James

Players with minor niggles are getting rested.

Fucking hell, where did Geremi materialise from...

Faye and Geremi are on holiday.

Technicality though. As Hearts were in the Cup Final, most people assumed that the notice period counted back from that game.

There won't be any more Websters due to the rule that a player has to hand in their notice within ten days of their club's final league game.

The Times isn't a rag though in fairness Correct, it makes perfectly good bog roll, as do all Rupert Murdoch owned companies.

'Flair' has been deeped.

He quitted.

As far as Murdoch-owned, wage exagerrating newspapers that produce no quotes that relate to the context of the rest of their articles go, the Times is right up there.

Fitter players concentrate better toward the end of games. Fitter players can demonstrate better technique towards the end of games.

How have we weakened our squad by 4 players? Diatta came in as a short term replacement for Rozehnal and if you want to include Troisi then surely you should add Frank Dequah who's been handed a professional contract with us as Troisi never made a first team appearance for us as far as I remember. Rozenhal, Emre, Ramage, Carr. Isn't that 4 players? You can also throw in Diatta and Troisi. And how many of those were seriously available for enough games in 2008 to be considered missing players now Deep? That's like saying if Arsenal let Rosicky, Eduardo and Van Persie go that they wern't weakening their squad by three. As you can see your argument is complete nonsense. When Owen was injured for the whole season and if we let him go, would we not be weakening our squad? Perhaps, if the four players mentioned actually improved the squad which they didn't, they were much of a muchness.

that a serious opinion or am i missing the sarcasm? either way i'd tend to agree, especially if you consider benfica might have an outside chance of a title challenge too... It is an opinion, but it only applies if we have missed out. If so, it is the fault of the previous chairman for playing in a market that was unsustainable in the long term. james, i'm gonna resist the urge to respond to this with "what the f*** are you on about" and instead say: unless this is an attempt to be witty i'm gonna assume you mean that we could only offer aimar 40k a week (for example) due to the extravagent wages FS and his board laid out on players, if that hadn't been the case we might have offered more wages to aimar and he'd have perhaps come? if i'm right with this interpretation that is so far beyond common sense & logical reasoning there isn't even a word or measurement for it if that's not what you meant or you were being funny then what did you really mean? My point is that the club can't afford to be paying the type of wages Shepherd was handing out, and thus when we offer players a fraction of Owen's wage, they are likely to be offended. in the style of kyle from south park: "reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally?" so shepherd was handing out wages & that was bad, yet if he hadn't done that ashley would be able to offer aimar high wages to tempt him to the club? i was right in the first place, are you kidding me man? you can see that makes no sense right? you've invented your own version of catch 22 Shepherd created a market where any proven player would expect to get at least £50k. Had he not done so, expectations abroad would be lower, and therefore we could compete with Monaco and Benfica. Fact is that he was throwing cash away with only the short term in mind. that takes some believing.........if we offer more than benfica or monaco then if the player is after money alone he'd come regardless of wether he expected more or would have gor more a couple of years ago Like I explained in the post that started the argument, say Benfica offered to make you the highest paid player at the club, but Newcastle offerred a higher wage which is less than what gets paid to the likes of Duff, who would you choose for footballing reasons?

that a serious opinion or am i missing the sarcasm? either way i'd tend to agree, especially if you consider benfica might have an outside chance of a title challenge too... It is an opinion, but it only applies if we have missed out. If so, it is the fault of the previous chairman for playing in a market that was unsustainable in the long term. james, i'm gonna resist the urge to respond to this with "what the fuck are you on about" and instead say: unless this is an attempt to be witty i'm gonna assume you mean that we could only offer aimar 40k a week (for example) due to the extravagent wages FS and his board laid out on players, if that hadn't been the case we might have offered more wages to aimar and he'd have perhaps come? if i'm right with this interpretation that is so far beyond common sense & logical reasoning there isn't even a word or measurement for it if that's not what you meant or you were being funny then what did you really mean? My point is that the club can't afford to be paying the type of wages Shepherd was handing out, and thus when we offer players a fraction of Owen's wage, they are likely to be offended. in the style of kyle from south park: "reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally?" so shepherd was handing out wages & that was bad, yet if he hadn't done that ashley would be able to offer aimar high wages to tempt him to the club? i was right in the first place, are you kidding me man? you can see that makes no sense right? you've invented your own version of catch 22 Shepherd created a market where any proven player would expect to get at least £50k. Had he not done so, expectations abroad would be lower, and therefore we could compete with Monaco and Benfica. Fact is that he was throwing cash away with only the short term in mind.

How have we weakened our squad by 4 players? Diatta came in as a short term replacement for Rozehnal and if you want to include Troisi then surely you should add Frank Dequah who's been handed a professional contract with us as Troisi never made a first team appearance for us as far as I remember. Rozenhal, Emre, Ramage, Carr. Isn't that 4 players? You can also throw in Diatta and Troisi. And how many of those were seriously available for enough games in 2008 to be considered missing players now Deep?

that a serious opinion or am i missing the sarcasm? either way i'd tend to agree, especially if you consider benfica might have an outside chance of a title challenge too... It is an opinion, but it only applies if we have missed out. If so, it is the fault of the previous chairman for playing in a market that was unsustainable in the long term. james, i'm gonna resist the urge to respond to this with "what the fuck are you on about" and instead say: unless this is an attempt to be witty i'm gonna assume you mean that we could only offer aimar 40k a week (for example) due to the extravagent wages FS and his board laid out on players, if that hadn't been the case we might have offered more wages to aimar and he'd have perhaps come? if i'm right with this interpretation that is so far beyond common sense & logical reasoning there isn't even a word or measurement for it if that's not what you meant or you were being funny then what did you really mean? My point is that the club can't afford to be paying the type of wages Shepherd was handing out, and thus when we offer players a fraction of Owen's wage, they are likely to be offended.

What if I say he's not like the others? What if I say say he's not just one of those players? What if I say he's the contender? What if I say he will never surrender?

The identities of the triallists are generally kept secret, as clubs don't want others finding out who we are after. Thanks for the heads up though

His sister died as well then RIP Edit: Actually, no, I misread the article.

We have released a statement to be fair, plus I assume people at NUFC had an opportunity to offer there condolences in person to be fair. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2008/07/25/tragedy-for-obafemi-martins-as-mum-dies-72703-21405238/

How have we weakened our squad by 4 players? Diatta came in as a short term replacement for Rozehnal and if you want to include Troisi then surely you should add Frank Dequah who's been handed a professional contract with us as Troisi never made a first team appearance for us as far as I remember. Whatever, if it's 3 or 4, it doesn't matter, my point is we are still weaker, and we were already a thin squad. That's just a waste of your time to write a reply to be honest, and equally a waste of time for me to reply to your reply. Not weaker really when the contribution of the departing players last season was practically nil.

that a serious opinion or am i missing the sarcasm? either way i'd tend to agree, especially if you consider benfica might have an outside chance of a title challenge too... It is an opinion, but it only applies if we have missed out. If so, it is the fault of the previous chairman for playing in a market that was unsustainable in the long term.

To be honest, if I had the choice of being paid a very high Portuguese wage of £30k per week, when I could be paid an average English wage of £40k per week, I'd go for Benfica, as they were clearly pulling out all the stops. Not that I believe the newspapers.

This is my own personal perspective as to whether clubs are better or worse off at the moment: Arsenal - Hard to say what young players are available to step up a level, but the loss of Hleb and Flamini is not made up by Samir Nasri - Slightly Weaker Aston Villa - One loan made permanent, plus a midfielder who is obviously a more inferior replacement for Barry. Friedel transfer is imminent, but Carson did well there last season, so that won't make too much difference. Meanwhile, they have lost their best defender in Mellberg - Weaker Blackburn - Likely to replace a very good keeper with a mediocre one. Replaced four insignificant squad players with an injury prone past it has been. Lost a good manager for an almost unproven one - Weaker Bolton - Elmander is better than what they had at the start of the summer, but isn't going to be as good as Anelka. Guthrie is better than Muamba. - Weaker Chelsea - Makelele will need replacing. Bosingwa might not be the improvement at right back Chelsea are hoping for. Deco is very good but will be replacing a very good player. Scolari should be better than Grant - Slightly stronger Everton - Made Pienaar's loan permanent, but have so far failed to secure Manuel Fernandes. They'll miss Carsley too - Weaker Fulham - Gera excluded, the players coming in are worse than existing players in the same position, or even worse than players who have left. Zamora won't fill McBride's boots - Weaker Hull - Better players, but still not good enough. Should be better than Derby though - Stronger Liverpool - New signings will bolster the squad and provide potential stars for a couple of years time, but there is no stand out immediate quality, and they'll miss the goals of Crouch - Slightly weaker Man City - Despite the investment and reputation, can't say for sure that Jo will provide Citeh with the consistent quality up front that is wanted. Furthermore, there is no reason why Hughes should be better than Sven. They've lost a few squad players who made important contributions last season too - No better or worse Manchester United - No changes of any note - No better or worse Middlesbrough - Rochemback and Digard are like for like, and they've lost a few players who have had important roles at Boro over the years - Slightly Weaker Portsmouth - Added goals from Crouch cancelled out by the iminent loss of Muntari, who really made Pompey tick last season - No better or worse Stoke - Worse than Reading and Birmingham - Weaker Sunderland - No real movements yet, but if they get most of the Spurs bunch they want, their squad will get an important upgrade - No better or worse Tottenham - Modric, dos Santos and Gomes are interesting additions, although I can see one or both of the latter two not working out. Loss of players to Sunderland, Berbatov and Keane would make them considerably weaker however - Slightly stronger West Brom - Better than Brum and Reading, and have improved their team since - Stronger West Ham - Behrami doesn't compensate for important goals from Solano and Zamora - Weaker Wigan - Have oddly signed players that play in the position of their best player - No better or worse So that makes it: Stronger: 2 clubs (and two clubs unlikely to rival us) Slightly Stronger: 2 clubs No better or worse: 5 clubs Slightly Weaker: 3 clubs Weaker: 7 clubs So in other words, four of our 19 rivals have made progress, while 15 haven't or have even regressed at this stage. That pretty much agrees with what KK says about other clubs not ripping out trees in the transfer market right now. With regards to Newcastle, we now have a decent spell under a better manager, we have kept the spine of the team that was both good enough and not always injured, and we have added Guthrie who looks promising, and Gutierrez who was part of the supply line for Guiza's golden boot efforts in La Liga. As such, our team is slightly stronger than it was before which puts us either closer to, or further ahead of most other Premier League clubs. Get that bit of depth and extra quality and we could really steal the gap in the League this season.

It was all very basic numbers only, as seen when players don't have set numbers.

RIP