Jayson

Guti playing well

Nice try, good work Enrique to get it moving

No movement in the middle showing up there

Come on lads :clap:

Lots of respect for Loven, hopefully does himself proud

Butt normally gives the opposition a lot more time on the ball than Smith

Btw half a dozen games is laughable

I'll help you. He's probably had just over half a dozen good games this season. So lets ignore the change in ability of his team mates, the league he's playing in, manager, level of enthusiasm that would result from trying to prove yourself in a new team & a new league. The way a players mentality would be effected by all of the above & in turn effect his decision making during a game. Even if it were a lack of motivation to fully play at the standard he's capable of which is one option, how could you blame him. We're top of the league, he has our joint most assists, the majority of the play goes through him when attacking. Our defence is already the best in the league, with him tracking back at the standard he is now. He's still getting into Argentina's first team, yet you expect more? Same old nonsense. Take our best players, set a stupidly high standard for them and have a moan when they dont live up to your personal expectations because they arent robotic.

Do you think everything else is the same as the start of last season? Seems like quite a few massively obvious reasons why he wouldnt perform at that standard constantly. So you focus on him not matching up to your very high initial expectations, ignoring that the standard he's playing at still makes him one of our best players easily. One which you apparently think has the potential to do even better & you only seem to see the negative. Then you put this on him not being bothered, when theres hundreds of plausible reasons why his mentality might be different & understandably so.

Thoughts with him & his fam As has been said atleast he got to see his sons hattrick hopefully. Was struggling with this situation before, so might be out for a short while now. Be a strange time for him.

Didnt used to pay any attention to stories about players, my opinion of him was that he was largely a very good player. Had ups & downs, but the ability to worry any team on his day & he had lots under bobby.

Wasn't hard to leave him off the list. Embarassing opinions.

Take the exact same side we had last season, give us a stable manager (even Hughton) & a normal season. We'd not get relegated. A lot more went on last season than players playing at their highest ability & that not being good enough. Majority of them were no where near it as shown since.

You yourself were saying just yesterday that it was strange he hadnt played Lovenkrands upfront more. Our two best central midfielders in the premiership Guthrie & Barton havent played in central midfield bar yesterday through Butts injury. On that note he's choosing Nicky Butt, a guy who himself admits this might be his last season of football entirely...(ie he's probably not playing at the greatest standard) over both. Yet we've also been playing long ball football for the majority of the season. So he's either acknowledging that the central midfield he's using isnt up to the task of getting around & passing it properly....or the team are flat out not playing the way he's asking them to. Or he just plainly prefers to play that way. How does he come out of it well? He deserves credit yes, but i see quite a few reasons to be doubtful of his ability in the prem. Not harsh, just the way it looks. Ive wanted him to do well for a while.

Saw a little of Bristol-Cardiff yesterday on there, its decent enough.

I fully think Beckford will be good, not a wind up.

Its a huge game. If we draw/lose we may only be 2 or 3 points in the lead, thatll have an impact. Then we'd have Cardiff & leicester coming up. Its a must win game for me to get us rolling again.

Yes. Hes a special player, its one of those things you just know. You just feel it. He's going to be a top class striker & if we dont get him we'll be moaning about not getting this transfer for a long time. I cannot possibly see a future in which Beckford doesnt score lots of goals for Newcastle if we got him. Its in the stars. If im wrong i will personally walk the length of the country wearing nothing but a leeds FC headband & then completely backtrack and avoid doing it. I promise you now.

Got the 3rd assist though, so dissapears & then makes an important contribution as usual.

I think we'll do em and get all excited again for a few games before drawing with someone rubbish. I think we'll step up against the better teams we'll be playing over the next five games.

Just to get needlessly involved in the argument and cause more problems "Picking the right team is what matters. And picking Harewood ahead of Lovenkrands has been the problem." The way thats written means Harewood playing over lovenkrands has been the singular problem getting in the way of us having the right team. Not aswell as anything else. So id give the win to Tron

Loven is prem quality and you know it. Hattricks arent typical of anyone, hes done well near every single game hes played upfront this season.

Our joint top assister now. Been doing much better since coming back from his injury

It should be Ameobi & Loven. Many of us been saying that for a long long time

Carroll was getting quite a bit of praise for his control in the game, just his whole constantly missing the goal part that let him down