The Toon Army thread

[CarterS]

Was great to see Mike Ashley in the home strip and enjoying himself, also hear that he shouted the house a beer at one of the pubs after wards, great PR strategy, isn't this bloke supposed to be a recluse ?

 

[CarterS]

Can't say I know a whole lot about Habib Beye, I can't say I watch the French League with any frequency, what's the verdit ?

Read a bit about him over at http://nufcblog.com/ but that website is just so positive and omtimistic that it's sickening!

 

[ShearMagic9]

Charles N'Zogbia pens a new 5 year contract

Newcastle midfielder Charles N'Zogbia has committed his future to the club by signing a new five-year contract.

The 21-year-old Frenchman, who was called into the France Under-21 squad earlier this week, has ended speculation over his future on Tyneside by putting pen to paper on a deal which will keep him at St James' Park until 2012.

N'Zogbia lost his way last season under Glenn Roeder after being repeatedly linked with a move to Arsenal, and a knee injury meant he played only a peripheral role as the campaign drew to a close.

However, he has played every minute of the new season under Sam Allardyce and has performed admirably as an emergency left-back as the Magpies have made an unbeaten start.

N'Zogbia told the club's official website, www.nufc.co.uk: "I am happy to sign my contract and I see my future with Newcastle United because it is a great club.

"I admit towards the end of last season I was not happy and I thought I might be leaving the club, but everything is different now with the new manager.

"I have always loved the city, the fans and the club and wanted to stay here. I'm delighted now that I'm playing and I'm really enjoying my football."

Newcastle fought a lengthy legal battle with N'Zogbia's home town club Le Havre after luring him to England as a teenager in September 2004, and have seen him blossom during the three years since.

He scored in the 3-1 opening-day victory at Bolton and then fired his side ahead in the 2-2 derby draw at Middlesbrough with a stunning long-range strike.

Story from Sporting Life.

 

[apollo_creed]

So what will the first choice defence/team look like in utopia?

Obviously assuming all are fit at the one time, is much of an ask (particuarly for Newcastle) but if you could ensure fitness for your best XI players, which would they be?

The most difficult is solving the first choice defence riddle. And what a welcome problem it is. After the days of Bramble, Boumsong, Carr, Babayaro and not much else. Now the numbers are large and the quality appears to be true.

The names - Cacapa, Rozehnal, Beye, Faye, Taylor, Enrique, Carr, N'Zogbia, Geremi.... and that's about it.

Geremi is a utility, can play right-back but as a back-up/not first choice. So he can easily be ruled out.

N'Zogbia is a handy player to have on the left side of defence but one would imagine this will eventually he changed. At present BSA probably wants to leave a hard to breach defence as is. When players start to come back and things start to change he'll probably move back up the field. Although a permanent role in this position isn't out of the question. He has some similar attributes to the likes of Evra and Clichy. A long way to go in any case.

Faye is more than likely a quality back-up. As the likes of Davies and Knight are/were for Villa, Ben-Haim and Alex for Chelsea. Every team needs strength in depth in most positions. I suspect BSA has said, take your nice $$$, bide your time, be patient, perform when it comes and who knows? Either way, he's not first choice to begin with.

Beye - I'm not sure about. If he can play on the right then a role in this position is possible. + with the numbers, BSA will rotate his defenders when necessary.

Enrique - Taylor/Cacapa - Rozehnal - Taylor/Cacapa

This look about right?

The main question is. Who is first choice on the right?

And is Enrique a long-term proposition only looked upon as back-up right at the moment?

 

[ShearMagic9]

TBH I think our first choice defence would be:

Beye/Taylor -- Cacapa -- Rozehnal -- Enrique/N'Zogbia

Enrique is a long term proposition, but he'll play a fair bit this year, N'Zogbia would preferably get pushed further up the field, but tbh I don't think if we have a full strength squad he'd be considered first choice in the midfield (unfortunately).

If we can have our first choice defence as above though, that still leaves Taylor and Faye to come in as back-up, that would have to be one of the best backup partnerships in the league.

Beye has been signed mainly to play in the Right Back position, but he can also play in the centre.

Plenty of depth in the defence now.

 

[tribey]

So what will the first choice defence/team look like in utopia?

Obviously assuming all are fit at the one time, is much of an ask (particuarly for Newcastle) but if you could ensure fitness for your best XI players, which would they be?

The most difficult is solving the first choice defence riddle. And what a welcome problem it is. After the days of Bramble, Boumsong, Carr, Babayaro and not much else. Now the numbers are large and the quality appears to be true.

The names - Cacapa, Rozehnal, Beye, Faye, Taylor, Enrique, Carr, N'Zogbia, Geremi.... and that's about it.

Geremi is a utility, can play right-back but as a back-up/not first choice. So he can easily be ruled out.

N'Zogbia is a handy player to have on the left side of defence but one would imagine this will eventually he changed. At present BSA probably wants to leave a hard to breach defence as is. When players start to come back and things start to change he'll probably move back up the field. Although a permanent role in this position isn't out of the question. He has some similar attributes to the likes of Evra and Clichy. A long way to go in any case.

Faye is more than likely a quality back-up. As the likes of Davies and Knight are/were for Villa, Ben-Haim and Alex for Chelsea. Every team needs strength in depth in most positions. I suspect BSA has said, take your nice $$$, bide your time, be patient, perform when it comes and who knows? Either way, he's not first choice to begin with.

Beye - I'm not sure about. If he can play on the right then a role in this position is possible. + with the numbers, BSA will rotate his defenders when necessary.

Enrique - Taylor/Cacapa - Rozehnal - Taylor/Cacapa

This look about right?

Yeah fair call.

I reckon BSA would've figured:

Enrique - Taylor - Rozehnal - Beye

... before Cacapa came out of the gate like Makybe Diva with carrot contact lenses.

Now he's got a real dilemma on his hands (see below) which is fantastic.

The main question is. Who is first choice on the right?

Given how shit hot Cacapa has looked in his opening few games I reckon Taylor will start there until Beye starts knocking on the door. Carr, like Babayaro, is now a distant afterthought.

And is Enrique a long-term proposition only looked upon as back-up right at the moment?

With the money he cost and how highly he's rated back at home I would be very surprised to see BSA persist with N'Zogbia as a makeshift option at LB for longer than necessary.

When he's fully match fit and considered to be bedded in he is a guaranteed starter.

 

[Metallica_Man]

Charles N'Zogbia pens a new 5 year contract



Story from Sporting Life.

I've been playing as Newcaslte United on FM2007 and N'Zogbia has played very well for me, so I guess resigning him is a good thing

 

[tige19]

Well boys hasn't Cacapa really shook things up, the guy is a deadset star and bloody quick something we havent had in the past.

Enrique has been earmarked for the senior national side in the very near future, with the 6.5m price tag he will very much be our number 1 LB although with Zogs performance its hard to change.

Beye will be our number 1 at RB, he will need time to gel and gain some confidence with his teamates as he teamates will with him. As a capatain of a Champions League/UEFA Cup side you would expect he wouldnt have come here unless BSA said to him your gonna be our number 1, this makes the whole Faye purchase a bit bewilidiring.

As it stands right now:

Taylor Cacapa Rozehnal Nzogbia

When the dust settles:

Beye Cacapa/Taylor (tuff tuff battle) Rozehnal Enrique

Quality on all fronts which is good, we just need Joeu Barton to provide a little spark in the midfield and Europe is on our door step.

 

[apollo_creed]

Well boys hasn't Cacapa really shook things up, the guy is a deadset star and bloody quick something we havent had in the past.

Enrique has been earmarked for the senior national side in the very near future, with the 6.5m price tag he will very much be our number 1 LB although with Zogs performance its hard to change.

Beye will be our number 1 at RB, he will need time to gel and gain some confidence with his teamates as he teamates will with him. As a capatain of a Champions League/UEFA Cup side you would expect he wouldnt have come here unless BSA said to him your gonna be our number 1, this makes the whole Faye purchase a bit bewilidiring.

As it stands right now:

Taylor Cacapa Rozehnal Nzogbia

When the dust settles:

Beye Cacapa/Taylor (tuff tuff battle) Rozehnal Enrique

Quality on all fronts which is good, we just need Joeu Barton to provide a little spark in the midfield and Europe is on our door step.

Nice to know he's quick. (I didn't know this for sure/haven't watched him closely enough)

What about this Beye guy? what are his strengths? does he bring something different? (particuarly to Faye)

 

[apollo_creed]

As for your midfield. It's one area that makes you clearly/miles better than similar quality teams (in non-midfield positions) such as Portsmouth and Tottenham.

They have similarly strong attackers/defenders (it varies between such teams) but apart from the top 4, your midfield quality could quite easily be considered the best.

Portsmouth for example - just simply don't have any quality wide players.

Without thinking too deeply, you have three such players.

Milner - l/r
N'Zog - l
Duff - l/r

Either in a 4/3/3 or flat 4/4/2 such players are invaluable. particuarly when the rest of your XI is of a high quality.

Barton, Geremi, Emre, Butt and Smith (lol) are the main contenders.

Whether you play two CM's, or three (when everyone's fit) is unknown??

Barton is a certainty, Geremi is captain, Butt is playing fantastically well and Emre provides something different. And then there's Smith....

Barton-Emre, Barton-Geremi, Barton-Duff, Barton-Geremi-Butt, Barton-Geremi-Emre or Barton-Emre-Butt would be the likely options?

It's almost impossible to decipher. Such is the depth.

I think with doubts over Duff's form/fitness, Milner's (sometimes) inconsistency and N'Zog's versatility, BSA may opt for three dudes centrally. Paricuarly considering precedent.

Duff------Barton------Emre---------Milner
Enrique---Cacapa-----Rozehnal-----Beye
-----------------Given

Would be my, outside preference.

But Taylor and N'Zogbia in particular could quite easily fill in for Duff & Cacapa/Beye.

 

[tige19]

As for your midfield. It's one area that makes you clearly/miles better than similar quality teams (in non-midfield positions) such as Portsmouth and Tottenham.

They have similarly strong attackers/defenders (it varies between such teams) but apart from the top 4, your midfield quality could quite easily be considered the best.

Portsmouth for example - just simply don't have any quality wide players.

Without thinking too deeply, you have three such players.

Milner - l/r
N'Zog - l
Duff - l/r

Either in a 4/3/3 or flat 4/4/2 such players are invaluable. particuarly when the rest of your XI is of a high quality.

Barton, Geremi, Emre, Butt and Smith (lol) are the main contenders.

Whether you play two CM's, or three (when everyone's fit) is unknown??

Barton is a certainty, Geremi is captain, Butt is playing fantastically well and Emre provides something different. And then there's Smith....

Barton-Emre, Barton-Geremi, Barton-Duff, Barton-Geremi-Butt, Barton-Geremi-Emre or Barton-Emre-Butt would be the likely options?

It's almost impossible to decipher. Such is the depth.

I think with doubts over Duff's form/fitness, Milner's (sometimes) inconsistency and N'Zog's versatility, BSA may opt for three dudes centrally. Paricuarly considering precedent.

Duff------Barton------Emre---------Milner
Enrique---Cacapa-----Rozehnal-----Beye
-----------------Given

Would be my, outside preference.

But Taylor and N'Zogbia in particular could quite easily fill in for Duff & Cacapa/Beye.

Your spot on mate, the thing is Zog has made it mighty tough for BSA to move him away from LB, he has been our best player since the start of the campaign and as it stands I would be leaving Zog their until we lose.

 

[tige19]

Looking forward to this weeks game, we wil flog Derby, 3 or 4 nill

 

[ShearMagic9]

Newcastle boss Sam Allardyce will make a late check on striker Michael Owen before naming his side to face Derby on Monday night.

The 27-year-old scored three times for England against Israel and Russia and his club manager will ensure he does not risk a fresh injury because of fatigue.

Mark Viduka (hamstring) is expected to be fit, but Emre is a doubt after picking up a knock on international duty while Peter Ramage (knee), Stephen Carr and Celestine Babayaro (both hamstring), Joey Barton (metatarsal) and Damien Duff (ankle) are all out.

Derby manager Billy Davies hopes to give Scotland striker Kenny Miller his debut.

The Rams were trounced 6-0 by table-toppers Liverpool in their last outing but Miller, who has been out with a hamstring injury since signing from Celtic on deadline day, could play some part in place of Craig Fagan who starts a four-game ban for stamping on Xabi Alonso.

Defender Dean Leacock (toe) has also rejoined training this week and will be looking to earn a recall, while midfielder David Jones and American winger Eddie Lewis are also close to match sharpness.

Teenager Giles Barnes is still two weeks away from a comeback as he recovers from a foot injury and Darren Moore is doubtful with a knee problem.



Teams:


Derby (from): Bywater, Griffin, Moore, Malcolm, Teale, Davis, Camara, McEveley, Todd, Oakley, Mears, Pearson, Howard, Price, Earnshaw, Miller, Jones, Leacock, Lewis.


Newcastle (from): Harper, Given, Enrique, N'Zogbia, Rozehnal, Taylor, Cacapa, Faye, Edgar, Beye, Milner, Geremi, Butt, Smith, Pattison, Viduka, Martins, Ameobi, Owen.

Pretty strong squad is that.

 

[tige19]

Pretty strong squad is that.

Perfect game for Enrique to start at LB, however BSA being the more conservative might not do it.

Given

Taylor Cacapa Rozehnal Enrique

Milner Geremi Butt Nzogbia

Viduka Owen

Harper
Martins
Smith
Ameobi
Beye
Edgar
Faye
Pattison

I personally would prefer to have Smith than Geremi in the middle of the park, Nicky Butt would accomodate him nicely, just give Smith a free rein similiur to what SBR did with Bellamy however this wont happen. I like the squad, its just Geremi lol, this guy frustrates me I just cant have him..... hopefully he sways me

 

[CarterS]

I hope Harper keeps his spot, has done nothing wrong.

 

[ShearMagic9]

I hope Harper keeps his spot, has done nothing wrong.

He hasn't, but when you have a keeper of Givens calibre to come back into the team, I can't see him sitting on the bench for too long.

 

[tribey]

Did we keep the receipt for Smudge or?

 

[ShearMagic9]

The style that Big Sam brings to the table has already frustrated me to death.

We're never gonna score banging it long to a target man all day long.

The decision to start Ameobi instead of Martins disappointed me.

Still, it was a freak of nature goal that defeated us, I don't think he'll do that too many more times in his career. Having said that even 0-0 at Derby (who were very much improved) would've been disappointing.

Every single time we had a corner we should've had a penalty, the referee even warned Leacock about it and he still did it, piss poor refereeing if you ask me.

Oh well, at least we might see some changes now, instead of the same old unchanged lineup (bar 1) again.

 

[tribey]

As soon as Geremi was subbed off the game was dead. We were struggling to start any effective moves beforehand, but with a central midfield consisting of Butt and Faye with Milner on the left and Smith on the right there was never going to be any joy - especially with Ameobi looking as mobile as a hill's hoist.

Terrible.

 

[GeordieRoo]

The style that Big Sam brings to the table has already frustrated me to death.

We're never gonna score banging it long to a target man all day long.

Not happy with that either, but I guess we'll have to get used to it.

Also not happy with the whining when we lose. "We had 14 players on international duty...they were tired" etc. Forgetting of course that our players had 2 more days to recover than the sides who played on Saturday.

All that being said we've still made a decent enough start points wise.

 

[ShearMagic9]

Yep, if you'd said to me we'd be on 8 points after our first 5 games I would've taken it.

We always start slowly.

Oh, and we always lose to teams we should beat too, and then we go out and beat the teams we should lose to.

 

[tribey]

We've already blown 5 points (2 dropped at Middlesbrough, 3 dropped at Derby) - these are the sort of results you cannot let slip in a battle for Champions League places.

Don't mean to sound overly negative, but cripes. Derby simply aren't a Premiership side and to be quite honest, Boro don't look to be one either.

We'll rue these fixtures come May.

 

[tige19]

Well I just stayed up to watch my taped Newcastle vs Derby match, wat a fu king waste of time that was. I can not begin to explain how pathetic we where, and this long ball stuff is a joke, Derby (who have the worst defence in the PL) where just picking off everything coming forward.

I wanna say something about Ameobi, he is a tall useless poor mans Emile Heskey (Heskey is no good), he can not hold up play and he gets pushed off the ball so *** ing easily, deadset my 10 year little sister could bully that big uselss twat of a human. Someone down on Geordie town need to get a shot gun and shoot that blokes legs off because their no good on that lump of useless sh it. If we ever have him start another PL game again I will send equine human infleuenza to BSA's mother, fuki ng useless squib.

Dont even get me started on Alan Smith and Geremi, both are useless pigs taking up places on the pitch because of repuation.

I hate this long ball garbage, its shi t viewing, they call this the beautiful game well I tell you what, that was as ugly as a half retarted paraplegic rat ***** g SA up the sphincta, deadset garbage. If we cant even score against Derby then we may as well pack it in.

It is simple to score against Derby, give short slick passes through the middle of the park where Martins and Owen can run onto it, Derby are extremely slow in defence, either one of Martins or Owen could burn them provided they get delievery.

I am just soooooo annoyed I stayed up late to watch that, it was pathetic.

 

[moomba]

Ha ha, rant of the week that was.

 

[apollo_creed]

Well I just stayed up to watch my taped Newcastle vs Derby match, wat a fu king waste of time that was. I can not begin to explain how pathetic we where, and this long ball stuff is a joke, Derby (who have the worst defence in the PL) where just picking off everything coming forward.

I wanna say something about Ameobi, he is a tall useless poor mans Emile Heskey (Heskey is no good), he can not hold up play and he gets pushed off the ball so *** ing easily, deadset my 10 year little sister could bully that big uselss twat of a human. Someone down on Geordie town need to get a shot gun and shoot that blokes legs off because their no good on that lump of useless sh it. If we ever have him start another PL game again I will send equine human infleuenza to BSA's mother, fuki ng useless squib.

Dont even get me started on Alan Smith and Geremi, both are useless pigs taking up places on the pitch because of repuation.

I hate this long ball garbage, its shi t viewing, they call this the beautiful game well I tell you what, that was as ugly as a half retarted paraplegic rat ***** g SA up the sphincta, deadset garbage. If we cant even score against Derby then we may as well pack it in.

It is simple to score against Derby, give short slick passes through the middle of the park where Martins and Owen can run onto it, Derby are extremely slow in defence, either one of Martins or Owen could burn them provided they get delievery.

I am just soooooo annoyed I stayed up late to watch that, it was pathetic.

So let me get this straight,

you want to make sweet love to Ameobi after being oiled up by 'Smudge' and Geremi?