Jayson

Having said all that, id not mind if we gave someone like Lualua or Baheng a go. Just because i dont see our movement getting better any time soon & i think we need someone whos capable of scoring a goal from midfield other than Duff. Or someone who cuts inside from the wing, cos Jonas seems to avoid that endlessly.

When you think that we got him because he had the most assists in la liga & he has played quite a bit for Argentina and done fine. That would suggest that hes not as bad as he comes across. Its the same reason i used to back up owen tbh. People focus on the player and avoid looking at any reason why the player could be underperforming. Ie Owen gets no through balls, the crosses to him are disasterous, he gets barely any chances to touch the ball let alone on goal, so when he does finally get one his confidence is gone etc. Most see this as "Owen is now crap". I see this as Owen being seriously starved of any decent service.....and alright hes prob not as good as he used to be. Hes still a better finisher than most. Same with Guti here. All the evidence outside of playing for Newcastle would suggest that this guy CAN set up goals. So what is the difference when playing for us??? He's mostly surrounded by morons. Thats the difference. Once again...alright hes probably not the best crosser in the world either. But if when hes bursting out from our area hes got other players breaking with him & not 10 yards behind, we'd be commending him for all the counters he sets up. But instead he has to slow down completely & wait for them to catch up, pass backwards....or go it alone around the outside of the nearest defender...most likely get fouled and flop on the ground to try and get us an advantage. Then when he does get the chances to cross 80% of them dont reach a Newcastle player....so that must be Guti's fault for his crap crossing. When in reality about 50% that dont go to our lads are put in decent areas & our fowards are just standing 1 yard away from eachother instead of getting into the dangerous positions. This happened a lot of times on Sat - but all people notice is....ball...wrong player....the crossers fault. Then you have the fact that people are more likely to remember the bad crosses than the decent ones & it goes on. Hes one of our better players in reality. We'd be a worse side without him.

That replay just shows how much harper was to blame if anything. Exactly the same as kruls later fumble, except kruls reflexes saved his mistake & harpers didnt. Also note 36secs in Jonas putting in a perfectly decent cross which should have come to more. So hes not always useless.

Theres quite a large number of obvious benefits to playing in a side like olympiakos compared to a side in the championship ?

He was one of our better players, all he didnt have was the final product. You can debate whether thats fully him or lack of movement from our fowards. In terms of keeping pressure on the opposition, driving us out of defence etc he was one of our best players.

he wasnt anywhere near being the worst on the pitch

The guy can pass he just cant cross well, hes decent enough at threading a ball through hes done it several times. Which is why he should cut inside more and not run along the wing every single time. But for some reason that idea isnt one he goes for...probably lack of movement from the fowards.

Gazza your evaluation of our players current ability in comparison to how those villa players played back then is pretty disasterously bad

Think Shearer confirmed that Ameobi was pretty good in training, the more clueless of them (Kinnear, Hughton) probably just base it off that & ignore his actual performance in these games.

I can only hope the Mail are as clueless as ever. Reading that it has just hit home how likely we are of having MA for at least another year. I had been annoyed at the lack of progress with the takeover bids and such but was always confident Ashley would f*** off sooner rather than later, now it feels like it's going to be another season of one f*** up after the next. Good times Always believed he thought he had it in him to promote us. The guy is seriously deluded, the conclusions he reaches on his decisions are beyond moronic. I dont have much ill feeling towards DOL, but its never going to be optimal with Ashley as the owner. Then all the negativity still hangs over the fans & its incredibly incredibly likely that thats only going to come out once again. Even if we have a great start...we'll then start EXPECTING promotion. If we become aware we're good enough to go up, the expectancy will hit when certain results dont go to well...then the pressure will come in. If we just have a crap or average year, we'll feel like we're underperforming and the pressure will hit then instead. At some point with Ashley in charge, we will not be happy & the players performance will be effected. Its a pretty strong certainty & that is only going to have a negative effect on us at some point. I have a hard time believing we'll go up with Ashley as owner regardless. He's even less likely to invest in us now...if he does stay as owner, i fully expect him to have seen that west brom game as a reason to believe the team is good enough as it is & only needs a manager.

Seems like there was atleast 4 solid reasons to give Krul a chance. If you ignore the crosses he took out of the air, more efficient punches, kicks etc I dont remember harper contributing very much beyond messing up for their goal.

Think thats why Ashley goes for them. Ignores their current managerial ability & just gets whats cheap.

He had issues with that one where they coulda had a pen. I think it was the corner after his first impressive save. He was still better than harper, easily.

We cant still be worth 100 mill if we've sold 20mill worth of players ?

Based on yesterdays performances he was probably right to have a go at them. I think he reads the game better than either, prob gets frustrating as hell watching all the cock ups they make. He seems to have a similar attitude to Roy keane. Problem is he hasnt proven himself enough yet to be getting respect from others when he tells them what to do.

But he says he prefers playing left wing. And he's proven that he's incapable of whipping balls in with either foot on either flank, but very good at running up blind alleys and then falling on his arse. I think a large weakness he has is near ALWAYS going on the outside of a player and trying to run around. I cant remember the last time i saw him cut inside from the left & try to thread a ball through. When he played on the right he did cut inside...probably just because he prefers that foot. I remember him specifically setting two up for Owen two games in a row doing that. One against stoke & one in our 3-0 against portsmouth. So prob not bad idea to play him there...

Think this is a good part of it, his running would be far more useful if we had other midfielders bursting up with him. We're all aware the side lacks pace...yet complain when Jonas doesnt just lay off simple passes. Its because half the time hes team mates are 10 yards behind him = why hes more effective in better teams. If we had better players, we'd all be praising him for how much his driving runs from defence set up all our counters.

Well ya can only see if you give the lad a chance. He's shown that his shot stopping currently puts him above harpers ability in that game, so he deserves one. The amount of times last season people were saying "Given woulda saved that" to goals harper let in was pretty high. Plus our biggest weakness has been set pieces...Harper hasnt exactly been dominating his area aerially. Dont see why we wouldnt give Krul a shot. Those arguing against the idea are probably the same ppl who make the "players need to be playing on performances, not on reputation" comments. So its pretty contradictory.

Didnt we get him specfically because he was the top assister in his league? That would be a sign to me that a lot of it may be more down to the lack of movement from our players than necessarily his woeful passing everytime. He cant have turned that bad suddenly. His crossing above ground is woeful though, i agree with that.

you may have a point in krul being worthy of a run but saying he's showed more than harper has in 10 years is s*** of a high order. I'ts not tho man. Harper's never had reactions anything close to what we've seen of Krul in these 2 games. And it's not as if he hasn't had the chance. Nah harpers made a few class saves in his time. But his reflexes do look to have gone downhill recently, hed never have saved all 3 of those today. Not a chance.

The goal was partly a result of him losing his man. Two of kruls saves were the result of Colo not being able to deal with his man. Didnt do to badly He had decent moments to be fair, but when he cocks up it is often very costly.

He still drove us out from the area more than anyone else, for much of the first half it was his linking it up on the left which kept us in possession & pressing them. Some of the low crosses he put in may have done better also if our strikers had supported better or had better movement. It doesnt all come down to him. It just looks bad for him because of the fact he looks like he should be more dangerous because of his ability on the ball. Many of the rest just look crap, so you dont expect much more than that.

Did you watch the game? He clearly isn't ready for the shirt full-time. I'm not saying Harper is Pagliuca or owt like. We would have lost that match with Harper in goal for 2nd half. Fact. Even if he makes some errors in judgement, he makes brilliant saves that I just cant ever see Harper making. Agility and reflexes are far better. And ofcourse even when he drops a few balls he's still superior to Harper in the air. Keeping is about safety, first and foremost. And dont type 'FACT' when you're basically making a stupid guess Keeping is about not conceding goals lol Thats it. It was harpers specifically being weak in the air which led to their goal, so i dont see how his abilities excel in comparison to Kruls. You're just stuck in the idea of him needing to develop because he hasnt played much. I bet you back Ranger all day long over Ameobi however.

Why does him being 21 matter atall, he performed better than harper. If harper had played today, we would have lost in about 3 seperate ways. The whole "hes to young, his whole game isnt there...he needs time" etc is bollocks for me. Just spouting out generic crap because hes young. If hes good enough give him a chance. He was far more commanding in the air than harper.

nonsense looks one hell of a prospect though, in fact he reminds me of Shay Given at 21, in both strengths and weaknesses. There's a reason most keepers peak at 30+ and we've just seen why. Needs a lot more games and cannot be thrown in just yet at this level Took 3 or 4 crosses with ease, how many did harper get to