macca888

I know Scotty McDonald quite well. Hope he makes an impact. I see Rangers have had booking number 6. One of them has got to go soon. dirty barstewards

commentators reckon fortune was offside

should be 5-0 to celtic in goals. it is about 5-0 to rangers in bookings

still 0-0 at Celtic Park and Boyd has been anonymous so far

just got booked as well

Watching the old firm derby here in Oz and so fasr, second half has just kicked off and Boyd has had about two touches. Doesnt look interested and while Celtic have dominated and he has not been serviced, he hasnt done any running and his lack of movement is totally obvious.

A few points on this: If Leeds supporters on their forum are ITK, then the deal is done and dusted. Also, by checking out strikers at Scunthorpe and Doncaster seems to signify that they are actively looking for a replacement. and by us not requesting him to play at MU seems also to signify that either CH doesnt really care about the cup this year or he is happy with his current strike force to take us further.

Was chatting to a family friend on skype tonight who lives in a devonshire village called Salcombe and her son and his wife went to the game. They are NUFC fans and the first time they have been to mPlymouth Argyles ground for 30 years. They reckoined we were absolutely crap and said we need a goalscorer. Obviously CH realises this too.

Dave you do my an injustice there. My mastery of the english language is far better than that.

HTL I see you are back to your abusive self. Leopards dont change their spots. Even someone as blind as you should see that it is not in Ashley's best interests to sell off anymore of the clubs assets when in a position to achieve promotion back to the PL and therefore increase the entire value of HIS asset. I guess we will see whether I am right or you are wrong by the end of the month.

I find it funny that the People today are quoting Hull and Bolton after Nolan, Wigan after Enrique and sources close to the club saying Colo and Jonas are out the door this window. So, Ashley is goinjg to deliberately sell half our first team, sign noone and jeopardise increasing the value of the club when we get promoted. Some of these hacks really do get well overpaid for the crap they write.

It has got nothing to do with being a likeable person. That is just a crass comment from a numpty with little idea. Shearer, since retiring, has been contact to carry on collecting a fat wage check as a TV punter with nil contribution to the day to day running of a football club, apart from a highly unsuccessful 2 month stint with us. Speed has continued as a player and more latterly, as a coach with Sheffield United, where his continued involvement daily is apparent. Speed has also completed all hos coaching badges whilst "God" has still to complete his. I have my opinions on Shearer which I will not go into on this thread but personally, if I were to select a new manager, Shearer would be well down the list behind the likes of Speed and my personal favourite for the job in a couple of years time, Lee Clark

Getting back to the thread title, I am sure I read Hughton saying at the beginning of the season that when they look at potential signings now, they check out their backgrounds and interests, looking closely at both onfield and offield behaviour. I have not read much, if any, bad behaviour pieces in the press regarding Mr.Beckford but there again, I live in Australia and my paper reading is limited to all the english dailies and sundays on the internet.

Yes, ironic. He wasnt the choice of any of us admittedly but he deserves credit, as you say.

Jayson Not at all. It is my belief that Shearer was the wrong man for the job anyway. The last thing we needed was a novice as manager. We craved stability and most backers on here were shouting Shearer's name from the rooftops as some god given messiah mark 2 in the same vein as Keegan. You might remember that Keegan wasnt initially particularly successful at the start of each of his terms as manager of the club and Shearer only had 8 games to save the club. It was not about Shearer the person that I made my comments, rather that we needed someone in the same muld as a Roy Hodgson or similar, with a great deal of experience in motivating crestfallen players to achieve results rather than a whipcracking novice with a failure as a sidekick.

Mick Whilst most of your points are very pertinent, I cant help feeling that the state the club was in, both on and off the park, led most of us, both players and supporters with the view that we could be disappearing into obscurity and thus, as many have said on this site, doing a Leeds. There has been a total lack of leadership throughout our club in recent months/Years etc and the one shining light above all has been the way Hughton has gone about the business of quietly gaining results to give the club some sort of self respect back. I am a fully qualified football coach and have been in similar situations myself in the past so I know just how difficult it is to raise the levels of moral and motivate p,layers into achieving the level of results they were capable of in order to gain back the respect the club has lost. It is not an easy task and whilst fans can nly see the end product on the field, there is an awful lot of work conducted in the background that does not relate to footballing terms such as psychological, organisational, preparation, leadership functions which all play a part. I can see so much evidence of this over the past 6 months with this lad in charge of the club. I just understand what he must have been through and believe he deserves the credit due for his hard work. I think we can all say that there is such a difference in approach work and liaison with the press etc than there was in the days of the likes of Allardyce and Kinnear.

More to the point, arent we currently looking for an academy director to replace richard money? Didnt Irvine used to do that job? He can have his old job back then

In time, possibly Krul, Ranger, Kadar, Lua Lua, Vukic, Ferguson, Inman

Yep, the Sun are quoting Van Nistelrooy and Van Der Vaart on loan to Liverpool for the season but Real Madrid want their wages off their books completely. RVN apparently on 140K a week at 33 year old too. Also, apparently, Voronin off to Hertha Berlin

Granted, he has a good squad at his disposal. However, have you forgotten the state the club has been in for most of the season after relegation: No players coming in Best players leaving No permanent manager Owner has club up for sale low moral Injuries to key players inexperienced or unwanted loanees coming in Fans demonstations Under performers from PL Cost cutting measures no say in transfers players not knowing if they were staying or going constant bad press speculation Over the past 7 months or so, Hughton has had to deal with all of the above pluis many many more situations within our club and to get these players motivated to gain the amount of results they have, with little or no assistance from anyone, is testament to the way Hughton has gone about his business in an extremely professional and calm fashion. We also need to realise that this is his first appointment as manager and what he has achieved in such a short time is well above my personal expectations and I am sure, those of many contributors on here. As for Shearer, does anyone wonder why he was not given the job permanently? Could it be anything to do with his sky high wage demands, impressive list of players he wanted to bring to the club or to keep the players at the club he wanted such as Owen? In my opinion, Shearer's wish list and personal demands were too high for our club at the time and we could easily have ran the risk of doing a Portsmouth, if the board had adhrered to his requirements.

If Skirge is right, Beckford is already signed sealed and delivered. I would like to see us get the norweigan lad, Skelbred or whatever his name is. Looks like he could be a canny cheap option. Not sure about Kilgallon but I have this sneaky feeling it is Campbell coming in. I dont think MU will extend Simpsons loan because it will mean he can sign a pre contract with us. They will want something for him so I can see him signing permanently in the last week of the window for somewhere between 1 to 1.5 million. Noone of any significance going out apart from maybe Geremi or Butt on loan, free transfer or a make up in a deal with Leeds for Beckford.

Blue I am with you. Laughed my socks off when I read that. Also, we sold Jenas to the Spuds for 9 million, not 7 million. His current value at 10 millkion is a joke too. I doubtthey would get half that for him now.

I think it will definitely be Portsmouth and any two from the likes of Bolton, Hull, Wigan, West Ham and Blackburn. I actually hope Blackburn go down because it would be funny passing Allardyce as we go up. See what he has to say about our mickey mouse club then.

He has an ego as big as a house and an unproven track record to go with it. He is probably still miffed because Capello got the England job ahead of him. With regard to foreign imports, he is probably the greatest exponent of this and who did he buy for us? Faye, Beye, Viduka, Enrique etc etc etc

Maybe so, it is your opinion and you are entitled to it. However, how anyone on here can continue to criticise Chris Hughton or his abilities is well beyond me and just goes to show a complete lack of understanding in coaching/managing a football team. The times when he was caretaker manager in the PL were probably at the lowest points of this great club of ours. I doubt many would have shown any degree of success during those periods. However, for what the man has done this season under extremely difficult circumstances and with a wonderful calm image that he has portrayed throughout, anyone criticising him really needs a wake up call. Or maybe you would like Joe Kinnear back?