Neville Neville Neville

This was to be posted in the match thread but the last topic I created was on relegation day and how I was looking forward to life in the championship (check it out, I think it stands the test of time) so I'm probably due a topic that hopefully won't be lost in reflex knee-jerking post match disappointment *****Rant alert******************* I do sometimes wonder if people have forgotten how the season has gone before they make their predictions about us 'kicking on' and putting distance between us and the midtable. First things first, we are an ordinary premier league team. For me being an ordinary team is far beyond what I expected at the beginning of the season where we are much weaker on paper than we were when we got relegated. Somehow through all the crap that's happened a serviceable premier league team (the key word) has emerged. And the sheer ordinariness of this premier league has meant that our ordinary team has ended up getting some people thinking of europe. Right, now onto the 'kicking on' side of things. Here are our fixtures through this season: http://nufc.com/2010-11html/fixtures.html In the league, we have had 2 "runs" of 2 or more back to back wins. Our first, west ham away, sunderland home, and arsenal away (punctuated by a carling cup drubbing by arsenal) followed a desperate last gasp equaliser at home to wigan (having been awful and 2-0 down) and was followed by a 1-2 defeat at home to blackburn (which I remember was a horrible performance that I was away on holiday and thankfully unable to watch) Our other unstoppable run was away to wigan and home to west ham, following a defeat at white hart lane, and followed by the last-gasp disappointment at the SoL. All season in the league, we literally haven't won a home game after winning another home game - we lost to blackpool having smashed villa the home game before, blackburn defeat followed mackem humiliation, we were 2-0 down at home to city just 5 minutes (in back to back home game footballing terms) after carroll thumped in the 3rd against liverpool. This is the story of our season. An ordinary team who through hard work and good luck picks up results better than could have been hoped, followed inevitably by results and performances more disappointing than could have been expected. And isn't that a microcosm of what being Newcastle is about It is the fans who are creating the disappointment by thinking that a good victory means that the next performance should be a good performance. This is not Sir Bobby's team, this is not 2001-2003, where the sky seems to be the limit. We are an ordinary team, with ordinary players, with an ordinary manager, in an ordinary league, with a chairman and owner who can only dream of aspiring to even come close to ordinary. Where one week arsenal have to put up with being disappointed to lose to us, so must we take our medicine with a non-performance against blackburn. Where a disappointing birmingham get dragged more into the relegation mire by losing at home to us, so too must we accept disappointing defeat at home to everton. We are an ordinary team in a league full of ordinary teams, 3 or 4 good teams, and maybe 1 or 2 especially poor teams. In those circumstances, we will unexpectedly win games away from home against teams higher than us, and we will unexpectedly lose games at home to teams lower than us, and we will unexpectedly draw exciting and boring games against those higher and lower and our equals. And why am I not upset at being an ordinary fan of an ordinary team in an ordinary league where unexpected defeat follows unexpected victory follows unexpected defeat? Because 2 years ago expected defeat followed expected defeat followed unexpected lucky draw followed expected defeat. And by all reason, we should not be doing better now than we were then. Next season we may not be so lucky to live in the ordinary echelons of the league, and may look back on a battling home draw with bolton with fondness and nostalgia. I for one am taking great enjoyment following the team this year (as I did last year). And it will take more than others' elevated expectations, and a few non-performances to temper that enjoyment. There are times to dream, and maybe they will come again, but for now and for the foreseeable it is time to live in the ordinary real world (ordinary by football's craziness obviously) So get your money on a 4-0 win at stoke and a 3-0 defeat by Wolves. Thats the way we do it :lol: :lol: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc: :nufc:

Yes I believe we are trying to break the record. But I'm guessing we're a bit short of it at the moment. I don't think its rocket science. The way we've scored a decent proportion of our goals, i.e. from set pieces or crosses or direct/longer balls, don't really require you to be constantly attacking and creating pressure. Therefore we're generally as likely to score at any point during a match. The teams who have scored against us, Bolton, Everton, Spurs, and in general Sunderland although not applicable to their goal in this instance, are generally less direct than us, and are more likely to score goals as pressure builds and they have more men pushing forward and putting more pressure onto our rocking defence. So our defence which looked steady at 0-0 against e.g mainly crouch, defoe and lennon, suddenly looks porous as jenas, hutton, modric and assou-ekotto join the party. In contrast, we don't really carry a lot more of a threat when teams only have 3 or 4 defensive players compared to when they have say 6 defensive players because we're not really breaking in behind and catching them on the counter that much. Beyond Jonas and Jose we lack players who look capable of carrying the ball with pace (and they have questionable end products at best) and we have noone who is going to run in behind the defence as it pushes up. Lovenkrands has done this a couple of times off perfect Barton through balls and failed to finish.

I'd probably not even go quite that far. We obviously need to have a new starting striker, don't watch enough non-newcastle football these days to be able to proffer a good choice. I'm happy enough with shola being our second best striker in a 2 or our first choice sub if we're playing a non-442 style. I would then like to see us having Best and another new striker as our 3rd and 4th choice. The other new striker need not necessarily be an established striker but needs to someone with pace playing on the last man's shoulder that we can use to stretch other teams towards the end. Like Bellamy used to do for us, like Dyer used to sometimes be used to do, and like Lovenkrands probably did a few years ago. The main problem with our strikeforce as it is, ignoring the lack of quality, is that Best, Ameobi, Kuqi, Carroll when he was here, and even Ranger are broadly speaking similar strikers relying on beating defenders through strength and determination rather than pace and intelligent movement. Ranger seems to have a bit more about him pace and willing running wise but obviously is ridiculously raw, and needs time away to learn how to play as a striker for 90minutes rather than these 10 minute bursts against tired defences. Ranger isn't so much a plan B as a plan A draft 2. The way we play is not really a good place to learn how to be a proper striker, which is why I don't think chelsea would have sent sturridge here if he wanted to come. Lovenkrands is the only one who is truly different. He is actually a pretty intelligent striker and often pops up in exactly the right places or makes exactly the right run. Unfortunately, his finishing is often terrible, and his ability to be anonymous is quite outstanding. If he still had the pace he had to be an easy over the top out ball (and make poor passes into assists), you could look past the other deficiencies but I agree that he needs moving on. To summarise: Keep/in: Established top flight (not necessarily premier league) striker, ameobi, best, young striker with 'wheels' Loan: Ranger Out: Lovenkrands Retire and re-employ as Director of Football: Kuqi

Seemed to jog on grass rather than walk/run on water as I was led to believe!! Seriously though, thought he would have charging around, overlapping jonas here and there and looking to make an impression. Got down to the byeline once but apart from that looked very nervous and scared to go make the standard enrique overlapping jonas on the outside run. Seemed happier jogging around and trying a few (not particularly good) balls from deep instead. Obviously its unbelievably early days but I think there's a bit to go before we write jonas' newcastle obituary Still, I basically wrote off andy carroll as a top flight footballer after than legendary 10-20 minute 10 man substitute appearance against man city where he traipsed around rather than charge about, and look what happened to him!

Don't want anyone kidding themselves that we deserved anything from the game. Everton started off much better than us. We had a 5-10 minute spell where we got our goal, could have got another, and then were suckerpunched during our best spell. From that point we were never on top. We basically went all out attack in the second half, presumably hoping that getting numbers forward would compensate for us being 2nd best in terms of quality out on the pitch. During all the time we had pressure in search of the equaliser, everton had more and better chances to extend the gap. I don't think I've seen a team be more wasteful on the counter attack in years than they were. They have maybe 7 or 8 attacks you'd expect to score from 8-9 times/10 in the last 35-40 minutes. We seemed to be lacking shape all day, even before going gung ho. We're a bunch of generally hard-working players who are not world beaters in their primary position. Unsurprisingly it all went wrong with more than 1 player playing out of position. Especially worried about nolan and tiote, they looked like they'd not played together before, we constantly had either noone supporting the strikers down the middle, or noone protecting the centre backs. Seemed like they had a 10 yard lead connecting the 2, rather than the usual one drops back, one goes forward strategy Still, very exciting game to watch. Maybe this 3pm saturday home game curse is a punishment for all us streamers! Maybe if we all boycott one of the games, and do the 5live/soccer saturday/final score thing, we'll actually win. Its almost as bad as being born on boxing day and have my birthday continually impinged on by another newcastle failure to win!!

Credit to the lad, for all his shortcomings, he looks like he's worked on his heading from the shambolic level it was when he broke into the team. Was a nice header for the correctly ruled out goal for a cheeky push on jagielka Just need him to work on his not being offside now

Pretty sure Nolan and Colocinni are the only 2 players we have I'd back to strike a ball/deliver a killer pass

Given CT's constant abuse of jonas, am expecting fergie to be like new ronaldo and original ronaldo with a bit of maldini rolled into one Can't believe how open we're playing, from about 35-40mins to go. Think we're making up for a lack of quality with getting sheer numbers forward. Can't see how there can't be further goals, most likely for everton. Still with barton, ireland, and ben arfa on the pitch, and tiote looking very level headed, we deffo don't need any more bodies in midfield

I wouldn't be too harsh on moreno. Maybe he asked the owl if he could kick it, and it consented. After owl, owl's fair in love and war. And wipe that scowl off of your face.

I'm not convinced. Your spelling is fine apart from 'ya bugs' (which may be a slang term I'm unfamiliar with ). Just missing some of these ' , . which would help the reader work out exactly what it is you're trying to say.

Think we was just saying he needs to bulk up, so he's taking him off the CT 'weightwatchers day of the weigh-in' diet and putting him on the CT 'celebratory postweigh-in matchday and won't be able to go next week's weigh-in' diet They are about the same in protein levels but red meat has more Iron and more 'good' fats or so i have been told.

Topic should be changed to 'Jose Enrique - "I'm OK at Newcastle but I aspire to be somewhere where the forums aren't full of tedious circular non-resolving arguments about the nature of old and current boards in which people are clearly entrenched in their views and are unlikely to change them no matter how long a quote chain you can get into jajajajajaja, or at least if there are going to be these stupid topics maybe they could be contained within a couple of designated threads rather than into topics such as this one about me jajjajajajja, k thanks bye"

I like the fact you've used a single fullstop as punctuation in that post. Almost takes the piss more than having none at all!

Brilliant. Its rare that you see such instant irony/karma. Almost poetic Just seen "sir" Alex's comments on the bbc report. I expect his letter for bringing the game into disrepute will get lost in the post. Way worse than Babel's twitter stuff IMO. Article also has a cracking pic at the top http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/e...rem/9411182.stm Edit: looks like a cracking through ball to evra by atkinson on that pic actually In fairness to the ref, his view of the incident wasn't great. And Luiz did get the ball...

well in frank.... can't wait for the 'should have been down to 10' press conference

OMG rooney taken out (tripped not elbowed mind you) off the ball. a heinous crime..... sir alex and wayne complain with not even the slightest appreciation for the irony

Pretty sure that a 4 day turnaround between incident and suspension being invoked would be abnormal for the FA. Plus, if he had been charged, they would definitely appeal, so he would have played tonight by the by, as he's a twat and he should be serving a suspension, just not for this game Aye, that too.

Looks a bit too much like something Happy Face would keep his coins, keys, watch, mp3 player, and vagina in Do you have enough coins, keys, watches, mp3 players, and vaginas to justify one that size? (call back to this for those unaware http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?...t&p=829947)

How have you guys sorted tickets and where are you staying? I went easter last year to barca to watch barca-bilbao and was thinking of going milan this year. Managed to find a website which delivered the footy tickets straight to the barca hotel, meaning that they weren't as ridiculous expensive as buying them and having them delivered here (via viagogo or something similar). Anyone aware of something similar for milan Cheers

Should move him upstairs to Libya Technical Director or Director of Libya. Give a young upstart the manager job and let him deal with the other side of things

daily mash have covered the story well http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-...n-201102283581/

The youth (and oldth) of today and their sexual antics

Can Ireland really play RM. I've admittedly not seen much of city live over the years but he's always played as an attacking centre mid when I've seen him. Plus, as I said, he's on an absolutely terrible run of form and is currently injured. Not a good combo. He might get away playing in centre-mid with tiote but I doubt anyone else would be able to cover him sufficiently Can Gosling play DM? Do his legs even work? You seem much more confident than me Lua Lua broke his leg. Again how fit is he going to be the rest of the season. Ferguson and Vuckic probably have less league sub appearances than I've got fingers on my left (or right!) hand. Ben Arfa may well be a right off till he's had a pre-season. I guess its all about your point of view. I'm always a glass half empty thinker/preparer. I think Newcastle have more often than not justified that stance. You're obviously at the other end of the spectrum to me. I'm sure the healthy place to be is somewhere in the middle. But why anyone would take the chance of relying on things that have a reasonable chance of not coming off, and removing the safety net (guthrie, an admittedly slightly flimsy looking safety net) for no obvious benefit is well beyond me.

Wow!!! Thats an edited post. God knows what the original looked like This. Our midfield is pretty strong so i dont mind him going out and helpin Forest. Got a soft spot for them so its a good club for him to either win back some form and come back a better player for us next year or he can put himself in the window for us to get a nice 4mil figure for him. One of the players id let go if a decent bid came in. Thats more money for us to strengthen more pressing areas in the summer. Jonas, Barton, Nolan, Tiote, Gosling, Ireland and Ben Arfa. No worries. Double wow Ben Arfa - coming back from a serious injury, and not strictly a midfielder. get the feeling he will be more playing off a main striker, or part of a front 3. Gosling - he's played about 5 mins for us and crocked. who knows whether he'll be any good the rest of the season if he even stays fit Ireland - not really a midfielder again. done his best work playing "in the hole" or similar to bowyer. plus he's been absolutely shite for a prolonged period of time. and he's coming back from injury Plus Barton is injured, and I don't believe we know just when he's coming back. So I make that possible going into our next game(s) with nolan and tiote as our only match-fit centre midfielders. Tiote could always get suspended again. Nolan may well get injured, having played 90 mins nearly all season. As limited as he is, unless we've got some dynamic centre midfielders coming through the reserves under the radar, I'll hold onto guthrie till the end of the season. Its OK, if we get the odd injury/suspension (and tbh that never ever happens to us) we can always go to Harper Simpson Taylor Williamson Collicini Enrique Ben Arfa Jonas Ferguson (for CT) Best Masked Ameobi Its about as balanced as a garth crooks team of the week