James

Has Craig Hope been stealing my ideas?

Translation: Hello, my name is Alan Oliver, I need to appease those Martins worshippers, but I don't want anymore of those Frenchies around here, they never give me interviews, down with the Frenchies, they are all rubbish lets stick to people I know more like Paul Dickov and Brett Emerton.

Judging from the statistics (i.e. I could be wrong) but as I said in the other thread, if we are genuinely interested, it may be that we are looking to replace/upgrade Shola. Keegan got through eight strikers one season, so I think he could be looking for some reliable back up in addition to extra quality in that area.

Aye, to clarify, I'm comparing status as opposed to actual quality. Shola would have been under the Kitson category, so perhaps if we do have loadsa money, we are looking to upgrade Shola.

Club are very short of numbers up front assuming Shola goes. You have to remember that the current fourth choice striker is Smith and you'd hope we got rid of him too. Consider the players Keegan used to have up front (although the players are different in terms of attributes, they have vaguely) similar stature: Shearer = Owen Ferdinand = Viduka Asprilla = Martins Beardsley = ? Kitson = ? Huckerby = Carroll Ginola = ? Watson = Smith

.cock don't even know what position he plays in.

Good news. I always forget (only asked the other day...), is it The Times that Owen used to have a column with? He used to, but it has stopped iirc.

The Geremi clan haven't had a good few monthsfrom the sound of things: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2008/05/13/toon-ace-geremi-s-grief-for-sister-72703-20902160/ RIP

Some good quotes/info: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2008/05/13/toon-young-gun-joins-mag-yars-72703-20901979/

Because he's Assistant Manager and knows a lot about football having been in the game all his life? Can't understand why people knock him so much. So, you rate him? What are you rating him on? His coaching skills? You've been coached by him so you know? Works both ways. How do people know he is shit? What we do know, is that he knows more about football and playing for Newcastle United than any on here having certainly been one ofour best players in the 80s. And since then, he has worked for six of our last eight managerial appointments.

It is easier to believe a figure widely reported at the time, in particular by the more reliable broadsheets at a time when they would have consulted their best sources on this, whereas now there has obviously been no research, and no sources as negotiations haven't started, and our lot are a secretive bunch. I'm not saying £80k is definitive, but given the historical reporting of Owen's wage, it is certainly between £80k-£100k and nowhere near the £120k mentioned recently. So your reasoning is: don't believe the papers now, believe them 3 years ago? My belief is that they are more likely to get their facts right at the time, than they are in the future. Very few sports journalists thoroughly research their articles, for what they write today is fish and chip paper tommorrow. Totally contradictory iyam. Well at the time it was the biggest footballing story going on. Journalists were going to be more thorough and do their utmost to collect accurate information, and would call favours in from their best sources. These sources were few, but information hadn't been distorted by Chinese Whispers. Chinese Whispers change a lot over three years. Recent articles are junk stories that will be forgotten over the next few months, hence these articles are of reduced quality in numerous ways. So journalists don't exaggerate / make stuff up when something is currently the biggest story? Ok. With big stories, there is a lot of competition to provide the best reports of the news. Hence the papers are going to use their best sources, and the best sources are more likely to have the best information, and this information is likely to be passed onto the Fleet Street elite like Henry Winter, ie someone with genuine clout and integrity. Whereas today, a lot of those writing all these so called facts speculating about Owen's future can only be considered as members of the gutter press. You're spot on. For example: Ashley has already sold the club and Keegan was sacked on Friday. According to the gutter press at a time when the likes of Henry Winter have a title race, all-English Champions League Final to write about. Different journalists and different article accuracy.

I disagree Our defense DOES need looking at. To conceed an average of 1.71 goals a game in the league (total 65) is an absolute joke, settled or not. If we are trully aiming for top 5, we need two new centre backs, with Faye and Taylor as cover. Look at 5th to 7th below and the stats of the teams we are aiming for: Everton - .86 a game (total 33) Villa - 1.34 (51) Blackburn 1.26 (48) I agree the back for are settled but they are NOT doing the job. I appreciate this has alot to do with the whole team but none the less, changes are needed IMHO. The problem was how we defended as a team prior to the switch to 433. Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand and Brown would leak just as many goals if they had what our defenders had in front of them. The 433 is a problem as well I think against the better teams, we need a squad that can change between the two because over a season, we are still going to get fucked over by the better teams if we do not change the defense with the current setup (which seem favoured by Keegan and the players). It needs tweaking, not digging up. Griffin (Derby Reserve), O'Brien (Bolton squad player), Bramble (maligned Wigan defender) and Bernard (free agent in his 20s) kept a clean sheet against Juventus in the champions League thanks to the performance of the players in front. If we can get better midfielders and strikers who can help us defend as a team whern off the ball, the defence is not an issue anymore.

It is easier to believe a figure widely reported at the time, in particular by the more reliable broadsheets at a time when they would have consulted their best sources on this, whereas now there has obviously been no research, and no sources as negotiations haven't started, and our lot are a secretive bunch. I'm not saying £80k is definitive, but given the historical reporting of Owen's wage, it is certainly between £80k-£100k and nowhere near the £120k mentioned recently. So your reasoning is: don't believe the papers now, believe them 3 years ago? My belief is that they are more likely to get their facts right at the time, than they are in the future. Very few sports journalists thoroughly research their articles, for what they write today is fish and chip paper tommorrow. Totally contradictory iyam. Well at the time it was the biggest footballing story going on. Journalists were going to be more thorough and do their utmost to collect accurate information, and would call favours in from their best sources. These sources were few, but information hadn't been distorted by Chinese Whispers. Chinese Whispers change a lot over three years. Recent articles are junk stories that will be forgotten over the next few months, hence these articles are of reduced quality in numerous ways. So journalists don't exaggerate / make stuff up when something is currently the biggest story? Ok. With big stories, there is a lot of competition to provide the best reports of the news. Hence the papers are going to use their best sources, and the best sources are more likely to have the best information, and this information is likely to be passed onto the Fleet Street elite like Henry Winter, ie someone with genuine clout and integrity. Whereas today, a lot of those writing all these so called facts speculating about Owen's future can only be considered as members of the gutter press.

It is easier to believe a figure widely reported at the time, in particular by the more reliable broadsheets at a time when they would have consulted their best sources on this, whereas now there has obviously been no research, and no sources as negotiations haven't started, and our lot are a secretive bunch. I'm not saying £80k is definitive, but given the historical reporting of Owen's wage, it is certainly between £80k-£100k and nowhere near the £120k mentioned recently. So your reasoning is: don't believe the papers now, believe them 3 years ago? My belief is that they are more likely to get their facts right at the time, than they are in the future. Very few sports journalists thoroughly research their articles, for what they write today is fish and chip paper tommorrow. Totally contradictory iyam. Well at the time it was the biggest footballing story going on. Journalists were going to be more thorough and do their utmost to collect accurate information, and would call favours in from their best sources. These sources were few, but information hadn't been distorted by Chinese Whispers. Chinese Whispers change a lot over three years. Recent articles are junk stories that will be forgotten over the next few months, hence these articles are of reduced quality in numerous ways.

I disagree Our defense DOES need looking at. To conceed an average of 1.71 goals a game in the league (total 65) is an absolute joke, settled or not. If we are trully aiming for top 5, we need two new centre backs, with Faye and Taylor as cover. Look at 5th to 7th below and the stats of the teams we are aiming for: Everton - .86 a game (total 33) Villa - 1.34 (51) Blackburn 1.26 (48) I agree the back for are settled but they are NOT doing the job. I appreciate this has alot to do with the whole team but none the less, changes are needed IMHO. The problem was how we defended as a team prior to the switch to 433. Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand and Brown would leak just as many goals if they had what our defenders had in front of them.

It is easier to believe a figure widely reported at the time, in particular by the more reliable broadsheets at a time when they would have consulted their best sources on this, whereas now there has obviously been no research, and no sources as negotiations haven't started, and our lot are a secretive bunch. I'm not saying £80k is definitive, but given the historical reporting of Owen's wage, it is certainly between £80k-£100k and nowhere near the £120k mentioned recently. So your reasoning is: don't believe the papers now, believe them 3 years ago? My belief is that they are more likely to get their facts right at the time, than they are in the future. Very few sports journalists thoroughly research their articles, for what they write today is fish and chip paper tommorrow.

It is easier to believe a figure widely reported at the time, in particular by the more reliable broadsheets at a time when they would have consulted their best sources on this, whereas now there has obviously been no research, and no sources as negotiations haven't started, and our lot are a secretive bunch. I'm not saying £80k is definitive, but given the historical reporting of Owen's wage, it is certainly between £80k-£100k and nowhere near the £120k mentioned recently.

Skirge, you have fallen into the traps of listening to the papers. If they say something enough, however innaccurate people start believing them. Fact is, they all have short memories and get a lot of facts wrong. We the fans know more than they do. People would be wise to believe the £80k of 3 years ago and ignore the £120k of today.

This increasing fee/wage phenomenom is very apparent on here, basically if a player becomes unpopular in some quarters, fees increase by word of mouth to improve justification for those arguments. Examples are that we paid £16m for Owen, not £17m, and those idiots who constantly blithered on about Babayaro being on £50k per week.

And is that something you heard in the last few months, or when he signed. The history of Owen's wage is as followed: 2005: Michael Owen was signed. Reported wage is £80,000. 2006: Owen has injury problems. Wage estimations fluctuate between £80,000 and £100,000 in the media. Hearsay from doom mongerers quote wage of £100,000. 2007: Intensive speculation about Owen's future. Everyone accepts £100k figure. 2008: Owen in contract negotiations. Reported wage becomes £120k.

He is not on £120k per week. He probably is already on about £80k if you believe what was said when he was signed.

Papers seem to be running the £40k pay cut story again. What puzzles me is that when he joined, Owen was described as being on £80,000 a week, the papers put it up to £100k shortly afterwards, and today he sits on £120k unready to go back to the £80,000 he was supposedly on (according to the broadsheets) when he signed.

You got me wondering what the table would look like in terms of goals per minutes played.... Pos standard Pos/Player Goals Minutes Minutes per goal 1 1 Cristiano Ronaldo 31 2746 89 2 2 Fernando Torres 24 2533 106 3 2 Emmanuel Adebayor 24 2928 122 4 11 Jermain Defoe 12 1605 134 5 5 Aiyegbeni Yakubu 15 2303 154 6 4 Roque Santa Cruz 19 3187 168 7 5 Dimitar Berbatov 15 2689 179 8 5 Robbie Keane 15 2714 181 9 11 Wayne Rooney 12 2181 182 10 9 Carlos Tevez 14 2677 191 11 5 Mwaruwari Benjani 15 2897 193 12 17 Frank Lampard 10 1954 195 13 10 John Carew 13 2546 196 14 14 Michael Owen 11 2175 198 15 17 Dean Ashton 10 2001 200 16 Obafemi Martins 9 2051 228 17 14 Nicolas Anelka 11 2575 234 18 11 Steven Gerrard 12 2840 237 19 17 Dave Kitson 10 2522 252 20 14 Gabriel Agbonlahor 11 3278 298 And Owen is still 14th. Only really shines a light on Defoe. Benjani drops too. Is 14th supposed to be good? Well if teams are meant to have at least two proven goalscorers these days, for a team finishing 12th, Owen is about ten players higher than he should be based on the team he plays for....

WTF?!

The second bit is right, but the first bit I can't agree with. Geremi as a footballer has been incredibly average all season, despite his statistics. I'd love to see our midfield in a race like. I'd bet they take 20 seconds to do 100m. As I see it: Ability to burst forward: Both poor Tackling: Butt better Defensive positioning: Geremi better Interceptions: Geremi better Offensive positioning: Butt better Shooting: Butt better Physical ability: Butt slightly better. Set pieces: Geremi best in squad in some areas of the pitch, other areas both poor. Passing accuracy: Butt better Range of passing: Geremi better Usefulness of passes: Geremi better As overall players they are of similar ability albeit with different strengths. My main gripe with Butt is his passes is really the same gripe I have with Smith's passing, so maybe it is possible that playing for Manchester United has destroyed that area of both players game. At Manyoo, it didn't matter if Butt passed the ball to good foot, bad foot, into space, forwards, backwards, sideways, fast or slow as the likes of Giggs, Ronaldo, Scholes etc are gifted players who could make the most of whatever, Butt just needed to hit the target, and the recipient would do all the hard work. Hence today, Butt's passes are considered 'accurate.' However, at Newcastle, a lot of his passes are just target practice. He gets the ball to the player, but it goes away from the player's run, or onto their bad foot, or going to fast to easily control. Hence we lose possession, and though it doesn't look like he's lost the ball he has lost it by putting his team mate under pressure. Compare this to Geremi. A larger percentage of his passes are received in ways their team mates want to receive it. Even his criticised sideways passes often allow a team mate to run forward onto the ball in space, hence forward momentum isn't lost.