Isegrim

I'm fairly sure it's not Wise's job to do any of those things you've mentioned. I thought it was Veteres job to go and get the players, Wise to find players, and Morts to tie down current players to new deals. Anyway a bit harsh to blame Wise for missing out on Woodgate when he was appointed a day after the latter had signed for Spurs...

I prefer Keegan who hopefully gets more out of probably less high profile players to someone else who would probably get less out of bigger names tbh.

Does this mean tomorrow may or may not be Friday with a press conference that may be or may not be at 3.30pm?

Look a view posts above.

Remembering how easy it was for peasepud and me to get the "Schweinsteiger to Newcastle" story into various papers all over Europe two years ago or the Koller story from the mackems I am a bit sceptical about transfer stories however strong they might sound...

f*** yeah, something a little more solid it seems.......and in english You realise that those articles say exactly what the Croatian ones do? Just because it's now in English, doesn't give it greater credibility, they've just done what we've done and got someone who speaks Croat to tell us what they say the only difference is that more people read their posts than whoever it was who wrote it on here and they're too up their own arse to acknowledge their sources. Exactly. And sportal.hr and index.hr from Croatia aren't the most credible news sources. So as long as there isn't a genuine report from a reliable source I'll dismiss this as creative journalism.

Officially dealing with them can easily result in other parties entering negotiations as well as happened in other cases before (most famously when we forced ManU to go in for Rooney). So I rather like it when things are done quietly and wrapped up soon.

How much money have we lost because he's not been on the pitch though? How much more revenue could we have accumulated over the past 3 years if we instead spent £5m less on someone like Anelka? Anelka had every chance of picking up exactly the same injuries as Owen. Owen's injuries had nothing to do with his past niggles. Exactly. I was critical when we signed Owen because of his poor injury record. But the broken foot and the damaged cruciate ligament had nothing to do with it but were just freak injuries that could not have been foreseen. What poor injury record? He had a history of recurring hamstring injuries that every now and then lead to him missing matches during his Liverpool days. Something I found worrying back then because it was a sort of injury that was quite common at Newcastle back then. That's what I thought too but apparently he didn't. Well apparently it was a worry for him as well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/euro2000/teams/england/752372.stm Though it might have been overstated. Anyway I don't think he can't be blamed for his bad luck with injuries during his Newcastle days.

How much money have we lost because he's not been on the pitch though? How much more revenue could we have accumulated over the past 3 years if we instead spent £5m less on someone like Anelka? Anelka had every chance of picking up exactly the same injuries as Owen. Owen's injuries had nothing to do with his past niggles. Exactly. I was critical when we signed Owen because of his poor injury record. But the broken foot and the damaged cruciate ligament had nothing to do with it but were just freak injuries that could not have been foreseen. What poor injury record? He had a history of recurring hamstring injuries that every now and then lead to him missing matches during his Liverpool days. Something I found worrying back then because it was a sort of injury that was quite common at Newcastle back then.

How much money have we lost because he's not been on the pitch though? How much more revenue could we have accumulated over the past 3 years if we instead spent £5m less on someone like Anelka? Anelka had every chance of picking up exactly the same injuries as Owen. Owen's injuries had nothing to do with his past niggles. Exactly. I was critical when we signed Owen because of his poor injury record. But the broken foot and the damaged cruciate ligament had nothing to do with it but were just freak injuries that could not have been foreseen.

He would be an immense signing. Can cover for Beye and take over at RB when beye is done, and play LB and give Enrique some competition.

How has he turned out? Cant say I have seen much of the lad but remember all the hype. Been injured quite a bit recently I think, but he was very very highly thought of a couple of years back iirc. Better than what we have from the (limited) times I've seen him. He has played quite well this season especially since moved into a defensive midfield role. I doubt he would be interested if HSV qualify for the Championsleague though. Who would you liken him to and how much would he cost, in your opinion Wolfy? Hmm, who is he like? Difficult. Maybe a younger version Nicky Butt with a touch of Sammeresque elegance in his sweeper role in front of the back four. HSV paid 8m Euro for him iirc, so I think HSV would try to hold out for something like 8-10m quid. But as I said a lot will depend on where Hamburg is going to finish. But looking at the Bundesliga there are other more realistic possibilities imho. Rolfes from Leverkusen for example. Is he better at CB or DM? At DM he has been generally more consistent imho, while he played his best games at CB.

How has he turned out? Cant say I have seen much of the lad but remember all the hype. Been injured quite a bit recently I think, but he was very very highly thought of a couple of years back iirc. Better than what we have from the (limited) times I've seen him. He has played quite well this season especially since moved into a defensive midfield role. I doubt he would be interested if HSV qualify for the Championsleague though. Who would you liken him to and how much would he cost, in your opinion Wolfy? Hmm, who is he like? Difficult. Maybe a younger version Nicky Butt with a touch of Sammeresque elegance in his sweeper role in front of the back four. HSV paid 8m Euro for him iirc, so I think HSV would try to hold out for something like 8-10m quid. But as I said a lot will depend on where Hamburg is going to finish. But looking at the Bundesliga there are other more realistic possibilities imho. Rolfes from Leverkusen for example.

How has he turned out? Cant say I have seen much of the lad but remember all the hype. Been injured quite a bit recently I think, but he was very very highly thought of a couple of years back iirc. Better than what we have from the (limited) times I've seen him. He has played quite well this season especially since moved into a defensive midfield role. I doubt he would be interested if HSV qualify for the Championsleague though.

Good point. I'd take offenders' post count down though, just to piss Isegrim off. Now this deserves booing. Bastid.

The Jorman press agencies say that the Metzelder story is stemming from various newspapers in Spain and Italy. I haven't checked this so far. Metzelder is indeed very injury prone or maybe more unlucky. He overcame a career threatening injury and although he never got back to the form he probably had in 2002 he looked like becoming decent player again. Depending on the fee and his wage demands and some better luck with his injuries he could be a very good signing. He's intelligent and very professional. Players like Taylor could learn a lot from him.

And if we had any other striker at the time scoring goals I'm sure he would have been popular too. It seems to bother you that people like him which is something you will have to sort out yourself. It only really bothers me when people actually behave like morons and put their love for a player about the love for the team, i.e. when they booed the substitution. Apart from this I just strongly disagree with the judgement of some people regarding a player's (like)ability. I don't see any reason to sort this out tbh. So you don't rate him as a player. You could have just said that and left it there tbh instead of whinging on about people only liking him because he cost a big fee and has a few decent youtube compilations, which is bollocks quite frankly. So basically you are just whinging about me whinging. I think it is quite obvious that I don't rate him - or better don't rate him as much as others do. I don't retract from my comments about the fee and the youtube videos. I see them as a perfect explanation why some ordinary players are getting totally overhyped. And for Skirge: You think Keegan backed down to fan's pressure? Hilarious. But if so, are other people allowed to boo Martins if one of his poor touches or stupidly lost balls results in the opponent scoring late in a game? Another rhetorical question btw...

And if we had any other striker at the time scoring goals I'm sure he would have been popular too. It seems to bother you that people like him which is something you will have to sort out yourself. It only really bothers me when people actually behave like morons and put their love for a player above the love for the team, i.e. when they booed the substitution. Apart from this I just strongly disagree with the judgement of some people regarding a player's (like)ability. I don't see any reason to sort this out tbh.

The "saved us from relegation" is very overstated imho. Fair enough, he was the only real striker in the side then due to circumstances, but I am pretty sure any other striker would have "saved" us as well by getting a necessary amount of goals. Apart from the Tottenham and maybe the Blackburn away game it wasn't so much his individual performances or efforts that "saved" us. I do also think that his commitment to the club is very much overstated. It's nice to hear those things he says, but who would expect him to slate the club. Other players say the same, it's just some kind of professional PR. He'd say the same about any other club as well iyam. As for what players someone can love. Maybe it's just me but I can rather love players who are more often brilliant than frustrating. Martins isn't that kind of player for me because of his inconsistency. Apart from the very rare wonderstrikes he hasn't done too many things that really got me excited. I normally rather expect him to f*** things up then do the right thing. Therefore I see him just as an ordinary player. I reserve "love" for players of the calibre of Beardsley or maybe Shearer.

I agree that Martins will look much better in a Keegan side that does make use of his strengths. But I am not too optimistic that Martins is able to learn a lot more as he seems way too thick for it. He can be a good player for a team, but will never become a good team player imho. As Alex said, he'll be always hit and miss. I still don't get all this strange love he gets from some fans. I don't think it has anything to do with his attitude or his ability. It is just down to some ridiculous hype stemming from him being signed for an overinflated fee from a big club of a glamerous foreign league and because he looked good on some youtube videos. At least this time the hype is in some kind justified in contrast to the same affection for other players like Luque, Emre or Viana. I do not really mind people being fond of him as long as he actually plays well and it doesn't result in disrespect towards other players or the manager. Though I wonder what sort of love and support a player would get who actually really is a top class player.

But only pure white ones.

Read the thread title again mate. We could get all of them, given some hard work and enthusiasm Best April fool so far.

What is unrealistic in expecting a player with Owen's stats to score 20 goals in an injury free season? Despite all the various problems he has (statistically) scored almost in every other game for Newcastle. If there is a player in the current squad you expect to score 20 goals then it's Owen.

Providing we can keep him in the current state of fitness and form he is a player worth hanging on to. He is doing a good job as a captain and having a player of his calibre (even if foremost by his name) can be a decent bait to attract other players if you can't offer them European football or the glamour of London.

As I seriously doubt that Martins knows all numbers Keegan would be fine...