acrossthepond

Santon was great. Ba is an animal. Best looked decent in the first half. Colo is as good as ever. That's about the only positives that can be had from that game. No Ben Arfa was inexplicable and inexcusable.

Anyone else's money on Smith? "Seasoned professional" "tough tackling" "indispensable experience in the middle of the pitch" blah blah blah.

Aye. Have to say I wasn't really ever convinced by the sound of this lad, but I was pleased that we were set to get someone in. Perhaps someone upstairs finally wised up and realised we're going to need a non-African striker in January, or, as is more likely, Fat Mike's pulled the plug because "the money" is needed somewhere else (never mind the transfer profit he has made and continues to make.)

And as for Obertan, Sammy did more after he came on than Obertan did in his whole 80 minutes. You can see Sammy wants it, even if he's not very good. Obertan is shit, has a pea-sized heart, and is generally like playing with a man down. I know it's early yet in his career but if he doesn't want it now, at 23 having failed at a big club, when will he ever want it?

Kadar cannot be worse than James Perch. Cannot.

Oh fuck off.

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.