OTF
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Posts posted by OTF
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Agree, it was a powerful performance from Bassong - to drop him to bring Taylor back in would be foolish. You could not honestly criticise any of the back four for their efforts in this match.
JFK has an obvious favouritism towards Damien Duff. In my opinion it should have been Duff not Jonas making way for N'Zogbia.
Stoked with a point! Keeping a clean sheet against Chelsea at the Bridge is great. Thank Shay for some good goal keeping, though Chelsea didn't create as many clear chances as they should have given their possession. Put that down to some good defending. Coloccini improved vastly in the second half with some very good clearing headers.
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Would be nice if Damien Duff had a little more defensive resistance than a plastic bag.
Good decisive defending from Bassong. He's the right sort of player to play alongside Coloccini, who it must be said is less than convincing in the air.
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You are right in what you say, but the higher you go , the more important ball retention and dictating the pace of a game becomes, which in itself is a big factor in the defensive aspect of the game.
If you get to the point where your reputation precedes you, your defenders will usually get more time on the ball, and are likely to really only have to defend on the counter attack and against set pieces. You see this with teams like Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea where oppossing teams so often sit back trying to weather the storm and consequently the Manchester United (etc) defenders are given acres of space (and consequently time). This in turn gives them confidence and makes them look better than they possibly are. Take Ferdinand out of Manchester United and he'll still be a very good defender, but he'll inevitably make mistakes if he is put under the same amount and volume of attacks that the likes of Coloccini are.
That said, it is important to have a defender who you can knock the ball back to and be confident that he'll be able to keep possession by passing the ball around. The onus though doesn't lie entirely with that defender as you need the rest of your team to move around to give him options. I think that Shay Given should also be looking to send more short balls through to our defenders. It's too often in my opinion that he hoofs the ball upfield even when there is no opposing player putting pressure on him.
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Enrique cops an unfair amount of criticism IMO. You can only pass it to team mates if they give you the option and make them selves available. If they don't then as a defender you have to basically send a long ball down field (if you try to force a pass out, you'll often turn it over and set the opposiing team up with a scoring change - as we have seen with N'Zogbia playing there). Enrique can send a long ball with his left foot with good accuracy.
Bassong on the other hand is a more physical player (Enrique lost weight over the off-season - I didn't think that he needed to), but is far less refined. If you think Enrique looks panicked and flustered on the ball, then with bassong you'd have to say he looks hopeless with the ball.
IMO I'd stick with Enrique over Bassong on the left as Enrique gives you more of an option going forward. We don't get much attack out of our centre mids, so additional attacking options down the wing are necessities.
Coloccini looks like being our best signing of recent times. He could have done better with the penalty he gave away, but he's a consistent player who doesn't often get beaten by an opposing player (always seesm to manage to get a touch on the ball at the least). Importantly he's not at all injury prone (touch wood) having played the entire season for Depor last season, and thus far every minute for us.
Beye hasn't been up to his standard set last year, but is imporving with each game, and is positionally very good. Unfortunately at his age he's not going to last forever so we have to start blooding a younger fullback to succeed him in a few years time.
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Wouldn't it be wonderful if SBR was well enough to assist Shearer in an advisory role.
I think there is quite a few benefits to Shearer coming in as manager. Not the least of which will be his ability to attract players. Shearer is the highest profile former Newcastle player that still has a connection to the modern game. Players the world over will know who Alan Shearer is, and in the same way that Roy Keane has been able to bring players to Sunderland, Shearer will be capable of the same for us. Add to that a bankroll that will likely be significantly higher than the likes of Sunderland and we should be in reasonable stead for attracting players (that is if we don't go and do something silly like get relegated). Shearer will have his coaches around him to assist with making decisions, and given some of the managers that he has played under he should know a fair bit about the different approaches. He would be a pretty hard-nosed manager, that could potentially fall-out with players of the same personality, but it should also encourage most of our players to perform to their best.
I'm not particularly for it or against it, just trying to look at the positives as there now appears to be a slim chance that this could happen.
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It isn't hard to blame Colocinni at all. It was his fault. He's still a good player. Big problem today was we didn't have a 'centre-half', we had two sweepers. Taylor was a miss. And I don't even rate Taylor.
Taylor is average. But if he was there Coloccini would not have had to react to Cacapa going to ground.
Apart from that being speculative to say the least, Cacapa was fouled and he didn't 'go to ground'.
Without speculation this would be one empty forum. My point was that Taylor would not have been so easily dismissed. I didn't say Cacapa wasn't fouled. I'm disappointed with his performance in that situation and his overall performance in the game, particularly as most of the rest of the team had pretty decent games. We obviously have better players than Fulham, so not getting anything in this match hurts given our position on the table.
Kinnear is going to cop a fine for his comments.
''We've got the Mickey Mouse referee doing nothing. He's made an error that cost us.''The same thing happened last week with a penalty against Man City.
''Later on it was proved it wasn't a penalty and we had a player sent off. That cost us points.
''It just doesn't stop but that's the standard of refereeing in this country.
''It happens week in, week out. There's always a smart answer like 'someone was obstructing my view'.
''You used to be able to have a bit of banter with referees and they'd put their hands up if they make mistakes. Now they hide.
''I'm really sick that we didn't finish with anything. It was a golden opportunity that passed us by. There was only one winner in the second half.''
Penalty 'last week' against Man City?
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It isn't hard to blame Colocinni at all. It was his fault. He's still a good player. Big problem today was we didn't have a 'centre-half', we had two sweepers. Taylor was a miss. And I don't even rate Taylor.
Taylor is average. But if he was there Coloccini would not have had to react to Cacapa going to ground.
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Cacapa had time to look to see that there was NO-ONE on that side of the field for the cross. As a defender he should be aware of these sort of things. That said, many defenders would still head the ball, though they'd all struggle to do a worse job of it.
As for the penalty, Cacapa is a defender that goes to ground. In England, as a defender if you go to ground easily you'll be made a mockery of, just as he was.
I think it's harsh to blame him for the penalty. And I think he's shite btw.
That's probably technically right. But it's hard to blame Coloccini as well, considering he was coming across to basically pick up the player who Cacapa was marking. Johnson has just about made a career out of going to ground easily. Coloccini did cut across his body though, so isolating that moment it was a penalty, even though Johnson made the most of the (impending) contact and Gerrard style was diving to the ground in anticipation of it, rather than as a result of it. I'm going to have to watch it again to determine whether Cacapa was actually fouled by Johnson. Chances are he was, though as a defender you become a liability if you go to ground as softly as I have seen Cacapa do on several occassions.
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Cacapa had time to look to see that there was NO-ONE on that side of the field for the cross. As a defender he should be aware of these sort of things. That said, many defenders would still head the ball, though they'd all struggle to do a worse job of it.
As for the penalty, Cacapa is a defender that goes to ground. In England, as a defender if you go to ground easily you'll be made a mockery of, just as he was.
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Benjani, 29 £7.6 million.
Andy Johnson, 27 (injury prone) £10.5 million.
Marlon Harewood, 28 £4 million.
Marlon King (injury prone), 27 £4 million.
How much is Owen worth again?
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Mong.
Regards,
Attain
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Milner his most expensive buy
That also doesn't account for players on the way out.
I'd hate to see our list over the last 3 or so years.
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He's obviously just helping Agbonlahor to stifle a sneeze.
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He likes him because he swears a lot.
Lets hope he doesn't have too much swearing to do in 9 hours time.
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I think Fulham will stay up.
Stoke, West Brom and Bolton will be there or there-abouts.
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A win tommorow will put us 3pts off 7th. Is it still a possibility?
If teams with foreign owners and/or large debts become ineligable then possibly.
Otherwise
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"Two happy endings please"
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Maybe a little harsh but no more, im sure you, like me can see a quality player a mile off, even a quality player maybe poor when moving to a new club and country but you still see glimpses of his ability.
This is regrettably true, but I'm not prepared to write him off just yet. He did manage to score on debut for us, and although it wasn't a particularly impressive goal, what was good is that he bothered to make the run and was there to put the ball into the back of the net. He played and scored for the Spanish under 21 team the other week, although I have no idea what the goal was like. I'd really like to see him start a couple of matches to get a good chance to make an estimation of his quality. Certainly he has looked better than Andy Carroll did in his time on the pitch this season, though if a pigeon landed on the pitch we could say the same of it.
I may be falling back on the same forlorn hopes that I did with wor Al Luque with this one, but I have to try to look at it with some optimism since the facts of the matter are that we have bought him, and unless we're prepared to write off that money completely we've got to try to get something out of him.
I think the intention when he was bought was for him to be a long term replacement for Viduka. Based on what we've seen thus far he's not fit to lace Viduka's boots (and neither is Viduka - BOOM TISH!). Shola being above him in the pecking order is a result of a new manager seeing in Shola the potential that several managers have seen in him over the past however many years that he's been at St James' trying to hit that barn door.
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Oh, and starting Ameobi wouldn't be that bad a decision. Defenders must hate him with a passion. He's great at getting knock-downs (usually to no-one though). BUT he need to be substituted MUCH earlier, as he dies in the arse in the second half, and only puts in when he absolutely has to.
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Bassong will foul the crap out of Carew, and Carew is cagey/experienced enough to milk the most out of it fro the ref's. Colo on him for mine. He needs to be marked tightly, because the pace of Young and Agbonlahor is no doubt going to be getting them in behind our defense, looking to find Carew in the centre.
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Couldnt agree more mate, thing with Xisco is, some think he cant be arsed...its not that...he's just shit!
Luque the second.
Considering how much we've seen of Xisco thus far, that's a pretty harsh call to make. Deportivo fans were legitmately upset when he left there, you wouldn't see that if he was complete rubbish. That said I wasn't impressed with the lines that he wasn't running when he came on late in the match against West Brom.
He was a risky/foolish aquisition though, as leaving him rotting on the bench is going to decrease his value, and he'll bigger off back to Spain. Playing him might cost you a little in the short term (though could he really be worse than Shola*?) but it will help him adjust and improve his game. It's important that you can communicate and understand the way the players around you play - that would be tough with so little match time.
* - Shola does really trouble the defenders though.
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Yep, would prefer Enrique in over Bassong. Bassong was lucky in this match to get away with a fair bit. A couple of times (including one in the box) he grabbed a hold of the opposing strikers arm. Could easily have been a penalty. Bassong definately has potential though, but I think more as a central defender than as a fullback. He's a bit frantic on the ball and is no good on the dribble.
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Oh yeah, and for the record it was Diouf that 'won' the penalty and not Cisse. Cisse can finish - Diouf - not so much.
Butt, Bassong, Guthrie and Geremi dropped.
Barton, Enrique, and N'Zogbia and Gutierrez to come in.
(at the very least!)
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What the fuck was Butt thinkin!
He was thinking that Cisse would go on and score - which he would have done.
He had no choice - well done Butt.
Sorry but no. In a one on one situation Givens got more of a chance that a fucking rocket shot that three goalkeepers couldn't of saved - fuck off Butt.
I don't think many people thought Richardson had that in him 2 weeks in a row.
He's done it more than once and they've got other good free kick takers. Anyway he should have fucking thought but thats exactly his problem, he doesn't.
Exactly. Taylor was still actually between Cisse and the goals, and yes I'd fancy Shay to be able to save the shot from open play over the absolute bullet from the set piece where he was unsighted on the ball for so long because Riley had placed the wall 12 yards away from the ball.
Newcastle United vs Chelsea
in Newcastle Forum
Posted
Stone the crows, guv. Why the hell not
Bassong or Given MOTM.