AndyM3000

Where's Ryan Fraser going? I'd give him a call straight away.

Very good effort and his defensive work has kept him in the team. Turns up at the far stick every now and then with the odd goal but for the life of me I can't remember a single time he took someone on and beat them or put in a real good cross.

Hopefully we can now spend on 4-5 quality players who on the same wave length as Dougie. If Jack does go we need to keep him at all costs, he gives me hope.

Splitting up these CBs is stupid as ****

Probably didn't want to raise his voice to Richards he might have injured him.

Fred is finally free...

Someone needs to help Targett ffs

It's okay lads, the plan is a point here, 3 against Arsenal

McGinn looks nackered to me

Davis and Ghazi on please

You can almost see Grealish in two minds when he has the ball now, do it himself but its hard or an easy pass but they likely **** it up.

Don't know what the buy back amount is but if it's cheap and another club are prepared to pay more they can easily speak to City about activating it and then getting the player on loan. Wasn't it Morata that Madrid bought back with the intention or selling at a higher price?

Im nervous about them all but we have to score goals now. Targett is better overall by some distance.

He did, I'm saying if Targett is fit enough for 60+ minutes of football then he has to be starting for me.

Looks like he replaced Hause on the bench today after we made that late change. Must be fit, strange he's not been on the bench before now if that was the case.

Targett came on for 60 minutes. I'd rather start him and take him off for Taylor later on but overall I take your point. The persistence with Konsa as RB is madness for me.

I don't think we will have any control over him. If someone wants to pay enough they can negotiate with Man City to buy him.

I've been saying we need proper full backs in and it took two injuries to enforce them changes and we looked miles better for it. I can't see why Smith was continuing with Taylor and Konsa as full backs.

Mings is the only one of these current back 5 that was a planned starter at the start of the season, the rest are back ups that needed replacing anyway (Apart from Konsa). It's in a terrible state, it's hardly surprising we are here. With that being said, I'm delighted we have a **** RB at RB.

Zaha an absolute banker to score too after this.

May as well start our Championship pre-season and use the rest as friendly games.

We have to score a goal to win so no point nitting this up and trying to keep it tight for 70 mins. Wingers are shite, if Fred and Targett are fit then put them in a wing back system, get Jack in the middle in front of Dougie and McGinn and stick Samatta and Davis up front. No point playing Davis if we are going to stick Konsa and Taylor out wide again.

It's a combination of things for me. The old squad need completely overhauling, Whelan, Hutton, Elmo, Jedinak, Adomah and others, it wasn't in a good state for a couple of seasons and glued together with some decent loan players in Mings, Snoddy, Axel, Tammy, Grabban. We somehow managed to get promoted and while you cant complain about it, we certainly weren't ready for that to happen. We needed a lot of new players and it might look like we spent a lot it had to stretch a long way, Mings looked good at the start, Luiz looks good now, Heaton was hit and miss at times when he was fit, Guilbert & Konsa have shown some promise but the rest have been well below what's required, we needed a couple of gems to appear from this batch of players and we got none. I don't blame Smith that much, he's tried different formations and during the first half of the season there were games we looked like we had a decent plan and were doing okay. Injuries to McGinn, Wesley & Heaton seem to have hit us hard and it shows the drop off in quality when we had to replace them. Smith might look tactically poor to some but I think he's in a crap spot with the player we have available right now, it almost doesn't matter what team we put out it just massively lacks any real quality all over the pitch. I don't know who signed these players but that's where the failures are for me. If Smith picked them all, it's on him, if it was Suso then likewise.

I think he will be here next season, it's a short turn around and we will need another rebuild while having to keep a lot of these average players. It might almost be easier to balance the team a bit more without Grealish, everything goes through him and when it doesn't work it's game over. Doesn't help that the rest of the team are shite mind.

Highly doubt it but if they wanted to throw the game it makes sense. Newcastle are safe, the best teams to get relegated for them would be West Ham and Villa, two big clubs with potential big budgets and a good attraction for rival players who Newcastle might want. Bmouth and Watford aren't going to be as much of a threat to Newcastle next season as us or West Ham would be.