Shay Given looks to have finally got fed up with the absence of a strategy that buys and moulds a cohesive, lasting back four, writes Michael Walker

STEVE WATSON, Phillipe Albert, Darren Peacock, Steve Howey, John Beresford, Allesandro Pistone, Stuart Pearce, Warren Barton, Aaron Hughes, Andy Griffin. That was season one, when Kenny Dalglish was in charge.

Nikos Dabizas, Laurent Charvet, Carl Serrant, Didier Domi, David Beharall, they followed in season two. After that came Marcelino, Alain Goma and Cristavao Helder. Then Steve Caldwell, Wayne Quinn and Andy O'Brien. Robbie Elliott, Sylvain Distin, Olivier Bernard, Titus Bramble. That brings it up to 2003.

Jonathan Woodgate, Steven Taylor, Stephen Carr, Charles N'Zogbia, Ronny Johnsen, Celestine Babayaro, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Amdy Faye, Craig Moore and Peter Ramage. These were the Graeme Souness men.

Paul Huntington, David Edgar, Oguchi Oneywu, Abdoulaye Faye, David Rozehnal, Claudio Cacapa, Habib Beye and Jose Enrique followed. Sebastien Bassong and Fabricio Coloccini bring it up to date this season.

These are the 46 Newcastle United defenders Shay Given has played behind in the Premier League in his 11 years on Tyneside, a total that equates to a new back four every season, and then some. There were others along the way, short-stays, loans and triallists from Franck Dumas to Lamine Diatta.

These are 46 of the reasons why Shay Given is so fed up his solicitor Michael Kennedy announced on Thursday night that Given is "considering his position" at Newcastle.

As a New Year message to Newcastle fans, it was bleak; but it was the truth of how low Given feels. Newcastle United are a big part of his life, not just his career. This was a big statement to make.

It leaves Given and Newcastle at a crossroads. Joe Kinnear - Given's ninth manager at the club - insisted yesterday that Given is a Newcastle player until 2011. Kinnear's tone was defiant and aggressive. He even suggested that Given may not have been consulted by Kennedy prior to the statement's release. Kinnear cannot really believe that. "I stand by every word," Kennedy said last night.

Kinnear said that he had a half-hour conversation in his office with Given yesterday morning, though it was much shorter. He accepted that Given has "frustrations" but Kinnear tried to play these down as if their public revelation in itself distorted the truth. Kinnear intimated that he had spoken to Kennedy yesterday morning, but according to Kennedy, he did not. Newcastle did call Kennedy but it was not Kinnear on the line.

This may sound like minutiae but it is significant. Encouraged by sycophantic television reporters, there was an attempt yesterday to discredit what Kennedy said, as if it bore no relation to Given's thoughts.

Given is a little too intelligent to be rash and Kinnear needs to recognise that. There is an element of impulsiveness and emotion when the final moment of any long-brewing decision is reached, but the fact that the idea has been brewing over a period of time is of uppermost relevance.

"Depending on your viewpoint," the fans' website NUFC.com said, "the statement can be seen either as an attempt to flush out bids for his services without submitting a transfer request - or an expression of exasperation from someone as mystified as the rest of us as to exactly what the **** is going on at SJP.

"Like the departure of Peter Beardsley to Liverpool in 1987, we would struggle to blame Given if he left. It certainly wouldn't be for the money and any anger felt would be aimed at the club, rather than the individual."

So important has Given become as a Newcastle figure that his warnings over the past four years about the Newcastle squad as each transfer window is entered and left have become known as Shay's State of the Nation address. They have had the same theme each time: the squad is too thin, lop-sided, vulnerable and unable to achieve what Given thinks a Newcastle squad should achieve.

"We've run a feature before transfer windows since 2006," NUFC.com said, "highlighting Given's regular pleas for action to combat the recurring issues of squad size and quality. Now it seems as if he's grown tired of repeating himself and seeing no action to back up the promises made to him by the previous administration."

Shortly after Newcastle lost the 2005 Uefa Cup quarter-final at Sporting Lisbon, Given went public with private misgivings about the "direction" of the club. Newcastle still had Alan Shearer in attack but Given had seen how Craig Bellamy had been effectively forced out and wondered aloud about where the club was headed.

He feared downward and his fears have been justified. Newcastle - via their fanbase - generate enormous sums and one could argue that the 46 defenders (most of whom were bought) were proof that the hierarchies and managers have tried to address the team's most obvious pitfall. On published figures over €60.3 million was spent on the 10 most expensive of those defenders - the likes of Woodgate, Coloccini, Boumsong and Marcelino.

The problem was not money, the problem was the random nature of acquisitions. Given has seen these players, usually from abroad, shuffle and struggle to adapt in front of him. Oh, for a Sami Hyypia (who ironically "failed" a trial at Newcastle about 15 years ago).

The absence of a cohesive, lasting back four is not the great Newcastle failing; it is the absence of a strategy that buys and moulds a cohesive, lasting back four. That is not Shay Given's fault. Nor is it his fault that he is sick of it.

Keane's tale comes to mind

ONE WAS reminded this week of Roy Keane's tale from the summer about the nuisance of autograph hunters, particularly late at night from "grown men with beermats".

It is unknown what occurred between Steven Gerrard and others in a bar in Southport in the early hours of Monday morning - the law will establish that - but Gerrard deserves the same fair hearing Joey Barton received.

FA Cup in need of a real lift

THE FA Cup will either be "as great as ever" or "not what it was" depending on which match you may watch or attend this weekend. It has settled into that rhythm - it seems either you are completely immersed or your interest is nil.

Portsmouth beating Cardiff City in last season's final should have been enthralling to all yet beyond those cities and the trumpets of television stations, was a nation beguiled?

It still feels as if the competition needs help. A Manchester City, Everton or Aston Villa chipping in with a sustained run might do it.