smoggeordie

He didn't even get in Garth Crooks team of the week. Tim Howard got it for barely having to make a save against Boro and sunderland

Dunne

'box to box' is a term applied to midfielders who aren't good enough to be either creative or defensive imo. Surely being able to run from box to box is a minimum requirement for any midfielder. I'd be looking at Bridge and Bullard fwiw. We should have tried to snap up Bridge years ago when he went to Fulham.

Tomorrows papers stirring up trouble saying that man city are weighing up a 5m bid for him. I rate him higher than Buffon and city seem to value him at 60m... 5m would be an insulting offer.

Take a bow fella, simply world class. That is all.

Official site Posting from my iPod so can't copy the statement

If we have play cnz at left back, surely it'd make sense to play jonas on the left and duffman on the right as jonas offers a hell of a lot more defensivly. I'd go with Given Geremi Taylor colo cnz Duff guthrie butt Jonas Owen Carroll

Chron reckons 6 weeks

Nail on head. All it took was to listen to KK. Let's say we went for Aimar and Warnock instead of Xisco and Gonzalez. We'd still have a good manager, a team brimming with confidence and a tried and tested new formation in the Keegan 433. No doubt in my mind that Jonas would be twice the player he is now as well.

That challenge on Carroll was as much of a pen as theirs IMO. Why did no-one tell the cunts the game starts at 0 mins, not 88.

I wonder where we'd be if he took the job here in September 2004. I used to hate Birmingham's style, it was proper Italian tactics, the game where we lost 0-1 here when they came up was one of the most frustrating I've ever seen. Since he's been at Wigan though I think it's hard to argue they play some attractive stuff at times, and he's proven he's a coach who can adapt. Not saying I WOULD want him now, but fair play of late. Yes, he's doing a decent job at Wigan, and he didn't do a bad job at Birmingham either, but I just pray he'll never get the job here. Of course the football Birmingham played under him was proper Italian Catenaccio, but to defend him he hadn't the players to play attacking football - at Wigan, he has the likes of Zaki, Valencia, Palacios etc. who possess some creativity. They need to attack at times, and some of the stuff they played so far was pretty good-looking. Again: Decent manager for the likes of Birmingham, Wigan & Co., but not for Newcastle. And I don't like him. A couple of years ago I thought that about Martin O Neill.

I'd settle for a draw here like, but like Pompey, a win isn't impossible. 0-0

If only we hadn't fucked up against Wigan, Stoke, Blackburn, Hull and (to some extent) Man City..... 12 points there we should have had

Duff, Duff will tear you apart.......again!

JOE Kinnear has had to tinker with his transfer plans now Joey Barton has been ruled out until March. The troubled midfielder made just five appearances after returning from a suspension for assaulting his then-Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo before succumbing to knee ligament damage. But Barton was a key figure in those games and without him the Magpies midfield looks rather one-dimensional. Nicky Butt and Danny Guthrie have performed well in the Merseysider’s absence but share the same combative qualities. Without Barton there is a lack of creativity and goal threat from central midfield. So when he was told Barton would not be back in training until February, or playing until March, Kinnear admitted he reworked his shopping list ahead of the January sales. “I think Joey’s pretty much two months away (from playing),” said the former defender. “He’s got to get himself back in shape, hasn’t he? I know they’re saying he’ll be ready to start training in six weeks but I think he’ll need at least another two or three weeks after that. We’re probably looking at March before he comes back into the side. “That’s a big blow. It’s more serious than we actually thought. It means we’ll be looking for a midfielder in the transfer window now.” Barton’s recovery was initially expected to be a month quicker and even the news that his knee did not require an operation did nothing to speed up the process. “He hasn’t needed surgery but because of the delicacy of where the surgery is, it’s taking longer than we anticipated for it to perfectly knit together,” Kinnear explained. United’s interim manager admitted yesterday he might have to scour the Championship for bargains rather than spending the big fees some of his St James’s Park predecessors have done in the past decade or so. And he thinks the credit crunch will eat into most of his rivals’ budgets, too. “The credit crunch will play a major role in transfer window activity,” he said. “Whatever price is thrown out there everyone is going back with half that amount. Plus we have seen so many clubs that are up for sale.”

Agreed, but being the exception of being the only one who delivers quality set pieces.

Thing is with Geremi's free kicks is he blobs half of them too far and half hit the first man, so Owen takes a punt that it'll end up at the back stick and puts 50% of them away

Scored a class goal against Man City a couple of weeks ago IIRC, not sure how his overall play has been though. One thing he would bring would be quality set pieces.

Just been on ssn, apparently it was said at the Fulham pre match press conference that if they receive a decent offer for Bullard then they'll consider it. If we haven't got much to spend I think we could do a lot worse than stick a cheeky three million bid in for him.

Larsson can play quite comfortably in the centre, can't he? As far as Warnock goes, I don't think a change of manager would be the best thing for us right now.

As it stands, 2 goals for NEC would knock spurs out.

2-0

Yiddo's 1 down with another Gomes clanger

Larsson or Kightly would do nicely, like.