Wullie

And the 46+ games last season? He also chose to strengthen in January, where Pardew chose to weaken, but I've seen many a time that he's not allowed credit for that either.

Not the first injured loan player signed by this lot who made nothing more than a token appearance, and that deal was proved to be bent as fuck. Bemuses me the trust people continue to put in them when stuff like this happens.

Just one in a long line of things that Hughton is not allowed to take credit for tbh.

You're probably right, I was on my phone so couldn't check.

I also think these 'loyalty clauses' might be one of football's biggest myths. It's all Barton's fault. He had one therefore every single player has one.

If he was desperate to be away, he'd have put this 'request' in earlier, when the club were busy lying to us about his availability.

Depends on whether you think he wanted to leave or not I suppose. I don't think he did for a single second, certainly not before being told they wanted to sell him.

How is it relevant exactly? If someone asks for a pay rise, you do have another option between 'yes' and 'you're sold'.

Since when was Carroll on 80k madras? Are you saying they gave him that in October then thought they'd made a mistake? Couldn't give a fuck what he wanted in January, couldn't be less relevant.

His contract was due to be renewed in the summer anyway.

So all these new players are going to be paid less combined than Carroll was paid alone? Jesus. They're likely to be either shit or will very soon want a payrise then.

What are you on about, model professional? Loyal Geordie? What's that got to do with my point, that Carroll was our player and if he wants a new deal and we don't want him to have one, then it's tough on him, not 'well we'd better sell him then'.

Eh? Irrelevant how patient he is. He was contracted to us for five years.

Apart from chopping down Ebanks-Blake for the most blatant penalty you've ever seen, that we somehow got away with.

Why couldn't we have kept him and not given him a new contract? Crazy idea I know.

Liverpool, if memory serves, were 2 points above us on the day we sold him and they will qualify to Europe. At that point it also seemed highly likely that there would be a 7th place up for grabs, our contenders then being sunderland and Bolton. They'd also recently hired a new far better manager according to them so should expect to pick up far more points per game than we had before him. It's a ridiculous rewrite of history to say Europe was never a possibility at that point when you'd have Carroll back for 6-8 games.

The club had an opportunity of Europe this season but preferred cash. I worry about how naive someone would have to be to think that Llambias claiming they have the ambition for the club to play in Europe is anything other than a blatant lie. I remember that too Dave. The defining turning point of Shepherd's tenure was his failure to give Sir Bobby any money in the summer of 2003 in case we didn't qualify for the Champion's League. Of course that failure to invest was exactly the reason we didn't qualify and eventually into the arms of the prick who owns the club today. Shepherd was before his time because he got absolutely slated for that decision then and rightly so. If he'd done that today he'd be praised to the hilt by the balance sheet brigade for whom investment is now made out to be the immediate precursor to administration.

Exactly, Wolves are hardly Barcelona. Nolan and Guthrie didn't get outplayed against Spurs or sunderland when Tiote was out. Barton should stay where he is best.

As I said, far more humiliating on your home scoreboard if you ask me. To be honest, I don't really mind the Man Utd style digital scoreboard, in the corner and not very noticeable, I'd rather not but if it's that difficult to keep score, then fine. It would have helped me when I got into the Man City game at 1-0 down and didn't realise till afterwards that we'd gotten beat 3-1 rather than 2-1. I can't stand the enormous tacky video screens though, especially if it's reducing the capacity which is outrageous.

The only thing a scoreboard does is provide photo opportunities when you get hammered, which always looks like it would be far more humiliating on your own scoreboard. http://www.nufc.com/images/2005-06images/2006-04-17scoreboard.jpg http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45242000/jpg/_45242370_germanyengscoreboard226282.jpg No thank you very much.

From January onwards we were superb in the championship! When was better stuff? Souness? Roeder? Allardyce? Ten games under KK I'll give you.

It was a hypothetical question with a simple answer for my own curiosity and he answered it.

Simple question Bob, and this is in no way reflective of our situation - break even and finish 10th or £100m debt and win the title?

I don't think it was a good deal, I think we lost far more than we gained. Why is being a self sufficient club who can buy players without borrowing what we want to be? Call me old fashioned but I'd rather be successful.

Don't the accounts say we have one of the lowest debts in the league? Why the fuck are we selling Andy Carroll then? How long will you accept this claim that the club is still in crisis?