fredbob

"It's not what you say, its just the way you say it." Would love to hear there views on JFK.

Not having anything to moan about has brought out some real mongathon debates recently.

I imagine its this kind of scrutiny which has caused him so many personal problems in his career. Genuinely feel for the lad when he's had thiis kind of shit all his football life. All this analysis over an 18 minute period in a game we won anyway.

What about the time when Ba was in space and only needed to be slipped through to have a clear run on goal, instead of doing that Ben Arfa heheld on to it too long and tried to beat the fullback again before losing possession. What he'll find is if he doesn't start releasing the ball at the right time soon then our players will stop making those runs, we've seen that with unpredictable players here in the past. He had a split second, and that's all it was to try and bend a ball between two defenders. Ba had a Distin between him and Ben Arfa and Ben Arfa had the fullback next to him so the gap was tiny, he also had McFadden closing him down. Mick, Ba was not only unmarked when HBA picked the ball up but he had plenty of space to run in to with only the keeper between him and the goal if it was played early enough, he delayed it far too long and ended up losing it. Talented played when it usually comes to beating a man but I'm doubting the lads got a footballing brain.

Really feel sorry for the lad if these are the kind of expectations he's had to live up to his entire life. I honestly dont think he's actually played badly at all, perhaps anonymous at times especially so at blackburn but in every game I've seen him he's literally done ok. he's made contributions at forest, spurs and everton so far in his very short career at nufc which is 3 times as much as smith has contributed. One thing that does worry me is his reluctance to play out wide, I think for a player of his type playingo out wide with more space to exploit would be beneficial to his rehabilitation, more than happy to see him deployed in the number 10 role in the long run but trying to regain his touch In a tight area will do nothing but frustrated him and the crowd. The Messi role has him written all over it. 3ventually id love to see him deployed in the cesc role that he played at arsenal.

Very rarely do you score goals by doing the simple things, there's no set formula to scoring goals, In actual fact theres no difference between someone trying to play a risky ball through the defence and someone trying to take on the fullbacks on a regualr basis, they both can come up with the same results yet one way of doings things Is frowned upon more than the other. I'd personally encourage Ben arfa to dribble as much as possible in the final 3rd, the more a player has the ball the quicker the oppossition loses shape trying to regain possession, its these finer details which win matches. I don't think ill ever have a problem with HBA losing possession in the final 3rd because i know what he's actually capable of. Said it before but lionel Messi loses the ball more than any other player in the barcelona team, its the nature of the beast.

I'm sure i read somewhere that the player who gives possession away the most for barca is Messi... Its the nature of the beast as far as I'm concerned. Wouldn't it be a valid point to say that an orthodox pass that's on is easier to defend against than an unorthodox dribble in tight areas. Football to the finer detail is about gambling, whether it be playing a through ball with a tight angle, whether it be peeling off at the back post for a cross or in ben arfas case whether it be taking on men in advanced positions. He'll lose a few of those gambles but he'll definitely win more than his fair share because plain and simply he's so sublimly talented, its an aspect of his game Im always willing to accept, much like I'm willing to accept tiote flaws with his yellow cards and colocinnis flaws with not sleeping with my girlfriend.

Cannot believe we have him, loved how he came deep on Tuesday to pick up the ball to make play. Brilliant run for lovenkrands fluffed effort. Just give him a free role and be done with it, in fact just give him the managers job.

Running out of superlatives for him. Such a class act, just no way in a million years that he's getting an extension.

You need a hobby.

As an "apologists" ill rate this a 5. Not getting a striker is a disgrace to be honest, it was the major focus of the entire summer and by not getting one we've sold ourselves short massively, a perfect 10 would have been any CD, a RB a versatile midfielder and a striker. It's a massive shame because the business we'd already done was fantastic, getting a striker wouldn't of been the cherry on top, it was half the fucking cake. Infuriating. I'll reiterate where I am, I like the plan (or at least my interpretation of it), I hate the execution.

Having to eat my words a lot recently, but I'm starting to think that best could lead the line for us. It's clear he has the drive and determination to make himself a success at the club and that's clearly showing on the pitch where he constantly puts in 100%. He's got everything in his game, like a very poor man's drogba; has the physicality and guile to create chances for himself. Perhaps he's not so clever on the ball, ie doesn't have an eye for a pass but good all the same. Hope he makes a success of himself to be honest, like his attitude.

Love the idea that someone's sat at home or work actually getting annoyed about a possibly inaccurate thread title. "I must inform the admin and everyone else of my displeasure"

I wish we had the NO forum negotiating our transfers, our crack team of computer geeks would make light work of the ￡35m sat in the transfer piggy bank.

Good point. Will be interesting seeing him with a bit of space to work in when he's in advanced positions, didnt really have the beating of his man yesterday. Still very happy with this lad, excellent addition. Credit to Graham Carr for unearthing another gem to add to his collection of tiote and cabaye....

You seen him play there often? We need him out wide, which also is his best position. Ok, well just to clarify, id be happy to give him another whirl in the centre with Cabaye and Tiote. Just saw the hall marks of a decent CM. His ball retention under pressure was very good, also closed down well and wasnt afraid to get stuck in. Just a thought.

You seen him play there often? No, but from what I have seen of him, he is a winger/attacking midfielder.

He has spoken.

Best is what Ranger will become if he applies himself... Difficult not to like Best, not the prettiest of footballers but seems quite effective, can see him being an good impact sub. For a club aiming to be where we hope to be, he should be 3rd choice striker at best...

A midfield 3 of Cabaye, Tiote and Marveaux looks very exciting, couple that with a front 3 of Ben arfa, Ba and Obertan and we are looking a dangerous unit on paper.

Just figured out who he reminds me of - Emre, especially when he moved into the CM.

True. Who said that? I've seen a number of people whinging about these two leaving without being replaced. Have to say I'm even more excited at the prospect of Cabaye & Marveaux than those two. Going to be much better to watch. Yes theyve both been better to watch so far. We've also just had to rely on Ryan Taylor to beat Sunderland & stop us getting knocked out of the Carling cup to Scunthorpe. Dont get ahead of yourself. As good as they are, we've hardly replaced Nolans goals atall at this point. See, you make a solid point about the individual goals winning us games (which I've alluded to already and attribute to our lack of style of play) but you make this classic mistake of believing that more goals win you more matches. My guess is that anyone who understands football will be able to see that by having more possession we'll concede less goals as well. Remember, you can win the league with less than 38 goals. Except that as of yet we've hardly dominated possession in any of these games, so it is still getting ahead of ourselves to state anything like this isnt it. In general its far to early to state that Cabayes potential ability to increase our ball retention outweighs Nolans previous potential to score influential goals. And i didnt say more goals win you matches anywhere, im saying we need someone who can score fullstop. Our senior strikers have scored 1 goal between all of them in the last 9 games for Newcastle. To be fair, I'm not going as far as saying what cabaye has done so far outweighs what nolan could do (i still think nolan is capable of bagging 10 in the PL), I've just been reading this board for a while and have been getting bored with so many loud voices moaning about us not directly replacing Nolan's goals with any retort. All ill go as far as saying is that if cabaye plays like he did tonight only with better options by him, like tiote, marv, Ben arfa even a working demba ba then we will concede less as a by product which is just as important in my eyes. It's a bug bear of mine, like when people moan that we have no creativity in midfield and that we need a creative player who will magic up these chances when in actual fact our rancid movement means we aren't giving our midfield anything to work with. (Not necessarily something that has been moaned about recently but done in the past)

True. Who said that? I've seen a number of people whinging about these two leaving without being replaced. Have to say I'm even more excited at the prospect of Cabaye & Marveaux than those two. Going to be much better to watch. Yes theyve both been better to watch so far. We've also just had to rely on Ryan Taylor to beat Sunderland & stop us getting knocked out of the Carling cup to Scunthorpe. Dont get ahead of yourself. As good as they are, we've hardly replaced Nolans goals atall at this point. See, you make a solid point about the individual goals winning us games (which I've alluded to already and attribute to our lack of style of play) but you make this classic mistake of believing that more goals win you more matches. My guess is that anyone who understands football will be able to see that by having more possession we'll concede less goals as well. Remember, you can win the league with less than 38 goals.

No no no, we sold 14 goals for ￡4m and haven't replaced him adequately.

I'm not going to sing the praises of our full backs but controlling the ball and making a short pass is basic and our full backs are good enough for that. What isn't good enough is that only marv and cabaye actively looked to recieve the ball... No no no. At least not good enough under a tiny little bit of pressure. They're both proffessional footballers, yes they can. It's a pretty big flaw for any footballer let alone a premiership footballer. If you recall when Keegan first took over from Allardyce he remarked that the players were almost scared to make short passes for fear of losing the ball. He had to encourage them to play the pass and he'd take responsibility for the mistakes. This is how you teach a passing philosophy. Keegan wasn't brilliant tactically but he knew how to make a team play the way he wanted. Aye, very true. At the end of the day, players should be begging for the ball.