Grem1983......Obertan is a better player than either Nolan or Routledge, he is a far more naturally gifted winger. I've watched him alot and he will certainly bring improvement to the Newcastle side. I though Joey Barton was a big player for you last season, arguably your most influential, i just think you may struggle without him, there's not much of a gap between the standard of a mid table premier league side, to a side that finishes 18th, it only takes a few key losses and your down to that level. For what it's worth, looking at things as a neutral I wouldn't want you guys relegated, but it certainly wouldn't suprise me if you did finish in the bottom 3
I hope Pards can get something out of him. He's young and I really do think he just lacks confidence. There's a lot of pressure stepping up to play for Man Utd, especially when everyone was wondering who the hell he was when SAF signed him. Plenty of frenchies in our squad now though, so hopefully he will slot right in. I find his pace ridiculously fast. I saw him chasing down an opposing player in a Man Utd match I watched a while back and it was like he wasn't human.
You really need to watch NUFC more closely to see the potential there. I presume this is also why a lot of journo's have us tipped for trouble. The squad has huge quality in the likes of Krul, Coloccini, Enrique, Barton, Cabaye, Tiote, Ben Arfa and Ba. In fact, I don't think any of them would look out of place in a top 6 side. There are also good players in Jonas, Marveaux, Steven Taylor, Simpson, Gosling, Vuckic, Abeid and others (possibly Obertan). We're stronger now than we were last season. Carroll was with us for under half a season, and Nolan, despite his goals, isn't much of a centre midfielder (he was our weak link), but we still managed to finish comfortably. With Cabaye now in to run the midfield along with Tiote, and new signings to fill the goal void, I'm tipping us to do quite a bit better than many people think. A bit like last season, really.
Chappaz.....Fair enough if you feel that way, if you believe you have that many "top 6" players as you claim then you should be well in the top half of the table, I don't see things that way, I feel you guys will finish no better than 12th, I feel sides like Everton, Villa, Sunderland, Fulham and Stoke have stronger squads. I feel Newcastles squad is similar to Bolton, Blackburn and West Brom. So for me it wouldn't take alot for Newcastle to slip down into a relegation battle, just my opinion though. Like I've already said I wouldn't want Newcastle relegated, the top flight needs proper footballing city's like Newcastle represented, so I hope you guys have a good season
We do have a spine of top quality players. In fact, I think we're unlike any other EPL team in that respect who is below the top 6. Coloccini, Barton, Enrique, Tiote, Ben Arfa and co would be strong signings for any top 6 club. There's three reasons why we don't really get the results these top class players represent: 1). It's only half the squad. The other half are good, but not great. Players like Simpson, Jonas and perhaps even Taylor are the first players we would have to replace if we wanted to climb higher up the table. 2). Strikers. Apart from Ba, everyone else is honestly ****e. No matter how strong our defence and midfield is, we rarely ever have much of a goal threat. Hopefully that will change this season. 3). Depth. Our starting 11 is strong, but as soon as any of them are injured, they're replaced with lower quality players, in some cases much lower quality. In the world of almost inevitable injuries, that's a problem. We were set to finish 9th last year by half time of the last game of the season with a 3-0 lead over West Brom. Something royally ****ed up though, and we gave away that lead, otherwise we would have been ahead of Sunderland and Villa. It was bloody close, and that was with a bit of a naff starting 11 which we had throughout a lot of the second half of the season. Most of it involved an Ameobi/Lovenkrands partnership, which is arguably the worst one in the entire league. If only we had some decent strikers... Not too sure squad-wise, but staring 11 wise it's up there quite high. Definitely much better than Bolton, Blackburn and West Brom, take it from me. I think Newcastle will surprise a lot of people this season (yet again). People just fall into the media hype, see that Carroll and Nolan are gone and think we're doomed. In reality, Carroll was only with us for one half of the season and didn't make much of an impact on the final results, and Nolan was a weak link in our CM play. We're much stronger now as a team.
