I promise this is the last time I say this.
Talent wise they are little better than Wigan. Good goalkeeper and a good striker. That's it.
- 2 good strikers
- cabaye and tiote = good midfielders
- guthrie as good as any reserve midfielder in any premiership team
- colocini as good as nay defender this year
- again
- all of the above = backbone/spine of team which is so important
- ryan taylor really good set piece taker who wins points for us all the time
- Gutierez/Williamson and everyone else you named far far too good for the championship as proved when we were in there and coasted almost every game.
People are overvalueing the premiership. Its like saying Man United are full fo championship players, all the players you have said you could say the same about Man United. Evra/Rafael terrible terrible defenders, Rio been an absolute joke all season. Carrick super super average, Giggs good but no better than Guthrie. Goalkeeper terrible, Jonny Evans terrible, Phil Jones bullied off Shola etc etc etc.
Its not that Newcastle aren't good its that the premiership isnt good.
We have a really really good manager who gets the best out of his players. We definitely haven't been running above ev, we've conceded 8 penalties and received 2 in our favour, so so many blatant penalties turned down for us, Ferdinand vs Ba at home, Larson vs the scum away.
You can see with the unwashed down the road how much some decent managerial organisation impacts a team. Sunderland do have a team full of championship players and are battering everybody at the moment.
Teams like Aston Villa/Everton etc who I assume you believe to be >> Newcastle just simply isn't the case. I believe Villa were pretty much at full strength today and were average at absolute best.
If you think we are a mid table team or whatever happy to bet upto 5k that we finish in the top 10 next season (I already took this bet for this season although considerably less stake when everybody tipped us for relegation and I was very confident we would be top half and competing for European positions.