It was reasonable for a while in 80s with Roeder and Peter Jackson, but quickly went to **** when that Clown Andy Thorne joined. Last 80s/early 90s it was horrendous under Jim Smith and Ardiles. Keegan's original partnership of Howey and Scott wasn't the best, but was helped by great attackers, later his Prem defence of Albert and Peacock was too attacking. Marcelino and Goma under Guillett was the absolute worst... Dabizas, O Brien and Bramble under Robson wasn't great, and Woodgate doesn't count cos he was always injured. Fat Sam tried to sort out the defence, and failed spectacularly with a bunch of clowns in Cacapa, Rozenhal and Fate. Under Pardew Coloccini started great but went to ****, and S Taylor was always dogshit. Really the only other time defence has been decent is under Rafa with Schar, Feds, Clark and Laecelles, and still that is nowhere near as good as the current defence. So yeah, our best defence ever I'd say.
Trippier is our best right back ever. Botman looks like he’ll be our best ever CB. Pope is arguably the best keeper we’ve had, only Given really pushes him. If over 50% of the defence is the best we’ve had, then stands to reason this is the best overall we’ve had. Not that the bar has ever been set very high mind.
Luck doesn't really come into it; yes we could have got Emery, Howe's been amazing, but at the time, Emery would have been a coup for us in the position we were in. Howe and the owners would have never been stupid enough to sign Ali and Van Der Beak though, they were both washed up knackers who had done nothing for the last 2 years. The signings we made were all careful and planned, we left it to Everton and Lampard to sign the unwanted cast offs from others.
Just did I search and got this list of our top 10 right backs: https://www.themag.co.uk/2021/07/top-10-newcastle-united-right-back/ If Aaron Hughes and Warren Barton are in our top 3 right backs of all time, then Trippier easily wins. As for Pope, hmmmm probably. I always found Given overrated, he always had a crap defence in front of him to make him look like a hero facing countless shots, also the fact his career rapidly fizzled out when he left us shows he wasn't the superstar he thought he was. Pavel was popular but never outstanding, Hooper was a nightmare, Hislop was erratic and error prone, Harper was permanently on the bench, Krul was patchy and overrated, Darlow was very average, Sels was crap, and Dubravka decent but also error prone. Pope looks significantly ahead of all of them right now.
Has anyone got the Newcastle Best Premier League XI DVD? Lee Ryder sits down with Bob Moncur and John Anderson and they pick our best Prem IX, with a choice out of 3 players for each position. Central defence partnership they come up with is Coloccini and Woodgate. That's previously our best ever in the Prem. Seriously. The erratic Colo who constantly wanted to **** off back to Argentina, and Woodgate who was never ****ing there. Botman and Schar kick those 2 clowns into next week.
Literally the only thing Sol Campbell did when he was here was whine like a bitch when Houghton was sacked. Still makes him better than Marcelino, Boumsong, Cacapa and Rozenhal though.
Lol, there's a name from the dark period! Always pretty second rate tbh - behind an ancient John Burridge to start with, then quickly knocked out the team by Pavel.
John Burridge was keeper the first match I went to. He was like 40 when he was playing for us, no seriously.... but still miles better than all the dogshit playing in front of him. And that's more of a statement about how terrible the rest of the team was, rather than Burridge being great... anyone remember Wayne Fereday, Gary Brazil, Mark Stimson, Ray Ranson, Kevin Dillon etc?
