I have read from the Journal today about our best player on the Spurs game last Sunday, Charles N’Zogbia has expressed (again) his desires to leave Newcastle United for other side.

The Journal reports emanating from France suggest Paris Saint Germain could agree a swap deal for N’Zogbia with Mamadou Sakho heading in the opposite direction.

Charles was recently signed a new contract at St James’s Park which the Magpies until 2012, but he told the French football paper L’Equipe, as quoted from the Journal, he wants to reach a higher level of ambition after four years at Newcastle which he doesn’t think that is possible.

Meanwhile, Joe Kinnear has maintained that he will not let any of Newcastle’s players to leave until he can bring new players in to strengthened his thin United squad.

Still from the Journal report, former Newcastle chairman Chris Mort is prepared to return to St James’s Park to help rebuild Mike Ashley’s shattered regime. Mort has did much positive work in his first role as United chairman in Summer 2007 before leaving the club on last June 2008.

Our defence were superb. Despite Middlesborough’s possession in the last 3rd/ crosses into our box we limited them to very few chances thanks to the back 4. Enrique was the only exception in that his distribution was awful.

However he defended well and I feel he’s being forced to play it long due to the lack of a creative outlet in centre midfield.

N’zogbia continues to depress me. With every chance he wastes, the case for arguing it’s the ‘management’ of him that is at fault as opposed to his own attitude is getting weaker and weaker. Downing had a very good game today but N’zogbia made him look world class.

Overall we have to be pleased with 2 draws away from home against Boro and Chelsea. The fact that we have 2 clean sheets is great for confidence too. The defence is really improving. We’ve got 2 hard games out of the way now. Sunderland play Man UTD next week whereas we have a winnable game at home to Stoke.

Taking Martins off was a strange decision. Having said that, in the 2nd half Boro looked more likely to win it. Martins is always liable to lose the ball unlike Owen who is at his worst consistently tidy in posession. So perhaps it wasn’t a bad call. On one occassion Owen and Viduka linked up well and went very close to winning it.

We still need to address the lack of a threat going forward but with Butt and Guthrie in the middle we’re never going to create chance after chance. We could desperately do with getting Barton back on the pitch.

Kinnear’s Newcastle United fail to lose again! I think we’ve only lost 2 under him altogether. To continue with Clarky’s analogy, we’re continuing to build brick by brick and rather refreshingly for once it looks as though we’re building from the back.

Verdicts from those underneath the smog who weren’t contesting with dodgy webcasts are welcome! And if you wondering why they’ve called Smoggies, check out these pictures below! (Ed.)

For most of the last recent weeks, there were plenty of new speculations about whether he will stay in Keegan’s revolutionary program or he will be seeing the exit door in the summer this year. Charles still have three years left on his current contract with United and KK determined that if he does leave, there will be a good amount of money that can brought him out.

N’Zogbia signed with Newcastle from his previous club Le Havre where he starts his footballing career from their acasemy. His transfer history was not a smooth one. After a protracted saga involving the threat of a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, his transfer officially went through on September 2, 2004.

United have paid a compensation fee to Le Havre which was thought to be in the region of £250,000. His transfer to Newcastle was the last player to be signed by Sir Bobby Robson. Robson later said of him: “N’Zogbia could go to the very top with the right coaching and motivation, and I hope it is with Newcastle. I signed him as a teenager and he was one of the most naturally gifted players of that age I’d ever seen.”

Later we have seen that Sir Bobby was right about his judgement and Charles quickly become great player after making his break to the first team squad. Although his natural position is a left-winger, under the previous manager he was playing often as left-back which he did it quite good.

As a young player, Zoggy was not entirely have a ‘good’ attitude. He has his first transfer request turned down in January, and long before that the United caretaker manager Nigel Pearson has dropped him from the substitutes’ bench against Watford last season. Nigel said that N’Zogbia was more engrossed in his mobile phone than the team meeting he was in.

Recently, his Newcastle United team-mates has warn him to buck up his ideas or leave the club. Meanwhile, Kevin Keegan said He would like to keep him with Newcastle because he can be a tremendous asset for us. But to do so, he’s got to be fully, fully, fully committed to Newcastle United.

And if he keep insisted to leave the club, Keegan has nothing to do but prepared to let the French Under-21 international go at the end of the season. Other premiership teams are lurking to catch him out from St. James’s Park with Arsenal and Tottenham have been linked with the winger.

“Charles and his agent wanted to move him out of here and I wouldn’t allow that. I said if he did his best until the end of the season and felt the same way, I would let him go – if he still wanted to go. But it would be on our terms.” Keegan said.

Currently N’Zogbia now recovered from his knee injury and back in training with the rests of United squad. But Keegan insists he still have to learn to be a team player with his individual skill, and if he does it he will be a hell of an asset for us. But he has got to come into the team, to fight for his place by showing mature attitude, I believe Keegan is not blind and will give him his chance to play as soon as the time is right.

We play Duff at outside left and we play Zog at left back. The reason is obvious, our current and previous managers feel that they MUST find a place in the team for both players.

Result of not playing both would result in either Duff and most definitely Zog demanding a transfer if they were to become a permanent fixture on the subs bench.

Most professional players (and I have heard Shearer say this) is that you MUST play your best players on the pitch, even if that sometimes means that occasionally it has to be out of position.

The argument with my mate stemmed over the fact that Zog is being played at left back – however he is a big fan of Duff playing on the left.

My argument with him is that if he wants a ‘natural’ left back to play in that position – i.e. the one we have just paid £6m for, then what does he expect to do with Zog, because he doesn’t want to drop Duff for Zog but he feels that Zog is too good a player not to be found a place in the team?

I jokingley suggested to him that we perhaps play them both as left wingers and do away with a right winger altogether? Or perhaps play either one of them on the left and the other as a right winger, designed to cut inside, a bit like we played Milner on his ‘wrong’ side on the left?

Trouble is, my mate doesn’t want to drop Milner either and feels he should be found a place in the starting eleven as well.

With hindsight, we should never have bought Duff when we already had Zog, but I didn’t hear too many complaints from this BBS at the time when we did sign him. However, now that we have both and as I say, both experienced professionals now and neither would settle for the bench, one of them has to go in the summer.

Probaly Zog cos he is making the most waves to get away. To sum up, next game against Blackburn, if we were to play a natural left back and drop Zog to the bench, would you be happy? Or if we played a natural left back and played Zog outside left, would there still be people complaining that he didn’t play Duff?

The mini crisis we are in this season, should see BOTH players accepting what is best for the team. Whatever that is? You tell me? Comments are welcome!

Introduced for the 2004/05 season and was devised by statisticians at the University of Salford in partnership with PA Sport. In the 2006/07 season, the Index was enhanced by the addition of assists and clean sheets to the factors that are taken into account.

Actim Index resulting from Actim Stats, a collection of team, player and match statistics. The stats derived from all the actions that take place during a match, including goals, shots on target, corners, fouls, offsides, passes, tackles, blocks and clearances.

From each game played, the data is gathered by two methods – real-time match analysis and video footage.

The real-time analysis is conducted by ex-professional footballers that report on action at the grounds as it happens. Further, more detailed analysis is obtained by studying videos of the matches.

Based on that, every players from the English Premier League and Coca-Cola Championship, have their own scores and getting into the Index table. Newcastle United Charles N’Zogbia was the only player who was in the Top Ten Premier League Players Index.

Visit the Actim Index website for the complete details and other Index tables.