ShearMagic

This. Unless your name is Obafemi Martins or Jonas Gutierrez, you can fuck off. You can't take all the blame away from Joe. You don't take a Ferrari offroading, neither do take a 4x4 around silverstone. Similarly you don't try and fit 4 centre halves into one pitch and play your right winger in centre midfield. Did you see who we had on the bench?

Kinnear will get a 4 match touchline ban anyway, I just can't fucking wait to have Hughton managing us. What a thrill that will be.

Yes, sack another fucking manager. That'll fucking achieve a lot. Start blaming the players as well for fucks sake.

This. Unless your name is Obafemi Martins or Jonas Gutierrez, you can fuck off.

This smells like the West Brom game. We dominated the first half, went in 2-0 up, and then were hanging on for dear life in the second half. Please no repeats boys.

It will be just like us to concede early here, and it's something we simply can't afford to do. Stoke are likely to sit back a bit any way, it's the way they play, but if they score early, they'll do it even more, making them extremely hard to break down. If they score early, we'll get no more than a draw.

Imagine when he does!

N'Zogbia has been pretty disappointing for mine.

Certainly can't complain with that side, it should score goals, that's for sure.

He used to be my favourite player, but at the end of the day I don't think his heart is in it. It's all well and good thinking you know everything, and you're entitled to, fans are welcome to opinions, however, we don't see him every day. It's surely no coincidence that he's never really been in favour with any of our managers, including Keegan who usually loves those kinds of players. To be honest I'd prefer to see a less talented Duff that WANTS to play for Newcastle, than a more talented N'Zogbia that doesn't want to.

And was on a yellow card.

Just been reading some things JK had to say on .cock Sounds like N'Zogbia might be in line for a start, and he's tinkering with the idea of playing Owen, Martins & Ameobi.

It's a draw between Abdoulaye Faye and Scott Parker for me. I'll go for Scott Parker just because Central Midfield is the area we struggle in most.

It doesn't, and it works better against certain teams because you're not inviting pressure onto yourself for the entire game. I just don't think the time to start using it is against Chelsea. By all means, give it a shot the week after against Boro who aren't as dangerous going forward, and definitely play it against Stoke.

Exactly. Which there isn't, so I don't see the problem.

We've been at our best from a defensive point of view with the 4-3-3. Five clean sheets in eight i think it was at the back end of last season. Against: Sunderland, Portsmouth, Reading and Fulham. Hardly anyone of Chelsea's quality in there. We'll lose far worse if we play 3 up front and 3 in midfield, they'll absolutely kill us down the wings. As unattractive as it is you can't take the game to Chelsea, because look at what happens when West Brom try to play every side off the park when they're not good enough to.

He'll still be here.

3 up front against Chelsea? Yeah, okay

Usually I'd agree, however Ameobi has to play against Chelsea. The reality is, we're not going to be able to play them off the park with our footballing ability, and we need a big targetman up forward so at least when we're pumping our long balls out of defence, we've got a semi-chance of winning the ball. If we play Owen and Martins up there, they won't touch the ball.

Same as Smith really. At the end of the day, managers see things at the training ground that we don't, so whilst it's all well and good having a go for playing Duff and not N'Zogbia, I get the impression that N'Zogbia is disinterested and would be the sort to not really try in training, whereas Duff would put lots of effort in. Hard for a manager to play the disinterested party over the really enthusiastic one. Surely it's time to revert to a 4-3-3 now anyway, Ameobi won't be dropped (rightly or wrongly), but with both Owen and Martins scoring last night both have to play. Although probably not against Chelsea unless we're planning on taking the game to them, which is very dangerous to say the least. How did Coloccini play? Coloccini to me is looking less confident with each game. Can hardly blame him really, he'll be wishing he stayed at Deportivo. As for taking of Jonas, he does so much running that it's often impossible to expect him to last the full 90 minutes.

It's not always the defences fault we concede so much either. Our midfield is crap, that's where ALL of our problems stem from. If you can't keep the ball you're inviting far too much pressure onto your back four and you're going to concede no matter who you've got there. Not saying our back four is brilliant btw.

Our problem has been getting numbers into the box in the past, and it's still a problem. When Owen's on, he just knows how to make those runs. He's always in the right position at the right time, the sign of a great striker. Martins doesn't quite have the tactical ability yet, and he tends to run around like a bit of a headless chicken, would probably make for a good partnership though, Martins drawing the defenders away opening up the space for Owen.

Same as Smith really. At the end of the day, managers see things at the training ground that we don't, so whilst it's all well and good having a go for playing Duff and not N'Zogbia, I get the impression that N'Zogbia is disinterested and would be the sort to not really try in training, whereas Duff would put lots of effort in. Hard for a manager to play the disinterested party over the really enthusiastic one. Surely it's time to revert to a 4-3-3 now anyway, Ameobi won't be dropped (rightly or wrongly), but with both Owen and Martins scoring last night both have to play. Although probably not against Chelsea unless we're planning on taking the game to them, which is very dangerous to say the least. How did Coloccini play?

4th bottom with Chelsea (a) and Boro (a) next two games. If we're not bottom by the time Stoke come to SJP on December 6th I'll be amazed. It's not a kneejerk reaction if you ask me, it's a continual frustration that will go on until the club cogs get turning again. Everything gives the feeling of "ground to a halt" at the minute. The whole future of the club is up in arms, some of our big players are out of contract come summer, the performances are extremely patchy and we have unpopular characters from head-to-toe infesting the club (from the boardroom to the coaching staff to the players.) Attendances are dropping, it's fucking freezing and it's mid-winter... it's just a fucking horrible time to be a NUFC fan and people are letting that be known. Everyone needs an outlet and it's hard to be sensible/coherent when you're raging. When people stop caring how we do is when the shit really hits the fan. Agreed it's probably a build-up, but we've been in worse situations this season. Not saying I'm happy with being 17th, because I'm clearly not, and the sad thing is that nothing can really be done about it until the club is sold. So we'll just keep meandering along with Joe Kinnear in charge, and yes, there's a good chance we'll be around the bottom when the club eventually gets sold, BUT fortunately for us the bottom is so tight and even with a few losses I don't imagine we'll be too far behind the rest.

We've lost 2 games in 7. 3 of those have been draws, but it's a start. Remember when Keegan left and we had Hughton in charge? Now that was bad. The guy is a very, very good coach but he's not a manager. But at the end of the day, I don't get the kneejerk reaction when we're probably in the best form we've been all year (albeit, our easiest run too and we missed out today).