John Carew's ball to pass by the Earth

Yeah, I think thats the one which is on the website - why not Colo or Taylor. Why friggin Perch??

 

It's shocking that all four of those ****e Newcastle players were anywhere near our first team last season. The fact that all four of them are on the pitch at the same time makes me wonder how we weren't relegated.

 

In fairness, Nolan banged them in last year and Willo was pretty good for a lot of the year.

Would be gutted if they were our first choice players this year though lol

 

Watching Cabaye and Saylor on form makes you realise that they were actually quite poor players.

Nolan could score goals, yes, but that's not the point of a CM. When you look at his actual CM play, it was a bit ****. Slow, inaccurate and uncreative.

Williamson was just a hoof defender. The times he did manage to defend and get the ball, he just blindly hoofed it back up the pitch, and often right to the feet of an opposing player, thus inviting yet another attack.

Replacing these two positions has transformed our team, even whilst losing the creative and influential Barton and replacing him with a winger who isn't as good (Obertan). It just goes to show the gulf in class.

Honestly, I'd put Guthrie well ahead of Nolan now as back-up based on his last few performances, so our first-choice CM of last season is now our 3rd choice of this season. Says it all.

 

Well Nolan scored 12 goals that season, Routledge and Perch were dropped after not very long and Williamson was and still is a solid defender.

 

Why the hell are people basing the quality of a CM on how many goals he's scored? It's ridiculous.

As for the others:

Routledge - 17 apps last season
Perch - 13 apps last season
Williamson - The man is not a solid defender. He's OK at best. Getting the ball and hoofing it blindly is not what a good CB does. Acceptable back-up, but that's it.

 

Agree with you, although I do thank Nolan for his service for us. He was amazing over 2 years.

Willo is a good cover centre back for me and if we get Ridgewell in, we have some good centre backs.

Cabaye is without doubt so much better than Nolan - has pace, creativity and can score goals

 

Nolan did the job, but he was the worst possible choice for our midfield next to Tiote tbh. Tiote is a defensive midfielder type who works hard and handles the many physical elements. To partner him, you MUST have a creative and influential CM who can act as the engine of the team and dictate play. Nolan was never anywhere near that. Imo he was just a poor mans Tiote. Threw in some tackles, passed some balls and that's about it. No creativity, no playmaking, nout.

 

Maybe this is what Shearer prophesied about each time he scored?

 

Yeah, he was what we needed for our promotion season and what we needed to stay up, but now we are starting to be established again - I definetly agree with you

 

I didnt say that made him a good CM, you never asked that. 12 goals helped us though.
Routledge wasnt a regular, once Barton took his place he just got sub apps.
Perch started about 8 games then Simpson played when back from injury, Perch covered a couple of injuries and played cup games.
Williamson did a good job, people only talk about Saylor's quality when he's "on form", and when Williamson is on form as well he isnt far short of Taylor.

 

Routledge and Perch had 17 and 13 apps respectively. For simplicities sake, let's combine the two into one. Those 17 games offered up 51 potential points, with players like Perch and Routledge playing a mixture of full games, lengthy sub apps and short sub apps. When you add in Nolan's poor CM play, and Williamson's average CB play, I do honestly wonder how we weren't struggling a lot more.

And Williamson is nowhere near Saylor in-terms of ability. Saylor makes far more clearances, far more successful tackles, far more blocks, and when he gets the ball, he plays it out intelligently instead of hoofing it to another opposition player. He's an all-round much better defender than Williamson, with a lot more potential, and he's played an integral part in the superb defence of this season.

 

We were a difficult team to play. Barton, Carroll and Nolan were awful to play against and as such, Nolan's poor CM play was covered by a mixture of Tiote and goals. Perch was ****e, as was Routledge but we still won some games with them and saw that they were poor and replaced them. Had they played a more regular starting roles I agree we'd have struggled.

Taylor's a better player but football is stupidly fickle, if Williamson played a couple of good games we'd be talking him right up again, just look at the polls from a few months ago where the roles were reversed and Taylor was **** in a lot of people's eyes. He's not that far off Taylor, but because we're playing well Taylor get's loads of praise (rightly so) and the only reason people can think of for our defence improving is that Williamson must be ****e, which is just wrong. He had a spell of poor form last year but so does nearly every player, he's perfectly able as a PL centre back and Taylor's good form shouldnt take away from that.

 

That's why I'm so confused. It's also why it doesn't seem so strange that we're doing so well this season. We won games last season with a starting XI which was much poorer compared to this season. If we won games with THAT XI, think of what we could do with the one we have this season.

I don't think Saylor has "found form", per se. I just think he's finally reached his potential. Form is temporary, class is permanent, and I think we're seeing what Steven Taylor is consistently capable of. He's been hampered an awful lot by injuries and not enough appearances over the past few seasons as he's got older, but now we're seeing the player Saylor was expected to be.

 

I thought our starting XI was quite good last season which is why I was confused by the press saying we would be relegated. We clearly replaced each player adequately, and in Nolan's case we upgraded considerably. Last season was one of the tightest league tables ever though, you could jump 5 positions on any given match day, crazy.

I certainly hope he has reached his potential, part of me still wonder's whether he's just in form though and it could end any minute. Either way, Pardew's defensive work is clearly paying dividends. If Saylor can manage this season injury free and remain on current form, I think it's just a matter of time before England come calling.

 

May be a clever move to have him on the cover with the tops on, makes him feel more involved, helps with the overall morale...

 

The problem is that Saylor might seem like he's been around forever, but he had his first senior app at a very young age (only 17 I think). So whilst he's been with us since 2003, he's still only 25, and when you're in a position which often requires a lot of knowledge and experience of 'tricks of the trade', many players don't reach their peak until around the age Saylor is at now (unless you're some kind of Phil Jones-esque prodigy).

Plus, when you divide his 136 Premier League apps by 8 years (soon to be 9), he's only played, on average, 17 games a season. So he hasn't had as much top flight experience, or as many consistent runs of games, as one might expect when you think of how long he's been around. It all contributes towards possibly hampering the development of a very good defender.

 

Knew there must be a reason haha

 

But still...

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<shudder>

 

If there was one player you wouldn't want to model the tops - it would be Perch.

Well Ranger, but ya no...