Maybe you should have passed it less than good, then you might have stayed up.

Ho-hum.

It was plainly obvious to see that Newcastle were poor all over the pitch. The strikers did not get enough chances but still misfired most of them time apart from the odd wonder strike from Oba. The midfield lacked any real creativity and pace and also did not seem to able to protect the back four all that well. The defence was very poor at times, lots of individual mistakes from most of the defence including Taylor. Taylor seems to have potential but then will go and have a 'Bramble' type moment.

A lot of the problems stem from having no leadership on the management front, lets face it JK was a joke and spent more time whinging and swearing at reporters than he did coaching.

It will be really interesting to see what happens to them this season, they have a number of players who I would imagine would be leaving but there has been little movement as yet, unless I have missed any. Bassong, Beye, Lovenkrands, Viduka, Oba, Owen, Barton, Nolan and Guiterrez would all be leaving I expect? As yet only Owen has gone and they don't seem to have signed any players, found a buyer or have a manager. I honestly think they could go down again, hope not but it would not surprise me.

I'm not sure how true that is. Supposedly before Alonso went he could still sign at least one player however:

Out
Alonso (30 million)
Leto (£3 million)
Dossena (£4 million....soon)
Arbeloa (£3.5 million)

In
Johnson (£10 million when you take the money they still owed us for Crouch off)

Now according to the yanks, he had £20 million at the start of the window. In my eyes that leave us now with £50 million to spend if he gets all the money from his sales which I would imagine he will insist on.

Maybe wishful thinking though.

From what I've read regarding this summer, the signing of Johnson really stretched us.

Apparently Aquilani is set for a tough medical, the Echo says the club have doubts over his fitness, I'm not sure if he's fully recovered from ankle surgery.

Also, the Echo completely dismisses Poulsen to us, saying he's not even on our radar. I'll believe the Echo over Sky, easy.

The new skysportsnews music is terrible

He's not good enough for Liverpool IMO. I am sure there are many better options.

Ability-wise, he is. But I have doubts over his mentality, his fitness and his potential to improve defensively.

Viable options? I really can't think of many mate. Aquilani, Defour and Poulsen are the ones linked. The thing that concerns me the most about the trio is that they are coming from Italy (alot slower paced) and Belgium (not at the same standard as the Prem). I'd rather sign someone from the Premiership or La Liga personally, but if we are taking viable options who aren't going to be over inflated pricewise I'm struggling for names.

Defensively shouldn't be a huge problem as Alonso wasn't exactly defensive minded when he had Mascherano around. His great strength was pinging passes. Ideally we want a decent passer who scores goals as well. Alonso and Masch contributed 1 goal between them last year. If this player we sign can prodce 5 goals a season it will be an improvement on that.

Arteta?

I think Alonso's defensive game was massively underrated. He was always there to win the second ball, and he often broke play down. I remember when we played Villa away and Xabi was asked to man mark Carew, he done it really well and he acted like another centre back.

I think Aquilani can do Xabi's job on the ball very well, he's probably got more to his game in an attacking sense, but he does go missing and he isn't that dominant. Xabi used to be the same during his average couple of seasons he had, but last year he really upped his game, which will make pretty much any player we sign a step down, but Aquilani is still decent.