duo

Ba and Cisse looked lost in 442 - seem to be v.similar players fighting for the same type of balls.

Thought it was LB he's played at but looked good at RB.  Played well especially when he switched to RB.

Thought he was excellent today...

Ditto.

Was v.impressed with him today. Played well.

Cisse's shot that hit the heel of the keeper would have gone in last season. 3 Inches away from a goal.

Cabaye's free kick at the end wasn't too far off either.  Was a good save.

Krul at the end of the second half, when Santon was in acres of space, hoofing it upfield to Cisse with a clearly bigger, stronger centre-half up his arse. Infuriating.

And he did it again and again and again.....

Only a few positives for me today...

Santon - thought he was excellent

Bigi - thought his choice of passing was v.good.

Anita - played well RB

Oh and Benny's strike...

I am disappointed - not lest for the fact we were supposedly linked with some good players yet bar Anita got none through the door.  Anita for me is a strange buy, yes we lost Guthrie but Midfield in one area we have reasonable strength.  Can't help but think he was a replacement for Tiote and they'd planned to use money from that sale to fund some of our targets.

8th....think Pardew can now knock all this talk of Champions League on the head.

Nobody came in for any of our players. Surprising.

 

They did, Fat Mike wouldn't bite and we are all very very grateful.

so they say...

And Ian, if we don't finish in the top six at the very least (realistically we need the top four and have known that all summer long), all those signings will certainly be irrelevant because all those players will be out the door.

If we finish 7th, there's almost no chance of keeping hold of HBA, Cisse, Ba, Cabaye or Tiote imo.

Agreed.

What about using some of the cash from this stadium name sponsorship...oh wait.

Or TV money? No?

Time to switch off Sky News..

Well this is a transfer window to forget....

We've needed a centre back for two years now.  If we'd had one last year we may have made it into the Champions League.

Phil McNulty, BBC Sport Chief Football Writer

 

"Today is one of those days that is great but horrible at the same time. Something will happen late that nobody expected, and it will be hectic right up to the end."

 

David Craig will no doubt make an appearence at 10:59 to tell us Ashley helicopter is fuelled and ready..

The sad thing is we're only a couple of players short of keeping the momentum going.

 

Yep. The most disappointing thing for me.

lack....of.....ambition. 

Can see the likes of Cayabe being offski next season.  He'll want Champions League football.  All the top teams have invested - how Pardew thinks we can compete is anyones guess.

£403, 500,000 spent by premier league clubs. f*** sake man the world is crazy. Still £3mil of that is from us wooooo

..and yet Pardew bangs on about Champions League....

What is a shame is that it wouldn't have required much money to give his words some credence.

Mark Douglas ‏@MsiDouglas

No incomings at #nufc, AP admits. 'We'll look at it in January,' he says.

confirmed now- nobody but maybe a free to replace R taylor.

 

By who?

 

Pards there in his interview........

 

He really didn't say that.

He didn't need to really body language said it all.

If they are serious about CL football to take this club forward they'll not do it without spending.  £3.5 mil spend is a joke.

Who knows? Something might still happen. If it doesn't I'll be a bit disappointed but it's not the end of the world.

my opinion, while hardly ideal if we have the same squad as we do now on sat its not the worst thing thats ever happened

 

It's increasingly unlikely Lille or Liverpool will budge on thier prices but then we already knew that. If that's the case it will be frustrating in the sense we've missed an oppertunity to strengthen an already impressive base of players, but this is squad is more than capable of another top six campaign.

First 11 is cabable....not the squad.  Seriously lack depth in key areas.  Squad was light last year and is even lighter this time round considering we have the extra strain of Europe.

Mark Douglas ‏@MsiDouglas

@tfeditor1892 Agree. What is the point in tying chief scout to 8 year deal then not signing any of the players he recommends?!

Just what I was thinking.....

The implication from O-Nut's post is that the first team players the other clubs have brought in will perform no better than the ones they've sold, when that's not necessarily the case. They've replaced quality with quality. It's not just about numbers; if we'd sold Simpson and bought Debuchy nobody would give a s***.

 

Last summer on the whole, our incoming players were better or on a par with those going out. The clubs around us have all sold top class players, they've replaced them with quality, but to expect Giroud & Podolski to match what RvP has done, Dembele & Sigurdsson to cover Modric's departure, Borini & Allen to replace Bellamy & Kuyt for example, they're big asks.

It is a big ask but highlights even more what a missed opportunity it is for us not to spend some money on players we clearly need.  To have a player of Debuchy's class to WANT to come to Newcastle for not an unreasonable amount of cash and to not pay it is ridiculous.

I think last season spolit us- it's back to the Ashley of old from the looks of it.

Missed opportunity to build on our success.

Is it just me that would rather have Dembele in my team than Modric? Think the latter is massively overrated tbh.

 

Dembs for me, like.

Was well impressed with Dembelle when Fulham came to St James last season. Not a bad replacement imo.