Lotus

Darren Fletcher. Not particularly obscure, like. Getting more obscure though

You need to reign that in tbh... They all look good enough for a side that finished 16th imo. No but you're saying the players aren't as good as i think, and i think they can finish top 8. So in your opinion which of these players do you think i'm wrong about? Who am i over estimating as a player? HBA is not a genius. Zidane, Messi, the Real Ronaldo. That's genius. HBA, much as i love him, won't hold a candle to that level of player. As for the rest, it's not about any one player. Is Naismith a top 8 player? Well, apparently he is.. However, as a collective team, and that includes the manager as he's the important single ingredient, they don't have the quality to be a consistent top 8 team. That is a team consistently competing for European places.

You need to reign that in tbh... They all look good enough for a side that finished 16th imo.

I don't disagree with much of that, our only difference of opinion seems to be on Pardew's ability to make a set of players into a team. Well he created a good dressing room atmosphere and made the players a team in the season we finished 5th so he has shown he's capable of it. He's proved when his side have got confidence and are on a good run he's capable of maintaining it. It's just when things become tough and he has a lot of questions to answer he gets found out for the s*** manager he is. I just think these players are good enough to paper over his cracks with their individual ability. Given the players haven't acheived anything near for the past 13 months i'd question your ability to make such a judgement. Being topped out on Bennies doesn't pass as a qualification to do so i might add. Fire away, question their ability, entirely your opinion to do so. I just think we have a very talented group of players that are finally all now fit and i'm hoping they knuckle down together and start getting some more points on the board. If they start to blunder their way into the relegation zone i still won't be doubting their talent, i'll be on the pardew out bandwagon. For now though, i'm all for the manager and side getting us back up the table. Seriously, wtf does that mean? 'i'm all for the side getting back up the table...' Because that's the last thing the rest of us want. You just plow your lonely furrow with that wish.... I mean i actually believe he will do that rather than just want that. A lot on here don't believe in us to do so and that we will have another poor league finish and even for some another relegation battle. So when i said i'm all for us getting back up the league, i meant i actually think we will finish high up the table. So i apologise the way i came across in that last sentence, didn't mean nobody else wants that. Oh alright....but DON'T DO IT AGAIN! Personally, i'm not sure the players are as good as you hope they are.

We don't even get to evaluate them for long ffs!

I don't think he's that highly rated, we overrate him on here because he's not Pardew. Disagree. Think he's rated on here because he set out a team from a lower division that beat us comfortably twice. One of those was against this team. If thats your yardstick i dare say we would rate virtually any manager in history. Elliot Tavernier Perch Williamson Santon Anita Abeid Bigirimana Obertan Shola Ameobi Sammy Ameobi See! Look at the quality of that development squad! And he still managed to turn us over...

Ray Wilkins. Can't stand listening to Ray Wilkins.

I don't disagree with much of that, our only difference of opinion seems to be on Pardew's ability to make a set of players into a team. Well he created a good dressing room atmosphere and made the players a team in the season we finished 5th so he has shown he's capable of it. He's proved when his side have got confidence and are on a good run he's capable of maintaining it. It's just when things become tough and he has a lot of questions to answer he gets found out for the s*** manager he is. I just think these players are good enough to paper over his cracks with their individual ability. Given the players haven't acheived anything near for the past 13 months i'd question your ability to make such a judgement. Being topped out on Bennies doesn't pass as a qualification to do so i might add. Fire away, question their ability, entirely your opinion to do so. I just think we have a very talented group of players that are finally all now fit and i'm hoping they knuckle down together and start getting some more points on the board. If they start to blunder their way into the relegation zone i still won't be doubting their talent, i'll be on the pardew out bandwagon. For now though, i'm all for the manager and side getting us back up the table. Seriously, wtf does that mean? 'i'm all for the side getting back up the table...' Because that's the last thing the rest of us want. You just plow your lonely furrow with that wish....

I don't think he's that highly rated, we overrate him on here because he's not Pardew. Disagree. Think he's rated on here because he set out a team from a lower division that beat us comfortably twice. Not really seen Brighton play other than those 2 games so couldn't comment. He's a good commentator/analyst, that's about as much as i can vouch for.

It depends what you mean by highly rated. Is he considered as highly as Rafa benitez or Gus Hiddink? No. Of the cheaper options for clubs that don't want to invest in an expensive manager, I would say yes. One Brighton fan's opinion doesn't really tell us much in isolation. I wasn't suggesting it told us much, I was just intrigued to see if he was talking s*** Tbf, the only reason I thought he'd be a good appointment was on the basis of a couple of games against us. They looked far better organised defensively, they had a good work ethic and they showed good movement and passing when they had possession. Hopefully it was just a one off and he will prove to be s**** after all. Well let's face it if he's not as good as Benitez or Hiddink and that tosser Pardew has beaten both of those recently, Poyet must be really f***ing s****. You've got to be the worst poster on here.

I don't disagree with much of that, our only difference of opinion seems to be on Pardew's ability to make a set of players into a team. Well he created a good dressing room atmosphere and made the players a team in the season we finished 5th so he has shown he's capable of it. He's proved when his side have got confidence and are on a good run he's capable of maintaining it. It's just when things become tough and he has a lot of questions to answer he gets found out for the s*** manager he is. I just think these players are good enough to paper over his cracks with their individual ability. Given the players haven't acheived anything near for the past 13 months i'd question your ability to make such a judgement. Being topped out on Bennies doesn't pass as a qualification to do so i might add.

Isn't that extra TV money coming through at the end of this season? I'm sure people repeatedly stated that this summer in defence of our lack of spending. So next summer could be a problem too... Even ignoring that, are they seriously suggesting that a) this January's activities had nothing to do with our perilous league position and form at the time and b) signing one senior player last summer was perfectly adequate? It's pointless disecting it imo as it's meant to be opaque and ultimately uninformative bollox. The bottom line is that the club would like to stay out of the bottom 5 places as that brings about the threat of relegation which would be bad for the balance sheet. As long as that's acheived not a single f**k will be given if we don't compete for or achieve anything else. There is a will continue to be a complete absense of sporting ambition.

Aye. "Sadly because of the way that Sky money controls football, cup competitions are not the priority of Premier League clubs" would be a lot more accurate. "Newcastle director gives honest answer to question" could be another. 'Premier League is priority' FFS man, any PL club would say the same. A constant whinge on here is about lack of honesty from the club. They get an honest answer - and a pretty obvious one - cue more whingeing. You're into this football lark for all the wrong reasons.

Pretty reasonable observation tbf.

f***ing hell man. We're playing Leeds at home and we haven't won a cup in ages. Looking to the next game and writing this one off has Pardew written all over it. Same with Inochi, god forbid we try and win. We might not so maybe we shouldn't try too hard and focus on the prem (in september). Baffling. You need to chill out!!! All the lads are saying is that they have no interest in seeing Newcastle win a cup competition. They're focusing on the desire to see the club finish somewhere around 8th-12th in the Prem because there's more money it in.

I must say, reading that further strengthens the notion that there is absolutely no sporting ambition at the club. Which is a little hard to take tbh.

Attilo Lombardo

I know it makes me a voyeur of intellectual violence but Polic is just about my favourite poster! Personally, i reckon you're next....

-------------- Tiote -- Bigi -------------- Marveaux ---- Gosling ------- Sammy ---------------- Gouffran ---------------- ... is what I'm expecting. Which looks pretty gash really; no definite goal-threat from midfield and an isolated striker who prefers to run the channels. Aye. I'd rather chew foil than watch that.

I'm not sure you can blame Pardew for lack of concentration though. Surely that's down to the players. Would help i think if the players were just a tad afraid of Pardew. Afraid to upset him anyway. Afraid to screw up, basically.

I'm happy with that progress. We finished 8 points from 8th last year and were absolutely s****. Anything over 50 points and you're pretty much odds on as you're really only the best of a bad bunch. It's only progress if we maintain it and/or improve upon it though. And Pardew showed last year that he's hardly reliably in that respect, especially without investment. We just need to steady the ship after the relegation battle last season, get some confidence instilled back around the city, our team is slowly building into something special we just need to keep trying to add little bits of quality here and there as we are never going to splash at big style like some teams do. We've came a long way already from the days of Barton/Nolan, we just need to keep pushing on. New owners and a new fancy manager would be nice but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Hello Alan. Sly dig at the fans in the end there and jobs a good`un. Do you go on my profile, check my posts and pick up on any you fancy? You've done it all afternoon. Just pointing this out because it's a bit cuntish tbf. Thing is you're contradicting yourself somewhat there Brett . You can certainly say we have come a long way player wise since Barton and Nolan, I would even agree. But why isn't our team any better than the one Pardew took over? Indeed some might say that the team is actually worse despite the personnel being of a higher quality of player. Why is that? It's a rhetorical question by the way. I've contradicted nothing in terms of my own opinion, i think this is the best side i've seen in years, i hope Pardew sticks with the majority of this team and blends it together, it has signs of the team that finished 5th but with more quality added to it. It should be but it really isn't. We'll see, just different opinions. I believe in this side. One day, probably something like a Tuesday evening when the mods are at a parents evening or something, this place is gonna be a bit quiet, largely unsupervised, you're gonna run into Interpolic. Won't be anywhere obvious. He might quietly follow you into a thread in General about ski boots or the like. Something innocuous. Then he'll start off with a few throw away comments, might even seem like he's trying to find some common ground. Then he'll get you. Turn you. We'll come in Wednesday morning to find you repeating a few incoherent lines about being loose at the back, a set penis and a big man to hold it up. Happens to all of you lot, eventually.

Would think Bigi in for Cabaye would be a decent swap and i guess it seems as if Tiote is in for Anita.

Spurs squad is starting to look ridiculously good. Waiting to see how strong AVB is mentally before deciding if they're that good though!

Poyet's analysis as a commentator has been great imo. Hardly an endorsement but it's been chalk and cheese to Shearer as an example!

For me, we didn't create enough because they blocked off the width of their box and we rarely went down the sides of it. When a team 'parks the bus' you have to go with width. We didn't. I'm actually worried that we can't!!!! If we'd been able to vary it a bit we would have been better going forward.