kingxlnc

Wasn't Geremi captain for one season?

Batty finished in the PFA team of the year with us in 1997… after we finished 13th! He was genuinely awesome and obviously highly respected by his peers too. We’ve only ever had him, Given and Coloccini in that team whilst with us.

I agree that Shearer doesn't have the best footy opinions, I'm glad he didn't become a manager as no doubt he would have been a PFM, no better than a Roy Keane type. Even when I watch the MOTD Top 10 stuff that he does with Gary Lineker and Micah Richards, it's decent banter etc, but don't always agree with his thoughts. As a striker though, awesome, fearsome, top tier. Truly a couple of sliding doors moment if SBR had come after Keegan instead, and had he not got that horrible 1997 injury to see what those extra couple of seasons would have done for him here in his Blackburn form.

If you looked at them you’d never guess rangers v Frankfurt is the Europa league and higher calibre tournament whilst Roma v Feyenoord is the Conference League given the calibre of teams

I do sometimes think of an alternative universe where Graham Carr's top recommendations were all listened to and signed without Ashley's tightness, where could NUFC have ended up from that solid base of 5th season, even despite Pardew's limitations. We could have had Salah, directly from Egypt I believe (or maybe Basel). Aubemeyang from St Etienne. Varane before Real Madrid. Too many other big names to mention. Carr had one hell of an eye to be honest, even his flops (Marveaux, Yanga Mbiwa, Thauvin, Mbemba et al) were still decent players but poorly coached / managed here). Goes to show, you get the wrong manager to manage your precious human resources, you destroy progress and no level of decent recruitment will help nullify the rot.

Ba was a beast, strong, quick and could finish all types of goals - could take free kicks and penalties too. Actually a very underrated player over the course of his career as he scored everywhere he went, needed to stay in one place for long enough to leave a legacy in my opinion. But a great and very likeable guy too. Think he associates his time at NUFC as his peak and the time he enjoyed the most, ditto Cisse.

Hugely more influential in the middle, when Wood came on Joelinton started doing what he does best in the middle of the park and winning the ball back. I don’t like him up too or even on the left. Most clubs aren’t as weak as Norwich, so he’s merely average there whereas he’s almost world class in the middle enforcer role.

No one is a bigger Keegan fan than me but what I meant was their management career was on a par or better than their immense playing talent. Keegan was a great manager but for a short period and never won anything which placed him below top top tier unlike his playing career. Tbh the one I thought people would take exception to was Dalglish as he did actually win the PL with Blackburn and Div 1 with Liverpool as a manager but tanked here and Celtic… you can see I’ve never quite forgiven him for his terrible time here haha. SBR is a good shout but his management career perhaps was more impressive than his playing career, he was a decent player but only got 20 caps or so for England. Hoddle did show potential of matching his playing career in his early management days but then fell by the wayside with the fallout with the England comments and never quite recovered. Perhaps the other standout exception who were great at both (other than Guardiola who I’m happy to be corrected about) is Johan Cruyff.

Fair enough, to be fair I remember when we were linked to him under SBR being over the moon excited but I meant historically in terms of stature, perhaps he didn’t have the profile or reputation of the others. As others have said it might be down to being criminally underrated. I thought he was more like a Dechamps or Dunga reputationally who was a top player for his country and even captain but perhaps not the highest tier on the world stage for his generation, which many of the others were.

I’ve never understood why ex top players are so well revered and well recieved as PL football managers. A familiar name is ok but what do they actually have about them in terms of coaching? In business or in any other field, even in football, top players get that way through intense coaching and development over years, even decades. Many kids start in the academy at 7 and don’t peak until 27, daily training to get there. It’s not hard to see why Howe is excelling, he is the same age as Gerrard and Lampard but has 12-13 years experience in coaching, management, philosophy etc. even if it’s at a lower level, you still need to motivate a group of players to play out of their skin for you. When you have to do it with no money you have no choice but to find the best of the best ways to do it through sheer ingenuity and hard work, as you cannot buy your way out of problems. whereas for top players, when the going gets tough they don’t know how to adapt, it’s new territory. They haven’t experienced real difficulty. Thinking back, all the best players of their era had a lot of limitations as coaches. Which top player really matched their playing success as a manager? Gullit, Souness, Dalglish, Keane, Maradona, Barnes, Pearce, Bryan Robson, Rijkaard, Henry, even our very own Shearer and dare I say even Keegan to an extent. Guardiola was a good player but was never a top player of the previous lists ilk. And even so, has cherrypicked all his jobs. Zidane you could make a case for of course but I would argue we haven’t even seen enough of him to determine his skills as a top class coach. Conte was like Guardiola, a good not great player. the point here is that Howe has done his 10,000 hours away from the limelight and therefore is fully poised and ready to be entering his peak as a manager with us. And it’s very exciting! Wenger was another one who was a student of the game, had done a long stint elsewhere before entering his dynasty period with Arsenal. All of this also shows how silly Everton were to go for a big name over the proven meticulous Benitez, who I guarantee would have got them out of trouble this season.

An awesome read, thanks so much for sharing and it really does seem as all that struggle and striving for the cause has developed him into elite level potential. Howe is to ACFB what Keegan is to Newcastle, there in the tough times and built in his image to the extent he’s given most fans today the best times they’ve experienced in their lifetime. So believe me we totally understand the reverence you have for him and it sounds like Keegan, he’s at the right club that matches his values and ambition too. Thanks again and let’s hope you can write a part 6 and 7 in the future, talking about his Newcastle and CL winning years!

Given Howe said he was practically putting out a team for survival and not the way he actually wants us to play - maybe now is worth experimenting with his favoured system? I'd like to see Almiron as a 10 with Bruno?/Joelinton behind him and see how that goes.

bar Liverpool*

From page 4 of this thread: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dirtysouthsoccer.com/platform/amp/2018/8/13/17658490/why-cant-miguel-almiron-finish-chances-mvp-scoring-goals It seems as though output, in particular finishing has always been an issue for him. But I still think he's a good player and he can make things happen for sure.

Interesting if true, perhaps it was all a PR thing for the Qatar World Cup, makes sense the outrageous outlay on the best players in the world, Messi et al especially when Ligue Un is hardly a money spinner. Who could afford it though especially with the unsustainable nature of how it is currently run?

Targett IS a Bridge type. Both mid 20’s solid English left backs.

With that said, wouldn't mind Carr being one of the scouts under Dan Ashworth's watch - he was very good with no money, imagine what he could find with a blank cheque?

Roy Keane often says that the likes of Rob Lee and David Batty were 'proper' midfielders who were amongst the toughest competitors he ever faced in the PL. He also said that about Tim Sherwood.

One free transfer I was really looking forward to seeing due to his history as a mainstay (captain even, I think) in that dominant Lyon side of the noughties was Claudio Cacapa - needless to say it was a huge anticlimax

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-gullit-moves-for-rui-costa-1197413.html?amp Fee was accepted and he flew to the North East

I think John Obi Mikel was overrated, never understood the hype. Internationally, Pique and Casillas I think are good but not in GOAT territory as they're often put in. In the modern-day, Pickford is definitely overrated as is Henderson

The way Ashley acted was literally like a lottery winner would do with his wealth. Scarcity mindset, trying his best to conserve and consolidate. He's the kind who got lucky with the IPO of Sports Direct, got more money than he knows what to do with and now has an overinflated sense of his own ability. Whereas he was just in the right place, right time. Most entrepreneurs who make it big, to that kind of stature, if they lost everything, they'd be able to make it back because they have that kind of nous they've learned, in terms of how to get there. Ashley was a fraud, to be honest and him being a billionaire really does seem like a fluke, as I can't really see any sense the man had, about any of his decisions (not just NUFC ones but his strategy of purchasing failing retailers) - who has he actually revived?

For me, although I wasn't from the area (I'm from Nottingham), I 'chose' Newcastle as a kid (age 11) initially because of Andy Cole (who was a classmate of my cousin), and then being excited when Shearer joined (as he was my favourite UK-based player), then remember defending them at school in the Dalglish and Gullit years surrounded by Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool fans. But I have more clearer memories of the SBR era, when I was at uni. The highs were a good exciting fast young team, having trust in a classy, revered and wise manager and having a lot of great goals from Robert, Solano, Speed and of course Shearer. I was also very excited at Kluivert coming in. The FA Cup semi final where Rob Lee scored was a particular low as I was convinced we would have beaten Villa in the final, as opposed to us having the double winners and treble winners in the previous two years. Ditto Partizan. The Bowyer summer, too. But at the time, I felt our status as a top club was clear and after Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool and the new kids on the block, Chelsea, we were easily the best of the rest in terms of PL stature. I never thought NUFC would become an also-ran diminished yo-yo club like a West Brom or Sunderland at that point. Even when Souness or Allardyce came in, I still thought we're considered a big club and the types of signings being made (or linked with) reflected that (e.g. Emre, Owen, Luque, Martins, Duff etc). But it's amazing what neglect can do. I really enjoyed the 5th season, mostly because the players were really good to watch, Ba, Cisse and especially Ben Arfa. But even the likes of Santon, Cabaye, Tiote, Coloccini, Jonas - it was a cool squad and was a fun season. It was the first season after a while where I had hope, because we had just been promoted, done okay, the team was being built cleverly with Graham Carr's expertise and even who we were being linked with (Aubameyang, etc) were all top prospects. So that hope carried on for a season or two after. Carver was the beginning of the end, where I began to think there was some sort of self sabotage going on.

Forest... Wood, I see what you did there

The longer time goes on the more it looks he is the Killer Kilcline type of signing that was not necessarily the right quality but absolutely what was needed for this moment in time