5-0, 4-0, 61

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Was our+the press reaction after the Arsenal game over the top? We may have lost 5-0 but Leicester got beat 6-1 having let in 5 away goals all season!! And didnt Arsenal get beat 4-0 on Saturday? Lets enjoy the fact we put in a great performance today and accept at the minute were an inconsistent, upper half of the league, team :-)

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2000

Answers

The depression after the Arse game was over the top in my view and I said so at the time. Certainly, Arse were the better side but were flattered by the scoreline. As I commented then, the Parlour hat- trick was the first of his career and his only goals this season, thus the word "fluke" comes to mind.

Bobby has had appalling luck so far and yet we have 30 points and are 7th with almost half the season still to go. YBR has spent most of his money (it is simply NOT TRUE that the board has not allowed him to spend - he's spent at least £15m since he came) on Cort and Bassedas, both of whom have been injured and unable to show what they can do. Add to that a catalogue of injury to other key players and the performance so far has to be regarded as very creditable. Indeed, if you believe half the negative stuff written on here in recent weeks you might be quite surprised to see us as high in the table as we are - some postings sound like we're in the thick of a relegation battle.

We have a talented squad with some excellent players - we have a brilliant manager - we have the second largest stadium.

The club is emerging from the darkness into which it was plunged by TSM. There will be fits and starts, but if we can stop getting hung up on individual results - Sunderland, obviously, Arsenal etc, and look at the bigger picture (7th despite injuries to key players), then it is clear that reports of our demise have been exaggerated.

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000

Jonno, as always a level-headed analysis. The inconsistency of performances, and number of injuries are all frustrating, but at the end of the day (Brian), we are still within touching distance of a place in Europe. What this all indicates to me is that the Premiership is going through a turbulent time, with other clubs having the same problems if not worse. We need a steady hand on the tiller to ride this particular storm, and I for one sympathise with Shepard and the stick he's getting. Spending shed loads isn't the answer. We look at Leeds with envy, and we all know that they have quality players in abundance. But look where they are in the Premiership. Their ambitious policy is a gamble for sure, and I suppose we envy them because most of us belive that they have chosen the right time to gamble - ie when they've got a solid core of exceptional, British youngsters. They have the solid base, and they've added the gloss to that. It would be a disaster for us to try and do the same. Chelsea managed it briefly, but they were able to attract a whole team of mercenaries due to their affluent London base and the post Euro96 enthusiasm for 'glamour' clubs, allowing them to hike prices and get away with it. Their not looking so clever now.
We are a big club with potential. We have some of the infrastructure needed (fan base, stadium), but our best chance of putting ourunderachievemnts on the pitch behind us, is to build patiently and wisely and avoid the boom and bust cycle driven by over-fervent optimism. Trouble is, being Newcastle fans, we all have a fair degree of masochism in our support, almost always accentuating the lows so we can enjoy the highs more. I have a unjustifiable fear, that should we ever become a successful club like Liverpool in the 80's and ManU in the 90's, we will actually lose something in the process...

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000

Complacency in the face of one - excellent - win is as dangerous as being over-critical in the face of individual defeats.

We were excellent yesterday - probably the best performance since we beat manure last season. However, let's not get carried away, we were comfortably beaten by Derby only on Satruday - "one swallow a summer doth not make".

To my knowledge, no one has ever doubted that the squad contains some very good players. However, the reality is it is still paper-thin, and still in urgent need of judicious strengthening. Until Goma is fit we have only young Steve Caldwell as standby CB, and Goma wants to be away. Presently, we have NO standby FB's - thanks to Domi's disgraceful behaviour. And, we have NO fit senior strikers - I don't count Cordone and LuaLua as main strikers, and neither apparently does BR or he would have played one of them in preference to Ameobi yesterday.

I also believe there is general agreement with Windy's view that patient rebuilding is the best way forward - irrespective of how much money we do or don't have. However, the concern that me and others have is that some judicious short-term transfer activity is essential to plug the alarming present gaps in the squad - even if only on loan. What would we do if say Hughes and/or Griffin, or Speed, or Dyer had picked up injuries yesterday?

On the one hand, some judicious strengthening now could ensure an UEFA Cup place, on the other - depending on your optimism/pessisism quotient - we still need to ensure PL safety.

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000


It's nice to have a warm fuzzy feeling after such an amazing performance, but the bigger picture is the fact that we are down to bare bones here....spending is aboslutely necessary at this point because we are at a point where any more knocks and we could be playing players out of position, or worse.

As for our lofty position, it could look a lot different come a weeks time and we have lost both upcoming games. I would love to see another inspired performance Saturday as well as next Tuesday, but I am resigned to the fact that we have yet to put a decent run of matches together since September, and if we don't get some help soon we could be looking at the fight of our lives come February.....

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000


I for one am certainly not as optimistic as I was earlier in the season. I'm afraid the rose tinted specs got broken a couple of weeks ago. Yes, we have just beaten Leeds (who didn't play well, or perhaps weren't allowed to), but we have also been beaten by Derby, struggled to beat Bradford at home, and got a pre-Christmas stuffing up the @rse.

Yes, we beat Ipswich, drew at Villa and also won against Liverpool, but by all accounts, we were quite lucky (for a change). We drew at Leicester, but we were beaten by the Hackems, and had the points stolen from us by Everton and Charlton. There are others, but apart from a gritty performance at Maine Road and a win at Coventry, all this says to me is that we are inconsistent in a mediocre bunch of teams in the middle of the EPL. I think it's true to say that 2 or 3 good results on the trot could put us well up in the UEFA places (eg. Hackems) whereas a couple or so poor ones could put us back among the scrappers.

Is this what we want? Certainly not. This season is a strange one. ManUre are well ahead of the chasing pack, all of whom keep tripping up. Hopefully, even they will stumble on Saturday. But make no mistake, we still have some way to go to catch the likes of @rse and 'pool. And others such as Chelsea, Leeds, Villa and possibly Wham are in very similar states to ourselves. Even the likes of Leicester and the Hackems are in with a shout, although IMHO don't have the quality players that we do. But they do have commitment, which has all to often been lacking in Chelsea, Leeds, Villa and NUFC of late.

Still a new year is round the corner and who knows what that might bring? Hopefully some new faces, or an improved attitude in many of the old ones.

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000



My sentiments exactly. Most of us got carried away when we were on top of the PL, some of us even justified getting beaten at home by the likes of Everton and Charlton. Our true colours were shown by our dismal displays against Soton, Wham, Bham and now derby. We are in fact a lesser version of liverpool, great one day shambles the next. Who would have thought that liverpool would beat Manure at OT, put four past Arsenal then get beaten by boro? We need to collectivley get the players in the same frame of mind as they were in yesterday, no respite, no let ups. Were leeds crap or did we make them look like crap? Would we have been able to match them if they played the way they are capable of playing? Who will show up on Saturday? Our derby team or our leeds team?

Alex ferguson will be prepared for this one, he will be watching a tape of the game and see that Dyer ran the show. He will then stick someone like scholes on him from the off, Dyer will be shadowed by at least two people on Saturday. BR needs to make adjustments for that, start him in midfield them move him up, make Manure play the way we want to play the game. We should dictate this game since it's at our house, if everyone in our midfield doesn't get booked then they are not doing their job.

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2000


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