jimmymag

What a prick! A broken leg for any of our players is a disaster.

I'm not sure Hughton instilled the team spirit, more like Nolan, Smith and Harper had some harsh words with the squad after last season's hammering at Orient and pulled the dressing room together, after encouraging the makeweights to fuck off. I'm still not convinced Hughton is top class management material, but whilst he's got the backing of a united dressing room and learns quickly from his mistakes he's the best man for the job at the moment. And the quality he's brought to the squad recently won't do his long term job prospects any harm.

Just what I was thinking. It looked like a painful injury, and this would be a kick in the bollocks for the lad.

Just watched a recording of yesterday's coverage of the game on Sky and I don't think I've ever heard such a one eyed commentary. It was as if fanzone was masquerading as an unbiased commentary. Makes it all the sweeter that we stuffed it up 'em!

He has enough skill to create time on the ball and make himself space to operate BUT I said yesterday in the match thread that he would be even better in the middle where Nolan players where he has more room to move instead of being stuck down the wing. If we manage to sign him permanently I can see him developing into a top player for us where he'll be given a free role to create havoc wherever he feels like it. He's got so much raw talent it's frightening!

Aye was gutted about that, he was fantastic and they ignored him. I don't think Hodgson or Mancini would have failed to recognise how good he was though. Probably as impressive a debut as I can remember for NUFC, and he can only get better.

Ben Arfa will never again be given the time on the ball he had before yesterday's strike. He'll be a marked man from now on, but I know he's got the ability to cope with that when he's settled and fit.

Better than Smith is good enough for now. Alan Smith has never had a game that good in his entire career. Up front he has!

I'd be very interested to see the stats on which player turns the ball over most often, my money would be on Jonas. And yes I know he is at least trying to be offensive, but the turnovers have got to be balanced by assists or goals and Jonas provides neither.

That is cringeworthy to say that we can't criticize the guy. He's the worst winger I've seen play for Newcastle. I think stats will also back this up in terms of assists and goals as well. Some people are beyond help. Again name me a winger over the last 20 years that couldn't cross a ball, or even shoot properly. He's got a decent shot on him for a kick off although his crossing is hit and miss. Milner and Duff spring to mind in recent times. What are you on!?

Seems to like to fight with team-mates, he'll have no shortage of willing opponents in our dressing room. Hopefully the change will allow the lad to grow up, or he'll be another foreigner unable to settle here but the "try before you buy" deal seems very good business.

Just watched a couple of youtube clips and the kid looks class! Two footed, tricky and direct. Perhaps a bit lightweight, but I'm sure he'll adapt. Looks like a hell of a signing. Well done Chris!

Fuck sake! Have you and Skirge forgotten that Jonas and Colo are on over £50k a week and after their gash performances of last season they were left with Hobson's choice regarding a move to another club, take a massive pay cut or stay with us. So please don't give them credit for making a no brain decision. Let's see how they do against the big boys next season and if they can justify their inflated salaries. So how about the fact that they have actually performed and shown heart this season then? If they were only interested in their wages they could have and would have played a lot worse. Their wages will have obviously been a factor, but to suggest that its the only reason they stayed and not give them any credit for their performances this season is ridiculous. There weren't exactly a queue of clubs knocking on our door desperate to take the Argies off our hands were there? I think your omitting the fact that the "Championship" is vastly inferior to the Premiership, you can only appreciate how inferior it is by having your club compete in it, so if the players attitude was right they were entitled to outclass the vast majority of players they were facing on a weekly basis. I agree that Colo and Jonas have looked good in the "Championship" but I'm still to be convinced that they have the character and mentality to do the same in the Premiership. I'm hoping like everyone else that our new found team spirit will allow the squad to compete next season, but I think it's vital that we get off to a good start for that to happen.

Fuck sake! Have you and Skirge forgotten that Jonas and Colo are on over £50k a week and after their gash performances of last season they were left with Hobson's choice regarding a move to another club, take a massive pay cut or stay with us. So please don't give them credit for making a no brain decision. Let's see how they do against the big boys next season and if they can justify their inflated salaries.

Confidence is a wonderful thing. Let's hope him and the team get off to a good start next season. Some early season batterings will be a real test of his character and he didn't convince me that he had much of that last season.

I wouldn't cream your pants just yet over Coloccini because plenty of poor sides have made very good goalscoring opportunities against us this season, only for poor finishing to come to our rescue. Premiership strikers won't be as wasteful and we could be in for a torrid time at the back again. The question is; was Coloccini's poor form last year down to him settling in, or is he Championship class at best?

It's amazing to me that Maradona considers him a key part of the Argentina starting eleven. That coke really fucked his brain!

You mean Taylor wasn't quick enough to cover for Coloccini's fuck ups, of which there were many last season!

One good thing could come out of this mess:- "Taylor also faces a struggle not to lose a significant amount of weight – a classic symptom of being restricted to a liquid diet." Losing a stone or so won't do him any harm.

Taylor should press charges and let the law take care of it. Or has he something to hide?

Fucks sake! Has he got the same PR team as Tiger Woods? And Ronaldo sounds like a battered wife pleading to give her husband one last chance. Again!

To break someones leg or batter some kid unlucky enough to cross him.

With Hughton as manager we will struggle to survive and I fear the worst.

So it's his fault when it goes wrong and someone else is responsible when it goes right? It was nowt to do with the previous Board when the team was doing well in the PL but it was their fault when things took a turn for the worse, or even when things didn't get better than 3rd. Surely you remember that? Why should it be any different for Ashley? In any case, the facts show quite clearly he's taken the club backwards since he took over and that's his fault no matter how you want to ignore it. The strong position we find ourselves in currently is nothing to do with Ashley, it is in spite of Ashley. All Ashley sanctioned in the summer was the sale or release of a number of players, the only players who came in were either loan signings or free signings. I'm talking here about Danny Simpson (loan), Peter Lovenkrands (Free), Zurab Khizanishvili (Loan) and Marlon Harewood (Loan). He also failed to bring in an established manager. Basically, Ashley didn't do anything permanent to improve the position of the team/club until January came around. He made the decision to do something in January only because : 1. The manager and the playing/coaching staff had performed very well despite being handicapped by Ashley and his undermining of the football club. This saw the club top of the Championship, so a return to the higher revenue of the PL suddenly looked to be possible. 2. Ashley had once again failed to offload the club so he was left with either speculating in an attempt to recover PL money, or flounder due to a thin squad. The small squad was thanks to Ashley and he didn't give a damn about that until he failed to sell the club, he'd have handed that crap situation over to someone else. The man's a plank. Simple as that. It's about time people stopped trying to defend the indefensible because it's laughable. Ok, I guess part of this is applicable to my question so I'll take this. A couple of points I'd add to this is that the he he also allowed the manager to keep players rather than peddling them like he could could of done, also the release of some players is a very good thing, its eased the pressure off the clubs wage bill alot, something which was imperative to our progess. I persoannly would say that Ashley allowing Hughton to keep a strong nucleus of squad who could easily of been peddeled have directly lead us to be in the strong position we find ourselves in, we also find ourselves in a decent position financially which is also to Ashleys credit. Having said I do agree about the manager situation and also his inactivity during time of sale. Overall, Id say he is leading us in the right direction, whther he meant it or not. Having to peddle players to get them off the wage bill was a situation of his own making. That doesn't mean I'm not glad to see the back of some of these wasters, just that this isn't an argument in favour of Ashley given the situation was caused by him in the first place. The same comment applies to the idea of the club being in a good position financially. Ashley should have taken the correct decision(s) that would have seen the club retain PL status and then got rid of those under-performers and sick-notes (most of us know who) from a position of still being in the PL. That would have qualified as "decent work" though still a long way to go. The position we are in now really is in spite of him, he doesn't know what he's doing, which I think you possibly acknowledge from your ending comment above. It wasnt his own making at all. The wage bill need leaning out irrepspective of what division we were in. If you belive that Ashley could of got rid of many of those players whilst in the Prem then thats your opinion and pretty much the lynchpin to your entire argument, in my opinion we'd of found it very difficult to shift players who were picking up top wedge with mimimum effort whilst getting to play in front of 50k, no player had any incentive to leave bar Owen. As I say, I'll credit him partially for cutting the wage bill without compromising our performance in the season, I'll credit him for keeping a strong nucleus of squad and I'll also credit him for addressing problems in our squad at January, I'll also credit him for spending money very sensibily. I wouldnt exactly say he didnt know what he was doing but what I will say is that the cutting of the wage bill (which i think is the single most important thing for the future of this club) isnt all his doing and is rather a sympton of relegation. Either way we are definitely going in the right direction. You either fail to appreciate or acknowledge that every player in the squad was for sale at the end of last season. We were left with the players which other clubs didn't want, either because they were deemed unproven or not good enough, and/or on far too much money that no other club was prepared to match. It certainly wasn't down to Ashley choosing to keep the nucleus of a decent squad.

Like who? I don't have an insight on english football directors or whatever they should be called. But there must be some people with footballing knowledge who are honest and have a sense of how to control a club from a chairman position? http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/1716/rido280x42042748a1p.jpg