When did anyone last benefit from a ManU reject?

Do you know a Mr Tiote?

 

You see all the teams coming up from the Championship and competing, so no they are not. The top of the prem might be, but even for us it is a mile away.

 

West Ham finished comfortably bottom last season and have lost most of their squad. The fact they're still joint top sums the division up, it's for the large part - awful.

Nonsense. I'd love to have a team where none of them I disliked. Infact, we're fairly close to that right now. Smith is just about the only one still here that falls into that category.

Smith is the biggest waste of money and wages we've ever had relative to return on the pitch. He's also a coward who throws himself into challenges and hides from the ball. Genuine leaders on a football pitch are not afraid of possession, he is faux-passionate. He deserves nothing but utter contempt.

 

Proper Midfield, Smith, Jonas, Nolan played the majority of games. A lot of our success was due the fact that we set ourselves a playing system that played to the strengths of the players we had at our disposal. WBA and Forest played well and challenged us most of the season.

Whilst i'll admit that the Premiership has better players, the vast majority of squad players in the premiership would still find in difficult in the Championship. Don't display the usual arrogance displayed by a lot of supporters of Premiership clubs.

 

Also, it's such a different league, the rough & tumble compared to the silk of the prem can really **** teams up

 

I don't know how you can say the Championship is significantly easier than the Premiership. The Championship's like playing football in the past, lots of focus on physicality and tough tackling. Also the fact there are 46 games certainly doesn't make it any easier!

 

What did you expect from Smith? You can't convert a striker into a holding midfielder and expect good results. As for the coward part, may i remind you of that block against Riise's shot. Pretty ballsy jumping in there considering how hard the guy can whack a ball.

 

Never the same since imo.

 

We played with our best centre mid on the right wing because we had nobody to play there, and had a 34 year old who was completely gone by that point alongside a converted striker masquerading as a defensive midfielder. Nolan played a part of the season as a second striker but more as a central midfielder.

Our midfield was imbalanced, dysfunctional and inneffective for the first half of the season. We essentially ignored it or trying to actually play through it and got by due to the sheer ineptness of the opposition and their lack of quality throughout their XI players on the pitch. Our away performances, and a number of the home ones up until January were pretty terrible.

The idea that Smith was an influential figure in getting us up is overplayed and largely a myth, dropping him from the side was the making of the team in the second half of the season.

 

... we still won the league.

 

He was even worse further up the pitch. Even if injuries curtailed his career, I don't care, I'm going to objectively judge the multi-millionaire on his performances for us and they've almost entirely awful and gutless.

 

Wow, there are bad newcastle fans. You give the toon a bad name, ya negative swine. The reason you got promoted was because you had a stable and solid side, that benefited from experienced players, such as Smith. Look at Middlesborough, they lacked solidity, and therefore didn't come back up, proving my point that the championship is a bloody difficult league to get promoted from.

 

I have to say, without pitching in much myself, I agree with you 100%.

 

Middlesbrough didn't come up because they had worse players.

It's not a hard league. I used to always think it was - but seeing the quality, pace, physique on show first hand over a 46 game season convinced me of how poor it is.

I give Newcastle fans a bad name because I'm calling things as I see it? What a daft thing to say.

 

What ever happened to players like Arca? Easily Prem class in their time.

 

They got old.

 

Henry got old

 

Yes, but he's a striker, he doesn't have to track back, or run around aimlessly. Plus he adapted his game, much like Begkamp did when he started getting old. Swapped from pace to brainpower.

 

We benefited from having better players, not more 'experienced' players. We had a number who were far too good for the division (Colo, Enrique, Jonas, Nolan, Taylor, Carroll second half of the season) and then a whole load more who at the very worst were high end Championship players (Guthrie, Williamson, Routledge, Simpson, Harper, Lovenkrands, Shola, Carroll in the first half).

I don't think Smith fell into either category. I don't enjoy seeing him get praise when we were a considerably better side once he was out of the team.

 

Aye, wasn't being serious. You know if they're doing anything about the statue?