AyeDubbleYoo

Not really, spunking the club's money on overpaid wasters is also a big part of the reason. Not spending hasn't been the reason for NUFC's decline, mismanagement has been.

Gibson would be immense, he's a class act.

I wish people would stop bringing up this Arsenal blueprint thing FFS. It's just a phrase, it doesn't mean we suddenly are Arsenal.

Only made his debut in May 2009 or something.

Barton was dogshit and hardly contributed before he even got injured anyway, I dont even see him as the answer to our problems. Just a fitter, non-goal scoring less defensive version of Nolan and Smith combined, he can be creative and could quite easily be this leagues best midfielder by a mile if he wanted to tho. So he's not good but he is good, I see what you mean.

Obviously the policy is to spend within tight limits, what are debating? Don't think Man Utd, Chelsea and QPR are in that much financial difficulty BTW.

They will sell him in 18 months for £7-10million + . Great move Ashley. I really don't think that we've missed out on him because of money. Even if we have then it's understandable, we've just started to reduce costs/wages... wouldn't make sense to start breaking the rules now.

We couldn't have got Beckford or Moses, it wasn't about the money... we can't compete with the definite offer of Premiership football. We need to face that fact that we aren't the club we were, it will take some slow rebuilding to get back there. Are you telling me we can't compete with the likes of Wigan? At this point in time, we can't. I don't find it easy to accept either, but those are the facts.

We couldn't have got Beckford or Moses, it wasn't about the money... we can't compete with the definite offer of Premiership football. We need to face that fact that we aren't the club we were, it will take some slow rebuilding to get back there.

Nail on the head. Typical NUFC signing these days. Seems we're getting ourselves geared up for a relegations scrap next year. No offence, but this is ridiculous point of view on a number of levels. We aren't a Premiership club, we don't have much money, so we need to make signings of cheap players who have potential to do better than they have before. Obviously when we're in the Championship we can't prepare a team for a top half challenge in the Premiership, for one thing we can't afford to take the risk with the wage bill.

We don't really know if it is much of a drop though, do we? Beckford and Moses might both fail to make it in the top flight.

Interesting post, hopefully he will be boosted by the move. If he's strong and pacy then he's ahead of all of our existing strikers.

Great post. As I said I don't know anything about him, but not going to write him off before he's kicked a ball.

I've literally never seen him play so I can't comment really, not blown away obviously but I'll give him a chance. Does he offer anything different from what we have, what type of striker is he?

Every team needs it.

I'm not sure about Hughton stepping down, in a lot of ways I'd rather give him a chance in the Prem than jump back onto the endless depressing managerial rollercoaster of previous years.

Totally, the thing I'm finding hardest is accepting that the Championship isn't anywhere near as hard as we were led to believe, and a team that includes Nolan, Butt, Smith, Ameobi and Carroll is good enough to do well. I guess we can't avoid the big question - what happens when we go up - but we can't deny this season has been much better than expected.

I was flabbergasted when I saw they were all playing. One is bad enough.

Ah right, makes sense now you mention it.

If we play Smith and Nolan in the Premiership we will get torn to shreds.

Other clubs fans must shit themselves when they see our hate mob coming. Not sure why you quoted me here, what's your point?

Is this a joke?

The art of being a manager is to pick the best 11 to do a job on the day, not pick players on reputation or past performances. In many respects I like Chris Hughton, but in this regard he's failed badly IMO. In no way have Smith, Butt or Nolan shown that they are best played together so in reality it's reputation he's picking them on. I agree with you really, I just mean that there are also reasons why he might believe it's best to keep the team the same beyond just being 'scared to drop players'. Also, the lack of alternatives is a major issue... he can't leave out all of our midfielders. Now that we have a couple of good wingers I hope he's brave and decides to go without Butt and Nolan. When Barton's back even more so. He didn't do that today obviously, but it's early days with the new players and we had a couple of important injuries. I think he might actually realise this though, fingers crossed he'll get round to making the changes soon.

I don't see any evidence to support the view that Hughton is 'scared of dropping players' really. He has left Butt out more than a lot of other managers, and it would be difficult to make a case for Nolan's droppage when he was scoring goals. The thing is, our results and league position demand that the team should be kept the same, while our performances demand that it should be changed. As an inexperienced manager, who might not have a lot of confidence, I can understand why Hughton is only making cautious changes. I would rather he was more drastic, but it's not likely to happen.