182 thoughts on “Taking the Positives – Alternative to FFP

  1. Prem 🙂 Just to be clear, Krul’s reputation has been that he is a good shot stopper and he wasn’t last year. His distribution has always been poor. Hopefully the new goalkeeping coach will renew his confidence.

    There were a lot of times when he was letting shots go through him, under him and by him that I don’t remember happening in the past. There was that one free kick that was angled in, missed everybody and Krul watched it go by him.

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  2. I know that at the moment we look like playing Anita Colback Sissoko gini & aarons in MF. But id love to see Sissoko & Gini in the B2B roles with 3 real attackers.

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  3. Sharpy: I think Krul is mid-level PL but wasn’t last year. Hopefully he will return to form and his distribution will improve. Even though I am singling out Krul here that is just because I saw the ESPN article. There is enough blame to go around for last season.

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  4. On Cabella ever doing something… Being able to do a couple of stepovers with no-one within 5 yards means nothing. I don’t see it myself and I don’t think he is anywhere near the ability of HBA. I’m gonna make a prediction now that he will be gone by next summer due to lack of playing time, I will gladly be proven wrong… When we signed him he was supposed to be on the fringes of the France team. 😯

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  5. Eric – it’s a clean slate for me this season. A new coach a new start for them all. I have to, coz if I hold onto last season I think I would have permanent heartburn mate 😆

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  6. Prem – the best football we have played recently was under Pardew with that 5th place finish. That saw us line up with a 3 man midfield of Cabaye/Tiote/Jonas – which I thought worked really well.
    I would love to see if Sissoko/Gini/Colback could forge a similar trio.

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  7. Prem – I don’t think it’s unreasonable, but the reality is that Pardew achieved that thanks to an unbeaten Nov. I think we would need to perform a lot better over the course of a full season to achieve 52pts mate.

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  8. Sharpy17
    The away game at West Brom in that season when Pardew had the 433 formation for about 5 games, is the best I’ve seen us play since relegation. Much of the last 5 years has been pretty poor with the odd piece of individual brilliance. This is why McClaren has a big opportunity in my opinion. He doesn’t have to even do that well to be classed as successful, or at least buy himself time. Sorting corners / defence / build up play etc. is all he needs to do to be better than Pardew & Carver. Oh course we know what club is like for expectations going through the roof through. 😛

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  9. Well if Cabella isn’t better than Obertan then he should take early retirement!

    He’s obviously got ability, he was in the French squad last year and went to the WC.

    For me, he needed a year to get use to the physicality of the PL. Many players needed at least a year. I remember Man Utd fans and pundits saying Ronaldo ‘Only did step overs’ and he turned out ok I suppose.

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  10. DJG – playing 3 in there could give us a bit more steel about our formation and all 3 players are box 2 box so should have no worries get forward in attack & back when needed to defend. I would predominantly look to have Sissoko & Gini getting forward with Colback just sitting deeper. Janmaat & Haidara would get forward with either Perez or Aarons playing the left attacking channel – but the right side would be the problem for me at the moment. Maybe Cabella could work on the right side of that set up, but not sure he’s ready yet.

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  11. DJG @ 155 – completely agree. Don’t think he has the intelligence at this level to make decisive decisions. Don’t think he has the heart either.

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  12. Newcastle boss Steve McClaren has revealed that he’s still “on the lookout” for defensive reinforcements this summer ahead of the start of the Premier League season, as reported by the Shields Gazette.
    After improving his options in the final third of the pitch with the additions of both Aleksandar Mitrovic from Anderlecht and Georginio Wijnaldum from PSV Eindhoven, McClaren is now looking to plug the gaps in his back-line following the club’s struggles in the league last term.
    The former England boss has already added a new face in that area in centre-back Chancel Mbemba, also formerly of Anderlecht, but evidently from his comments, he still wants to add more quality, hoping to put to bed the defensive uncertainty that plagued Tyneside last season.

    Speaking about the transfer plans regarding his back-line, McClaren said: “We’re always on the lookout – we’re always open to that. We’ve got the personnel, but we’re always searching for better. It’s one big area we’re looking at. We know you can’t win anything with a bad defence. That’s one thing we’re trying to address.”

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  13. Somebody said to me that we should focus on NUFC and not the opposition. Well, I am ignoring that 🙂 Southampton have lost 8 of their best players in 2 years and were less than mediocre after the turn of the year. This was demonstrated by Pelle only scoring 3 times. They also have as many new players as us. The attached season preview from The Guardian shows where they stand. They are by no means the formidable opposition that people fear they are:

    http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/aug/04/southampton-premier-league-preview-2015-16

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  14. I think we will see a totally different Cabella this season S Mclaren wants us playing football not hoofball and That Will get Cabella more into games and he Will be able too use his speed and skills .He does not have the physical attributes too play games the way that Pardew and Carver had the team playing ,

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  15. You all know this 34 mil spent so far is a drop in the bucket right. We were/are already massively profitable with a lot of contracts dropping off next year even if we can’t sell all the players we want to. Revenue is GUARANTEED to go up from TV money alone next year by about 40 million. We can easily afford another 30 mil in purchases, plus their wages.

    Stop pissing around with Austin or any of these French or Dutch players and stump up the extra million or so.

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  16. ERIC SYKES
    we aint even made a bid for austin 😯 like i said weeks ago hes just a smoke screen 😆

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  17. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< dos not see any other teams rushing in there with 15 million for austin 😆

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  18. I noticed McClaren said were always looking for better players. Well if Carr can’t find any better than Williamson he should be given his P45.

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  19. In the scheme of things we have bought a half an Angel di Maria. The 14,000 at the open day deserve a bit more.

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  20. Just listened to McClarens talksport phone in. Thought he was very good again & very honest. Having had Pardews bollocks in the past, it was good to hear Mc saying that the squad needs a lot of work don’t with it, both players & formations and work rate/discipline of forwards & midfield players. The defence takes a slating (and rightly so) but the number of times I saw the scoring player run past one of our midfield players who didn’t bother tracking back, done my head in.
    This is a work in progress, and there’s lots still to do.

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  21. Sharpy – He was genuinely not thinking we could finish top 8 either. That says something.

    But he mentioned defenders he rated like Dummet, Colo, Janmaat but missed out Williamson, Hadaira and Taylor…

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  22. Stu – it does say something, it’s says 2 things to me. McClaren is being honest, and it shows that he respects the fans enough to not try and bullshit us.
    I think the wasted transfer windows in the past have left us with a lot of work to do, and carrying a lot of dead wood players. The 3 we’ve brought in are good quality, but they aren’t enough to rocket us that far up the league. The coaches we’ve brought in are very good, but if they don’t have the players, then there is only so much improvement can be done.
    We all know that, so if McClaren said anything different it would be bullshit! – something we got plenty of from Pardew.
    I think what we have now is capable of 11-12th spot – which is improvement and something to build on, especially if we can keep recruiting quality players.

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