Best Midfield Partnership?!

As a partnership it could be argued we have the best midfield, on paper it's a different story though.

 

I have no idea what that means.

 

On paper they may not appear to be as good as say Parker and Modric, but as a partnership on the field it can be argued they could be the best pairing outside the top 4.

 

Ahh right.

I agree. Mind you, I think the 'on paper' debate is subjective. For example, I consider Tiote better than Parker, and Cabaye and Ben Arfa aren't that far behind Modric.

 

Problem with the Parker/Tiote debate is Parker is far too overrated as a player. He's an average CM who's done well in a **** team for the past year. Now that he's at Spurs people will rate him even more highly which is just ridiculous. Ben Arfa and Cabaye are potentially better than Modric if they live up to it.

 

If you listened to Ginola a lot you'd think that Ben Arfa will become the Premier League's version of Messi.

 

I saw that on Goals on Sunday, he seems to rate Cabaye to.

 

Doesn't Messi actually play matches though? Ben Arfa doesn't seem to have to to be rated as one of the best players in the Premier League.

 

As far as CM partnerships go I'll admit you do have one of the finest in the league.

There's not a lot of goals in there (so far) but definitely not a CM most teams look forward to playing against.

The problem is when Newcastle have to play against teams that operate well with width. For instants, I'm not predicting anything here but I'd say Ashley Young and Nani wouldn't be caused too many problems by your CM partnership.

I've said it before, Tiote can effectively make playing down the middle for the opposition null and void when he completely bosses the game. He fears no opponent and can get the ball off any player in this league now Scholes has retired.

I fear for Newcastle because they have a top, top player there and I can only suggest it will be so long before his head is turned by the brighter lights of one of the London/Manchester sides. I hope he stays loyal to you guys because he can really be your linchpin for years to come (at least 5 more with that long contract) and you can, if Mr Ashley stops messing around get back to playing the kind of football you guys love so much.

 

Cabaye just needs one goal to get himself started I reckon. I presume you've seen some of the shots he made against the likes of Given during the Villa game. They were lethal pinpoint blasts and it's only a matter of time before a few of those fly in if he keeps that sort of thing up. In fact, I'd say Cabaye could have had one or two goals in that match if it wasn't for Given being such a superb keeper.

In Lille during the 09-10 season, Cabaye got himself 13 goals in 32 apps, which is almost as many goals as some of the strikers got who we were targeting in the summer window. I'd presume he was playing slightly further forward that season, but luckily, having a partner like Tiote allows him to do just that here as well.

Not sure if many CM partnerships could cause those two problems to be honest!

Against Man Utd I'd hope that we have Marveaux and Jonas on the wings, because they're the two best wingers we have for tracking back, helping out the midfield/defence and keeping Young and Nani as quiet as possible.

Tiote has stated numerous times that he loves it up here and actually wouldn't want to live in one of the huge cities like London because he finds it too busy, believe it or not. I think Tiote is one of the rare footballers who is very modest and down to earth. He appreciates his roots and loves his football.

I know anything can happen in this game, but if there was anyone I'd expect to stay loyal in our squad, based purely on the type of bloke he seems to be, then I'd say it would be Tiote.