YankeeToon

Looks ridiculous in his little helmet, too...

Anybody ever see him out and about who's willing to do some jail time for the greater good of the club? You think the fuker dares parade himself around Newcastle? Permenant resident in Sunderland i reckon. Must be a local hero over there...

Anybody ever see him out and about who's willing to do some jail time for the greater good of the club?

Look up for his after match interview, Glenn Roeder has expressed his disappointment at a performance which he says was way below the standards set by Newcastle United. I guess he's missed a few of our games recently. Roeder in self-contradictory comment SHOCKER!

It was. Made a few good challenges, didn't do anything stupid, not at fault for either goal. I'd like to see how he does partnered with Taylor as well, but he and Bramble made a pretty good central pairing, for the most part.

Must come as a shock to Fulham, thinking they'd done the double on us...

Hopefully some sense of loyalty will keep him at least a few more seasons. After that, who knows? He's definitely got a future ahead of him, and I doubt it'll all be with us. We should get a nice hefty payoff for him when he goes, though, which should take some of the sting out of it.

God hates West Ham, tbh

Thats him giving Roeder the Evil eyes for leaving Nobby on the bench > Nah. Giving Carr the evil eye, thinking "I have to play with this tubby bastard?"

Except that even when Zog is back, Roeder'll still make Duff first pick. Still holding out some faint hope that Duff will remember how to play, but want to see Zog return as well.

Well, once we beat Liverpool next week, we can really kick off our run for the top 5!

Pretty well, no shocking errors, made a few good plays. Nothing he could've done about either goal.

Point taken!

After Owen went down injured in Germany, I was pretty sure our season would be mid-table at best. It's great to see us still within striking distance of Europe, and hopefully we can keep our good luck going at least a little while longer, but this season was always going to be mainly a chance to stop the downward slide and start rebuilding. I think we've done well on that count, making a few good signings (yes, I count Duff - keeping the faith that he'll find his old form again) and we have a solid core up front. I could see us challenging for top six with a few more signings, a little help and a lot better start to the season. Makes me cringe, thinking where we'd be now if we'd held our leads against Fulham & Bolton, and beaten Boro & SheffU...

We do need his height and aerial ability, no question. Hopefully he'll do fine if he gets started. Mainly I'm concerned that he's only had a day or two to train with the rest of the team. We've seen the drawbacks of playing with an unsettled back 4, and I can't imagine that they'll have built up any sort of understanding together yet. I'm just worried about putting out a defense that's not ready to play together yet.

So I've been thinking to myself, would giving Gooch his debut at Fulham be a mistake? As the only signing of the January transfer window, there's an awful lot of pressure on him to turn in quality performances right out of the gate to justify the fact that he's the only player Roeder managed to land. If he has a bad first game, a lot of people will seize on it as proof of Roeder's failure in the window. Plus, Onyewu knows that he has very few chances to land a contract this summer so he'll be worried about what a bad start might do for his future. Top that off with the usual nerves that I'm sure will accompany his EPL debut for us, and it cranks up a whole heaping load of pressure on his shoulders for his first game. As of right now, he's an unknown factor to most of the clubs in the EPL. Nobody really knows his strengths and weaknesses, and they'll have to test him out to find where he's vulnerable, which should give him a slight cushion. Not that anyone'll shy off of him, but they won't know exactly how sharp his tackles are, if he can get turned easily, etc. But Fulham have McBride, Bocanegra, and Dempsey, all of whom know Onyewu's playing style (a lot better than we do right now) and I'm sure have shared any potential vulnerabilities with their teammates. If anyone in the EPL have the edge of knowing Gooch's weak points right now, it would be Fulham. So is it really a good tactical decision to have him make his debut, with all the pressure that comes with it, against the only team with players that knows his playing style better than his teammates do? Just a thought.

I wouldn't mind one of the crests, either. Haven't actually checked the price, but I'm sure it's way more than they're worth...

There was a General Chat thread on them a while back, complete with photoshopped pictures for potential NUFC ones... Yep... http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?topic=34137.0

My favorite "typical American" story is from the WC this summer. I was watching the USA/Italy game in a bar with this girl who was "supporting" the US. When the game got started, she asked me where Beckham was. She seemed confused and disappointed to find out he doesn't play on the US National team. Then, she kept asking "why don't they play better?" and "why do they keep kicking the ball backwards?" and "how come that guy keeps raising that flag?" Then, when McBride got the elbow in the face, it was "Oh, no! He was the cute one!" Longest 90 minutes of my life, but she was the friend of a friend and not bad looking, so I bit my tongue and taught her at least the basic rules of the game, trying to at least get a date or two out of it. No such luck. Alright in the end, though, since I'd likely have wound up shouting at her midway through the first date about what an idiot she was.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

I know it won't mean much, as our country is generally considered a joke as far as this sport is concerned, but he was named US Soccer Athlete of the Year this year.

Everything is relative. Before the start, everyone thought that 2-2 against West Ham at SJP would be a terrible result to get. After the horrible confusion of the first half, 2-2 is still not a good result, but a much better bad result than it seemed before the game kicked off. It's fine to say 2-2 is still a bad result, but it's a much better result than 0-2 would have been. Gotta take what small consolation you can from the fact that we battled back for a point after giving away 2 needless goals. Evening captain obvious how are you today? Doin' fine, thanks! Starting a Captain Obvious competition, then? No, it's not a good result. I think I mentioned that. It's a pathetic result against a team that we should've beaten easily, and we're going to finish in the bottom half of the table if we keep this kind of play going. It's still better to get one point out of it than zero.

Everything is relative. Before the start, everyone thought that 2-2 against West Ham at SJP would be a terrible result to get. After the horrible confusion of the first half, 2-2 is still not a good result, but a much better bad result than it seemed before the game kicked off. It's fine to say 2-2 is still a bad result, but it's a much better result than 0-2 would have been. Gotta take what small consolation you can from the fact that we battled back for a point after giving away 2 needless goals.

Agreed. Right now, he's in the uncomfortable position of being our star striker at a very young age. He doesn't really have anyone he can learn from amongst our ranks, so he's having to improve his game as he goes without the kind of mentor-figure that Owen could be if he was fit & training with him. That said, he's still doing very well at fixing his weaknesses as he goes, and hopefully he's going to blossom into a real danger.

Fantastic finish, all credit to the lads for grinding out a point against one of the toughest teams in the League. Bonus points to Edgar for his performance today! A solid effort in defense, and a goal that'll have him grinning for days. Not bad for a 19-year-old in his 2nd senior team match.