ExiledGeordie

I'm pretty confident a left back will be signed, even the dudds at board level realise (surely) that we'll need one for an entire season's campaign. Striker I'm far less confident in fact I think we probably won't end up with another one.

I might add I'm fairly non-plus now about the Joey situ (there are other, many other far more glaring concerns, lol) just thought that comment was a pretty good one. Ofcourse not everyone will see it that way and fair enough.

Probably a bit both to be fair.

This from the true faith message board which I read. May also be one of you from here but agree totally with this comment: "I haven't seen him smile yet having signed for QPR. One can only imagine he woke up this morning and wondered why has has got himself into this situation. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the Barton household to try and gauge the mood. He still had 12 months here on 60k a week and at the end of that, he would've still got a move somewhere. He engineered a move away but he did it in the hope of landing a club like Spurs. When it became clear that no one else was interested, he must have panicking about opening his gob. Let's not beat around the bush here. He knew exactly what he was doing when he spoke out on Twitter, it was a situation that was engineered to get him out of NUFC but if you had suggested to Barton that QPR would be the only club interested in taking him at the time, he'd have probably laughed. He had backed himself into a corner and Ashley called his bluff. There is no way in a million years he wanted and/or expected QPR to be his last resort. It's a lesson to anyone who thinks they are bigger than a club or a regime, the grass certainly isn't always greener on the other side, and I say this holding our owner and chief in the contempt they deserve. Even with the current situation in mind, NUFC is a better place to play your football than QPR, every single day of the week."

Much of what's written above will be true about Pardew if this window turns out to be another total disaster. Not long to wait now to find out!

I'd like to think that if it's all very pedestrian and heading for a drab draw, the likes of Marveaux or Sammy might be able to spice things up second half. Be great to get a win here going into the international break. Particularly interested to see how Obertan gets on today.

Yeah I agree, that's the team I think Pardew will send out though, not necessarily what I'd like to see.

I can see Marveaux coming on as an impact sub as opposed to playing from the start after all those minutes in the league cup thursday night and given he's only just come back/got going. Will probably be: (assuming Shola's out with a knock) Krul Simpson Taylor(s) Colo Taylor® Obertan Cabaye Tiote Jonas Best Ba

All very worrying this. I don't expect him to be the saviour of the team but he's clearly a highly talented lad who can offer us something very different and it's a great shame he's been unjured for this long.

Any latest news on Hatem? I see the title of the thread has him back for the Wolves game. I guess Spurs on the 16th two weeks later may be more realistic given the usual set backs.

"The board" will have seen Ryan Taylor's performances and deemed him as an ideal replacement.

Fair point, ok consistently solid then? lol Get what your saying though.

at the Llambias quote

Yeah all this bollocks about him being a legend ffs. Robert Lee is a legend in my eyes not someone whose living off the back of one excellent season for us after a series of seasons doing nothing and getting involved with the law. I'm actually pretty glad that the Barton roadshow has left town in many ways, bored of it. That said he's done the job for us and we are now weakened even more with his departure which is frustrating/annoying. Some people need to move on from this though.

Technically very good, quick feet, and has an eye for a quality ball. Defo like the look of him. I like the idea of Marveaux linking up with Cabaye, Obertan, Ben Arfa etc.

All seems a bit tragic really that he's going to end up at QPR. His character issues on the pitch/twitter carry on his ruined chances of going to "one of the bigger" clubs thats for certain. I love watching him play for NUFC but he's a total self publicist with his twitter carry on creating constant drama and often find myself thinking "just shut up and get on with playing football". That said I like the way he'll come on the radio and talk to pundits, fans alike. I don't however like the way he's positioned himself as some kind of club legend when in fact if you break it down most of his career here has been spent on the injury bench, in jail or general controversy. Certainly a proper mixed bag of a player.

You have to give Pardew credit for some stuff like last saturday and some of the stuff he says comes across 100% genuine but then he goes back into club/Ashley/Llambias mouthpiece propoganda and totally mugs himself off.

Smith is obviously going to start after the comments I've just heard from his press conference this morning on sky sports news. Worryingly Pards has been saying "how much stronger our squad is compared to last year"

I was about to self destruct when I first read those "Pards" quotes!

Just a left back

For some stupid, bazarre reason I'm confident of us signing a left back despite all this brinkmanship. I'm not at all confident of us signing another striker though.

Obertan is an unkown entity them as well as us. Has the pace to hurt them, just hope he rises to the occasion as he's the closest thing we've got to Ben Arfa and someone to really put defenders on the back foot.

There's big pressure on Pardew in terms of the result and the lack of signings etc but the pressure is on Sunderland far more really. They've signed loads of players, they're the ones desperate to give us a drubbing after the 5-1. If it doesn't pan out the way they want you can imagine the players and fans getting really nervous because when all is said and done they'll never have a better opportunity to beat us.

Supporting NUFC under this regime is so fucking tedious