madras

Think you're wrong on this one. Broke the attack and took one for the team, watch how Diame goes outside for no reason and actually guides Leeds attck inside though.

Having seen him play I don't know if that's good news or bad.

Might it not depend who he was playing for as I'd reckon he'd score loads more for Chelsea/Man City than he would for West Brom. Same goes for Ronaldo/Messi, I don't think they'd be as prolific at Gijon or Las Palmas.

Yeah. I just don't see the financial position as being as rosy as some see it. Many think that the cash from the sales last summer is still sitting there waiting to be spent on new players.

I'm not sure our position will be as strong as you think given we've possibly made a large loss this season and next season will need huge reinvestment. Well the very least we can expect is a jump in broadcasting revenue from less than 1kk to in excess of 60kk. Our current, slightly favorable position is mostly due to the Sissoko, Wijnaldum and Townsend sales and the fact that we didn't reinvest all of that money. But, you are totally right... we have some serious money to spend if we are going to remain on the gravy train for a few seasons (hopefully permanently) to come. The remainder of that money may well have gone on covering running costs. Add in the 30mill overdraft set up by Ashley and the picture isn't so rosy. As usual it may well depend on how much he wants to put in.

I'm not sure our position will be as strong as you think given we've possibly made a large loss this season and next season will need huge reinvestment.

Carlisle playing at Hartlepool that afternoon so gettin back in to Newcastle between 6 and 7. Rumours of West Ham fans stopping in Newcastle making a weekend of it before playing the mackems on Saturday..............gonna be interesting!

If you'd said "we're not playing" they wouldn't have ignored you.

Well thats been a bad few days, kitty down £140 since last Friday.

Yes and No. Like ours (but a bit worse) it depends on the bloke at the top being prepared to bankroll things. The worry they have is that Short will just decide to cut his losses and take administration or sell to a Venky, alternatively he finds a buyer who wnats to do well by the club, However it seems they are few and far between compared to the fly-by-nighters.

Just out of curisoity do you think Rafa is getting the best from this squad ? With the squad we have would you play 4-2-3-1 ? I think our points tally given the lack of quality we have in a number of positons is more than acceptable. I've complained about our systemic rigidity before but the more I think about it the more I think our defenders, particularly through the centre, struggle hopelessly when exposed. At home I'd probably play with 2 strikers, to answer the second question. So do you think Rafa is getting the best from the squad ? fwiw I think people look at our squad depth as if we were still in the prem. Also I think our defenders get exposed because the player alongside Shelvey is largely superflous given the role of being watcher(not allowed to get forward and Shelvey is the fulcrum), because in front of them we have 3 that doesn't have a 10 and and gets stretched all over because of the rigidity of the 2 behind.

The lone striker is fine if you have a no.10, if you have at least 1 player who will get beyond the lone striker (which I think we have but are instructed to "hold their position") when the lone striker moves away from that one central position. We've actually been Pardew like this season, try not to get beat, be very rigid and rely on a piece of magic from the star players. If that was true, then how come Shelvey, Perez and Gouffran all got into great scoring positions? We don't have any star players, it's nothing to do with tactics or formations. At this level Shelvey and Perez are star players. It's nothing to do with tactics etc ? Seriously, it's all to do with that.

When did he become a dad ? Did this coincide with his loss of form ?

I don't necessarily think the football this season has been great (leaving aside the control argument), but I sometimes wonder what people expected. Even decent Premier League teams don't batter Championship teams when they meet in cup competitions and certainly very few teams in the Championship have seasons where they wipe the floor with other teams each week - it just doesn't happen and didn't happen in 09/10. By this time in 09/10 we were absolutely rampant tbh, at home anyway. We kicked on towards the end pretty much thanks to the signing of Routledge, tbf. We were pissing the league anyway by then. Routledge was a nice bonus, he wasn't a deciding factor. Yip and even when we weren't looking dominant we went out to try and and win as opposed to "control" games. That's because it was easier to win games against teams that couldn't score in a month of Sundays. My abiding memory of that season was that no matter how bad we played we were never punished, but we had plenty of goalscorers and a pretty mean defence. Our midfield was s*** though. You don't see some of that this season ?

The lone striker is fine if you have a no.10, if you have at least 1 player who will get beyond the lone striker (which I think we have but are instructed to "hold their position") when the lone striker moves away from that one central position. We've actually been Pardew like this season, try not to get beat, be very rigid and rely on a piece of magic from the star players.

Just out of curisoity do you think Rafa is getting the best from this squad ? With the squad we have would you play 4-2-3-1 ?

I don't necessarily think the football this season has been great (leaving aside the control argument), but I sometimes wonder what people expected. Even decent Premier League teams don't batter Championship teams when they meet in cup competitions and certainly very few teams in the Championship have seasons where they wipe the floor with other teams each week - it just doesn't happen and didn't happen in 09/10. By this time in 09/10 we were absolutely rampant tbh, at home anyway. We kicked on towards the end pretty much thanks to the signing of Routledge, tbf. We were pissing the league anyway by then. Routledge was a nice bonus, he wasn't a deciding factor. Yip and even when we weren't looking dominant we went out to try and and win as opposed to "control" games.

No one else think the Defoe link is rubbish ? Seems like a very un Rafa like signing.

Send it to Boro instead.

No problem with the feint/stutter, it's just like giving the keeper the eyes, body shape etc to sell him.

Some sort of drugs raid apparently. Cheers for finding that out for me. Nowt like living up to national stereotypes eh ?

PSV.....seriously ?

Bizarre happenings in the Twente-PSV game. The crowd are being told to leave over the PA but the game carries on ?

Rumours in Sheffland that their manager is off back to Portugal in the Summer and Pardew is lined up to replace, alreasdy met the players etc. With some wanting it to happen sooner rather than later

Quite a good name to pass into the lexicon, "a Stroudian error"