouldn't have accepted that....would he ! Being a citizen of the United Kingdom is not the same thing as being British. Here's a link to Martin O'Neill delivering a talk on "What it means to be Irish": http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2008/1231/martinoneillpresidentiallecture_av.html Brian Clough once said ; 'If your Auntie had balls, she'd be your uncle...!' O'Neill holds a UK Passport - end of story, despite what anyone says - there are plenty of Ulstermen who are rightfully proud of being Irish, but they wouldn't relinquish their British citizenship. Ditto Welshmen and the majority of Scots...... UK citizenship – citizenship of "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" – is not the same as being British, and no amount of wilfull ignorance on your part will change that fact. When it comes to ignorance, you are the World Champ(still, I suppose you have to be decent at SOMETHING). And no amount of stupid, NuLab Political Correctness, bred into bigots over the last 13 years, OR wishful thinking, can change the facts - O'Neill is a BRITISH CITIZEN ; YOU look in his passport. I assume they still teach reading at UK schools if not much else these days....

O'Neill was born in Kilrea, N.Ireland, which makes him a citizen of the UK - for now.... His family WERE Nationalist, but that doesn't matter because he still holds a UK Passport - unless he has changed Nationality without telling anyone. He also holds the OBE, and if he really did have strong Nationalist feelings, he wouldn't have accepted that....would he ! Being a citizen of the United Kingdom is not the same thing as being British. Here's a link to Martin O'Neill delivering a talk on "What it means to be Irish": http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2008/1231/martinoneillpresidentiallecture_av.html Brian Clough once said ; 'If your Auntie had balls, she'd be your uncle...!' O'Neill holds a UK Passport - end of story, despite what anyone says - there are plenty of Ulstermen who are rightfully proud of being Irish, but they wouldn't relinquish their British citizenship. Ditto Welshmen and the majority of Scots......

The team of 92-93 would walk all over this one; our current team doesn't have anybody as good as Andy Cole, Gavin Peacock, Rob Lee, David Kelly, Paul Bracewell, Lee Clark and Barry Venison. We also had John Beresford who was possibly as good as or better than Enrique, Scott Sellars who was probably more effective than Jonas, Brian Kilkline and Steve Howey were probably as effective as Coloccini and Taylor at the centre of our defence. We also had a manager who was on a different planet to the one we’ve got now. hmmmm i'm not so sure. i think the present defence would just about keep out the 92-93 team out. i could see it being 95%-5% to the 92-93 team but 1-0 with nolan somehow scrambling a winner. How old were you when we won promotion in 92/93 ? Did you ever SEE that side taking apart teams like Leicester, then managed by Brian Little who went on to win silverware with Villa ? Mick is absolutely right - there is NO way this side would live with the team of 93 - as he says, Nolan would get rings run round him and Andy Cole would leave Colo for dead. In fact, the entire 2010 defence would be pulled all over the place by David Kelly's running off the ball and Lee would have a field day coming through from midfield. There is NO comparison between the situation now and the last promotion side - despite all the hype about 'the game has changed' etc etc... what HASN'T changed is that you need class players - we had them then, we don't have them now, at least in sufficient numbers.

Stick Jonas on there and you're not far off. I hope he has a good World Cup so we can flog him and bring in something with a vaguely creative streak. Wasn't hard to leave him off the list. Not hard to leave any of them off the list tbf, with the exception of Enrique. Unfortunately, this is correct - if the club is to survive comfortably in the Prem, there will have to be large-scale alterations to the squad. Most of the players named in the first post are probably the only ones anyone would think have a realistic chance of holding their own in a Prem side and some will even struggle to do that. The comment about selling Jonas is very true because the situation the club is in reminds me of Joe Harvey's 1965 promotion team - when they went up, he had to sell Alan Suddick(talented but erratic) in order to get players who kept the club up(like John McNamee, a hard as nails CH who eventually played a big part in the club's successful Fairs Cup run). Unless there are major changes, another relegation battle looms - assuming the club goes up this time...

O'Neill was born in Kilrea, N.Ireland, which makes him a citizen of the UK - for now.... His family WERE Nationalist, but that doesn't matter because he still holds a UK Passport - unless he has changed Nationality without telling anyone. He also holds the OBE, and if he really did have strong Nationalist feelings, he wouldn't have accepted that....would he !

IF SJH had had his way, we would have had a 75,000 seater retractable-roof stadium back in 1996/97 - his illness and withdrawal from the Chair meant that the City Council were given an easy ride by Fletcher & Co, hence the success of Potty Dollar & co in blocking the Leazes Park project. We would have had the biggest stadium in Britain as this was before Man U expanded OT. As things have turned out, its perhaps just as well it didn't happen, but those claiming we wouldn't have filled it should remember that when it was first mooted, we had a permanent sell-out of STs. and a waiting list of 20,000.... A bit different now boys, isn't it..!!

As per my comments re Milner, I reckon that if Carroll is sold to even a half-decent club with a shrewd manager, he will turn out to be a much better player than he appears at NUFC - at his age, if a good manager gets hold of him he has the potential to improve by a big margin. He is a dangerous target man and under the right coaching will become a very decent CF.

Milner has become a better player at Villa because he is being coached by a DECENT manager and an excellent coach in John Robertson who was a fine winger himself despite being slow. Milner is also surrounded by better players with pace(Young and Agbonlahor)and is playing in a team pattern that suits him as well as the players around him. I always thought this would happen and for those who say the club were right o sell him, ask yourselves whether Villa would sell him BACK to NUFC for the same price... The lad always had ability but, like so many others before him, was wasted at SJP - NUFC is one of the worst clubs in the UK for failing to get the best from players, and only 3 managers I can remember have done this - Joe Harvey, KK and SBR(possibly Gordon Lee to a certain extent). It is no wonder we have failed to win any silverware worth talking about since 1969 and only under the managers named have the club ever LOOKED like being successful.

Agree - how many times have we seen Newcastle involved with drawn-out transfer sagas that never materialize or the player ends up somewhere else...the longer this goes on, the less likely we are to sign Beckford - or ANYONE, because deals will be done that take the best available players we would like,to other clubs. As I said before, it used to happen right back in the 70s too. If a club like WHU steps in for him, I reckon the deal is dead.

pretty much this. If he can keep Burnley up, better offers will present themselves in due course. Like they have for Phil Brown and Tony Pulis? To be fair, I think Coyle's achievements with Burnley are better than either of those two - also, Burnley have generally tried to play football, whereas Stoke have relied in a more physical approach(Hull too, to a degree)....if I had to take a gamble on Pulis, Brown or Coyle at NUFC, I would pick Coyle.

Depends how much confidence he has in his ability as a manager - he has done a wonderful job at Turf Moor, but apart from the fact that he is a former Bolton player, I cannot see why he would go there unless he feels that he has been lucky at Burnley. If he GENUINELY feels he has done a better-than-average job at Burnley, he should wait for a bigger club to come in - Burnley are unlikely to go down now unless there is a dramatic collapse in the next 3 months and they have done wonders even to BE in the Prem, so if I was him, I would wait ; lets face it, there will be plenty of opportunity in the close season...

Unless this deal is already done, this comment could be on the mark - how many times have we seen this happen with NUFC transfer targets over the years ? It used to happen in Joe Harvey's day, we were linked with players like Andy Gray when he was with Dundee Utd, and the club refused to pay the extra 10,000 Dundee wanted ; likewise with Alan Hansen when Gordon Lee was manager - Hansen, then at Partick, was constantly linked with us in the media, but the club wouldn't pay the asking price of 100,000 ; Liverpool eventually did, and the rest is history..... When the club signed Andy Cole in 1993, we knew NOWT until the deal was done, and that's the way it should happen. As Hansen would say on MOD ; 'SHAWKIN', ABSOLUTLEY SHAWKIN...!'

Fabulous strike - his clever movement and sleight of foot left Dabizas floundering and made it look easy. However, for sheer excitement, power of shot and build up, Supermac's goal against Leicester in 1975 was the best I've ever seen.

You are right on all counts but the likelihood of any of these problems being properly addressed is remote. The best that can be hoped for in the New Year is that somehow the team manage to keep grinding out results, but I fear your assessment of their capabilities is correct. Unless the club gets back on the winning trail in January there is a big risk of doubts setting into the players ; confidence and good fortune has played a big part in the season so far and things will start to go wrong if these things disappear. Back in 1980, the club were looking good for promotion at Christmas and had beaten the eventual League winners, Stoke City, 2-0 at SJP ; we had Peter Withe(a far better CF than any at the club now)and Alan Shoulder scoring goals and we beat the Mackems 3-1 at SJP on NYrs Day. We ended up blowing promotion over Easter and it took another 4 years(and KK)to get into the top flight....

This - very good post by queensbury and the points made about midfield and lack of PL quality up front are particularly relevant. Even to address those two problems is going to cost the neck-end of 20m and there are also big questions about the viability of many of the other midfielders iat the top level. The managerial position is a crucial decision because whoever does the job has a big task to attract the type of players the club will need so we need to appoint the best guy available who would join the club - if Ashley remains in charge, there will be doubts in the minds of many possible candidates after the KK fiasco etc. It may seem harsh to be thinking of changing the manager but it will be a much tougher job in the Prem and Hughton will find it very difficult to meet the demands. Having said that, I am convinced that he will remain in charge if Ashley stays and despite some on here using teams like Burnley as 'dross', I think they would get a shock if we had to play them with this team - they have taken many decent scalps in the Prem and I hardly think the current Newcastle side will frighten them. Make no mistake - the side will struggle to survive without a transition of at least 3 top class players.

This - spot-on.