Lotus

I would think they'll have more of this years squad for next season than we will tbh.

It's simple actually, the alternatives are worse.

Bassong i'd love to stay. Taylor isn't a very good CB imo but should be able to handle the CC.

Given, Bellamy and Bernard did. But on the whole i agree, most players do not improve.

Depends if the club has any intention of signing another forward.

He did good enough yesterday. If he can put in the same performance against Villa i'll think differently about him. As it stands, still hope he's sold and a better player brought in (which i don't think should be too hard).

Probably Willy McFaul trying to find an ear for some made up bullsh*t to take the focus off of his wayward client. Custis was willing to fill some column inches with that instead of actually trying to find a story.

If we're going to play 4-3-3 then maybe have Jonas playing in a free floating role in front of a front 3 and have Viduka and Martins up front (fitness permitting). Drop Owen and let him come on as a super sub if needed.

In all seriousness, as we were on about this in the pub last night, if you look down the league tables, more and more clubs are now being deducted points when all they are trying to do is continue to exist. The situation completely shows how the elitisim and damage done since the beginning of the premiership to football in this country. These clubs are trying to hang onto their very existence, a situation caused by the powers that be, and then the same situation forces a deduction of points on them. Madness. In 10 years time, unless money filters down [which isn't going to happen], any amount of teams will not exist anymore. I also think it is the responsibility of the PFA and their chief Gordon Taylor to get his arse in gear and start to look at ways of persuading the higher earning players to accept more discipline in their earnings for the greater good of all their fellow PFA members which would help a great deal. I don't know the ins and outs of the Southampton situation, but fundamentally they've not kept their house in order, that's why they're struggling to continue to exist. Do you not think it's fair that if they take the piss, f*** up their finances and live beyond their means they should be punished for it? but the bigger picture is that it is simply becoming near impossible for these clubs to continue. They need assistance, not points docked. Why is it near impossible? The vast majority of clubs seem to manage. Of course, more money should be filtered down through the football league generally but why should a club be given assistance if they've f***ed up? I think more and more clubs will struggle.

In all seriousness, as we were on about this in the pub last night, if you look down the league tables, more and more clubs are now being deducted points when all they are trying to do is continue to exist. The situation completely shows how the elitisim and damage done since the beginning of the premiership to football in this country. These clubs are trying to hang onto their very existence, a situation caused by the powers that be, and then the same situation forces a deduction of points on them. Madness. In 10 years time, unless money filters down [which isn't going to happen], any amount of teams will not exist anymore. I also think it is the responsibility of the PFA and their chief Gordon Taylor to get his arse in gear and start to look at ways of persuading the higher earning players to accept more discipline in their earnings for the greater good of all their fellow PFA members which would help a great deal. I agree with everything you say there but the last paragraph is leaning dangerously towards socialism yep, I know that. I just see it as the only way dozens of clubs will survive unfortunately. Well, i'm fully with you with the sentiment.

In all seriousness, as we were on about this in the pub last night, if you look down the league tables, more and more clubs are now being deducted points when all they are trying to do is continue to exist. The situation completely shows how the elitisim and damage done since the beginning of the premiership to football in this country. These clubs are trying to hang onto their very existence, a situation caused by the powers that be, and then the same situation forces a deduction of points on them. Madness. In 10 years time, unless money filters down [which isn't going to happen], any amount of teams will not exist anymore. I also think it is the responsibility of the PFA and their chief Gordon Taylor to get his arse in gear and start to look at ways of persuading the higher earning players to accept more discipline in their earnings for the greater good of all their fellow PFA members which would help a great deal. I agree with everything you say there but the last paragraph is leaning dangerously towards socialism

If Lennon plays and Enrique doesn't were going to have a problem. I wonder if they're considering Bassong at LB (assuming Taylor and Colo are fit) simply because we have no one else. Wouldn't want to take Bassong out of the centre but who else can stop Lennon streaming in behind (luckily he can't cross but he'll still cause trouble because the closest CB will have to go to him when he waltzs past the LB). Moody.

When Martins got the ball yesterday it was rarely to feet so he had to take a moment to control with his back to goal, not his forte, the Chelsea players would get tight to him to stop him turning and not once that i can remember did our midfield show for him to lay the ball off to, they just stood there and waited for nothing. Owen rarely moved his arse to get close to him either. We were on a hiding to nothing yesterday. Chelsea can control the middle so we can't pass through it and can deal with the long balls upto our midgets. Our only option was the wings imo. Still, Stoke won't be as good.

you are joking aren't you yeah, i was. that wasnt the situation at all. Good. I'm pleased you don't recognise a situation whereby a talented player is unhappy at the club. Lets not bother to find out why, nor why he thinks Wigan is a step up for him. Marvellous. Welcome back to the old days, when we were run like a corner shop and had zero ambition. N'Zogbia is at Wigan because his performances at Newcastle did not warrant a move to the places he wanted to go. He wore out his welcome at the club and now he's using Wigan as his "stepping stone". and [on topic] Ryan Taylor is a superior replacement then ? Raylor isn't much use at all and Nolan looked f**king useless, never went near our box or theirs. Lets not forget though that they were bought by a manager who you supported and considered a benefit to the club so you'll have to just grin and bear it if he buys shite like that. As far as Zoggy goes, he wanted out when the Halls & Shepherds owned the club so that makes no f**king difference. The only bit you're right about is that he's way better than Raylor or Nolan. Shame the man you backed, Kinnear, doesn't agree.

Also code for saying Kinnear hasn't got a f**king clue from Sunday to Friday.

His problem is that he's the only outlet in midfield, he 's the only guy the others can give it to to try and create something, everyone else in midf isn't up to it. He's not Cronaldo or Messi so he can't do all that on his own. I like him, he's a decent player and, as others have said, with more quality in the team he's be more effective. As it is, the opposition just have to double up on him everytime he gets the ball and he'll either run into trouble cause he's got no one to pass it forwarsd and square to or wait for him to try and cross it to one of our strikers hiding behind their CB by the back stick.

I'd be happy to see him take his coaching badges and work for Newcastle in that capacity.

I read quite a few posters though who were convinced he's never even reach that level once. I thought he had it in him to be a good LB, and so far, happily for all of us, he's showing that he can. Consistency, as you said, is all important. I think for a young'un, he's doing very well. What i said before and what i'll say again is this: he's the kind of player that goes to other 'smaller clubs' plays regularly, gets his game together and then signs for clubs like Newcastle for bigger fees and then you get people on here complaining that we never find them and develop them ourselves. Then Ricky turns up and i could see he was EXACTLY (i certainlu wasn't the only one) that type of player, just needed time and patience to develop his game. I think in 2 years time he'll be a cracking LB, right now he's a very promising one.

............................Harper.......................... Saylor......Colo..................Bass..........Ricky .......Raylor............Smith............Ron......... Martins............................................Jonas ............................Duke............................. Oba and Jonas can cut inside and have a pop at goal. Viduka might occasionally hold the ball up which would be handy. The problem we'll have is substitutions. Viduka, Geremi nor Smith will last 90 mins imo.

ST was expecting Collocini to go and intercept the runner. What with Collocini being about ten yards nearer to Gardner when he picked up the ball in acres of space. ST had ran over to mark the man without the ball, thereby freeing Collocini to deal with the player with possession of the white round thing, who was running unchallenged into our box. That’s how it should be done. Taylor was playing right back, not sweeper. His job isn’t to run across his central defenders. By the time ST had worked out Collocini had just invented a new, and radical way of defending as a team, there was nothing he could do. Collocini failed to react to the threat. He just stood there like a statue waiting for somebody else to deal with the developing threat. Like his habit of turning his back on shots, it displays a lack of courage. No, Collocini was marking his man, as soon as the guy crossed the ball to Gardner Collocini moved towards Gardner but it was way too late, noboday could have covered that distance. If Gardner had taken a touch first i think Collocini would have closed him down. Taylor did nothing wrong imo, didn't have the time to run across to Gardner and it really wasn't anywhere near the area he was defending. Entirely a f**k up by the midfield. You knocking Collocini for THAT one is ridiculous.

Damned if they do... :omg: Well, could you really give a f**k what HE thinks? Wise's opinion would at least me make me read it all the way the way through tbh.

He's pretty talkative for a pie & chips saleman.

the quote is : "any individual or group resourceful enough to raise the £100 million plus that would be needed today to take over the club is likely also to be intelligent and resourceful enough to make a better fist of it than the current board" - ozzie mandiarse 24th Oct 2006 So, the obvious answer is that they haven't ? Which, using mandiarse's remarkable gift of hindsight, would appear to be the case, wouldn't you agree ? Unless of course, he is still happy that the new regime is moving the club towards matching the european qualifications, capacity gates and therefore the long term revenue [at least] of the board he was slating, which is down to the appointment of Dennis Wise and other factors which come together as part of the running of the club ? Cheers. I'd been unaware that quote was now the one under discussion. But actually yes, I have a major problem with your interpretation. You've taken the last part of that sentence "... than the current board" and tried to apply it as a criticism of the entire tenure of the board. When that quote was posted, Late October 2006, we were just in the middle of a 9 game winless streak, Roeder'd been found out as having completely lucked up that 7th place finish and there was still a lot of dissatisfaction floating around about the board, spending and Souness. When Ozzie said that I think it's very, very clear he was talking about what they'd done recently and not what they'd done as a whole. You are quite wrong. There was a lot of support for what Souness was doing, with mandiarse one of his main supporters. I think his statement is very clear, as clear as is possible, meaning that he thought pretty much anybody would come in and do better. Then the disagreement is the length of time to which he was speaking. You interpret it as "Do better than they've done since 1992", the entire rest of the world interprets it as "Do better since the sacking of SBR." so the first 12 years of when they ran the club is being conveniently ignored here ? I will remind you, that we finished 7th only 2 years ago, a position that was achieved only twice in over 30 years prior to the Halls and Shepherd taking over the club. And a position, which, under the present setup and owner, we will never match. In my opinion. So what is your opinion of the setup of the club, including the appointment of Dennis Wise of which is incorporated, and the progress towards at least equalling the league positions, european qualifications, capacity crowds and therefore the revenue and interest in the club which their predecessors achieved ? Where would the money have come from if we were still in the Ownership of the Halls? How would we have funded our team rebuilding? Would you have expected the Halls to put the money up from their own pockets? If not, whose? Genuinely curious btw.

I kind of get the feeling that JFK was allowed to run the last transfer window on his own, that he made a plea to Ashley that it should be the Managers job and he'll show Ashley how he can handle it. The fact that we made a bid for Nolan on the 29/30th and that other players told JFK that RTaylor was available increases my suspicions.

Do you want them to be like you so you can identify with them a bit more? You might be a touchy tart so i'll qualify that by saying that's a reasonable wish, nowt wrong with it, just wondering if it's your reason. Identify with them? As having played for the same local teams or in the same leagues, going to the same schools or knowing family or liking the fact that you knew some of them personally and would like to see them do well? Or their kids? Nowt wrong with that is there? Stop twitching! Nowt wrong at all, i think it stands for plenty.