Poe - Comments

Bigirimana is good, the rest average.

Wonder what would happen if Coloccini and Williamson got injured

Completely no idea about football mike ashleu

His partner just posted that he is going and Newcastle forced him out.

He knocked back Inter and we forced him out. Joke of a club at times, treat our players and fans like shit.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/newcastle-uniteds-davide-santons-girlfriend-8562868

But think of all the wages big mike will save on!!

Absolutely desperate for a centre back so we sell one. Were desperate for a proper centre forward too.

Our transfer policy is a joke.

Wonder if santon will be replaced? Means our first team defenders for the rest of the season will be Janmaat coloccini Williamson dummet and haidara. Depressing.

Final standings for the season, pretty impressive. However the team did die off a bit over Christmas, before bouncing back with a 7 game winning streak to secure 4th place. I am trying to operate realistically as possible though, so the sales of players are inevitable and Siem De Jong has just went to Roma for 12m, Janmaat went to PSG for 18m too. Two good fees, though. Fringe player Haidara left too for 7.5m - a fee that cannot be sniffed at for a player that was never going to really make the grade here anyway. They have been replaced though and I have made a profit of 23m on transfer this season. Sergi Roberto has came in from Barcelona for 3.2m, Dimitri Foulquier from Granada was bought for 5m to replace Janmaat, Musa Oyewole from Brentford (16 year old regen hot prospect) for 1m, Adrien Rabiot for free from PSG after his contract expired and Jerome Roussillon from Sochaux for the backup left back position.

Hopefully by Christmas this season we shall see us up at the right end of the table again and I will get back to you with how the team is attacking and defending.

Finishing 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd is completely different to finishing 10th, limping over the finish line after some of the worst run of form the club has seen.

I have no problem with first teamers being sold as long as they are replaced - I'm yet to see a replacement for Mbiwa who we've just sold, and replacing Sissoko with Dele Alli is a huge risk - if that occurs.

Shearer

4-3-3-0

Recently I have been following a superb twitter account and blog by the name of Strikerless – ran by @merryguido. He is very much fan of strikerless formations while setting his teams up in FM. The match engine in Football Manager has always intrigued me so I decided to have a go at creating my own strikerless formations. As with the majority of tactical discussions I attempt to generate here – the team I use while creating my style is Newcastle – a team close to my heart and one I know very well, which can only assist me.

First of all my transfers, I sold Papiss Cisse for 7m, Cheik Tiote for 14m and Davide Santon for 15m, Yoann Gouffran for 5m, Steven Taylor for 5m and Mike Williamson for 1m. This gave me a pretty healthy transfer budget on top of the 10.5m I was given to secure a Europa League spot in the Premier League. I used the money (some over 48 months, naughty I know) – to purchase the following



Hopefully this will give me a balanced squad to work with, whilst clearing some of the dead wood and improving quality in areas that are going to be important, such as attacking midfield and centre back, a position where we were incredibly light, with only Fabricio Coloccini as our sole centre back.

The Shape


(dont take too much notice of the players selected)
On the face of it, the formation looks rather unbalanced with absolutely no out and out strikers in the squad, but with the player roles that I have selected, the formation should operate like a narrow 4-4-2 diamond, albeit offering more defensive cover through the centre of the pitch than the more traditional set up. The formation can be altered into a more attacking style or defensive style too – with the inclusion of the centre midfielder on Automatic – one click to CM(d) or CM(a) can change a game or decide it from the start. I usually use Moussa Sissoko in this role, as he is very capable of playing both a defensive game and attacking game. He can sit and use his strength and intelligence to sweep up opposition attacks but he can also knock players off the ball and use his pace to get in behind. It is a very important role for the team, so a good all round player is imperative in this role.

The two support strikers are your team’s main goalscorers, with the Enganche helping the midfield in creating chances. They should be fast, skillful and clever with the ball – high decision making, concentration and off the ball are huge. Remy Cabella has been the player that has scored the most goals for my Newcastle team, showing that even a traditional attacking midfielder can have the presence to get into the box and get himself a fair few goals. The attacking play will be further analysed later in the series.

First of all, we must set out a style of play that the team is going to play, I feel a short, low tempo passing game would be most useful, to take advantage of the overload of players we will have in midfield. We could then use the wide wingbacks to exploit the defence and pull players out of position, which our support strikers can run into and hopefully create scoring opportunities. It is the off the ball runs from the support strikers that are going to create our most chances, so it is important we create space for them to use to their advantage.

I have therefore used team instructions as follows – I’m normally not a fan of overloading with team instructions, but with this being such a different formation to what would normally be considered in the English Premier League, I feel the team (bar the 3 attacking midfielders) should follow strict instructions until the team is good enough to express themselves without leaving them completely open at the back.



In order to get the slow patient buildup, I have instructed every player (again bar the 3 AMC’s) to Pass it shorter, Mark Tighter and Close Down More – I have also instructed the goalkeeper to Roll it out and Distribute to centre backs. The reason for the closing down will become evident later as we discuss the defensive side to the formation, but that is for another day.

My initial results have been promising, bar a few hiccups (Stoke and QPR). The 5-0 over Chelsea was achieved with a completely different formation unfortunately – one that again we will come to in the future. I also used it in the second half against Manchester City after trailing 1-0 – so there may be something in there for usage against bigger, stronger teams that will look to control the game the way we want to.



My next task is to now play out the season, ironing out bumps that will arise when teams become familiar with the formation I am using and altering as I go along. I will post regular updates in this thread when I get the time, something which is becoming a precious commodity in my life unfortunately - but hopefully I should get time this week to update you on the attacking and defensive play that I want my team to play with this tactic.

Feel free to ask any questions.

The way this window has went you just know Sissoko is on his way to PSG for about 15m on the last day before we can sign any replacement.

Because we were trying to be successful in previous seasons, albeit failing. Even the season we finished 5th, we pushed on and signed a striker in January to help us in the last part of the season. Now we either sell somebody (Cabaye, Ba) or don't buy players where we're absolutely desperate for one. We're so short of centre backs it's unbelievable.

Now we're just floating about in lower midtable. And we won't finish any higher than 12th this season, it's obvious.

Annoying.

All stars

It's not even winning games all the time. It's the fact our club has written off the past two seasons half way through 'to plan for the future'

That's over £1000 of investment for the average season ticket holder which is unacceptable really.

We should push on when were safe, not give up.


It was pretty well documented that we'd contacted Tuchel about the postion but he's still under contract until the end of the season and were refusing to pay the compensation which is maybe fair enough if we were definitely safe. But were not.

It would definitely pay the compensation to Mainz or Ajax for Tuchel or De Boer.



We were in the 1% until around 2007/2008. It's just painfully predictable now.

I'm pretty certain we could have if we used some of that 8m we've just made.

Think it's an incredible risk, we wouldn't attract anyone half decent if we get relegated either.

Mbiwa has just played his 20th game for Roma, banking us 5m that won't buy us another defender, plus the 2/3m we got for Pardew and we choose to put the club in danger of relegation rather than actively chasing someone who could help us move forward and giving him half a season to assess the dead wood.

It's so boring supporting Newcastle now, it's hard to get excited about anything as anything worth getting excited for will either be sold pretty quickly or cost too much to do in the first place.

Balance sheet champions but no sporting ambition at all

If he gets the job permanently in the summer it's clear were only bothered by the cheapest option.

Hahaha

What a joke.

It normally crashes during PPV's anyway.

There's never a bad time to sign hot prospects though. Were desperate for a centre back and that is obvious but as long as Ali isn't the only signing then it's good news.

Spurs should be aiming higher than Mirallas to progress imo

Was that the Game's masterpiece?

Nonce.

So because I was recently slating big accumulators some cunt in a London Ladbrokes pocketed 34k from a £1 16-fold at the weekend.

Mirallas isn't all that either, though.

Have you read it?

Refreshingly honest, gives hope for the future too.

Freddy Shephard is an arsehole

Unsure why people entertain him.

Poor form doesn't make players bad, nor does good form make bad players good.

Gouffran and Cabella are good players, Ameobi and Williamson aren't.

Gouffran has his place in the squad - he's not creative enough to be starting in a key attacking role against poor sides though, or at home if were planning on taking the game to the opposition as we were against Southampton. Leave him for the big games or coming off the bench to see a game out. He's a good grafter but very poor defensively contrary to what Pardew/Carver will tell us. Constantly out of position but it's not really his fault, pardew has ruined him. He was a striker when he came here - watch Chelsea at home when we won 3-2 and compare that to the Gouffran now. Shadow of a player.

Williamson isn't good enough though. He'd struggle to get in Sunderland/Leicester/Hulls team and probably some top half Championship too. Positionally clueless masked by being half decent in the air.

Shola just doesn't like Cabella, that is all.

He's just not very good at managing attacking players bar really Cisse - who had a very average 2 years so can't really include him either.

Pardew loves players that will run for 90 minutes, regardless of quality. That is all. They are the players he'll get the best out of. Not ones with actual talent.

A created chance is a key pass, not creating a shooting opportunity.

I doubt he's played less minutes than Ameobi either, the guy never seems to be off the pitch atm and he's probably the worst player we've had in my years of watching Newcastle.

Yes, worse than Zurab Khizanishvili.

You've also failed to analyse past seasons - Cabella is adapting to a completely different style of football.