Should Allardyce have been given/spent more in the summer?

[Andy]

He's struggling to find a team that gels as it is. If he had another two or three players to choose from his head would explode in a massive thermo-nuclear reaction.

[ohmelads]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind, set up one goal and scored another. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

[Taylor Swift]

Someone should just email this link to Allardyce.

 

http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?action=profile;u=110;sa=showPosts

[Guest optimistic nit]

i think ohmelads knows fuck all tbh

[Baggio]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to shite this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth fuck all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty shite for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

This is what Allardyce said about the defence back in July.

 

As for his general search for defensive reinforcements, Allardyce added: “The choice is more limited here (in England). They are fewer and farther between than they were.

 

 

“If I had been quick enough or had been in place as Newcastle manager sooner, I’d have looked at more Premiership free transfers.

 

 

“I tried for one — Tal Ben Haim — and if Sylvain Distin had still been available when I’d been here, he’d have been here.

 

 

“If you put Ben Haim and Distin here now, it would make a huge difference. You’d already have secured the problems with your defence, basically.

 

 

“You’d probably just look for a left-back of the right sort of experience and, perhaps, a right-back and you'd be looking forward to August 11.

 

 

“But that centre-back we need may not be in this country now.”

 

[Parky]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind, set up one goal and scored another. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

Great post fella. Agree with it all.

 

One of the golden rules is if you can't spread play to pacey players and have to play narrow you make sure you can keep the ball for good periods and move up as a unit. We don't spread play and we don't move up as a unit either.

[Dr Spectrum]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets.

[Dokko]

I'm really glad you lot are catching up, well done. 

[Parky]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets.

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

I also don't think Liverpool's defence is much better than ours man for man but they have to deal with a lot less pressure as thier mf has much more posession.

[Parky]

I'm really glad you lot are catching up, well done. 

 

Out of order.  >

[Guest optimistic nit]

you defend as a team and a team that has no ability to keep the ball isn't going to help a fragile back four who have not had any time to get any consistancy together. also imo the key to allardyce's apparent away philosophy is having an organised back 4 that can handle the pressure put on it and its obvious that this isn't going to be the case when you've replaced all 4 defenders in a couple of months. you want the ball in their half for as long as possible imo when you have a defence like ours.

[Baggio]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets.

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

[Dokko]

I'm really glad you lot are catching up, well done. 

 

Out of order.  >

 

Its not though really is it?

 

The click said it was ok, so it was, but really it isn't.

 

 

[Parky]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets.

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

 

Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own.

 

But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete  with proper football in mf.

[Parky]

I'm really glad you lot are catching up, well done. 

 

Out of order.  >

 

Its not though really is it?

 

The click said it was ok, so it was, but really it isn't.

 

 

 

I have to hold back on SA for now and I made a promise to myself to give him till Christmas at least.

[NE5]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to shite this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth fuck all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty shite for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

Some good points, but just lately - and it seems that its going on everywhere - there is too much emphasis being paid to players fitting formations that the manager wants to play.

 

Basically, I think such talk is a cover for masking poor selections and for not having good enough players or even defending the buys the manager has made.

 

Good teams are good teams because they have talented players, playing controlled possession football, and have the players to  play this type of football. The formation doesn't win the game, its the players who do that, played in their best positions, with a positive attitude and playing to win and not to draw.

 

I wanted Allardyce, I'll make no bones about this, but I'm not going to defend his transfer moves. I think he has got it wrong, and bought too many defenders. On deadline day the club allowed Dyer - no big miss, the little waste of space shite has had 8 years to prove he's a worthy footballer at the club, so take the money while we can get it - and Solano. Now - how far down the road the transfers for Beye and Faye had gone ? Were they irreversible, or do the club say, yes we need these players and now we need one forward player / attacking midfield player because we are now losing these 2 players ?

 

We don't know what they said. If Allardyce rested on his laurels and chose not to change direction on the last day, it has been a huge mistake. If the club said they wouldn't give any more money, then that is also a huge mistake.

 

I find it slightly odd we are being made to discuss this. You don't see Liverpool etc harping on like this about being restricted in the amount of money they pay for players. Basically, if the manager has wanted a player, they have pretty much backed him, and set their standards at the highest levels when it has came to the crunch. They have operated like this since Shankly became manager, the only major example that I know of where this didnt' happen is supposedly where Dalglish wasn't allowed to buy Gazza, or told to wait 12 months by which time he had moved to Spurs. Anyway, there is simply no excuse whatsoever for Newcastle United not doing exactly the same thing.

 

And having a manager with the same ambitions. If we don't have a manager with these ambitions, he's the wrong man for us.

 

I just know some certain people are going to interpret this in a certain way. Well, OK, its my opinion and personalities don't come into it. Its how I see it. Those people can ignore if they like but they should ask themselves, if this isn't the way to challenge these top clubs, what is ?

 

In my opinion, the club should have replaced Solano and Dyer with at least one player capable of nailing down a first team place and be of at least the quality of Nobby, regardless of price. This is certainly how Liverpool would have looked at the situation.

 

The comment made that you can't legislate for managers judgment ie Souness, is correct, but thats what football is all about, good judgements.

 

 

[Dokko]

I'm really glad you lot are catching up, well done. 

 

Out of order.  >

 

Its not though really is it?

 

The click said it was ok, so it was, but really it isn't.

 

 

 

I have to hold back on SA for now and I made a promise to myself to give him till Christmas at least.

 

I'd give him the season, but what the hey, i'm very impatient.

 

What does rule is that he wasn't backed properly in the last window, but everyone was happy with that weren't they?

[Guest optimistic nit]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets.

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

I also don't think Liverpool's defence is much better than ours man for man but they have to deal with a lot less pressure as thier mf has much more posession.

 

parky no matter who we'd bought in august we needed 4 new defenders and a defence who are completely new to each other is not going to be solid immediately. i consider cacapa as stand out quality and beye and enrique come with great reputations, also rozy and faye have been very highly rated by their previous fans.

quality teams aren't built overnight, it needs to be gradual. we should know better than anyone that having 5 champions league quality players playing alongside 5 championship quality players gets you nowhere. if you're unhappy with the quality of the defenders bought then it would be a waste to spend 25mill on 4 defenders (we spent 14 on 4 defenders (plus one free) who you are not happy with, so i presume this is around the figure you would have preffered) without spending the equivilent on our midfield, as a defence without a midfield who cant keep the ball is like sunderland spending 9million on a goalkeeper (i.e. he may be good but how many points will they actually gain? they'll just lose games by 2-3 goals and not 5, and maybe gain them a few draws). we'll now need at least 3 midfielders to match the defenders, and for the desired quality we're looking at another 30-40 million. we're probably right in the striking department, but with an unfit viduka, uncultured martins and a broken owen a 15-20mill striker would probably be good just to be safe, because we don't want to spend 65 million on a defence and midfield to find owen and viduka out for 3 months and having to rely on a very inconsistant martins and fucking ameobi.

now we've spent 80-85 million on team we better hope allardyce works out, or we're well and truely fucked, and what if some of these new players don't work out? better imo to take it step by step rather than putting £80,000,000 on red and hoping for the best.

[johnnypd]

Amount of money spent is irrelevant if it aint spent right (See Souness, G).

 

He's definetly made one poor signing. £6m pissed away on a player who ain't worth 6 magic beans.

 

But I'm not sure about whats going on with a few others - Rozehnal,  Faye, Enrique, Cacapa, and Baye. Why are they in and out of the side? Does he not fancy them now he's had a chance to work with them (Rozehnal is less impressive each and every time I see him)? Is he spoilt for choice? Don't know. If you were better at the back that Milner cross would have got you a jammy win, instead its seen as a jammy draw cos of the chances they had. Wonder how things would have gone differently if you had gone into the game having played the same back 4 in every game this season. At the moment it seems to be a new back 4 every week. Not on, the premiership is not pre-season training and not many fans are going to sit on their hands and "give him time" if you're losing games while he experiments. Point is despite Parky's insistence that you needed Elano's long lost twin brother, we would have gone to s**** this season if it wasn't for our defence. Players like that need a platform to work from or the moments of genius (Which aren't common) aren't worth owt. Like Martin's goal against us. Great goal out of nothing, worth f*** all cos the defence wasn't up to it. Seems to me Sam has got it wrong in buying too many defenders who aren't proven in the premiership. Cacapa couldn't deal with a bit of pace? Baye and Enrique need to 'settle'? What a waste of time. If only he'd gone out and got some proper, proven centre halves you might have the back 5 sorted already without the need to chop and change looking for the right setup and held us off. You might have kept Sunderland quiet. All these games Sam has gone looking for a point might have ended in wins cos the opposition never got a sniff. I know its easier said than done but just looking at two guys - Distin would have saved Martin Jol's job. He'd also be in the Liverpool side at the moment. And he would have improved Newcastle no end. I wonder how many (former) premiership managers wake up in a cold sweat about letting him walk to bloody Portsmouth. And Tal Ben Haim has looked pretty s**** for Chelsea but he's fitted in well to Allardyce's formula before. Obviously it would have taken big offers in terms of wages to get these two guys, so in that sense, eyes I think he should have 'spent' more, but thats not quite the same. IMO he should have spent differently. Less exotic, more proven players.

 

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it.

 

Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation.

 

There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind, set up one goal and scored another. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue.

 

excellent points.

 

to answer some more of speccy's post, sam tried to get in both distin and ben haim but for various reasons (one of them down to the change in ownership apparently) they went elsewhere.

 

then there is the mention of martins' goal being worth nothing at city and milner's goal not being worth 3 points at sunderland. sure, the defence wasn't at its best, but you can't seriously be suggesting that we can be relying on freak goals that weren't even intended, or as you yourself say "a goal out of nothing". that imo and probably for most newcastle fans is the main issue, the lack of fluent play, the inability to keep possession, pose a threat ourselves and create chances. not only would we be scoring more goals if these problems were solved, we'd also relieve pressure on our own defence and give the opposition something to think about so that they aren't comfortable and ready to attack at each and every opportunity. no defence in the country is able to defend non-stop for 89 out of 90 minutes. players aren't making mistakes because they are bad players or mistake prone, they're making mistakes because errors inevitably occur if you're defending to that extent, submitted to constant pressure and expected to reorganise to fight every new threat. expecting a side which isn't the best defensively to forget all about attacking and try to defend from kickoff in the hope that divine intervention will take care of our goalscoring is naive and unrealistic. in the city and sunderland match we had very, very little by way of the above qualities and had to rely on freak goals or moments of individual magic. milner's goal was the one of the very few attacking opportunities we had in the derby game, whereas sunderland had plenty, we only got a draw because of sheer luck and poor sunderland finishing. if a team is relying on those sorts of goals they're in big trouble regardless of the quality of their defence.

[Baggio]

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

 

Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own.

 

But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete  with proper football in mf.

 

I said all summer that the lack of pace and creativity would cost us and it has, replacing Dyer with Smith was madness and we're now left with a team of grafters rather than any genuine pace and penetration in the team, our only players capable of this are either on the bench or playing out of position at left back.

 

As for signing better quality defenders, he said players wouldn't come here because we were not in Europe and I believe him, Ben Haim went to Chelsea, Distin had already agreed to join Pompey, Heinze turned us down flat, Silvestre turned us down because he didn't like Barton and Man Utd would only sell Brown if Heinze stayed, what other players with Premiership experience stand out apart from them who would leave their current club to come here?

 

My biggest worry now is that if players turned us down last year because of no European football, there's a good chance we're going to have the same problem next Summer too.

[Dokko]

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

 

Tbf I was and co

 

ntinue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own.

 

But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete  with proper football in mf.

 

I said all summer that the lack of pace and creativity would cost us and it has, replacing Dyer with Smith was madness and we're now left with a team of grafters rather than any genuine pace and penetration in the team, our only players capable of this are either on the bench or playing out of position at left back.

 

As for signing better quality defenders, he said players wouldn't come here because we were not in Europe and I believe him, Ben Haim went to Chelsea, Distin had already agreed to join Pompey, Heinze turned us down flat, Silvestre turned us down because he didn't like Barton and Man Utd would only sell Brown if Heinze stayed, what other players with Premiership experience stand out apart from them who would leave their current club to come here?

 

My biggest worry now is that if players turned us down last year because of no European football, there's a good chance we're going to have the same problem next Summer too.

 

Which is why we should be playing what we know, and to our assets and resources instead of 433.

 

 

[NE5]

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

 

Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own.

 

But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete  with proper football in mf.

 

I said all summer that the lack of pace and creativity would cost us and it has, replacing Dyer with Smith was madness and we're now left with a team of grafters rather than any genuine pace and penetration in the team, our only players capable of this are either on the bench or playing out of position at left back.

 

As for signing better quality defenders, he said players wouldn't come here because we were not in Europe and I believe him, Ben Haim went to Chelsea, Distin had already agreed to join Pompey, Heinze turned us down flat, Silvestre turned us down because he didn't like Barton and Man Utd would only sell Brown if Heinze stayed, what other players with Premiership experience stand out apart from them who would leave their current club to come here?

 

My biggest worry now is that if players turned us down last year because of no European football, there's a good chance we're going to have the same problem next Summer too.

 

you never give up do you. Who replaced Solano then, and why didnt' we replace him ?

 

 

[Guest optimistic nit]

what i will say is that allardyce joined the toon because he'd taken bolton as far as he could. he's not going to manage a top 4 team without real quality in the midfield, i assume he knew this and if he didn't he either does or will soon. quite frankly i wasn't too dissapointed about not replacing dyer if only due to the relief of having a defence full of good defenders. i knew it'd cost us this season, but the plus of going a long way to sorting out the defence overweighs the negative of the points we'll lose this season.

[Baggio]

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

 

Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own.

 

But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete  with proper football in mf.

 

I said all summer that the lack of pace and creativity would cost us and it has, replacing Dyer with Smith was madness and we're now left with a team of grafters rather than any genuine pace and penetration in the team, our only players capable of this are either on the bench or playing out of position at left back.

 

As for signing better quality defenders, he said players wouldn't come here because we were not in Europe and I believe him, Ben Haim went to Chelsea, Distin had already agreed to join Pompey, Heinze turned us down flat, Silvestre turned us down because he didn't like Barton and Man Utd would only sell Brown if Heinze stayed, what other players with Premiership experience stand out apart from them who would leave their current club to come here?

 

My biggest worry now is that if players turned us down last year because of no European football, there's a good chance we're going to have the same problem next Summer too.

 

you never give up do you. Who replaced Solano then, and why didnt' we replace him ?

 

 

 

Allardyce said at the time he wouldn't of let Solano leave if he hadn't completed the deal for Beye, which suggests he seen Nobby as a right back.

[Guest optimistic nit]

 

Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive.

 

Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality.

 

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time.

 

Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own.

 

But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete  with proper football in mf.

 

I said all summer that the lack of pace and creativity would cost us and it has, replacing Dyer with Smith was madness and we're now left with a team of grafters rather than any genuine pace and penetration in the team, our only players capable of this are either on the bench or playing out of position at left back.

 

As for signing better quality defenders, he said players wouldn't come here because we were not in Europe and I believe him, Ben Haim went to Chelsea, Distin had already agreed to join Pompey, Heinze turned us down flat, Silvestre turned us down because he didn't like Barton and Man Utd would only sell Brown if Heinze stayed, what other players with Premiership experience stand out apart from them who would leave their current club to come here?

 

My biggest worry now is that if players turned us down last year because of no European football, there's a good chance we're going to have the same problem next Summer too.

 

you never give up do you. Who replaced Solano then, and why didnt' we replace him ?

 

 

 

to be fair he was sold on deadline day, late on deadline day, after he'd decided to stay because no london clubs were interested (until dyer broke his leg, the cunt). there really was not time, although i think the fact both smith and dyer were bought/sold at the same time, for the same fee, may just be a coincidence. we did seem content to keep dyer after buying smith when they wouldn't meet our extra mill.