merlin

This is why it will be a total disaster if we go down - even mediocre players wouldn't join the club then because they can stay in the Prem with clubs in the bottom half/middle. The Academies are going to be even more important in future years because clubs outside the Top 4 will have to bring through their own talent...it is hard to see how any club can break into this cartel now, and it will get harder still in future.The PL is almost like Scotland now - a few top clubs winning everything each year and the rest making up numbers. It will eventually result in the failure of the PL through dropping gates among all but the top 4 and even they will get disillusioned in time - Welcome to Football's brave New World.!

Excellent ! Loved this..very funny but sadly accurate in summing up the situation - the question is 'Would you buy a used car from these men !'...

Harper was only 'unable to keep his place' because Allardyce chickened out of a possible confrontation with Given had he kept Harper in the side when Given recovered from injury - one of two ridiculous decisions(the other was to make Geremi captain so quickly) which proved to me that Allardyce was a poor judge.

Harper doesn't let us down once he's had a few games, he should never have been dropped earlier in the season. Yet again - totally agree ; I also made the same point as Brummie yesterday. We could have lost 6-1.

shame but the last time you made those sort of comments, a few people came along and told you what a clown you were and agreed with me. See the link in my last post. Only a complete idiot is judging Keegan after 5 games. Like those in your london press that you read. The same people who assured us ie you, that finishing runners up in the premiership is "tactically naive" and "failure". I remember you being one of those people who said that Souness should have time, and you deny that of Keegan. Only one clown here, cobber. If we go down, the seeds of it were sown by the s*** transfer policy and sub standard players we brought in last summer, me and only a handful of others who said so at the time what it was and is now being exposed. Change your long range telescope, or your newspaper, is my advice. I could agree with this if not for "If we go down, the seeds of it were sown by the s*** transfer policy and sub standard players we brought in last summer". The present squad is a result of years of mismanagement at all levels of the club, probably starting with the recruitment of Bowyer. The squad here has had no depth in quality for years. You're right that Keegan is not to blame. This is the main point - the previous Chairman and SOME members of the board are responsible for the dire transfer policy after 2003 when we failed to strengthen the side by signing only Bowyer on a free - methinks there were good personal reasons why they didn't sign more players - quite a few million of them..... The decline of the club as a major force began there and we failed to beat Partizan as a result with the loss of millions in revenue.

Northampton Chronicle ? Do they actually know what a round ball IS ? I thought all they were good at is egg-chasing, and you have to laugh at their desperate attempt to become Southerners - most people in London think Northampton is the start of the Midlands..!!

And after 45mins - whilst not being perfect - things were going well. Not the line-up you or I would have picked, but it was working. Was it though? Surely you must have been concerned even in that first-half Carr's inability to do anything at left-back. We played well first half. See the match thread for everyone's thoughts. Everyone knows Carr is s****, but it was working. Can't agree with all of that Dave - we only played well in patches, we were never the better side by any distance and we were a class below after half-time AS USUAL ; in my view these players are either not properly fit or they cannot play at a high tempo for 90 mins(too old in some cases)

I see your point but then some of them have not that chance under Keegan, playing football. I respect what you say Dave, but I don't think it matters too much as the players are just not good enough. Since finishing 5th under Robson we have just been a mid table team for the last 4 years or so. Seeing that nearly everyone around us spent a lot more than us in the summer time it's no surprise that we are struggling! I don't know if you were alluding to Emre as being a player who should be given a chance to play under Keegan but for me he sums up everything that is wrong about the Toon. He could be managed by any manager in the world and he will never be consistent! Same goes for Shola and who ever else is mentioned. We could all argue who should be in the team but really as I said they are all much of a muchness! What is really sad to see is how short changed our fans have been and out of desperation we have threads like this where people are clutching at straws, deep down we all know that the vast majority of our players are terrible and it would make no difference who was playing! Agree totally.

I see very little or no improvement on Allardyce reign. Still picking Smith for starters ...... It's not even been a month since Keegan came in. Players are obviously still used to Allardyce's football and players Keegan has arent even those he brought. WHAT DO YOU f****** EXPECT?! You mean like the Spurs players took a month to 'get used' to Ramos' football..

See what you are saying - there are only about 3-4 players in the squad who I would retain if we could ship out the remainder ; this lot are going nowhere. When KK took over in 92, he had Kelly and Peacock up front, both of whom went on to play a major part in the team's promotion the following season ; he also had some good young players in Watson(whose goal at Port Vale was almost as important in keeping us up as Ned's against Pompey),Elliott and Clark, two of whom became good Prem defenders(if Elliott hadn't got a bad injury, I reckon he would have played for England)....there are NONE of the current squad who you could say were real building bricks for a big improvement in the side - even Zog is likely to want to leave. KK was also able to get Kilcline in as in those days there was NO windows in the transfer market and Kilcline was also vital in keeping us up..KK couldn't get what he wanted in the Jan window and if Reading had not been playing so poorly, we would be in very serious danger of relegation because the current squad cannot even battle for points. Although we will be in the Prem unless disaster strikes - not impossible either - we are in a worse position to build a new side than we were in KKs first season as manager.

His performances have been rubbish - I wouldn't pay 2m for him and we will struggle to get our money back - if he was worth 5.8m, Robert Lee must have been worth15m at his peak..even Nobby now is worth more...

Outplaying Villa??? Toe to toe with Arsenal?? A game lasts 90 MINUTES..I don't know about Hitler in a previous life, but Walter Mitty maybe, or perhaps Don Quixote....!

Not confident because he doesn't have much choice - we are in a mess of several years' making....

Spot on - Harper made 2 great saves. Given was a disaster, the deflection was very small and he was really slow in getting across. Should have been dropped ages ago, and would have been by many other managers...

Unadulterated rubbish from a shoddy side today - this team couldn't pass water, never mind a football. The lack of movement, backwards passing, sideways passing, all signs of a team whose players are refusing to take responsibility. KK's decision to play Carr at LB blew up on him spectacularly - surely Enrique could not have been worse ? The handball for the pen was utterly amateurish. I have said before that Harper should have been in the side long ago, and that was proven today - Harper made two great saves after he came on - we could have been buried 5 or 6-1 today, and this was a Villa side playing nowhere near its best and without Agbonlahor..... The midfield had no guile whatsoever until Emre came on and all he did was to pass the ball to an unmarked NUFC player, or play it into space instead of a mass of players from each side. Once we conceded( a stupid goal and I am waiting to hear if Given was injured prior to conceding it because if not, it was yet ANOTHER 'Given easily beaten from long range' effort), we never looked like getting a point and the defence was a shambles for the second & third goals. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the worst side to wear the B & W since the early 90s - there are one or two talented players but the rest are playing in a division too high for their capabilities - the team of 95-96 would have taken this side apart by half-time ; even the side playing in our first Prem season(93-94) would have easily beaten this shambles of a team because the only player who would give them any problem at all would be N'Zogbia - and I bet even Venison would have kept him reasonably quiet. Andy Cole & Beardsley would have rubbed their hands at the prospect of taking on our central defenders.!! I genuinely believe these comments and I look forward to those who cannot remember those sides trying to take issue with them - I bet THAT will stimulate some debate....! The club is in a mess and big time - it may be that the late late goal by Mark Viduka against Derby ends up being just as crucial as David Kelly's against Pompey in 1992.. whether people like it or not, unless there is a miraculous turnaround, it will be that close ; not a happy time for the next 3 months.

The problem has mainly been over the last 10 years when short-termism has been the mantra - we have had some shocking buys, too many to mention.Dalglish was probably the last manager to bring in some players who improved ; Given, Solano, Hamman etc. SBR brought in Bellamy and Robert, but it is questionable as to whether they improved at NUFC ; Viana was a waste as was Cort, Gullit brought in the King of Wasters, Marcelino(Crown Prince Maric..!!) Hopefully we will now get in youngsters who will improve rather than people looking for a last good pay-off as has been the case. A reputation such as the one we have in Holland is hard to get rid of, and will take years to remove.

Fair point really. It is a slap in the face to the leagues in Asia and America, although I hadn't really thought of it like that. The FFA(Football Federation of Australia)have said that whilst they are not opposed to the idea as a novelty, their main aim is to improve the quality of the A-League and keep interest in it rising domestically - they do not want(or visualize)these games being played on any other than a very occasional basis. The PL and Sky are just interested in making more & more money - as i said earlier, SKY are cra--ing themselves in case quite a number stop taking Pay Per View or SKYSPORTS ...trouble is that too many haven't got the willpower to do this...just as the Borrow-and-spend Economy has started to hit the rocks, so willthe Prem and SKY - the Market decides in the end and once customers stop paying, they haven't got a business.

It was never as bad as when they pulled the Leazes down the same season we were relegated, I'm sure we'd have came back up sooner if the Leazes had not been pulled down, the noise would have made a difference. I had mates who even stopped going because of it. They pulled it down because Westwood & Co were sick of the abuse they were getting...!!

We should be looking for the NEXT Henry, not the one who is past his 30th Birthday, but its a good thing that KK is prepared to aim high when the time comes to make top signings - the problem is that players also want to aim high so its necessary to get some success first if you want the best....as has been said, Arsenal are not missing him, they have got Adebayor doing the biz instead ; AND he's better in the air.... Having said that, I'm sure KK was just using Henry as an example.

They were talking about this on Channel 7's Sunrise programme this morning here in Australia - apparently, because of the strong Sky TV links here, Australia is one of the first countries where this is likely to happen. There wouldn't be any shortage of support for Prem sides in the big cities as there are many fans of the Prem over here(they had 55,000 in Melbourne for the A League Play off between Sydney 7 Melbourne 2 years ago, and over 50,000 at this weeks' International v Qatar).Incidentally, more & more Brits are coming to live in Oz - 23,000 alone last year with more expected this year...... As Midds says, if the money is being offered,it will happen - I think this is a SKY initiative because, as I said earlier in the year, they are fearful of losing income with the Economic downturn(people scrapping PPV and Subs), so this is a way of raising more money. Domestic fans are only there to provide jam now - the bread & butter comes from SKY, and the one who pays the piper calls the tune....

Have to agree NE5 - Gillespie was a far better winger in terms of pace and crossing ability although he never really reached his full potential ; could have been a great player even up to a couple of years ago but got too interested in off-field activities... Milner has a more powerful shot when he chooses to use it, but I think that he too has stalled in his career development. Its interesting that he did so well at Villa when he was there and whether that tells you he needs a move to get him going again, I don't know - maybe he just responded better to O'Leary ; these things happen, but one thing is certain - he isn't doing the business in the wing position for us right now.

You just have to look at why Juve were relegated recently if you doubt that refs can be manipulated..there have been other scandals i.e.in Germany about supposed 'fixed' results involving players and I have been told FOR DEFINITE by someone who was a well-respected coach in the Game in the 70s that teams in the English league DID throw games if they weren't either in danger of relegation or likely to win something... Favours were done, so if you want to believe everything is always whiter than white in Football's garden, go ahead and believe it...!!

You have to wonder about the character of a player that employs a snake like Willy McKay as his agent. A great point and very relevant - would not be surprised to see him go, is always looking miserable and is, to me, a classic case of square peg in round hole - we are never going to keep some foreigners and I think French players are particularly suited to living in London or Manchester rather than say, here or Liverpool(more cosmopolitan cities whereas N.Europeans settle OK in most areas ; Hamman actually liked living in the NE, it was just Gullit & the Board that p'd him off. Even Ginola didn't last too long,Robert did OK, but he was not typically French - came from one of their colonial islands, which makes him as different as Aussies or Kiwis are from Brits ; talk same language, have different lifestyle, attitude to life etc.

had a s**** manager...simple as that. If that is true(and it is in part), how come Davies started to play well for Allardyce when he joined Bolton and he was crap before ? I hope KK DOES play Martins and then we'll soon know if your theory is right.... It should be very interesting because if KK does NOT rate Martins after playing him a few times, he will drop him and will you then say we've STILL got a s--- manager !??

Got it in one...