According to certain journalists, Cort broke down in yesterday's special match and will miss the start of the season. No idea about validity.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Answers

ICNewcastle are reporting this now. Damn, damn, damn. It's one step forwards and two back. On the plus side Shearer played the full game, scored and suffered no ill effects. He hopes to return against the Makems.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Bad idea for Shearer to come back against the Mackems who are just about the dirtiest team in the Premiership. Better to be fully match fit against them.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Jonno, I have to take you to task on your post. Please delete the words "just about"

Thank you ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

I toned it down for the benefit of our guests. :-)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

ICNewcastle still aren't reporting it on my version courtesy of Telewest transparent cache (Rushworth waffling on about how Newcastle often get into Europe by the back door is the lead sports story).

With .com still down that only left TOTT. After wading through the sh!te still being propagated by that "woman" from dahn sarf, I found posts confirming it there too. The most interesting post suggested that Cort's latest injury is the fault of one Spanish defender currently in search of rehabilitation. Possibly not quite the way to go about it.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Is anyone feeling just a little pessimistic. Our injuries don't seem to clear up and so we face a stinking start to the season (Chelsea, SMB, Boro and Man U, with (on Saturday's evidence) a fairly toothless attack. Lose 3 out of 4 of those games, which is possible unfortunately, then we're at the bottom of the league and will then struggle all season.

Sorry to so downbeat but Cort's injury on top of Dyer's setback has made me miserable.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Hiya Linda....glad to see someone else shares my view of the forthcoming season.....we're F*CKED!

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

I know it's been said on here before, but what kind of idiots do NUFC have running our training and physiotherapy facilities. It seems that there is not a training session that goes by without someone else coming out with an injury. It was Robert at the start of the week now it's Cort. Dyer came off the pitch in crutches. WTF is going on? If I was Bobby I would be asking some serious questions of my back room staff.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

This time when we have so many likely stinkers altogether at the start of the season, we have a manager who people will not be so easy to shift. Don't forget:

Aston Villa Home - dreadful travesty of a refereeing decision
Sotton at THE DELL - 27 years, never to be beaten
Spurz Away - London, they didn't need an excuse but they took it
Wimbledon Home - could have been anywhere, they always had that ability to upset us
Mackems at Water Polo - rulebook out of the window in a derby, or was last year somehow different despite the better conditions and the skipper missing a pen?
Man United Away - I'll just list all our recent victories at O.T....
Chelsea Away - London again...zzzzzzz.

The thing is, once the shitey games are out of the way and you start playing your bankers you get a remarkable turnaround in fortune and enjoy shooting up the League and talking about Europe, until it balances out and you end up where you belong.

We''ll have another rubbish start followed by a "dramatic" recovery and then fall away to mid table again. Nee bother.

Of course, if we miraculously win on Sunday (e.g. the Frenchman hasn't learn to capitulate in London yet) then the London hoodoo is bust right open and anything could happen. Ooh, coffee, lovely.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Apparently the Makems committed 29 fouls in the game at our place last season, which was the highest number committed by any team, anywhere. There now....

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Apparently the Makems committed 29 fouls in the game at our place last season, which was the highest number committed by any team, anywhere Yes Dougal - it's euphemistically referred to as "they wanted it more than we did", although I prefer to call it by it's proper name - cheating.

It's a cracking read that "United Front" isn't it? It's running the Consett and Stanley very close this week. :-)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

The thing is, once the shitey games are out of the way and you start playing your bankers you get a remarkable turnaround in fortune and enjoy shooting up the League and talking about Europe, until it balances out and you end up where you belong.

So no change from last season, then? That makes me feel better.(?!) I was about to agree with Gav. ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

Well actually its not Ciara. We were top of the league after 6 games (it may have been 5 - but it was after we won away at Coventry). So, I think Softie could be right. My best hope is that some of our youngsters get to play early on, are a revelation and take some dislodging by the old crocks. I still think that the best thing that can come out of the coming season is that 5 or 6 youngsters come through and dislodge some of our has beens and might have beens. If the following were displaced because the youngsters were better we would be in a better position: Lee, Dabs, Shearer, Barton, Speed. Mind you it could be said that at least 3 of those shouldn't be playing anyway!! Hey Ho. Managing Expectations. (My own, at least/)

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Which 3 sounder?

Shearer is our best centre forward, Dabizas is our best central defender and Speed and Lee are better than the South Americans.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Shearer is static and has the body of a 38 year old and can't beat his man. Lee is well past it. Speed is a nothing player who doesn't control play and doesn't create play. Dabs can't defend for 90 minutes without a major blunder.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

And as I said who is better than them?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Lee and Speed haven't been good enough for the last two seasons [at least] so what makes ANYONE think that they'll be good enough THIS season....?

answers on a postcard....

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

But Kegsy we wouldn't know Shola was any good if he hadn't played. Shola played better when he came in than Shearer had done for two or three months. I know Shearer was injured, I'm not on about absolute skill levels I'm on about actual performances at that time. It was very easy to say that there was no one better than Shearer so he had to play on. Our problem was we just didn't know cos we hadn't seen.

I am not suggesting this as an option, only as an example. We have a player who doesn't get a first team start, but sits on the bench who was played in the defensive midfield role for his country at the end of lazst season. The guy was brought on to do a man to man on the Polish midfield play maker and was a revelation. This was at international level. Craig Brown has more confidence in playing Steve Caldwell than Bobby Robson does, I find that disappointing.

It was a similar story with Stephen Glass.

If Lee and Speed are good enough then great but we may never find out whether their is a useful kid around as there seems to be such a safety first approach.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Gambling in PL games is a big risk. Shola has definitely proved his potential, but with everyone fit he would still sit on the bench. Experimenting with the younger and inexperienced members of the 1st team is a luxury that we can't usually afford. We're lucky to see the players that have come through making a good stab of it, but for every Shola and Hughes we have Beherall and Robinson. I would be a bit worried to hear YBR name the Caldwells as our star centre half package and Chops / McMeniminaminaminamin up front on Sunday; Chelsea would take us apart (like that isn't gonna happen anyway, but that's a different matter :-) ).

Craig Brown may well have asked Steve Caldwell to play in an international, but look at the situation. Injury ravaged side, friendly fixture, Steve gets subbed on for 30 mins (does a good job, not to take that away from him).

It may turn out that the injury situation demands some risks, but if any of us were that confident of our up-and-comings how come most on here were concerned about lack of big name signings?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Hmmm - taking a leaf out of Sparxx's book, can somebody tell me just what great impression Shola has made? And in a similar vaien exactly what did Gallacher add as a striker? From memory, neither has scored many more golas than me for NUFC. ;-))

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Shola shows a bit of bottle and a bit of trickery, has good vision and is slowly understanding the art of putting the ball in the onion bag. Gallacher ran himself into the pitch, put defenders under pressure and gave the fans something to cheer about.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Goals???

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Or are strikers not bothered with them these days?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Luckily we had the mighty LuaX2 and...erm, Cordone and ah...er...to fill the gaps. Be fair, one lad thrust into the frontline and another doing more than making up the numbers but a shadow of his former talent. Both making more of an effort than the rest of the team.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

But Bobby - a striker's sole raison d'etre is to score goals. (God, how long can I keep this Devil's Advocate thing going for?). Shola and Gallacher failed miserably on that score.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

So by that reasoning, Speed and Solano should be playing up front as they've scored more goals than Shola and Gallacher combined. ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

No. Nobby should play in goal. At least that's where he seemed to want to play last season ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Did anyone see that thing in the Ronnie where Dyer said that although he had caused a bit of a fuss about playing up front last season, he is now confused as he hit his best form up front?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

No, I didn;t see that. Interesting. Signs of a congested midfield?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001