Apropos Mr Seth J : C'mon, let's be serious, notwithstanding the £7m fee, did you expect him to come?

Which ambitious player in his right mind would want to play for the TOON when they can go to Leeds, who have title aspirations, a great group of players, a great manager, European footy, need I go on? Only someone steeped in the Geordie traditions (Shearer)would turn down a 'bigger' club for the chance to wear the B&W.

There will be some out there who take this as defeatist; I call it realism. The question in my mind is, what do we do to change this attitude of players? Is it just winning something, or getting into Europe, or paying higher transfers?

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Answers

AP

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Sorry - see "PLANNING" thread below which goes on about much the same ... didn't see it.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

If you're a young, unestablished player with ambition, then priority has to be first team football. Ideally with big enough and good enough team, to get yourself noticed, and to be associated with success.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Nick,

Leeds have become fashionable only recently. Neverthless, they have a good squad and appear to be headed for a period of success. It is natural for young ambitious players to want to jump on the bandwagon.

In our case, we are suffering from 3-4 years of mediocrity, and the consequent failure to qualify for Europe. Hence our stock is low with the same group of young ambitious players, and indeed established stars. If this situation had been looked at when we were riding high in the PL under KK and playing in the CL, would a player like Seth johnson have chosen Leeds over NUFC? Of course he wouldn't.

So, there is no point being negative about this situation - it is entirely transient anyway. We need to continue rebuilding to gradually re-establish our position and our credibility. This may require us to acquire slightly younger, developing talent with higher attendant risks - like Seth Johnson when he joined Derby from Crewe a couple of years ago.

We are still a massive Club in Europe, and need to continue showing high ambition - as we have done with the signing of Laurent Robert. This includes demonstrating the level of our ambition when players like Seth johnson become available, and doing our level best to persuade them to come here. If we don't do this then we really are then demonstrating a defeatist attitude that has every chance of becoming self-fulfilling.

I actually believe the Toon would do that IF they had felt a player like Johnson was right for us. The fact they don't appear to have gone in for him, suggests to me that BR didn't want him - I certainly hope so, or we may as well all give up.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

It all depends on your desire for guaranteed first team football. Lolo had offers at Valencia and Bayern but the managers wouldn't promise him first team football. That's one point and a lesson Jeffers is learning at his leisure at Arsenal. Besides which, you have to be in it to win it and as far as I'm aware, we didn't even try to get Johnson.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Incidentally, talking about Lolo: he took some sort of risk joining us. PSG aren't doing that much better than us (in fact, apart from still being in Europe, they are doing worse), but his main competitor for that left wing slot is Robert Pires. His PL stats are about the same as Lolo's (although he plays for a better side) but he's also playing in the CL so Lolo will really have to do something special to get that slot for France that he so desires.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Clarky

See your point mate. But even in our heyday under KK who did we get, other than Big Al who was desperate to play for us? Andy Cole? From Bristol, and not many others were in for him. Sir Les? Don't remember Arsenal/Manure/L'pool bidding. Beardo? Going nowhere fast til we rescued him. Barton? Asprilla, who KK had to talk into coming and then left as soon as he could?

So what I mean is, even when we were arguably the number one club, which world class players came our way, or even seasoned England Internationals? Few mate, far too few. The buggars shoulda been banging on the doors of SJP to get in.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Lets face it

Some peopel will only be happy if we get relegated then they can say "we told you so". My Derby friends tell me Mr Johnson is not worth the money.

Lets have a bit of faith for crying out loud we are not doing that bad for god sake.

Bud are you still around lost your local mail address fed up with these whingers

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

ooooooh!

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Well Nick - in addition to Alan Shearer, Laurent Robert, and Tino, Phillipe Albert and Les Ferdinand were both top class players at the height of their careers when they came here. How many do you need?

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Dougal,
I made the point in my earlier post that the reason we apparently didn't make an approach for Johnson could simply be that BR doesn't rate him, doesn't think he's the kind of player we need, and/or doesn't think he's worth £7 million.
After all, he is entitled to have a different opinion than the rest of us.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

How about the players Johnson might replace?

Olivier Dacourt is someone we were linked with but he chose Leeds. Maybe he'll "do a Bellamy" and come to Newcastle?

I can't see Bowyer leaving, so Dacourt would be the makeweight, and he's a quality player.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Sorry Paul - Dacourt won't be going anywhere.

Leeds are not that well off in m/f - Batty is near the end of his career, Bowyer is likely to be vacationing at HM's pleasure soon, Bakke's form is 'in & out', but Dacourt is a fixture. Johnson will get plenty of appearances.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001