Ronaldo

I don't think completely absolving two starting midfielders of creative/scoring duty is feasible for any club who don't have 3 world class attacking players in front of them. It certainly isn't viable at Newcastle United.

That's fine, but on the other hand all he had to do was vaguely look like scoring - even Shola's got 2 in his 2 starts - to make a case for himself.

I can think of several. Like when we weren't absolutely crying out for a striker to stake a claim, for a start.

Head, clouds.

Jon's struggling now, like. No alternatives to taking a slow non-scoring striker on loan.

You're right, I forgot the whole Dutch defender = ball travels a lot quicker towards their own goal thing. Yeah, OK. The German league, where Cisse scored goals for fun, no doubt also harshly failed to appreciate this hidden ability.

Midfielders are there to make an impact going backwards and forwards as far as I'm concerned. I can't live with two players in there who go missing in the final third. Anita's perfectly capable of utilising his movement as a deep lying CM, anyway, he just needs two relatively capable midfielders - in an attacking sense - to negate his weaknesses.

And make an agreement with the other 19 managers to exclusively use Dutch defenders, while he's at it.

Disagree, IMO he's better with a proper DM where his job is to keep the ball moving. A bit like Lucas and Allen at Liverpool. You can't have 2 out of the 3 midfielders having no goal threat or creativity whatsoever. It just doesn't work. Course you can, if you have an attacking midfielder and 3 forwards. 3 forwards, man. As if.

Both articles are pretty great. Quite astonishing how many people comment without reading them properly, like.

What's a decent manager going to do with a striker who can't strike a ball?

It's been fun, like. An 'international' striker who looks about as dangerous in the box as Alan Smith.

I don't think he'll give a hint of a shit.

I didn't mean you personally, like.

I don't disagree with that, everyone who seems to have been negatively involved with Ben Arfa has one or many things already against them that will instantly make them the villain. I'll say one thing, you couldn't say a bad word about Colo on here 2 months back.

That's another issue, though. The captain fails to communicate with the fans.

Unpopular but Ben Arfa's problems clearly stretch farther than just Pardew. Disappointing. That's fine. Doesn't change the fact he's our best player with no viable alternatives in the squad.

Like who? Everyone who's slagged him off has their own selfish agenda to follow.

Disagree, IMO he's better with a proper DM where his job is to keep the ball moving. A bit like Lucas and Allen at Liverpool. You can't have 2 out of the 3 midfielders having no goal threat or creativity whatsoever. It just doesn't work.

More to do with the fact he's be staging his own Carragher and Neville dickhead of the week competition in the last 4 months.

Must kill you that a player who's been awful as a captain and pretty laughable as a defender has run his race with a lot of posters, like. Overall I still think he'd be worth keeping provided he wasn't starting games or captaining.

Yeah, that Hatem's off.

It'll help develop young English talent no end and be brilliant for the national team. Not a good thing for club football, though.

He's probably been assured that Hatem's going to be sold.

Man I saw a post about no trophies and thought you'd forgotten. Not a hint of condescension was intended.