UV

Not knocking the player, questioning the ambition of the club. Do you honestly think this is a player who will be challenging Owen or Martin's place in the 1st team? You're pre-empting the whole summer transfer merry go round. We really need to see where we are at the end of July/early August. I didn't think I was pre-empting anything. I thought I was commenting on this potential transfer, and noting that this transfer would be the type of transfer an unambitious club would make. I'll make a note to try and not have any opinions on anything until the transfer window is closed. Edit: Actually, that's not fair really, I shouldn't comment until after the end of next season to see how the new transfers work out. Edit 2: Actually, that's not fair either I shouldn't comment until after the new chairman has had a few years in charge to make his mark. Edit 3: Actually, even that's not fair, he didn't appoint Keegan did he. I'll wait until the next manager has had a few years.

Not knocking the player, questioning the ambition of the club. Do you honestly think this is a player who will be challenging Owen or Martin's place in the 1st team?

I'd expect us to be asking for £5m, maybe settle for 4. I think the transfer fee a player can command is a pretty good gauge actually (the length remaining on their contract must be taken into account also obviously), and for a striker at peak age playing in a European league £2.75m, is very, very low. Do we even know this is a Keegan target? Seems more likely to be a Wise/Vetere one.

He's 25, so for a striker he's pretty much developed as much as he ever will. His game may adapt slightly but it's unlikely he'll "be the new Drogba". If no other big clubs seem interested and PSG are happy to let him go for half the fee we'd expect for Shola, then as I said unless our scouts have seen something in him which no other manager, coach or scout has seen, then it's unlikely he's going to be anything special or even much of an improvement on Shola (especially when you take into account the adaptation factor). Also, Spurs aren't interested, so he must be shit.

Replacing a 26 year old 4th choice striker integrated with the team and the league with a 25 year old 4th choice striker unfamiliar with the team and the league who might be a bit better, is not the road to success. It's hardly even strengthening your squad. It's a nothing move. Unless this guy suddenly turns out to be a revelation, and changes his game into something no other manager, coach or scout has seen, it's not going to improve the team one iota. If the club is really looking to improve, we should be replacing our 4th choice striker with someone who would be 1st, 2nd or at the very least 3rd choice. It doesn't look like we're going to be replacing Owen, Martins or Viduka this Summer unless they themselves decide they want to leave, so this is the level of player we're looking at to "improve" our strikeforce for next season. With Owen & Viduka's fitness problems, there's every chance this bloke (or whoever we get) will get plenty of games, and personally I don't think it's good enough for a club with ambitions to get into Europe.

Your figures are way off for Newcastle. The wage bill was £62.4m (excluding the £6.7m payment from the FA for Owen's injury). The turnover was £87.1m. So wages were either 72% of turnover or 79%, depending on whether you include Owen or not. 62% was the premiership average. As it includes Derby, Birmingham and the mackems, I assume this table is for the 07-08 season. Though I don't know where the data would be sourced from as the clubs wont have published their accounts yet.

This thread is pathetic and embarrassing. Clubs compete for players. Get over it. If you have a problem with other clubs beating us to transfer targets take it out on the owner/chairman/executive director (football), not the supporters of other football teams. It just smacks of small minded jealousy; towards Spurs FFS.

I didn't know Colonel Tigh used to be our chairman. /geek Some things never change.

but.. but.. we were going bankrupt, Mort said so. We were losing £1m a month, macbeth said so. This report is obviously all lies!

Someone needs to tell the EU there's a competition starting next month in Austria & Switzerland which is blatantly discriminating against English players and stopping them from plying their trade.

If uefa twinned this with restrictions on the number of homegrown players a single team can buy off another team in their own league then perhaps not. From what platini has been saying, it seems he wants to limit the power of the big 4, not increase it. Platini want to limit the power of the big 4 relative to other leagues and by stopping them buying all the foreign talent from other clubs that's exactly what this ruling would do. It would however as I said make the divide between the big 4 and the rest in the domestic league even bigger. A team which can pick and choose the best from a country's pool of talent will in general have a smaller advantage over it's domestic rivals than one which can pick and choose the best from the entire world's pool of talent. The opposite would only be the case if the second tier of players in that country were also moving abroad in preference to playing for second tier clubs in their own country, or the pool of players in that country was so small that the second tier of players really are shit in comparison to the top few (this is NOT the case in England).

That certainly could have been worded better.

So limiting the number of players based on their nationality is a stupid idea, but limiting the number of players based on their nationality is good, and seems quite effective. Quite brilliant. I don't see the (legal) difference. As others have said, is it actually against EU law if the employment of the players is not restricted, just their ability to work on a particular day? I can see how it may be (as it is discriminatory), but it's less clear cut and doesn't seem to be covered by the EU Regulation quoted earlier in this thread..

I thought he made several good points to be honest. Especially the comparison with Germany. Remember when Ballack got booked in the World Cup semi-final which meant he would miss the final? His response was to go and score the winner that got his team through. He didn't cry like a woman, knowing the camera's would be on him and the commentator's flapping over the "despair" he must have been feeling, his number one goal was to make sure his country progressed, rather than give a "look at me, I'm devastated" performance for the cameras. If you think his performance was just "for the cameras" then you couldn't be more wrong. Say what you like about Terry but he's Chelsea through and through and cares passionately about them like any fan of any team would. Think of it this way. If you missed the penalty that cost Newcastle the Champions League final how would you react? Would I "cry like a woman"? Too f***ing right I would. Does this analogy also involve me and all my family supporting Man U and turning down the chance to play for them? Aye, I might cry then too.

It's only in the last 10 years or so the number of foreign players has got out of hand. The league managed to survive and be a lot more competitive than it is today for over 100 years with hardly any foreign players.

Are you seriously comparing a net spend of around £10m last year, when even newly promoted sides were spending £40m, with an average from the last 10 or more years? Have you no concept of inflation? Are you totally unaware of the increased TV and ticket revenues these days?

So we spent £30m net last Summer then? Change of tack?

So we spent £30m net last Summer then?

A big signing to appease the fans? Good idea, I like it, is that one of Mort's? didn't realise we'd signed Woodgate and Modric We didnt - but thats hardly the sign of a tight ship if you're willing to part with nearly £60m in your first year in charge, yeh? but they didn't. So becasue we lost out on those targets that means we are running a "tight ship"? s*** logic. You know it, yeh? this coming from someone who adds up the total cost of all the players we've been linked with and says look at how much we're willing to spend!

Why? That's his proper job and where his family are. His contract's up so he's done his job. Don't conjure up conspiracy theories, the press will do that for us. Exactly what I was afraid of. The club still hasn't responded to the news and now it's beginning to seem a bit weird. Already people on here are speculating. The papers tomorrow will be unbearable. Am I the only person who is pleased the club is no longer responding to every single piece of press speculation (whether true or not) Gone are the days of the club releasing official statements like "The chairman would like to make it known Alan Shearer has at no time said he would knock seven bells out of Craig Bellamy" I thought that was brilliant myself like.

Worst season? Your opinion. My worst season was going from 2nd to 13th and losing the FA Cup Final. Salary? Mort's wages are derived from Mike Ashley's pockets, no-one elses. The old chairman was crucified for making mistakes, but in his first few years in control, got off quite lightly given he called our women dogs and us fans mugs on his way from taking us from number 2 in the country to mid-table which is a position we've stayed at ever since on average, while embarrassing himself and our club in a brothel to some cockney reporter that kind of gave birth to almost 10 years of downright bad press for this club thereafter which still goes on today. Mort on the other hand hasn't embarrassed anyone and has done a steady decent job in what was a caretaker kind role, brought in to clean up the mess of the previous mob. Not that you don't recognise all this, you just want to stir the s**** and attempt some petty tit for tat crap, quite sad really. Judge Mort not by previous chairman, but on what he has and hasn't done himself. Apart from the transfer dealings I'm not criticising Mort at all, I'm just calling out the hypocrites. I think it's fine to pay good money to the people who run the club. Others bitterly argued that the previous chairman was overpayed on half of what the current and no doubt next chairman will get. (by the way, unless you are happy for Ashley to constantly bankroll the club it IS the club who is paying these salaries) I think it's valid to sack a manager mid season if it's evident things are not going improve in the short to medium term. Others constantly bring up this as an example of incompetence in the previous regime. I realise that the chairman cannot be blamed for the short term performance of the team especially in his first year in charge. Others... oh I see you and Mick have already done it. Some of the posters who have raised these complaints in the past are now posting in this thread patting Mort on the back for a job well done, when if the sign over the door this season had still been F. Shepherd they'd be franticly starting up an online petition to have him shot. This is hilarious. If I believed any of it I'd be very pissed off with Ashley for covering anything up, as it will only come out in the wash at some point in the future.

bet you've been dying to use that.

No comments on the fact that the new chairman gets twice as much as the old chairman got criticised for taking despite presiding over the club's worst season in the premiership, sacking a manager mid season without a replacement lined up, and failing to land any of the new manager's transfer targets (all things the old chairman would surely have been crucified for)? So what happens when the first manager you approach knocks you back and tells his mates in the press about it? The current manager is left in an untenable position, knowing he could be replaced at any time. The club would (rightly) be a laughing stock and a source of constant speculation. I'm not criticising any of those points myself per se (apart from the multiple failures in the transfer market), just pointing out the double standards of others who have criticised precisely these things in the past. I have to say, I fail to see what messes have been cleared up by Mort's chairmanship (as opposed to Ashley's cash). Theres a different structure at the top filled with jobs for the boys appointments so a few roles at the club have higher profiles than they used to, but we've yet to see whether these changes will be a help or a hindrance to the manager. IMO the sooner we have a more permanent chairman in the better.

0:33 "I'm not fightin' I'm a lover" What a Joey.