SLK

Had a good game. like to see more from him.

I'm not worried just when Cisse is injured, I'm actually worried that Cisse continues to misfire and we don't have anyone else to swap him with at the 60th min in the match.

6 for Santon Maybe offensively but defensively is -6 Williamson should be 2. He is the defender version of Shola Ameobi. Useless and at best a championship player. These two should be no where near the first team. Cabaye 5.5 while Marveaux 6 At least Cabaye goal would be worth a 6 !!! Pardew at Sub Zero is the only rating that had any bearing on the match imo. The rest is semantics. Some of our players are NOT good enough regardless of the manager. The one who should take most of the blame is Ashley for his lack of investment in the summer. It's a bit too late to wake up and invest now in this window.

Do we have any better defenders on the bench ready to take his place Thanks Ashley for your investment in the summer.

6 for Santon Maybe offensively but defensively is -6 Williamson should be 2. He is the defender version of Shola Ameobi. Useless and at best a championship player. These two should be no where near the first team. Cabaye 5.5 while Marveaux 6 At least Cabaye goal would be worth a 6 !!!

If we had quality subs then I would have agreed about taking Marveaux and Cabaye off. I understand that it may still be early for Cabaye to play 90 minutes but to take off both creative players we have in our team killed our chances of getting a 2nd goal. Why take Marveaux if you don't have any quality on the bench ? Jonas and Santon should swap as I see Jonas being a better LB while Santon is better going forward and playing as a winger. Cisse is NOT unlucky. He is NOT playing well. A confident striker would have scored at least one goal from the number of chances he had. in an ideal situation (i.e. having quality backup strikers) Cisse should be on the bench. Ameobi on the other hand is a championship player at best.

If only the money can be re-invested, then I would definitely take the 15 million. Santon is not a good defender. His fault for Reading's first goal and big blame on him for the 2nd too.

Our subs are no where near the quality of our best 11. If you want to take off Cabaye, who can you bring on that has the same similar abilities ? None. Same for Marveaux. As poor as Williamson is we have to be honest and say Santon is defensively poor and he would take a big blame for both Reading's goals.

That's just an excuse. He is low in confidence and we are loosing games because he can't get the ball in the net when a striker of his calibre should be doing with his eyes closed. It is not fair on him to be put under this pressure. For a club this big it is a joke that we don't have a back up striker to take his place until he is back to normal. Shola on the other hand shouldn't be in the starting team. He is a championship player at best.

Cisse is a disaster this season. He is so low in confidence that I can't save his and the team's arse. Ameobi shouldn't be playing anymore but the problem is who do bring on instead of these useless strikers ? We are desparate for 2 new strikers. Buy Wilfried Bony to take Cisse's place and another winger or else we are going down.

It like we are in a jungle, Newcastle United is the 'Cheetah that is very good at catching a pray but only for the watching hyenas and vultures to steal it.

Get Kevin Gameiro. Surely he wouldn't want to warm the bench any long at PSG. We may get it for a good price too.

Wilfried Bony would be a good buy. Young, powerful and almost like a young Drogbs. I reckon he's worth the reported £8m.

Bigger, more to do, better places to eat and drink, flashier lifestyle? I agree bigger means all the above but also bigger means more crimes, dirtier, more polluted, more crowded...

Why do I always read here that when it comes to players choosing between working in London or Newcastle they would choose the earlier ? This is a genuine question from someone who is not from the UK and only visited London twice long time ago. I would have thought Newcastle was a nice city to work in especially if you are footballer when you have locals who eat, drink and breath football.

Yes he has, as part of a 4-4-2, with a right footer on the left wing and a left footer on the right wing so they can't cross properly to him and the rest of the team just hoofing the ball up front. Baffled as to what you think that proves. He needs to play in the middle of a 4-3-3, or in a 4-4-2 with the wingers on the correct wings. Sadly we lack the personnel to do the latter, and the manager lacks the balls to do the former. Honestly, have you ever heard of a striker that can't play in a 4-4-2? Seriously? It's the same formation Ba has scored 10 goals in. Ba could do with some crosses too. Yes the service has been poor for Cisse (and Ba) but he HAS had chances. I just want people to admit Cisse has legitimately been poor and some of the blame lays with the player himself. He has the same amount of goals as Hatem & Cabaye. It's not good enough. Being offside all the time is nobody's fault but his own. The fact he's probably been offside more than any other player shows he's been in goal scoring positions and messed it up. Not always his fault for being off side. It can also be caused by not anticipating the striker's run quickly and releasing the ball too late where the strike is now in an offside position. This is exactly what happened to Cisse at Stoke when he made a great run but Tiote or whoever he was took seconds longer than they should have before they released the ball which was too late and obviously very frustrating for Cisse.

One thing to say is that we played much better than the Southampton, stoke games but the are still big big problems. 1) wrong substitutions at wrong times. 2) playing Cisse on the wing rather than centrally. 3) players who shouldn't be near the first team like Tiote, Williamson, Jonas. Of course due to the lack of investment made in the summer we are stuck with them.

The problems: 1) Pardew for bringing in Ameobi after covering the 2nd goal. I mean what an inspirational change like for like withBen Arfa. God what a waste of time. We already had 2 forwards in the field with no good service . What was Ameobi going to add. More fouls, more off sides ? Why not bringing in Marvoux instead especially when there is 20 minutes still to play. And this brings me to the 2nd problem 2) why did Pardew leave the substitution of Bigi and Marvoux till it was useless. These double substitutions work best when given enough time like Sir Bobby Robson used to around 70th minute. These two should have come in instead of the useless Ameobi. 3) Williamson, Gutierez and Tiote should not be first choice anymore. Williamson is reallytbe weakest li k in our defense. Gutierez is getting slower and slower. Not adding any attacking threat. Not doing enough to warrant him a position in the team. Tiote needs to play like his first 2 seasons where he bossed the midfield. He kept giving away the ball as his passing was very lacking in quality and putting the team in needless pressure. 3) Cisse is a waste on the wing. he is doesn't know how to play that wide role. He is a central striker full stop. He would defininetly have more chances in front of goal than out and out wide. It's a shame that we are not doing something about such glaring defects.

Well he is getting on with his age apart from returning from a lengthy injury. Again I'm saying this like a broken record we needed to invest in senior players at the end of last season but we didn't. Not surprised with the results so far.

Did Cisse can hold the ball up. Playing up front on his own at Freiburg he was brilliant at it. I've never seen him play for Freiburg, but I simply don't believe that. He's absolutely terrible at it, even worse than Ba. Me neither but i would imagine when he played up front on his own at Freiberg he wasn't having balls fired at his head and instead was getting balls played through midfield and then down the side of centre backs for him to run on too. The was a moment in the 2nd half when cisse was called offside after making the right dash when he was behind the southhampton defense line and waited and waited (while he was dashing) for the ballot come from Simpson and when it came it was too late. The shake of the head and the smile of frustration he had on his face says it all. In short our biggest problem is not creating any good opportunities for our strikers to do something. We have no system or plan of attack to break down and unlock opponents defense. When harem and Cabaye are injured or off forum we are basically f**k. The lack of investment in senior players last summer is now bearing it's results and I blame Ashley for this.

Steven talyor is not any better either. If any one has been monitoring his play he would notice how rubbish he is and why we concede easy goals.

I don't see how nag keeper would have stopped the 3rd goal unless he had watched the highlights and then gone back in time and repositioned himself exactly under the goal post. The game was already finished when we conceded 2 goals in the first 15 minutes. Conceding goals from set pieces point to problems in marking players and tracking their movement. We lacked organisation at the back and missed Colo's leadership. We also need better defenders than Williamsons. The whole team was rubbish in the first 15 minutes to be honest and it seems we are behaving the same way at start of every game.

Very poor defending for the fist 2 goals. 3rd was a fluke. We are paying the price for not investing in quality centre backs last summer. We need to stop the unforced errors our players are making from corners that swing over the line before reaching the penality area to dwelling over the ball for too long. Need Ben Arfa to play just behind a striker rather than on the flanks.

2nd half was better than 1st half especially after the 3 substitutions. This shows that: 1) Cabaye is still not back to his best. His corners and set pieces were below average and did not support the two dembas with any quality through passes as we are used to see from him. 2) Dani Simpson is very average against good quality oppositions. All the little attacking on the wing came from our left side which handicapped the team and made it easier and more predictable for Chelsea to deal with us. This is why we need Debuchy. 3) Anita was good and he will get better with time but yesterday against Chelsea and being away is not the best time and place to start your full away debut. We definitely misses Tiote. 4) As much as the two dembas were starved of quality supplies I believe they play almost the same style and don't compliment each other and would have been interesting if we had a centre forward who could flick ona and give defenders a bit of a work out. This is where Caroll could come handy.

Cabay not back to his best yet. Missed Tiote. Simpson can't attack nor defend against quality opponents.