posted Mar 18, 2008

Don't really think it matters how long Given is out. Sure he's a world class keeper but with a defence such as newcastle, arguably the worst in the Prem, Cech Buffon Van der Sar and Casillas all standing on the line would have a hard time keeping a clean sheet!!!

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posted Mar 18, 2008

well given is not key myself i reckon ste harper is better than him and i would have him as first choice if i managed newcastle and thats coming from a man city fan- c'mon i couldn't do much worse than keegans doing at least id win a game.

Keegans lost his magic touch he lost it when he was in his final season at city- sorry newcastle fans!! sad (cos i quite like newcastle) but true

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posted Mar 18, 2008

A month ago I was in despair at this board. There was so much really stupid stuff from bacon jellied eel or whatever. It's a real pleasure to read hesbighesred, frodo et al. Not that I necessarily agree with them, any more than they would with me. But at least it's not the nursery floor.

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posted Mar 18, 2008

hes out for the season bar 2-3 games. harper has done well when deputising and can handle it. newcastle have more firepower than any bottom ten side except tottenham but they (like the rest of the team) have not produced. it was the same under big sam but it is the manager that gets the sack. the players, incompetent chairmen and directors are the problem. also the fans do not help with their over-optimistic expectations. newcastle 9/2 to get relegated but i think they will survive.

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posted Mar 18, 2008

bad decisions Owen scored a great hat trick against the smoggies. Only the red knows why he dissallowed the first two.
Martins also had been called off side when his only fault was to be genuinely fast

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posted Mar 18, 2008

obviously we will miss given (any team would) but harper is quality and has done really well for us this season - he was sublime at the start of the season, being dropped for no real reason

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posted Mar 18, 2008

"The question to ask is would the people on here saying 'BSA should have had time / he'd have got more points than Keegan etc. want him managing their clubs if they were totally truthful. I suspect not......the Liverpool / Man Utd / Chelsea fans think we Toon fans should have stuck by him, but would be horified if he was to be appointed their manager."

See, but realistically, Liverpool/Man U/Arsenal/Chelsea have not, in recent times, nor are likely to be in the near future, mired in 13th place or so, with an atrocious defence, no stability whatsoever, no semblance of long term planning on or off the pitch, having sacked the only manager in recent times who was actually doing a decent job (Robson) and being just about the only club in English football where a player (Shearer) has more power and calls more shots withing the club than the managers do.

That isn't a good situation.

If Liverpool were left like that, then in all honest, despite the fact that I really dislike Fat Sam for totally disrespectful comments towards Rafa, I would accept that he's an ideal candidate for the Job.

Someone like Moyes would also be superb, indeed Rafa would do an amazing job if he could be tempted North.

Point being that if yuo want someone to do the job properly, you are almost certainly going to have to accept at least 2 transitional stages:

Stage 1:

Stop gap measures, no apparent progress on the pitch, but stuff behind the scenes you won't even know of for at least a season.

At Liverpool, this was players like Pellegrino and Nunez, who were not good enough on the pitch, but could do a job tactically, and in Pellegrino's case taught zonal marking to Carra and Hyppia.

Most likely your style of play will be seen as dour and defensive, but you should be getting increasingly hard to beat.

Stage 2:

Slow transition where stage 1 players and tactics are gradually replaced by something closer to what the manager wants.

At Liverpool, this is players like Torres and Mash.

At Everton, Arteta and Yakubu.

At Bolton, Anelka, Diouf.

Sam, in his defence, never had the resources to really properly get past stage two, but I don't think he would have stuck to his style of play forever, given greater resources.

Bolton had a LOT more skill than they were ever given credit for, especially in the last couple of years.

It seems to me that the big problem at Newcastle is you want managers who can get to stage 3 without passing through 1 and 2 first.

Unless you are owned by Abramovich, this does not happen, not to Man U, not to Liverpool, not to Bolton (note Sam was hated in his first 6 months - year there also).


It seems to me that there are large sections of the club, sadly the owners in particular, who just don't want to hear talk of 'rebuilding' and '5 year plans', so instead try and hire another quick fix manager.

Listen, I don't even blame you fans, we all want instant success, and as Liverpool fan I can tell you that there are some people out there for whom even a CL win and an FA cup win is considered somehow unacceptable - apparently these people actually live in the real world too - but that's where it takes strong ownership.

This is where I can now truly sympathise as a Liverpool fan. At least Ashley's heart's in the right place and he should learn from this.

How I long for the days when I could laugh at Shephard and Hall from a position of security, only for my beloved club to hire a pair of muppets who very nearly sacked a CL,FA, UEFA and La Liga winning manager for a home world cup semi finalist with no experience of club management on the basis of his ability to talk a good game to his fellow countrymen.

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posted Mar 18, 2008

Hear what you're saying 'Lucky Balls' but it doesn't always work like that. Chelsea fielded a weaker team against Barnsley and still should have won by a country mile, fact is none of them for whatever reason turned up to play.

Liverpool have also paid the price for their rotation system with some very dissappointing results.

The problem for managers with large squads of star players is continuity of the team's playing style and the ego's of the players who hate being rotated.

Having said thus what would Kevin Keegan give for a problem like that!

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posted Mar 20, 2008

'danmcfc4life' You clearly don't know what you're talking about, Harper is good but Given is considerably better, easily one of the best in the premiership

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