acrossthepond

The winner of "most unnecessary foul ever" goes to James Perch...

That was fucking well done.

I think this is what they term a capitulation.

"Ba in loads of space but Obertan's delayed the pass." What a surprise.

So glad we didn't get him. Is Beckford still with the Toffies. Back in the Championship, we were linked with him too! Went to Leicester after a shit season in blue. Gash and always was, dodged a bullet there in a big way.

Brilliant goal from us, farcical goal from them. It just about evens out with the obvious Santon handball that Mr Malarkey () missed though. We've looked pretty poor in the first half and we need Obertan off. I reckon Pardew will take Shola off for HBA though, considering the former's on a yellow. Wtf was that music playing when they scored, by the way? Mickey mouse East Anglian shiteaters, hope we put six past them this half.

Fair point like but Perch isn't a CB, so I'm not including him. If you want to include Kadar, fine, I don't think he's going to make it much further than Huntington/Ramage/Edgar did, so that's a fair comparison. 6 to 4, then. Not to mention that at present we have only one RB, one LB who might actually be a RB but doesn't play anyway even though we blew the 'hefty' fee of 5m on him, and a right midfielder playing at LB. I think the going price quoted at some point for Ridgewell was 5m. I'd rather get him for 3-4m but 5m isn't too stiff a price to pay for someone who can cover at CB and LB, two noticeably weak areas for us. I also don't rate Williamson as a 'good' defender. He looked decent whilst played alongside Coloccini last season but put Bramble there and he would've looked good too, much as when he was paired with Woodgate.

Yet the defenders we had play for us in the final season before Ashley bought the club were... Taylor Bramble Craig Moore Onyewu (loan) Carr Babayaro Ramage Huntington Edgar Any others I've left out? Your arguments are like two ships passing in the night. I agree with what you're saying, which is that our top choice defence so far this season (R. Taylor/Colo/S. Taylor/Simpson), is far better than any four players selected from the above list. But Leazes is saying that if 'your man' Fat Mike were actually running the club in a competent way, rather than gambling on us having no major injuries, he would've invested in cover for positions where we were thin. He's also right. As shit as they all were, we had six CBs in the list you've given above. This season we have 3. Our first XI looks like gold, but scratch it and you find brass underneath. There was no reason for it to be that way. We had 35m to spend in the summer. For 8-9m we could've had Ridgewell and a cheap right-back, for example. We hardly had to break the bank, but the squad would've been so much stronger. I don't think many would like to swap our defence then for our defence now. But I also think that the failure to invest in key areas of the team shows Ashley's lack of ambition and reveals his fundamental plan to be "make as much money as possible while spending as little as possible." We've seen it so many times before - gambling on Kinnear, gambling in January 2009, gambling on Carroll, etc etc. Not buying defensive cover was just another Ashley gamble. We'll see if it pays off (for him, at least - is there absolutely anyone who calls himself a Toon fan who wouldn't prefer that we had spent the money on new players?) But let's not make out that it's some sort of brilliant plan and he's doing so well. He's a chancer. It's working...for now.

Fuck me, couldn't listen to more than a minute of that. Obviously the puppets aren't the only muppets being featured on that show.

He finally starts to come good and then gets crocked when we need him most. Typical NUFC

Just another troll thread by Baggio. He comes from the same wummery school as CT, where they make a thread to "discuss" some seemingly unrelated point, but it's all a smokescreen for them to push their "Ashley's great" or "Jonas is shit" agendas, respectively.

Diatta's nine minutes.

I'd definitely have blown the train up.

That was a nightmare. I hope that prick Dean never shows his face at SJP again. He's certainly got no right to after that farcical performance. Krul was immense, as was S. Taylor until he got injured, and who knows how long he'll be out now. HBA did nothing. Ba was very unlucky. We sorely missed Jonas. I think we've seen Tiote's last game in black and white, personally. I can only hope the injuries to Taylor and Colo aren't serious, and that we'll be ready to give as much effort against Norwich as we did today.

I wonder how different this thread would've gone if the crazy cow was ranting about Muslims fucking off rather than 'blacks' and 'brown people.'

Thanks for the memories, Brucey. What was that song again lad? The one you were going to play after you beat us...oh, wait. I hear Kinnear's looking for work! Maybe Dennis Wise?

It would've been so easy for us to go all the way to the final this year. If we'd put in a performance against an atrocious Blackburn side in normal time, that could be us on our way to Wembley. Cardiff and Palace, dear me. Ba, Ben Arfa and Jonas would have them for breakfast.

I reckon you'd get the same result on N-O. Nee fucker (in his right mind) likes Ashley. Everyone knows he and Dekka are reprehensible, slimy scum who lie with every word and think we're thick Geordie bastards. They have no redeeming qualities. The question is whether he's been a net positive or negative for the club. I think it's apparent to basically anyone who loves this club that Ashley is essentially a petulant chancer who gambles constantly on the club's future. Even removing the debate over whether he's just using us as free advertising for Sports Direct, the fact remains that he has no cohesive plan and is just rolling the dice. It has failed him before. For now, it seems to be working, and long may it continue, because confidence and enjoyment are at a high we hadn't thought to see again for some time. But a few good results shouldn't obscure the basic problem we've always had with Ashley: there's no predicting what he's going to do next, and it probably isn't going to be good news. We were doing fine under KK - Ashley's puppet Wise undermined him. We were doing fine under Hughton - Ashley and Dekka contrived to remove him in favour of Pardew. Now we're doing great under Pardew - how long until something happens that will screw that up? Ashley has no plan for sustained success and never has. He's just gambling again, seeing how long his luck will last, seeing how many idiotic blunders he can make before it all goes pear-shaped again. He's on quite a streak at the moment - sacking Hughton, selling Carroll without spending the money, letting Enrique go without replacing him, letting Barton go for free, not buying another striker in the summer (in fact, spending none of the Carroll money at all), trying to rename a piece of history. But it won't last. If that's the kind of person you think is going to bring this club lasting success, you deserve whatever you get, tbh. Ashley is both odious as a person and terrible for this club, and us fluking a top 6 finish or getting to a cup final won't change that. Only sustained investment will, and you'd be better off whistling for it.

RIP Speed. Legend. We'll miss you.

Rooney should've gone in the book for that bit of madness. Obertan has made poor decisions but has been involved and dangerous. It only takes one opportunity like the ones he's creating to score though. Horrific miss by R. Taylor. Ugh. We could've been up easily. Either way, we're a match for them so far and long may it continue.

I reckon Blackburn are doomed. They look exactly like we did in 08-09: lost and confused, a club ran by incompetent owners who got rid of a perfectly capable manager (even if he is a frog-faced slimy fat bastard) to install someone who has absolutely no clue and who the fans (and likely the players) despise. Expect sales of key players in January and a rapid slide toward relegation unless something drastic changes, which it will not because the deluded chicken salesmen really think that Kean is the man.

We've played 12 games. 12. The season has 38. Let's not start wanking ourselves silly - I hear premature ejaculation is a major problem among Ashley supporters either way. 07-08: Ashley is a megabillionaire, we're ganna win the league now, Geremi and Alan Smith, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... 08-09: Ashley is so brilliant, we've got King Kev, all these South Americans and Spaniards we're signing sound pretty good too, ohhhhhhhhhhhh... 09-10: Ashley has turned the club into a lean mean financial machine, we're ganna be so sustainable now, Mike is 'as good as it gets', ohhhhhhhh.... 10-11: Ashley is a financial genius, selling Carroll for 35m means major investment in the squad in the summer, I believe every words, ohhhhhhhhhhhh... 11-12: Ashley has got us back into Europe and sorted us for the financial play rules, ohhh---wait, what's that? It's only November? Well, I've already overdone it, the super Ashley balance sheet Sports Direct Arena sex wee cannot be held back any longer---ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Better than Jonas, should've been a first team regular this season. Good luck to the lad wherever he goes.

I'm on board with everything else, but I thought Marveaux was excellent wide right against Everton and didn't look uncomfortable at all. He's a big loss. Calls for R. Taylor to be dropped are perhaps a bit premature. He was torn up by the best attack in the Premier League and he isn't a left-back (or really any sort of defender at all.) But throwing Santon in the deep end seems like a bad plan as well. I think we should persevere with R. Taylor for a couple of games, but I do have two questions: why aren't we even giving Santon minutes? If we don't want to drop Ryan for him, I understand that, but he's made what, three appearances? He could've come on as a sub yesterday once we were 3-0 down, if not for R. Taylor then for Simpson. Secondly, why is it that we sold our only left back and then replaced him with a right back while playing a (sort of) right back as left back in the meantime? In other words, how did we lose our only recognised left back and STILL not have one when the season began? Criminally poor planning from gambler Ashley yet again. It was bad enough that we never brought in cover for Enrique, but having no specialist left backs is mismanagement at its finest.

More likely it'll be one and we'll be told we're lucky that deal got "over the line." For all that Pardew has done a good job on the pitch, he has no say off it and his comments should be judged accordingly. He mouths the empty bullshit that Dekka cooks up and that's all he knows.