A tremendous effort last year playing Left Back and a marvellous performance against Totti, but is wor Aaron ready to dominate the NUFC defence for the next 5+ years.

He hasn't got the height but then neither has Baresi/De Boer/Cannavaro etc. Is he that good? I'm still not sure.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Answers

I wouldn't be against it, he's a very cool character, not sure about him positionally. I maybe would have something to say if he was up against say Chelsea who will have two tall strikers (assuming it'd Flo & JF. H)

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

A resounding YES ..... IF he's actually played there, consistently and alongside an experienced and cool head. Which probably means Goma or maybe Howey this season.

I mean, by way of comparison, how good is Rio Ferdinand really ? Yet there's probably half a dozen clubs that would pay a small fortune for him when the Hammers do their usual and cash in. Young Aaron has as approx as much experience as him, and IMIO is easily as good. There's still a long way to go in terms of his development, but then you wouldn't expect top class central defenders or keepers to hit their peak in their early 20s would you ?

Classic NUFC of old would be to sell the Hugheses of this world for a pittance within the next year or so, having not really given them sufficient opportunities to mature into the player they can become. Who knows about the NUFC of the future.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2000

Loony

Totally agree. Hughes has great potential and can certainly mix it up with the best of them. No hesitation in saying that if he was English he'd be raved about. His only problem is being able to keep his place with so much experienced competition across the back line.

And IMHO Rio Ferdinand suck big fat eggs. He is pants, pants, pants.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2000

Have been debating about Hughes and the NUFC's centre back dilema for a while now.

If we sell Marcelino do we bring back Helder or not? If we bring back Helder we will have four senior defenders ahead of Hughes. Currently many of us are unsure of who our two starting central defenders are out of Dabizas, Goma and Howey.

Many of us agree that Dabizas needs a partner with a dominat personality to play with, to keep him his mind on the the game and not wanderering forward when he shouldn't. Also Dabizas has the ability to play the ball out of defence.

Has anyone seen Goma play where he dictates the positioning of the defence, like we have seen from Howey?

The problem is, we are unsure if Howey has it in him to play at the highest level consitantly anymore.

What ever the situation is, I reckon we shouldn't sign Helder and stick with Dabizas, Goma, Howey and Hughes and start to bring through the other younsters in times of injury.

-- Anonymous, August 05, 2000

To be honest, I've not seen enough of Hughes at CB to pass any valid comments. However, I've seen a fair bit of him at LB and man-marker and he is an excellent prospect for us which we shouldn't lose.

I read somewhere (probably the Ronnie) which indicated that Helder is sitting on a beach in Portugal waiting for YBR to call him up, but this won't happen until we get rid of a defender - Marcelino I think.

I'm still uncertain about Howey. He looked a tlot better at Turf Moor on Monday than he did the whole back-end of last season when he came back from injury. Then he was useless but on Monday he looked good, as did Goma. I didn't see enough of Dabs to comment on Monday.

I'd certainly keep Hughes as a possible future CB as well as current at FB. If the others (Dabs, Howey, Goma and likely Helder) are happy to rotate than I'd see how Dabs and Howey perform. Goma and Helder are potentially the best pairing but we need options, especially with Howey's injury record and Dabs yellow/red cards. I think Hughes probably has some way to go as a CB before becoming a regular in the middle. Horses for courses.

-- Anonymous, August 05, 2000

Although the writing is all over the wall for Marcellino, I would still rather have a team of centre backs of him, Goma Helder and Hughes. Howey is in the same class as Hamilton etc not good enough, and Dabizas as with many others who, thank God, have gone and are not consistent enough. To keep either of these two and risk losing Hughes is madness.

-- Anonymous, August 05, 2000