Toonpack

They don't like

Should have bought a 2nd/3rd choice CB tbh. Williamson moved down to fourth choice. With Steven Taylor it's a given that he'll be out for a large part of the season with injury. Aye, exactly what I was getting at tbh. I suspect TP knew this, hence the need to put words into me mouth. Just interpreted what you said without looking for any clandestine hidden meaning. I take it as I read it, don't try and anticpate any changes of tack, or re-emphasis in someones posts tbh I aint psychic. As for OTF's "revelation", don't recall any clamour to relegate Williamson until these injuries tbh. Hindsight is a marvelous thing. Who's to say that, when fit, Williamson won't experience a similar "upsurge" in form like Taylor has had, which I put down to defensive coaching/drilling that's been engaged in. Fact remains you can't legislate for your three top CB's being fucked all at the same time. Fact remains 3 CBs (especially when one has a history of injuries) isn't enough. It's basically asking for trouble. 3 being injured at the same time will obviously be problematic for any club but it shouldn't mean you have to play two full-backs there. Especially when one of those isn't even close to Premier League standard in his proper position. Pardew wanted another one too. Also it's not like there wasn't money available following the January / summer departures. It just highlights how clueless you are that this even needs pointing out tbh. There's a difference between being clueless and being realistic. When you're down to 4th/5th choice it should not be a fullback, I agree, it should be one of the kids/younger players, sadly it appears our kids are not as good at CB as our fullbacks, in the managers opinion. Willaimson is alright as a 3rd choice, my point is, what level of player "better" than Williamson can you get who would be happy to sit ? Despite's HF's denials, the back four has played as a unit better than any back four we've had for donkeys, no reason to suppose Williamson "slotting in" won't be OK as well.

Who here rates Williamson? He's never looked any good for more than an odd game. Arms all over opposing players, and for someone as tall as he is he lacks a physical presence. Miles better than Perch or Simpson at CB, but still not good enough to be first option after an injury prone Steven Taylor. It's criminal to only have 3 actual centre backs in a premier league squad. We've got four out and out strikers in our squad - Ba, Best, Shola and Lovenkrands, plus option with Ben Arfa and Sameobi. That's a position where it's widely accepted that we need to strengthen, even though it's acceptable, at a pinch (or tacticallY), to play with only one striker. In defense you can't get away with having less than two central defenders. But the "still not good enough" is the conundrum, if he's at the standard that is deemed (by the fans) "good enough" is he happy to "sit" whilst the first choice pair are playing (were playing) so well. Williamson may well benefit as much as Taylor has from the "system". Premature to judge. Their respective abilities aside, how often does anyone lose their top 3 players at a single position, let alone such a significant position. Our main problem is the fact our kids in that area would appear to be shite/ not ready. You can only have 25 Senior pro's then it must be kids. Its about balancing the squad as much as anything. Absolutely would like an upgrade on Perch (and several others) but he is only 4th choice, that's a depth in your squad you'd hope to rarely get exposed to playing for any length of time. Do we now need another CB, yes we do, but as I've said I reckon it'll be a young up and comer, we won't buy 2 (if we do, the other'll be a kid I reckon). Bottom line is we need more defenders...and policy should always be where possible to buy players better than the ones you have. I don't think that's possible in the case of Coloccini...but it shouldn't be at all beyond our wildest dreams in the case of Taylor. The extent of ambition shouldn't be an up and comer to challenge Perch/Williamson for a place on the bench? We know they aren't good enough. And Stevie is confident he could shift them off the bench himself. Never rated Williamson. Good in the air but everything else is sub-standard for the pl. A centre back who can challenge Taylor for his spot, when fit, should be the aim for the level of quality of any centre back coming in in January. Aye, while he's injured it's easy for people to forget he's no good either. The notion that had he been fit we'd be alright for cover is daft...but basically what TP seems to be saying. Nope

Who here rates Williamson? He's never looked any good for more than an odd game. Arms all over opposing players, and for someone as tall as he is he lacks a physical presence. Miles better than Perch or Simpson at CB, but still not good enough to be first option after an injury prone Steven Taylor. It's criminal to only have 3 actual centre backs in a premier league squad. We've got four out and out strikers in our squad - Ba, Best, Shola and Lovenkrands, plus option with Ben Arfa and Sameobi. That's a position where it's widely accepted that we need to strengthen, even though it's acceptable, at a pinch (or tacticallY), to play with only one striker. In defense you can't get away with having less than two central defenders. But the "still not good enough" is the conundrum, if he's at the standard that is deemed (by the fans) "good enough" is he happy to "sit" whilst the first choice pair are playing (were playing) so well. Williamson may well benefit as much as Taylor has from the "system". Premature to judge. Their respective abilities aside, how often does anyone lose their top 3 players at a single position, let alone such a significant position. Our main problem is the fact our kids in that area would appear to be shite/ not ready. You can only have 25 Senior pro's then it must be kids. Its about balancing the squad as much as anything. Absolutely would like an upgrade on Perch (and several others) but he is only 4th choice, that's a depth in your squad you'd hope to rarely get exposed to playing for any length of time. Do we now need another CB, yes we do, but as I've said I reckon it'll be a young up and comer, we won't buy 2 (if we do, the other'll be a kid I reckon).

Again too simplistic, making the situation fit your argument. You have your two first choice CB's and your first reserve who would fill in for either in the case of injury, then if your unlucky enough to lose all 3 you are into 4th and 5th choice, they are NOT going to be as good as your 1-3. Simple common sense would see that. PLUS how do you balance your squad. Yeah let's have 5 good CB's, then what happens if your midfield gets wiped out, you play a CB in midfield and the cry goes up "our squad is paper thin" we should have more midfielders. It's nonsense. As for the "not particularly bad luck with injuries" haven't looked at the stats anywhere but if you are right, I would suggest even if we have not had a significant number of injuries in the squad (compared to others) we have had an very unusual concentration of injuries in a particularly key area of the squad. If you don't see that, and I am completely wrong, what's the answer then ?? you are completely wrong and the answer is more strength in depth. It's not a case of having internationals on the bench, but Taylor should be the back up for an international in our team. You can't go on like this is unprecedented bad luck in one position when many have feared exactly this and warned about it. One in 3 of Stevies posts since the season began have been about Perch being league 1 quality and that inevitably fucking us up. So now you're saying Taylor and Colo aren't good enough, the same Taylor and Colo who proved one of the best Cb partnerships we've had in yonks should be broken up to for some pursuit of "strength in depth". Hilarious. The concern previosuly expressed was if Colo get's injured we're fucked, not if Colo, Taylor and Willaimson are fucked. Perch did not cost us the game yesterday. Never said a word about Colo. Our best player. ALWAYS said Taylor ain't good enough. There's no 'now' about it. The fear has always been Perch getting a game. Under any circumstances....or Williamson tbh...though less so. Based upon this seasons performances you've been proven wrong then. The notion that Taylor would be happy being relegated to the bench (due to buying someone else) is crazy. He was all but off to Everton, couple of summers ago, he'd be offski even more so now given his form up until the injury. Bottom line for me is IF we buy a CB it will likely be a young-ish up and coming type who will fight it out with Williamson to partner Colo, It won't be a direct Taylor replacement/equivalent, (although it'd be good if he turned out as viable competition) because Taylor'll be back and it'd also be good to add a kid or two as it would appear we don't have any kid at CB worth shit. No I haven't. He's personally looked no better. He's not improved anything about his game, he just had better protection from the players in front of him this year. he'd like to have had other teams interested.....but they weren't, not even Everton. But you think those not good enough for Everton should be our first choice? They were like, all but a done deal. I don't give a fuck about any airy fairy good enough/not good enough for club xyz hypothesis. I only give a shit about "Our back four" and how it's performing. A back four is often better than the sum of it's parts. Taylor has been excellent in our back four, his, and the units performances have been of a very high standard, even played above himself perhaps, and to say otherwise is crazy.

Except that when John Hall sold him his stake he was quoted as saying the new fella wants to use the club to gain international recognition for his brand. Sounds like a plan from day 1. Yeah, well it would have pretty much happened from day 1 if that was the real motivating factor tbh. An element of it would have occured to him (he'd be unlikely to miss the trick tbh) but it wasn't his reason for buying a football club for hundreds of millions of quid. While it's a slightly different way of looking at it, if he was considering buying it now, do you think he would? Would he shite. Plus he's tried to flog us in the interim. It may well be the case now but you'd have to suspend all your critical faculties trying to reverse engineer it into some sort of overall 'plan' from day 1. He says he's tried to sell us. But what he did was go out on the piss and say "£400m or fuck off!". Not exactly Glengarry Glen Ross hunger for the leads. I think he had ideas of doing a great job and renaming things at the height of our success. It would have done him no favours to come in and cut the ribbon on the Donnay stand on day 1. If he goes ahead and sells the naming rights to anyone else, I might think different, as it is though, I think the only thing that slowed his branding push was his own fuck up and subsequent relegation. Well put it this way, I suppose what I have trouble with with the 'SD from day 1' branding theory is the way it's somehow implicit that acquiring NUFC for the price he did was worth hundreds of millions of quid to him simply in branding alone. Because it wasn't. Given the sort of person he is I'd be astonished if he didnt have half a mind on some SD promotional schemes when buying the club, but in terms of being his plan for buying....I don't think so. It's now become this unified theory though and one which is supposed to underpin everything he does from hereon in and everything he has ever done. It's cobblers. As you say yourself it'd have been better if he'd done it for a 'successful' team, which is probably true, but that being so, that remains the case now. So it equally supports the theory he should push us forward on the pitch. Only people don't accept that side of the logic. I don't think he will either necessarily, but not because of the branding theory, just because I think he runs the club on a whim. He'll make money off it because he can make money off it but it's worth little more as an indicator of his plans for NUFC than that. That's kinda where I am with it. I'm sorta there too(especially the cobblers bit), but would add that IMO the "vehicle theory" doesn't stack up for another major reason. MA's SD "wealth" is based upon the performance of that brand and is represented by his shareholding. Any investment SD makes to grow it's business costs MA (personally) nowt, whereas NUFC is absolutely based upon MA's personal funds, he carries all the risk himself. SD has a wobble it effects MA's personal "paper" wealth, NUFC has a wobble it costs MA in the pocket in real money. Two fundamentaly different exposures.

I'll try and make my threads as fantastic as yours in future like..... http://www.toontasti...21#entry1005021 and not to mention....I couldn't even read this one.... http://www.toontasti...25#entry1006725 . This is relevant anyway, I predicted this would happen on Steve Wraith's show, if you listen as well I said we'd beat Wolves 2-1, we did. The point is James Perch is in the 5 worst players I have ever seen play for us, I would give a club £1m just to take him from us he is that bad, I knew it would happen. He's got nee spirit, when it's on the floor he fowls, he's weak, positionally he's shite, what was Hughton thinking??!!? So you're calling him a chicken ??

If he is deemed better (by the management/scouting team) than some alternative who isn't in the ACN I'd rather have him and lose him for a little while, lets face it, it's unlikely Mali will be out there for long and his signing isn't just about January. And the following January too. So what would you want, the better player who happens to be African, or a not quite so good non-African? (I accept the level of "being good" is in the judgement of the scouts etc). Personally I'd take the better player, even if you lose him for 6 weeks every year.

Once would be a start

If he is deemed better (by the management/scouting team) than some alternative who isn't in the ACN I'd rather have him and lose him for a little while, lets face it, it's unlikely Mali will be out there for long and his signing isn't just about January.

Again too simplistic, making the situation fit your argument. You have your two first choice CB's and your first reserve who would fill in for either in the case of injury, then if your unlucky enough to lose all 3 you are into 4th and 5th choice, they are NOT going to be as good as your 1-3. Simple common sense would see that. PLUS how do you balance your squad. Yeah let's have 5 good CB's, then what happens if your midfield gets wiped out, you play a CB in midfield and the cry goes up "our squad is paper thin" we should have more midfielders. It's nonsense. As for the "not particularly bad luck with injuries" haven't looked at the stats anywhere but if you are right, I would suggest even if we have not had a significant number of injuries in the squad (compared to others) we have had an very unusual concentration of injuries in a particularly key area of the squad. If you don't see that, and I am completely wrong, what's the answer then ?? you are completely wrong and the answer is more strength in depth. It's not a case of having internationals on the bench, but Taylor should be the back up for an international in our team. You can't go on like this is unprecedented bad luck in one position when many have feared exactly this and warned about it. One in 3 of Stevies posts since the season began have been about Perch being league 1 quality and that inevitably fucking us up. So now you're saying Taylor and Colo aren't good enough, the same Taylor and Colo who proved one of the best Cb partnerships we've had in yonks should be broken up to for some pursuit of "strength in depth". Hilarious. The concern previosuly expressed was if Colo get's injured we're fucked, not if Colo, Taylor and Willaimson are fucked. Perch did not cost us the game yesterday. Never said a word about Colo. Our best player. ALWAYS said Taylor ain't good enough. There's no 'now' about it. The fear has always been Perch getting a game. Under any circumstances....or Williamson tbh...though less so. Based upon this seasons performances you've been proven wrong then. The notion that Taylor would be happy being relegated to the bench (due to buying someone else) is crazy. He was all but off to Everton, couple of summers ago, he'd be offski even more so now given his form up until the injury. Bottom line for me is IF we buy a CB it will likely be a young-ish up and coming type who will fight it out with Williamson to partner Colo, It won't be a direct Taylor replacement/equivalent, (although it'd be good if he turned out as viable competition) because Taylor'll be back and it'd also be good to add a kid or two as it would appear we don't have any kid at CB worth shit.

Should have bought a 2nd/3rd choice CB tbh. Williamson moved down to fourth choice. With Steven Taylor it's a given that he'll be out for a large part of the season with injury. Aye, exactly what I was getting at tbh. I suspect TP knew this, hence the need to put words into me mouth. Just interpreted what you said without looking for any clandestine hidden meaning. I take it as I read it, don't try and anticpate any changes of tack, or re-emphasis in someones posts tbh I aint psychic. As for OTF's "revelation", don't recall any clamour to relegate Williamson until these injuries tbh. Hindsight is a marvelous thing. Who's to say that, when fit, Williamson won't experience a similar "upsurge" in form like Taylor has had, which I put down to defensive coaching/drilling that's been engaged in. Fact remains you can't legislate for your three top CB's being fucked all at the same time.

Should change this jokers username, replace the eri with nu

Agreed

Aye, I'd much rather watch Blackburn and the Mackems tomorrow like. Aye, they don't dive in the Prem, do they Barcelona are a phenomenal football team, could watch them all day.

Probably, I did my MCL on holiday and then flew home. My own doc sent me immediately for scans because of the risk of deep vein thrombosis because of the internal injury. Flying not recommended.

Not many. But you're confusing not having a decent 4th choice centre back with not having a 4th choice centre back. We have a 4th choice CB, his name is James Perch. I accept he could be upgraded, but that still (in our current situation) leaves us with who can be 5th Choice. We cannot have 5 specialist CB's "on the books" without a half decent kid or two, and from team selection it would appear (in the managers opinion) we don't have that. Perch just happens to be on the fans "shit list" he alone never cost us the game yesterday.

If Stoke lost 3 of that four, who would the "other" replacement be, and would they be as succesfull, not that they've been very good this year so far anyway. (Huth wanted away btw, which is the other problem of having "quality" back-ups). I'm not disputing we should upgrade Perch, however, I am disputing we could realistically upgrade those ahead of him.

Again too simplistic, making the situation fit your argument. You have your two first choice CB's and your first reserve who would fill in for either in the case of injury, then if your unlucky enough to lose all 3 you are into 4th and 5th choice, they are NOT going to be as good as your 1-3. Simple common sense would see that. PLUS how do you balance your squad. Yeah let's have 5 good CB's, then what happens if your midfield gets wiped out, you play a CB in midfield and the cry goes up "our squad is paper thin" we should have more midfielders. It's nonsense. As for the "not particularly bad luck with injuries" haven't looked at the stats anywhere but if you are right, I would suggest even if we have not had a significant number of injuries in the squad (compared to others) we have had an very unusual concentration of injuries in a particularly key area of the squad. If you don't see that, and I am completely wrong, what's the answer then ?? you are completely wrong and the answer is more strength in depth. It's not a case of having internationals on the bench, but Taylor should be the back up for an international in our team. You can't go on like this is unprecedented bad luck in one position when many have feared exactly this and warned about it. One in 3 of Stevies posts since the season began have been about Perch being league 1 quality and that inevitably fucking us up. So now you're saying Taylor and Colo aren't good enough, the same Taylor and Colo who proved one of the best Cb partnerships we've had in yonks should be broken up to for some pursuit of "strength in depth". Hilarious. The concern previosuly expressed was if Colo get's injured we're fucked, not if Colo, Taylor and Willaimson are fucked. Perch did not cost us the game yesterday.

Again too simplistic, making the situation fit your argument. You have your two first choice CB's and your first reserve who would fill in for either in the case of injury, then if your unlucky enough to lose all 3 you are into 4th and 5th choice, they are NOT going to be as good as your 1-3. Simple common sense would see that. PLUS how do you balance your squad. Yeah let's have 5 good CB's, then what happens if your midfield gets wiped out, you play a CB in midfield and the cry goes up "our squad is paper thin" we should have more midfielders. It's nonsense. As for the "not particularly bad luck with injuries" haven't looked at the stats anywhere but if you are right, I would suggest even if we have not had a significant number of injuries in the squad (compared to others) we have had an very unusual concentration of injuries in a particularly key area of the squad. If you don't see that, and I am completely wrong, what's the answer then ??

Far too simplistic. It's 3 first team regulars PLUS their first choice replacements all concentrated in the most critical area of the team. plural? Who, in addition to Williamson? Williamson for the CB's, Guthrie is/has been Tiote's replacement. In most squads 4th Choice Cb (for example) would be a kid or a utility player (a'la Perch), in that we are no different to anyone else. Obviously, Pardew doesn't seem to rate any of our CB "kids". You don't expect and cannot plan for losing your top 3 at any position, not with equivalent "quality" anyway. Few have a real "quality" 4th choice CB, that's why they're 4th choice. Do you believe it is only we who would struggle if left with 4th and 5th choice CB's on the park and a 3rd choice centre midfielder ?? Really ?? If we do buy a CB in Jan, it will (and should) be a young "up and commer" to pressure Williamson for "first reserve", relegating Perch further down the pecking order. If you want to buy a "name", or in other words a new 1st/2nd choice, you are guaranteeing the need to sell whoever they replace (Taylor or Colo) because they or the new guy ain't going to want to be bench warmers. We will not, and should not, buy "quality" 4th and 5th choices (you would hope to have some half decent kids at that level) - you can't anyway given there's a 25 man squad limit, a reasonable quality first reserve at each position takes 22 of your 25, that leaves you 3 squad positions to play with, plus under 21's. How do you carry 5 good CB's without staying light somewhere else ???? (not even touching on how could you keep 5 good CB's happy) That is the reality.

Far too simplistic. It's 3 first team regulars PLUS their first choice replacements all concentrated in the most critical area of the team.

Fuck right off. Oooh that's constructive. What's he done to suggest he should have played today, other than the hype, because I must have missed it. He's a luxury player, the heart of the team at the back has been torn out by injury, we had no height. Shola had to play today, in those circumstances, the luxury doesn't cut it. If we'd been at full strength (or even just missing one CB) he likely would have played, otherwise Pardew is spot on.

Who "should" we buy ??? I'd go for Dann, I think we could lure him here and I think he'd be a ready made Taylor replacement. D'ya think he'd be happy to sit next season ??. I reckon best we can hope for is a young "up and comer" and Colo and Williamson fit.

He's done absolutely nowt to warrant playing. Shola was good again today.