Sell, sell, sell! Buy, buy, buy!

Newcastle United are looking like they want to secure Premier League survival the hard way as they make what should have been a relatively easy task look immensely difficult.

Now we all know that injuries are ripping apart what is a frail squad. Many people have said all season long that if we suffer an injury here or there then we are screwed. It's looking that way at the moment as injuries to certain players like Joey Barton seem to be hitting us harder than ever and exposing areas of our squad in which we are woefully short.

This is not a novel suggestion and, as pointed out above, is something that many people have said throughout the season. It was nailed on that we would get a heavy bout of injuries at some point during the season as it's what Newcastle seem to do, so it was nailed on that we would have to involve some of our squad players at some stage. It is a squad game after all...

I seem to read a lot of comments that say something along the lines of 'player x isn't good enough, sell him' or 'player x should be nowhere near the first team' or comments along those lines. I've been guilty if it myself, especially with Ryan Taylor.

Did we really expect anything different though? I mean we have just returned to the Premier League this season, so is it not a bit extreme to be suggesting that we should have a team of polished players that can make an impact in another players absence? Put simply, some of our player are Championship standard, but this should come as no surprise as we have just come from, well you know where......

This is why this summer is vitally important to the club, and why the transfer activity that we conduct could be the making of us, or indeed the breaking of us.

I know there will be a clamour for a top name at some point. People may deny it, but at some point there will be a player linked that will prick the ears of many fans and will become someone that we should buy. I'm not saying that would be a bad thing but if you look at the situation that we find ourselves in now, would spending a fair bit of cash on one player be the right thing to do? What would happen if said player got injured? We would be back to scrabbling around in our reserve squad and hoping that they can 'do a job' until the more expensive (and hopefully better) player comes back into the team.

The summer transfer window should be used to make the squad better. In my view that would make more sense than just splashing cash on one player and putting all of you eggs in one basket. Don't get me wrong, I'd love the sort of quality that one of those expensive players could bring, but to me the rebuilding process is going to take a bit of time and won't happen overnight.

This summer we should be moving a couple of players on, and should be replacing them with better models. Doing that would make the squad stronger and would ensure that we don't find ourselves in the situation we find ourselves in at the moment. It would ensure that we have adequate cover for when injuries inevitably happen again.

In my view anyway... but then again we need to make sure we're in the Premier League again next season first!