After a relatively successful pre-season Newcastle’s defensive frailties surfaced yet again on Sunday and Aston Villa duly ended a 12 game unbeaten run with a 2-0 victory.

When Glenn Roeder took over in early February everything was doom and gloom following the disastrous tenure of Graham Souness, but Roeder, through excellent man-management skills and good basic coaching quickly restored confidence to the squad and even without first teamers Owen, Dyer, Parker and Taylor pushed Newcastle up the league to finish 7th - a Herculean effort.

He even managed to get our defense playing decently, which is no small achievement at any time. In pre-season he then maneuvered Newcastle into the first round proper of the UEFA cup, which is no small achievement given where we were in February.

However, the simple fact is that our defense is still not good enough and needs to be reinforced before Thursday’s transfer deadline. Our central defenders have been particularly porous over the last few years. Bramble continues to make too many errors at this level and Steven Taylor, though an excellent prospect, lacks the necessary experience at 20 years old. While Craig Moore adds security at the back this will be his last year at Newcastle having electing to return to Australia next summer to help their newly formed A-League. With Boumsong now transferred to Juventus we should have the money to buy a replacement - and we need to.

The rumors are flying that we may be able to sign both Robert Huth and Wayne Bridge from Chelsea, the latter being completely dependent on Chelsea finally signing Ashley Cole from Arsenal. The other possibility is to sign Jonathon Woodgate on a year’s loan from Real Madrid. Sylvain Distin may be available from Manchester City - though he seems to have settled into the Manchester City side again. These are all players that can improve Newcastle’s defense and lets’ hope we can sign at least two..

Since we currently have only three strikers in Ameobi, Luque and the newly signed Martins, we also are short in this vital area. Another striker, even on loan is necessary, and rumors today have it that Mido from Roma is a potential target on an initial year’s loan. His physical presence will be a big help, and should we sign him, Ameobi and Mido can provide the physical presence up front and Michael Owen and Obafemi Martins can provide the speed thus creating some exciting attacking options.

The Newcastle squad could well be a pleasant surprise this season and with Roeder in charge from the start a top six finish is very possible. If we can get 3 more players in before the transfer deadline on Thursday we may even be able to beat that..and there’s always the UEFA cup. Could this be the year we win something?

Watch this space.