The spirit in the squad appears to have survived the loss of Andy Carroll, Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and Jose Enrique. This was my major concern, and to be honest speaks volumes for the way Alan Pardew is doing the job. In the light of this, the replacement of Nolan by Cabaye is now looking like a sensible move for the long term.

Losing Jose Enrique and Joey Barton were perhaps inevitable, although I’m not convinced. I still believe both players could have been retained under diffferent circumstances. Hopefully, Santon will prove an adequate replacement for Jose, and a combination of Hatem Ben Arfa, Gabriel Obertan or Sylvain Marveaux for Barton.

I actually believe we should have replaced Carroll with another highly promising young striker, and had that opportunity with either Connor Whickham or Shane Long. Hopefully, Sameobi will prove to be a better prospect than either of them.

So, where does all that leave us? Yet again, the squad looks very fragile. If we manage to avoid injuries – a helluva big “if” for the Toon – we could still do ok. However, if we pick up a number of injuries I fear we’ll struggle, possibly badly.

I guess the objective now is to maintain the early momentum until January when we will have another opportunity to boost the playing resources, although the January window usually provides a difficult market.

Given where we are today I’d settle for mid-table obscurity, and perhaps a decent Cup run.

“That’s not to say their business has been disastrous. In fact, in certain areas it has been rather good, but mistakes have been made and, perhaps worse still, there has been a startling lack of ambition shown given the position of strength they were in when the window opened.”

In my honest opinion, with all my respect to Luke’s opinion, I don’t think he (or any one of us) knows very well all the works that (possibly) have been made by United’s scout and managing director Derek Llambias.

People (United’s fans) keep asking about the £35m from the sale of Andy Carroll to Liverpool and how we “should” spend it to get the player with “highest” price as that’s the way to get quality player these days.

Although I’m not saying that was not true, but I don’t think that’s the only way to do it. We still (hopefully) can get “quality” players even though he’s not in the ridiculous expensive amount of money.

I also don’t agree with Luke on his further statement, “Newcastle lost sight of what was so badly needed, even though manager Alan Pardew rarely let up in his highlighting of the issue.”

I think, what so badly needed by Newcastle is a fullback, and we have got one player to fill in that position. And how about a new striker? I don’t think we are in desperate to get the replacement of Andy Carroll because we still have “enough” backups.

This type of press statements are a deadly poison for us, the Toon Army, if we cannot filter it well and think about what should probably is the truth of things in the real world, not in their office keyboards or even as tiny as their smart pad.

Lastly, Luke also mentioned:

“Yet, as every Newcastle supporters knows, Newcastle’s squad has lost its two top goalscorers from last season – Carroll and Nolan – it’s spiky motivational force – Barton – and it’s flying left-back – Enrique. These are gaps that have been filled, but we have no idea how successfully.”

True, we have no idea how successfully the replacements are, but I also would like to ask if we get those high price big name players, with a quality that some Toon fans are wanted, are they also can guarantee a success?

You decide!

We have lost Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton and, er, Wayne Routledge from midfield. Both the first two had plus and minus points, but we have brought in younger players with more to prove. Routledge delivered nowt. Obviously the jury is still out, but Cabaye and Obertan look like they can contribute a lot, and Marveaux looks promising. Overall – neutral.

In defence, we have lost Enrique, and gained Santon. I haven’t seen a lot of Santon, so can’t really comment, other than he appears to have potential (as did Enrique when we signed him). On the positive side, I hope he doesn’t fanny around in/near his own PA.

In goal, we have one of the best up-and-coming keepers in the league. Had things moved on a year, I think Tim Krul could have been a natural successor to his compatriot at OT. We may be lucky that they spent so much on a young La Liga ‘keeper with no PL experience. I’m glad that Harper is still here, but bringing in Elliot allows us some progression when Harper leaves. From what I have seen, Forster lacked the temperament (and ability!) when it matters. He may do well in Scotland. Neutral.

So, overall, I’m disappointed that we have not adequately replaced Andy Carroll, but I still maintain what I said at the time – it was too good a financial deal to turn down. However, I do agree that we had plenty of time to find a replacement.

I can’t be @rsed to trawl to see which other strikers have moved, but I think we were too tight in our valuations and willingness to pay “the going wage”.

Howay the Lads!

Alan Pardew said after the signing of Santon that He is a quality left-back and an established international who also gives us flexibility in defense.

“Davide is a young lad and a great signing for us and I am sure he will adapt to the Premier League very quickly.” Pardew added more, while the player himself said “I am really pleased to sign for Newcastle. The chance to play in the Premier League and in front of 50,000 fans at St. James’ Park was too good to turn down.”

He also mentioned about Newcastle as an ambitious club who want to move forward and he wants to help us to achieve that.

Santon’s move is to believe for a fee of just over £5million, and he will get around £14,000 a week. Alan Pardew turned his attention to Santon after failing to persuade Erik Pieters who I believe wants more larger salary than what we pay for Santon.

To add more latest transfer reports from the press today, we are currently trying to get Manchester United’s striker Federico Macheda on loan and has sent a proposal of a £3m move for Celtic’s Greek striker Georgie Samaras, after we also likely to miss out on another long-term target Modibo Maiga from Sochaux.

Shane Ferguson could be terrific but we can’t depend on him at this stage. We need another center back. I said this long before Williamson got injured, but it is is now a high priority. I guess the ideal would be a good full back who could also play effectively at center back.

Despite the apparent numerical stength in midfield, we ended up with Alan Smith coming on yesterday. We lack genuine cover for Tiote and Cabaye in the centre, and are only an injury or two away from Guthrie being back in the team.

Gosling and Vuckic offer possible alternatives to Cabaye, but Gosling is still recovering from a potential career-ending injury, and for some curious reason wasn’t even on the bench yesterday. Vuckic picked up yet another inury yesterday, and seems to be on the way to becoming a permacrock.

We are desperately lacking a player who can effectively link midfield and the striker(s). Lovenkrands is simply not effective in this role, and we have to hope we can get Hatem Ben Arfa back, keep him on the pitch, and quickly.

Up front, I believe we need two strikers, not one. Lovenkrands is simply not good enough, and Ranger is on his way out. Best and Shola are barely good enough and perpetually injury prone. Imho, we missed a major opportunity by letting Shane Long go to WBA – he is playing well for the Baggies and would have been the perfect replacement for Lovenkrands. We might get by with Shola, Best, Ba and ANO if Sameobi can continue his current rate of development and make a genuine contribution.

Frankly, I feel we are about five players short of where we really need to be.