Personally, I'd take Brown and O'Shea in replacement of our fullbacks, and Sessegnon to go on the wing. ----------------Krul--------------- Brown --- Saylor --- Colo --- O'Shea Sess --- Cabaye --- Tiote --- Jonas ----------------HBA--------------- -----------------Ba--------------- Brown and O'Shea's ability and experience would work very well with Saylor and Colo, and Sessegnon would obviously do much better than Obertan, as he's probably Sunderland's best player. Would be a very strong side.
Neither Brown or O'Shea are full backs, and you're forgetting about Santon! Would be very nice to get Simpson out of the side mind....
Replace Krul with Gordon .........Saylor with Bardsley ..........Jonas with Vaughn ........Cabaye with Larsson and HBA and Ba with Bendtner and Wickham..................and it would be even stronger
hmm no its not, its 1 goal in every 2.62 games actually. yes he did set the world alight in the Belgium 3rd division and a club that has gone bust now, but you cant really count them surely. so yes, he is useless.
I'll have to disagree with you massively on that one fella. Gordon is no good because he's always knackered, and when he comes back he knackers himself again. Bardsley is a good player I'll give you that, but he doesn't have much around him apart from Wes Brown. I don't know enough about Vaughan to make a judgement on that one. Cabaye and Larsson are both good players, but you won't find many people praising Larsson as highly as Cabaye, apart from Sunderland fans. You'd have to wearing enourmous tinted spectacles to think Cabaye isn't any good. You can't compare HBA with Bendtner because he isn't a striker. Let's compare him with Gardner, who I would say isn't quite as good. Ba and Wickham? Ba has scored 5 goals this season and cost us nowt. Wickham will come good eventually and he's only a bairn. I would've loved us to have bought him, but I'm not sure he's up to it just yet. Still, I guess you'll be hard pushed to find a Sunderland fan who thinks our players are better than theirs and vice versa, but the league table doesn't lie. I'm not saying we'll be there come May, but we've had a ****ing good start and surely the players listed above can take credit for that.
Surely you could count the Hoffenheim, who he helped to promotion to the Bundesliga and a 7th placed finish in their first season? What about West Ham. They got relegated obviously, but the fact remains that he 7 in 12 for them. Not a bad scoring record if you ask me. You're more than entitled to your opinion, but completely overlooking facts doesn't make for a very good argument.
Brown has played as a right back a lot, and O'Shea is very versatile. With their experience, I really don't think it matters where they're played down the back four. They'd both be better than Raylor and Simpson. I thought Blackcatsteve had the stupidest post I've EVER seen on this forum, but you've just taken that title by a country mile. You're such a moron I don't think you should be allowed to use the internet anymore. Just step away from the keyboard before you try to eat it. It's 1 goal in every 1.9 games you helmet. 79 goals, 155 apps. I guess maths isn't your strong point either. His current EPL goal record is 1 goal every 1.6 games, in both West Ham and Newcastle. If you think that's useless, then heaven help you son.
chappaz I thought Blackcatsteve had the stupidest post I've EVER seen on this forum, but you've just taken that title by a country mile. You're such a moron I don't think you should be allowed to use the internet anymore. Just step away from the keyboard before you try to eat it. Krul v Gordon.....Craig Gordon was, in the castrol rankings, SEVENTH best keeper in the WORLD, before he got injured. Saylor v Bardsley.....Phil Bardsley is streets ahead of Steven Taylor. Jonas v Vaughn....Jonas flatters to deceive. Vaughn was Blackpools player of the season, ahead of one, Charlie Adam. Cabaye v Larsson....close call, but Larsson has proven himself in the PL, wheras Cabaye hasn't...YET. HBA done nothing YET, Ba...well...just think he's another Shola. Bendtner, proven international, played out of position at Arsenal. Wickham...future England No9.
huh its 52 goals in 126 games, like i said, lots were for rouen in the Belgium 3rd division (like playing for Blyth Spartans i would imagine) and mouchen who hve now gone bust so i dont know what division they were in when he was there. For west ham he scored 5 in 2 games, and 2 in 10 for you he has 5 in 3 games and 0 in 5 stats can be deceiving, he tends to score in spurts, 3 in one game then 1/1, then nothing for 4-5 games, then back to 2 or 3 in 1 game. his goals for west ham got them all of 4 points i think, but will have to look that up again, but they got relegated. and my point was with cabaye, not that he will be affected by the cold physically or mentally, but his game might be, if there is a covering of snow/ice on the pitch, his game might go to **** just the way he plays, pretty sure messi would struggle at scunthorpe in the FA cup on a cold monday night. My point was though after all the name calling, even when you were 13 points above Man United and looked odds on to win the league, if someone had said I want their players, i would have replied "no, i want our own players to do what they are doing, I dont want to get their players". yes well done you are 4th on merit, i just dont think your players are all "that" good and its still early days for a lot of them, football is a funny old game and lots of **** can happen between now and May, when the going gets tough for you, thats when we will see if they have the bottle to yank you out of the mire.
Gordon ain't like that anymore. Krul, on the other hand, has been in epic form and quote possibly the best young keeper in the league this season. Saylor vs Bardsley - Saylor is much better than Bardsley, it's not even funny. There are reasons why we have the best defence in the league with two very average full backs, one of them reasons is Steven Taylor. Jonas vs Vaughan - Oh yeah, player of the year in that relegated team . There's a reason why barely any Blackpool players were bought up by EPL teams you know. Jonas has been an average winger, but this season he's doing very well and finally being very productive. Cabaye vs Larsson - Cabaye has proved himself over 10 games. He's pure class, and he's the engineroom of a side which is currently sitting 4th in the league. HBA - I've seen enough to know he's a class player. Ba - Better than 1 in 2 goalscoring record, even in the EPL Bendtner - He isn't even your player, so why are you comparing him? Wickham - Poor CC goalscoring record and he's done nout in the EPL so far. I have yet to see anything which shows that he's the future England number 9. Not a shred. He might end up being like that, but atm it's pure unfounded assumptions based on the fact that he looks decent 'for a young lad'.
I think the reason there is so much difference of opinion and "you must be joking" in this thread is because imo, both as a team and man for man, we are very evenly matched. This means that the slight bias we all have for our team means we would not take anyone from the other team because at the end of the day neither would likely be improved that much by taking anyone from the other team (except for "star" players, i.e. Newcastkle fans may admit to wanting Sess, we'd probably admit to wanting Tiote). In summary I probably wouldn't want anyone from Newcastle's team, and I wouldn't be suprised if Newcastle fans don't want anyone from ours. Do I win the thread?
I've openly said that I'd take your fullbacks and Sessegnon as a winger, but that's just because our CB pairing and our CM pairing are our strongest positions by a mile. The attack is, for now, more evenly matched, as we're both on 12 goals each.
a) bigjohnsafc = littlejohnnynufc b) TBH I have never had a sensible debate about who out of our squad would be good enough for the mags. Ben Arfa is good? Sure. Happy to agree. But he had 4 games or something before his injury and on the strength of those 4 games he was world class and better than anything we had. Cabaye is undoubtedly good. I have seen him a few times on TV and TBH he looks better than Ben Arfa to me. Tiote looked better last season than he does this. May have been Ramadan or just a bad run of form, but he hasn't seemed as good. Those are the three cast iron ones I'd take. Also Krul over Mig, but an on-form Gordon is just as good, if he ever gets back to fitness. Ba? No. I can hear his knees ticking from here. Sess and Bardo would be in my team and the rest you can argue about.
Aye I'm not pointing out anyone in particular, just saying imo the reason there's SO much disagreement in this thread is because the two teams are very evenly matched.. If I were to do a straight man for man comparison, trying to be completely unbiased... Gordon v Krul - As mentioned above Gordon was a top top keeper, but he has suffered alot with injury problems and we've no way of knowing if he'll ever regain his form. Krul is in very good form at the moment so gets the nod. Mig is still a bit raw imo. O'shea v Simpson - Goes without saying, I think? Brown v S Taylor - Brown has been immense all season. His experience and leadership have been invaluable. To be fair I've not seen much of Taylor. From what I have seen he has looked good this season, but not quite up to Brown's pedigree. Turner v Coloccini - Turner is a donkey. Coloccini is not. Bardo v R Taylor - Our player of the season last year. Has been unfortunate with suspensions this year, but I stil think he is defensively more sound than Taylor. If we're talking attacking fullback, Richo would get the nod, although Santon may prove to be a very good piece of business. Larsson v Obertan - Goes without saying I think? Marveaux could come good but noone's seen enough of him in the EPL to judge yet. Colback v Cabaye - I've been really impressed with Colback, but he's still young and a bit raw. Cabaye seems like a class act from what I've seen & heard. Vaughan v Tiote - It's Tiote . Sess v Guiterrez - Close one, Sess is our star player, but I have heard very good things from my magmates about Guiterrez this season, sounds like he's finally coming good? I haven't really seen enough to judge though whereas I have seen plenty of Sess and he's been quality every time, bar the Norwich match (which I happened to be present at ). Wickham v Ba - Wickham is still young and unproven, you can't argue with Ba's goalcoring record. Bendtner v Best - Bendtner has been one of our standout performers this season. Works hard, good first touch, good positioning, I think he's in for a big season. By contrast I've never really been too impressed by Best and neither have any of my mag mates. So that's 6-5 to Sunderland.. just. I've tried to be unbiased and I'm sure plenty will disagree with everything I've just said, but that was my point originally. In EVERY case, an argument could be made for the player which didn't get picked. I think we're very evenly matched. This season will be an exciting one for NE football imo. I just wish Bruce didn't **** around with our team so much at the start of the season... Oh well. P.S. Yes I know I haven't included Ben Arfa, but he's just returning from a long injury so noone knows if he will regain his top form.. From what i've heard he wasn't very impressive against Wigan?
I'd pretty much agree on all those points really, apart from Ba. Even watching him play you can see that he's a real threat, and he's bagged a lot of goals. I have yet to see any evidence that his knee is weak or causing him any problems. Yes he's failed medicals at Stoke and Stuttgart, but as far as I'm aware, he hasn't had a single injury problem since the start of 2007, when he fractured his leg. Apart from that, he's been injury-free for almost 5 years, so I wonder if this whole weak knee thing might have been overhyped slightly by the media. I do hope that comment doesn't come back to bite me right in the arse, but Ba has been knocked all over the shop this season, and so far he's always got up without any bother. As for Tiote, he seems back to his best now, AND with a seemingly much better disciplinary record. He seems to be watching his tackles now. He was poor for the first few games during ramadan, but now he's up and running. Was superb when we faced Spurs. The Amount of times he disposessed Parker was actually quite funny. Can't argue with anything else though. I'd have Bardsley over Raylor and I'd happily have Sessegnon on the wing instead of Obertan.
Depends who is being compared to who really, that's the thing. The winger example is a good one. Larsson is better than Obertan, but ultimately I'd rather have Sessegnon and Jonas on the wings, just on different sides (as per my original XI I posted). He was ok. Not so great against Blackburn in the Carling Cup. Not sure what we can expect of him though. Almost a year out with a broken leg, it can take some players months to get back their confidence. Just look at Aaron Ramsey.
Messy would not get into that Newcastle team at the moment!, they will challenge Man c for the title !, and win the f a cup, well that's what one of their supporters said before they lost to the mighty Blackburn!.
