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And I'm not saying he'd be a great player now, just like how I wasn't calling him one last season. Just pointing out how I'd much rather have him than Butt/Smith/maybe even Barton at this point.

Aside from not having a striker who can actually score goals, Boro really are a team superior to us in every aspect. (Well, maybe not Schwarzer. Worst goalie in the Premiership IMO) Any one of Wheater, Huth, Rochemback, Arca, Downing would walk straight into our team. Arca would have been a canny winter buy, actually. Hold on, they're superior to us in every way because they have 5 players who would get into our team in your opinion?.. Don't you realise that means we have 6 players who would get into there team? mackems.gif Individually we're about at the same level but as a unit they funciton far better. It's a silly point, but Pogatetz - Enrique, Gary O'Neil - Milner are debatable anyway so really only Given, Owen, Viduka/Martins, Beye would probably walk into their team. Not sure if they'd consider Beye a significant upgrade over Luke Young either.

Boy do I wish we still had them right now. I don't think I need to talk about why we're missing Solano. Would've been an amazing help for us right now. Granted, his departure was forced upon us so it's not like we had a choice in the matter. As for Parker, he got slated while he was here as a hard worker with no skill who defended well enough but couldn't distribute the ball. What people didn't notice was that Nicky Butt, who was being universally praised last season, was just about the same thing, just older. Now that Butt has lost his legs completely, the prospect of a midfield grafter who might not be the best passer in the world but definitely helps us keep posession doesn't sound too bad at all. I think selling Parker immediately has to be one of Big Sam's larger mistakes in the summer market. There were various contributing factors (falling out with the fans, needing the cash to get Barton etc.) but I think we let him go much too soon. Certainly would rather have him than Smith at this point.

Barton was very good in the middle. But he needs an extended run in the team to truly be comfortable in that position. You can understand why that might not necesarily happen.

Aside from not having a striker who can actually score goals, Boro really are a team superior to us in every aspect. (Well, maybe not Schwarzer. Worst goalie in the Premiership IMO) Any one of Wheater, Huth, Rochemback, Arca, Downing would walk straight into our team. Arca would have been a canny winter buy, actually. Agree besides Rochenback,hes a complete donkey! He's a pretty decent player who has a lot of suspect patches. Their version of Emre. Would still have him over Butt or Smith in midfield.

Carr hasn't looked too bad. Keep him, put Beye in the middle of defence and ave Faye in midfield. Even though Jenas and Parker got slated for their square passes at least they kept the ball... Butt was terrible. I think we're actually missing Scott Parker a lot. He would have done well as a DMF in our current system I think. Hastily selling Parker/Nobby to West Ham was probably our second biggest mistake during the summer after buying Alan Smith for 6m.

Aside from not having a striker who can actually score goals, Boro really are a team superior to us in every aspect. (Well, maybe not Schwarzer. Worst goalie in the Premiership IMO) Any one of Wheater, Huth, Rochemback, Arca, Downing would walk straight into our team. Arca would have been a canny winter buy, actually.

We're sorely missing Enrique btw. Zog still goes forward far too much (can't blame him) and leaves open acres of space. Gary O'Neil almost ripped us in half twice today.

Barton in for Butt, Faye in for Cacapa. I know Barton isn't strictly a holding player, but Butt isn't really much of a football in the last few months, i think he's lost it. Geremi, maybe KK can get something out of him? Geremi would be just as bad as Butt playing in the central midfield IMO. I wouldn't mind playing Faye in the midfield and Baye as a central defender since Carr seems to be doing passably as of late. Of course, things turned out so fantasticly the last time we played everyone out of position , so that might not be the best of ideas.

That's a very high mark for N'Zogbia IMO. I think he was pretty poor. Are people honestly saying we couldn't have brought in a better player than Nicky Butt in January??? We could've brought in someone better than Butt. The point is we didn't want to buy someone we'd just have to replace again in the summer. This season was written off from the start. Things are going as planned as long as we're not relegated. Reminds me of our last "keeping our powder dry" incident, although this time the result could be a lot worse than not consolidating a place in the top 4. I'm not necessarily saying that it's a good idea, but it seems to be Keegan/Mort/Ashley's plan.

The dilemma: does Faye replace Cacapa in defence or Butt in midfield? Which piece of shit do we excise from our team first?

Cacapa 3? have a word 2 then. Cacapa had good moments, but the only reason he was called upon to make wonder saves was because his horrible positioning put us into trouble in the first place. Faye can't come back soon enough

That's a very high mark for N'Zogbia IMO. I think he was pretty poor. Are people honestly saying we couldn't have brought in a better player than Nicky Butt in January??? We could've brought in someone better than Butt. The point is we didn't want to buy someone we'd just have to replace again in the summer. This season was written off from the start. Things are going as planned as long as we're not relegated.

We'll lose three and maybe draw with Blackburn, but I think we're still safe. The typical Newcastle scenario would be for us to secure saftey, putting our hopes into Keegan to rebuild us over the summer. He fails miserably and we're somewhere between 12~17 again next year. Pretty soon after that we're going to start getting mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Boro, Wigan, Fulham etc.

Creditable draw against a far superior side. I'm not even joking. On the bright side, every point brings us a bit further from relegation. Thank god we had that nice patch early-season or we'd be down for sure.

FUCK YEAH! I don't mind being proved wrong

oh well. 0-0 or 0-1 and booed off the pitch I suppose. Jesus we're so bad. Makes me cry.

Suddenly not so confident. Boro already had a better midfield and arguably a better defense than us. Now they have better strikers too. I hope Alves is really, really shit. The fans look just about ready to turn on KK if we don't get a result here.

might as well reserve space on this thread for the ensuing shitfest after Alves/Downing score a wondergoal/crazy freekick against us on Sunday.

Not coincidental our plummet seemed to coincide with him leaving We weren't exactly flying high when he was here, were we? Neither were we in the mess we are in now, though eh ? I think you've forgotten that our mess last season was significantly worse than the "mess" we have now. By several degrees of magnitude.

Jesus. Desperation. At least we get to clean out ManU and Chelsea's trash. Would be tempted to suicide when we're reduced to picking off rejects from Spurs for ridiculous fees.

Not coincidental our plummet seemed to coincide with him leaving We weren't exactly flying high when he was here, were we?

I wish. We're in for one heck of a painful, boring second half of a season, that's what we're in for.

I heard that Beckford thing this morning, actually. You never know. Surely not good enough for the Premiership?

Would be a decent idea to pop a small bid for Lee now that Spurs have Gilberto... Could get an experienced left back for next to nowt.