Article: A little less than a year ago... | Football, Newcastle

We've strengthened in midfield, strengthened in defense slightly, GK is still solid if not better since Krul proved himself.

To be quite honest, if we buy another quality striker to replace Carroll properly, we'll have strengthened up front all so.

Back at the start of the season, our two highest rated strikers were Carroll and Shola. We've discovered Leon Best has the ability to score goals at this level, we've bought Ba who looks promising, and if we just buy a good striker to replace Carroll, we'll have a new striker, Ba and Best as our top 3 strikers, where as last season our top 3 were Carroll, Shola and Lover.

Our top 3 strikers used to be a fantastic Center Forward and two very average strikers, now it could be 3 good ones. So we haven't got a striker at the same level as Carroll, but we'll have a larger number of good strikers if we buy another one.

If we just buy another quality striker we'll have improved in every area IMO. At the start of last season we were relying on Carroll to get all our goals, or Nolan to pop up at any random time. Now we have a larger selection that we know can score a decent amount.

 

It goes to show that if we can hammer a mid-table side with our previous team then we shouldn't be worried at all about this season. That said, team spirit counts for so much. We'll have to see.