James

Important, injury-prone match-winner would be my description of him these days...

Happy 28th Birthday Kieron. Hopefully his 29th year will be a good one.

Shearer scored his one and only penalty in a World Cup finals tbh. Scored two World Cup penalties actually.

Crouch is worth £9-10m and is an important player for Liverpool and England, so there is no reason for Liverpool to let him go for cheaper. Can I remind people that he was one of the best Premiership and England players last season. £5m-£6m would not buy us a player as good as Crouch in January, it would take at least £10m hence the valuation placed on him by Liverpool. I would pay the £12m for Crouch - IF and only IF we then spent more money on other departments at the same time.

I'm through to the third round of the Fantasy Cup ... just. Final score was 63-63, I went through on goals scored.

The Keegan days came before I was old enough to really appreciate how good/bad footballers are/were, but I have often wondered the following: If Given was our goalkeeper in the 95/96 season, would we have won the league?

Got it planned Jay Jay Sea style? bluebiggrin.gif Nope, will need a reference for the interviews for proper jobs I will have coming up next year unfortunately, otherwise I probably would have.

Newcastle sign Michael Owen, Souness sacked, Hitzfeld for the Toon etc

I got a job, havent got that much time to count votes right now. I become unemployed again at 2:30 on the 30th, and also have a day off on the 29th so should have time eventually.

Fact is Krul might not be ready to play against the successful physical sides such as Bolton. To concede a poor goal against Bolton as a consequence of clever Bolton players targetting him in a physical manner, and then losing his place to Given a game or so later without really getting a chance to prove that he is a good keeper is likely to be damaging to his career. Would definitely rather play Srnicek over Krul against Everton as Krul will get a rough ride during Everton set pieces.

Please, please, please, please sing it if we ever play Southampton.

Pretty much my feelings. You can never expect to win at the Reebok. The year we do will be either the first year we win a trophy, or the first year that Bolton are without Sam Allardyce.

This thread is a real Christmas cracker.

I dont know what it is, That makes me feel like this, I dont know who they are, But they must be some kind of superstars, Coz they keep picking up three points no matter where they are

Defenders are now more scared of martins and thus can give him too much respect. Reason for this: Not only has he proved that he can score regularly in the Premiership, he has also shown one more important thing. He has shown that he can score from any position using any part of his body, which is something to really fear in a player.

Bolton Wanderers would be the worst match to play Tim Krul. Remember Taylor's torrid debut? Bolton players were deliberately very physical towards him, and reaped the benefits as a result. Would expect Krul to be targetted in a similar manner vs Bolton at set pieces - a good result for us or performance with him would build him, but anything else could easily set back his progress a little.

Aye he was the benchmark of awesomeness. But could his pant-wettingly magnificent partnership with Ferdinand have been better than a partnership with the two excellent strikers we currently have on our books?

Here is an interesting hypothetical question. How well would a present day Martins and an at his peak Shearer have done as a partnership? What about the pre-injury Owen and an at his peak Shearer ? and how would both patnerships have compared to the great strike patnerships over recent years, ie Shearer - Ferdinand, Beardsley - Cole, and Shearer - Bellamy?

Why? you after him like? Nah, just needed to ask that so I could ask the follow up question: Would an 18 year old really get his 13 year old brother to ask for permission to join this forum?

How old is he?

What do you mean poor Tim. I would cancel Christmas for eternity just to be on the bench for Newcastle United [/scrooge]

We have been finding more space and speed in recent weeks making us a much better attacking force, and hope that Duff will get a chance to improve his performances with the increased momentum of his teammates. I think he will get better and become an important player for us. Agree with the other comments though. Very good first post by the way Lloydie - welcome, and apologies about the childish bickering that Deep seems to have started (case of a n00b finding his feet, doubt you will have the same problem though)

Requires same hip op as Shola does, will miss season, and wont be getting contract renewed.

Roeder has confirmed to the Sunday Sun that Bernard will not play for Newcastle again.