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few articles i have read have suggested spud, us and man u were after him with man u being the more likely destinationl. Fair play to him showing the club some loyalty obviously ramos wants to get the spuds leaky defence sorted

He needs service. When he gets it he messes up far too often i'm afraid, and i'm sorry parky, what torres cost liverpool is irrelevant, whether you think he was worth the money or not isnt gonna make martins a better player Martins is not a top tier forward comparing him to the likes of Torres or Villa or RVN is grossly unfair. If you lot want a forward all these posts reflect well stump up the £30m and you can have one. and just ask chelsea about crespo and to a lesser extent shev how more of a kick in the face it is to invest huge and get limited return

Ignoring the agenda driven opinions, this is correct. The whole balance of the team is wrong, I've been saying so for over 12 months, the sale of Solano and Dire - even though he disappeared down a big hole for many matches - has made it worse. Somebody at the club decided not to replace Solano, and Dire with someone who actually plays. Was it Allardyce's decision, if so he wants shot. Or was it a financial decision by the club ? If it was, to balance the books, and if this is going to be their approach, stand by for real mediocrity. Those who prefer balancing the books will then have nothing to complain about. This is a fairly basic point and it would be nice to know the answer. Solano and Dire both wanted to go mate, for different reasons, but they did. One I was happy to see the back of, the other not so. I think the aim was to get defensive replacements in for the summer window it was obvious to all that we were shite at the back and keeping the back four would mean we may as well just play without them. Adding to this the "review" that mort put in place right at the end of the window. I think Sam has said he did have ideas of who he wanted but by the time he acted they either were no longer available or had moved on. I dont know if that then made him rush into buying smith due to dyer wanting to go, parker not being part of his plans and solano wanting to go sam may have felt another player with no prem experience was a big risk too much to take and we may be suffering for it. Smith reminds me of Parker loads of passion and commitment but if you had to rely on him to be your goal threat or your creative outlet you were barking up the wrong tree. I guess waiting till the summer (if sam is allowed to stay) will see where sam wants to go in terms of his formation plans and his player choices.

remember too mate your idea of a consistant back 4 aint going to happen with the african nations comming up. if we are going to improve in midfield I think it should be a top class defensive midfield player and maybe a new right winger. The back 4 obviously need more shielding and we need to have an attacking presense on the right wing, where are our crossing comming in we have a target man in viduka and I have seen martins jump like he is on springs so goals would come just at the moment any attack we do seem to come straight down the middle and when we press we leave this massive gap between the midfield and defenders for even the least creative teams to have a go at us.

its frustrating when you find gems like beye but other than that I really think the rest of the back could be improved on. I agree that consistency is important but I just have this horrid feeling that we are still in a need of a high calibre centre back.

so being 12 points infront of sunderland who are in 18th means that we are likely to be drawn into a relegation battle? dropping 2 points may make the difference between us getting a european place this season but it wont see us drawn into anything at the bottle luckily for us this season there are plenty of poor teams struggling for points allowing us to make this type of fuck up and get away with it.

so basically minus the "gelling in factor" we still have a weak back 4 regardless of the total replacement of the 3 B's

swap that for either sunderland or boro and you may be close to being right.

I think Brummie hit in on the nail when he said many had us up there back in the mix of top 6 no problems I knew this season and possibly even the next was going to be tricky. Alot more clubs out there have become alot better there is now a pack of teams from 6th- 12th that all seem to be swapping league positions. I think many myself being one feel rather let down when we seem to play so badly against the "lesser teams" I think you're right. I had personally hoped for a run at the top six this season, which is looking increasingly unlikely, (even though we're only 4 points behind 6th place now). It's funny how raised expectations lead to increased feelings of disappointment... anyone who says anything this season is worse than losing 1-5 to a Championship team needs a lobotomy, in my humble opinion. Today was massive really, and unfortunately Allardyce and the players have blown it. 2 points behind Everton/Portsmouth, 1 point behind Villa and still only 5 points off Liverpool and things look miles better. Of course it's only 2 points dropped, in the grand scheme of things, but Sam will know how important a win was here. Wigan takes on huge importance now, even more than it had previously. Let's hope for a Bramble disaster or two. we all tried to tell ourselves not to think about steam rolling a team as "no team is easy to beat in the prem" and "on their day any team can beat another" but lets be honest we were all licking our lips at this fixture especially sinse its really a tough few games comming up and with players going and unkown transfer situation we can all start to feel negative again. I said before the season I would be happy for top 10 this is still very likely maybe even an intertoto cup place maybe be all we can hope for but this is still progress in my opinion based off the last few seasons as there have been so many across the board type changes.

I think Brummie hit in on the nail when he said many had us up there back in the mix of top 6 no problems I knew this season and possibly even the next was going to be tricky. Alot more clubs out there have become alot better there is now a pack of teams from 6th- 12th that all seem to be swapping league positions. I think many myself being one feel rather let down when we seem to play so badly against the "lesser teams"

Well the wait may have been worth it then should definetly be allowed to start for the Wigan game just because he has scored 2 in the behind closed door games and was like a breath of fresh air when he finally came on today (although in my opinion 10-15 mins too late)

one of the only things roy keane ever taught smith was to have a go at the ref and every other official within ear shot. Doesn't make him a bad player just when he isn't doing it on the pitch his bitching can become that more annoying.

Well once we grabbed the lad back I think we did it in that brief session in something called the uefa cup. Yeah I think he played there against Palermo and got an assist. Not sure if he played left wing on many other occasions, Man United at home? I know its getting a bit off topic but I cant remember if it was roeder tinking or if it was when zoggy was injured and we were playing Duff as a striker and I think he was asked to play their. From again what I remember he did ok and certainly he has not showed himself up when being asked to play there for SA I just agree with everyone that the lad has a lot of his game to improve to really deserve a week in week out place (possibly more competition will bring something out of him)

Well once we grabbed the lad back I think we did it in that brief session in something called the uefa cup.

Is it my really bad imagination but didn't Milner get asked to do a job on the left under roeder on a few occasions?

if only that meant a bid for swp in jan then I would be very happy but possibly Sam may target the right wing as an area to improve either jan or the summer

lets hope we battle with them rather than expect them to roll over for us as with many of the "lesser" sides (especially with us) they have a knack of catching out teams getting too big for their boots. Not that Iam saying we are going to be like that but with alot of articles talking about confidence returning and team playing I dont want the lads to expect a win I want the side to play to make them deserve it.

...back to the serengetti? why will he be classed as a zebra when he joins the toon?

Duff will have to do a lot more when he comes back if he's to get a regular game, so far he's been a waste of time, even an erratic Martins pisses all over the Duff we've seen. lets hope the break, the fear of finishing his carear early and loosing roeder out of his life might give him the kick in the arse he really needed, two goals in two practice games seems to indicate we havent lost all of the old duff.

as long it was nothing along the lines of playing the percentages, loads of respect and holding then I will see it as an improvement, lets hope he can fire up the troops as much as he seems to be.

Aye, that's the NUFC.co.uk version innit? That's the base copy, then Oliver gets on the blower to Craig Hope to ask what he's been told today, the Hopester passes on the info, then Starforth gets on the blower to Oliver and so on... It's great how they all "exclusively reveal" and put "Big Sam told me today...", as well. Was it the oliver article of today or the other day which said something along the lines of "myself and SA have spoken a few times about jan transfer window" it annoys me so much as some of the bigger papers seem to look at the local rag as a cheaper alternative to having a presense themselves in the area so the shite we get shoveled gets swallowed up by them. I would laugh my arse off if we spent about 15million this window and watch oliver squirm and have to say something like "the pressure placed on Ashley has made him think twice about the jan pressure as the toon hope to make up the points to get them into europe"

I notice the "Padding" that I mentioned before has been taken out.

Nice to have some choices but they do bring their own problems.

If you are going to "blood" young foreign players you certainly try and keep them away from the likes of chelsea and arsenal thats why Derby would be an ideal time for Enrique.

I think this is why Arshavin is the more likely target than an out and out midfielder I think SA wants a player than can play in midfield but also upfront which is why until it was rejected by the player I could see SA going for Gudjohnsen. Looking at his players he likes them to be able to play in more than one position to make them able to adapt which is very important while I feel the squad is still small.