OTF

Can someone teach Coloccini how to make a fucking pass. If I see him do any more of his dainty floated passes down the middle straight to the opposition I think I'll throw up. Piss poor effort all round. How Coloccini and Taylor marked the same man while another strolled into the box is beyond me. IMO it was taylor who was at fault, as Colo was already marking their forward. If we weren't in danger before then we certainly are now (PS - We were in danger before). On form, with a game in hand and with our run of upcoming games Blackburn will come galloping past us. Hull are shaking badly, but by the time they play us our confidence will have eroded so much that they'll probably beat us and in doing so will just about put the nail in our premier league coffin.

You would think Butt would be relatively level headed this late in his career. No chance. Fecking idiot. Just play the game. Annoys me how he has to charge at whoever has the ball, knowing full well that he is coming at them too late to effect the tackle, they pass the ball away to a teammate before Butt arrives. If it's a good pass it's play on advantage, if it's a bad pass it's a foul on Butt and a free-kick to Bolton. We know how much Bolton love set pieces, and how much we hate defending them, if we give them away in good positions they could well prove to be very costly. When Jonas goes down the left we need a forward running at the near post. His passes aren't going to go further than that. Ameobi is completely clueless. Another head on when he was the furthest man up. I hope he comes off in the second half.

Think you're on the money there (in both comments). Not a crosser in the traditional English sense, better at short passing where there is a fair deal of communication and anticipation between players. In other words shite for us.

You forgot to mention that his nose goes across half his face. Thought it was worth mentioning, you know, in case anyone had missed it.

Fair call there. Jonas can cross from the edge of the box, or cut it back, from the wing though it seems that he doesn't have enough power to get the ball in with any sort of pace. That's not going to change any time soon. I'd say he's at his best when he's running at men getting in behind them, making his way into the box and then picking out our strikers in the box.

Saves me typing it out.

Would be interesting, but won't happen.

His crossing IMO has always been super inconsistent. In terms of consistency he seems to be better off his left foot, as he has the distance pegged just about right. Off his right he too frequently over-hits it, trying to get the whipping in cross that can be so dangerous. I honestly don't think he will improve a great deal. If he does though, I'll be happy for him as I know he is honest and hard working, and gets every accolade that he deserves. He'll learn a thing or two and will have a better footballing brain, but I still my my earlier assertion that with his amount of games all within the same league he will not develop a great deal more, despite still being quite young.

Doesn't work like that. Colo played in the last WC (in what was arguably the best side in the tournament) and he's nowt special tbh Funny that, I think that's why you'll find my comments don't stop there.

It's only compensation that they will have to pay as far as I am aware. Up to FIFA to determine what they figure is. At any length it's not going to be anywhere near 12 million pounds.

Jonas cracks it for a starting spot in the Argentina National Squad. Milner is a way off a starting birth for England. Milner is younger, yes, but in terms of experience he has had a great deal (almost 200 Premier League games), so to expect him to develop a great deal more than he has is naive. He may become better at reading the game, but that's not going to suddenly make him faster, better at crossing, or more capable of beating his man. All of those games were in the same league, so he's surely completely settled in terms of that. Jonas too is beyond the point where you can expect him to develop a great deal, however he is yet to fully adapt to the shite way in which Newcastle are currently playing football. When Jonas has performed at his best for us, it has been when we have actually gone out there and played football, not when we have aimlessly hoofed the ball at the likes of Ameobi. I'd take Jonas in the side over Milner in a heartbeat. The fact that we got Jonas for something like 4 million pounds, and sold Milner for a profit of roughly 8 million pounds makes Jonas even more appealing IMO.

Got to love Habib. Just a shame that we din't bring him here when he was a little younger. Could have sent that fat bastard Carr off long, long ago.

Get in man.

Don't have any problem with Shola hanging around the club. The problems come when he is played ahead of better players. If he starts in the next match it will be beyond ridiculous.

1-1 will do us nicely. Don't see it staying that way though.

In the end I think we've all got to be happy with the point, all things considered. Certainly now there is no need to keep the same team as some sort of loyalty move as a result of them winning the previous match (err.. West Brom). Nolan has also confirmed that Hughton can't take the easy way out again and just pick the same squad. It will be interesting to see who will replace Nolan in midfield. Anyone know when Guthrie is back? Otherwise Smith would be an option (please not Geremi, though I might be saying the same about Smith in a week). We have five central midfielders who are all capable of making horrible brash tackles (Smith, Guthrie, Butt, Barton and Nolan). I'd like to see Viduka and Martins up front in the next game. Lovenkrands fancies himself as a striker, but if that shot was indicative you can see why managers prefer to play him out wide. Certainly not prepared to write him off, but damn, that was a bloody golden chance with no defensive pressure at all.

I thought Butt was excellent. Ryan Taylor had a good game too. There's no way Butt was excellent. I just won't hear it. He made some good tackles, but he has no movement whatsoever off the ball. Dallies on the ball, looks for long passes always. Watch a proper team play football and the central midfield players will be making short, sharp passes and moving for each other. We're not going to get that from Butt at this stage in his career. He's a complete passenger when we have the ball. Ryan Taylor's crossing/free-kicks weren't bad, but he got caught on the ball on more than one occassion, and Dan Gosling skipped by his easily in the opening few minutes. Would be good if he had a little more pace.

Bassong man of the match. Enrique also played well. Our new boys all had pretty average/shite games, spare Ryan Taylor's free-kicks/crosses. Butt again a passenger who occasionally chimes in with a tackle.

Played midfield and defense for Sheffield. His ridiculous 'air jordan' handball in the final match of the season was the nail in the coffin for Sheffield's Premier league status. Lescott has been an awesome buy for them, but to be fair Bassong has been just as immense in defense for us, and he cost much less than Lescott, plus we got him at a younger age. As for why the Everton players have flourished while Newcastle's English defenders have not, I'd say that entirely down to the lack of stability at Newcastle, and the lack of an organised decent central midfield.

Looked like the keeper saw it late, but was probably more a matter of the power that Ronaldo put on it.

Portsmouth extra time equaliser was good for us.. they were leading 1-0 then Stoke got a rubbish penalty call. Less than two minutes later they scored again and it looked like they were going to get the 3 points. Elsewhere Middlesbrough and Wigan drew 0-0. Arsenal couldn't beat Sunderland at home!

Villa couldn't break through to score in the second half. Was a pretty entertaining match, with both teams pretty eager to attack. Bolton are rolling West Ham 2 zip at the moment. This is not the best result for us. Other matches of importance are 0-0 still.

When I eventually get over there to watch a match I will definitely go on the stadium tour before a match. A dream of mine to be honest.

Watched the first half of the Aston Villa vs Chelsea match. Chelsea are clearly the better more polished team. They've looked good with Anelka and Drogba up front. Aston Villa have looked dangerous on occasion with pace breaking forward. Chelsea got the first goal with what I must say was through some impressive close control from Lampard. Some tight touches manoeuvred him past two Villa defenders (who had over-committed), then he played a nicely weighted pass into the path of Anelka. Anelka's finish was top class, calmy dinking it over the keeper and into the back of the net. Villa came closest through an Ashley Young free-kick, that hit the underside of the bar with Cech completely stranded. James Milner is still the same player that he was when we had him. Can't fault his effort, gets up and down the pitch. Relishing the space he is afforded by virtue of Agbonlahor, Young and Heskey commanding the attention of the defense, but still lacking with his crosses. Still prefers to cross off his left boot, but has floated several of them into the welcoming hands of Cech.

Would disagree there. Has (or at least had) plenty pace. Yeah. Weaknesses were his inability to win 50/50 challenges, went to ground too much, and had a tendency to want to do too much with the ball when he had it.