OTF

No Nolan? I think Nolan's a smart player around the top of the box, can make a nice lay-off pass. Geordie Lad is closest to the money IMO. I'd probably have Harper over Krul because Krul is still largely unproven, and we know bugger all about his distribution. Granted he hasn't really had a chance to prove himself. Hopefully we don't give up many chances so it won't matter as much as it has in the past who is between our sticks. I'd love to have Guthrie in the first 11, but as others have rightly noted he's not naturally a wide player (though he can cross a ball) and he doesn't have much pace. Better suited to the middle of the park. Barton for mine hasn't been impressive so far, but he still seems to be a little short on match fitness and cohesion with the rest of the team. He should be our best central midfielder, but we havent; seen that materialise on the pitch as yet. Truth be told though these sort of things are a waste of time though, because it's so seldom at any club that there is no injuries meaning that it's likely never that we have no injuried at Newcastle United (particularly this season with the increased amount of games and smaller squad). At this stage Shola needs to be in there. Looks gangly and uninterested lots of the time, but is scoring goals. Would be interesting to see him play alongside Ranger. Need to see more of Lovenkrands to determine where he will fit in best. I know he likes playing up front, but anyone would as there's usually less running and defending to be done up there and an increased likeliness to score to boot.

Watching with no volume FTW. Favourite goal is Shola's second from his hat-trick. The effort from Nolan to chase down the seemingly lost ball, then a few passes and a lovely cross before a great header. Guthries is a great crack as well.

Anyone know what game he was watching. Some classic sour grapes IMO. Right out of the Pete Sampras book of giving no credit to your opponent. When you lose it's because you weren't up to your normal standard, not because they were better than you. Also love how he uses the word 'handled' to make it sound like Taylor reached out and grabbed the ball. FFS the ball cannoned into his arm from 3 feet (granted he was assuming a keeper like make yourself large position at the time).

Are you sure it wasnt Folan they mentioned, not Fagan? Yep, my bad! Folan is slightly better than Fagan. In the way that a mild-heart attack is better than a full blown one.

They mentioned Fagan in the commentary today. Would rather Cousin than Fagan TBF. Would prefer Harewood over both of them. We definitely need cover up front.

Who really cares how we played?* 3 points and a clean sheet at a very tricky location. * - Ranger agains showed maturity and control beyond his years. Unfortunately his isolated role meant that he ran out of puff in the second period, should have been bursting into the box when Simpson got behind their defense. Well taken goal from Coloccini. Smith really helped out the defense playing Bothroyd out of the game. Thankfully Butt is back to cover his suspension. Simpson had a quality game. Barton clearly out of position, and still lacking sharpness IMO. Nolan wasn't as bad as people make out - he needs people moving off him when he has his back to goal - doesn't help when we only have one up front.

His head would be on a stick already.

Sear has been pap thus ar, though last season I saw hi min a few games and he looked decent. Very lively, but lacked composure in finishing.

On the strength of his performances and effort so far this season it would be good to see him finally open his official account sooner rather than later. Nailed on for his first goal to be a scrambling effort from a corner that isn't cleared.

Don't know how well he marks off the ball. He actually seems to be able to read the game pretty well. Countless times (but not enough) last season he saved the bacon of our otherwise beaten (usually Coloccini) central defenders.

Gerrard is actually surprisingly quick. A little like Enrique in that he doesn't have explosive pace, but once he gets moving he's very quick. In the match last season against Liverpool Enrique passed Gerrard then Gerrard tried to pull back on Enrique's shirt and comically dived to the ground trying to con a free-kick. The ref wasn't having a bar of it, Enrique was left standing with the ball. Was definitely the Newcastle United highlight of the match. ...And Enrique has busted past the opposing fullbacks at least twice that I recall this season (that's from the 3 game that I have watched this season - hard to tell how a plater is beaten on the radio). He should really be doing it more often though.

Spot on, can be a little slow to get started. Once he does you'll pretty much never see anyone go by him as he also uses his body well.

Has Jesus joined the medical staff? He can knock a short pass ok, though when it's time to cross the ball the walk-on-water trainer is most definitely required.

Enrique's seriously one of the fastest players at the club. Their right winger had a bright start to the game, but definitely didn't get by Enrique 3 times in the first 10 minutes. There was one time though where he was beaten (got in behind him). I think Enrique took a while to get into the pace of the game (which could have been costly). After that early spell their winger did bugger all after realising that he wasn't able to outpace Enrique. Enrique did have a poor game by his standards though - his passing was pretty weak overall. In his defense Geremi was completely inneffectual in front of him never moving into space and providing the passing option.

If he was to be on a pay as you play arrangement I'm sure there would be interest from plenty of premiership clubs who could afford to pay a larger appearance fee.

As someone else mentioned, odd that Lovenkrands was signed today when he could have been picked up at any particular time. Smacks of a PR job to make it look like we were active on the incoming players front. Whatever the case I'm happy he's back. Has genuine pace and his finishing wasn't too bad when he was here previously (apart from a sitter he missed against Everton). Better playing through the middle, but at leasy offers some cover out wide where we are very thin. No players leaving is the best bit of news to come out of today (sadly). I'm sure we can still tie up some loan signings. Once all of the real business is done and dusted premiership clubs will know who they can afford to loan out. That's when we should be signing at least two defenders.

If only Robert had two left feet (or a heart).

And now that Xisco's gone to Racing Santander? Coincidence that Enrique had one of his poorer performances?

I wonder if Steve Brenner actually watched the match.

Was the one that stood out like he didn't really care (and didn't have the fitness). Possibly on the highest wage at the club as well, ridiculous.

I for one welcome accadaccas pointless ridiculous threads. The better we do, the more he posts, so here's hoping he never shuts up.

Can't forget that he was more or less played as a lone striker. His hold up play in my opinion was warranted, particularly as most of it came after we were in the lead.

Way to rain on a parade. Some elements of truth there, but overall in my opinion that's as pessimistic an account of the onfield happenings this season as exaggerated as accadaccas morinic conceited belief that we'll waltz through the season untroubled. Sure we were playing a number of players out of position, but many of them stood up and did the job that was asked of them (notably Guthrie and Simpson). We played in games last season that were much uglier than this one, so your observation that it felt like we're in the Championship now is a moot point really. There'll be much uglier games than that, but that's exactly what our opposition will want. When it comes down to it, even though we've lost a ton of experience and (arguable in some cases) quality we still have numerous players who are a class above your average Championship player. That was still the case today, even with a few injuries and absences starting to affect tha available team. We absolutely need to bring in some experienced defenders, not to mention forwards, and a winger to boot because there's a long season ahead of us. We don't really know what we've got in our youth, because the majority of them have not been played in the first team. I'm hopefully that a few quality players will emerge from those ranks (Ranger, Vuckic, Kadar, LuaLua most noteably) to help fill some of the gaps. What most "lifted my heart" from watching this match was the effort from the majority of our players. The majority played as a team, and worked for each other. That is precisely what we were lacking last season. Not having a dig, just stating my opinion.

Great team effort. Cracking goal from Guthrie. Standouts were Ranger and Smith, though just about everyone did their job.

Looking brittle at the back. No surprise really with an inexperienced 5'9" fullback playing in the centre. Taylor was supposedly marking Howard when they had their best chance . Ranger has done well with what he's been given. Nolan will be handy in this role all season. Guthrie has been pretty decent playing out of position. Geremi has been ordinary as, does not give the fullback a good passing option - won't go towards them, and can't beat his marker with pace. A pretty even match overall, we have to be careful about giving up counter attacking opportunities as they have some pace up front and out wide. Good job by Smith to help out in closing down Howard with their primary attacking option being to send a ball his way (makes sense with our central defensive partnership).