BottledDog

Half time.

Think it just comes accross badly in print, I'm assuming he means players have be brought in who have had past success and once they came were more likely to go backwards than have things to prove and develop further. /making a few assumptions there though.

COOOOOOOOMON!

Very dissapointing so far. You can tell the lads are playing for a move not working as a team after the Carroll sale. That is, at least, what I think the Bet 365 in game stats are telling me. Can't argue with stats. I hope to see our odds shortning in the second half or there'll be trouble.

Man, I'd love to have seen Chris Hughton at a Dr. Who exhibition. For some reason I get the impression he took Carroll so he could hide behind him when they walked through the Darlek Display.

Is that from the official site? Might give it a go.

To be fair, apparently Hughton took him to the Doctor Who exhibition at the Life Centre (seriously). Not sure whether Boyzone are a step up or down.

Rekon we can catch the highlights here later - http://www.youtube.com/ViareggioCup2011

Nah, can't find anything on .co.uk sadly. /Nowt on 5 Live or even Real either. Useless tossers.

KICK OFF! LETS DO FIORENTINA UP THE SHITA!

you truly are a child of the times aren't you. i fucking hate,loath and detest the turning of the most banal and mundane things into "experiences". Aye, much more of a browsing and purchasing adventure cum escapade to be fair.

Nope, and I do recall someone, possibly Hughton (or may have just been some journo spouting knowing my memory), saying there was a certain amount of flexibility in the wage packages they were able to offer. More of a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule imho.

I heard JC talking about this the other day Joined in Jan, and works with the first team. Not sure of his full name, but its 'Ben S' or something. Seems we've been hiring a lot of backroom staff over the last few months (new fitness, development coaches too). There have been a few blokes hanging around the dugout on matchdays that I haven't got a scooby about. Was guessing they might be some new backroom staff. Good stuff if that's the case (and they're half decent of course). Glad we're investing.

See that's something Esland could get onto. Especially as just by making it look less trampy, it's bound to bring in more dosh in ultimately. PR that pays!

+24%

Noone to my knowledge has said HBA signing is soley down to Pardew, nor has anything said taken away from Hughton having any sort of role in his arrival. However, Wullie saying that he was a Hughton signing despite his signing a 4 and a half year contract when another manager is in the job is just barmy. If anything, and if there is to be no credit given to Pardew, it (not unusually) simply suggests that signing for the club is the more important factor than any particular manager in charge at the time.

But we'll only make any decent money if he does well in the team... /Circular arguements are circular.

The manager who signed those players is gone though. We may have got him in on loan while Hughton was here, but did HBA not sign with us permanently under Pardew? I doubt he'd do that if Hughton was the sole reason for his arrival.

No, no, wouldn't dream of it. That's not being a doommonger in the slightest.

I know it helps being at top clubs, but that is just... woah!

Aye good to see the club backing the youngsters. And great to see us back in Europe so soon tbh.

I think I'm right in saying he's attended a respectable number of games to be fair, especially given his circumstances - plenty of locals with less to their name. I didn't know he was a Southerner until you told us he was. It's not as though he supported Chelsea last week, Man Utd the week before and is just playing political games on here for a laugh, though. Saying that, I suppose he's more mental than most Cockneys to be hanging round here getting belts given he hasn't got £200m at stake. Not all Newcastle supporters are season ticket holders, in fact most aren't. That's not the point, imagine someone without kids of their own telling you how you should be treating your own kids "for the better of society" - you'd be aggrieved that they had the barefaced cheek to do it. Again, I challenge you to find somewhere where I have said that people should boycott home games. In fact, despite a number of people suggesting it - it's something that I or we have not endorsed. Agreed, and good on you for that. Though you have pushed for a boycott of Sports Direct, and more importantly, you've also said you would look at the possibility of boycotting all club merch and matchday sales, which, as I've said previously, does nothing but harm the club in my eyes. Both Chris and I feel very strongly about the "sponsorship" of our club by Sports Direct. We will be discussing (and in Chris' words before I get cut to pieces) ... • Fans believe the continuing and ever-increasing sponsorship packages which SportsDirect hold at St. James Park are degrading the stadium. • The Gallowgate roof • The stadium name • The logos now on the dug-out seats look awful. • Can the club reveal how these transactions work? Does the club actually benefit financially from money flowing from one of Mike Ashley’s holdings to another? We do support a boycott of Sports Direct, however, in the least antagonistic way possible, on my part we have only proposed boycotts of merch, food, drink etc on here and have not made it public. We haven't encouraged it anywhere ... Good, I just don't see how it helps anyone. The quality of the Sports Direct logo aside though, I do agree that unless there is a new paying sponsor lined up, the question does need to be ask just how much the club are currently gaining from the current branding.

His investment is something like £250m isn't it? Even if he managed to sell a ruined Football club with a severely dwindling fanbase (as it would be with the strategy you're suggesting) for £100m. He'd then have to bring in £150m in profit from the club, hows he going to do that in less then 10 seasons? You've mentioned some random fee's their, but I don't see the relevance. A lot of those were acquired before he was even here, when we had a squad of expensive/highly thought of (but of course totally useless in the main) players. Also most of them ended up being sold, not to pay off his loan, but to try to keep the club going financially due to the fact that he'd gotten us relegated, and he actually still lost out anyway and had to add further to his loan to keep the club going. Quite. If it's such a reasonable strategy, surely all these other clubs might have hit upon this golden formula to reel in the profits by now? It's simply not that easy to create a production line of top line talent. We are very lucky (or good transfer judgement recently) to have players currently that are good enough to turn the heads of champions league clubs. Obviously it would be great to bring in more players on a par with them, but realistically, banking a few sales now should, if used wisely, help us move on much further, much faster as a club than we can afford as things stood as a newly promoted side.

Yup, thank God we have no out goings. /lets just wait for the accounts before deciding we're suddenly rolling in it eh.