Benwell Lad

Yep. Gayle is better and importantly more experienced. He may end up being better but why should we pay Chelsea in order to help develop their player when he isn't a significant improvement on what we have ?

If that's the case there's no way Spurs will sell 80K plus tickets for most games so there are going to be a lot of spares floating around.

Not sure about the "meltdown" but everything else is spot on. The whole loan system needs a serious rethink, possibly to the extent of scrapping it altogether in the top leagues except for emergencies. It plays into the hands of a few big clubs who want to recruit far too many players, but if it didn't exist then both the clubs and players would have to think very carefully. It also allows certain lesser clubs to overuse it and stumble along season after season without developing a longer term strategy before almost inevitably crashing (see our nearest and dearest).

The bit in the middle isn't looking too promising either. But apart from that they should be ok

Fuck off man, it's just a glorified pub league. They told us so.

I doubt we will either. We just aren't ready to compete in a market with 5 or 6 clubs who will be paying 45-50 million for defenders. Rafa is a very intelligent manager and knows where we are. We will have to be very savvy in the transfer market to kick on to the next stage.

Adopting a western first name is a typical Hong Kong / Singaporean / Taiwanese thing to do and not just because they come to England or anywhere else in the west.

Being turned down by the manager of a Scottish football club in this day and age is acutely embarrassing and a very sad indictment of where they are as a football club.

He's cheap. It's where they are right now.

aaahh .... the old Chinese Consortium story which just about every club in the top 2 divisions must already have had by now. A good space filler especially when it's about Newcastle and it's June. If there is anything in this I'd wager it's investment (no bad thing) and not takeover.

Even with a lack of management experience he'd be too expensive for them. Someone from Scotland would suit their current budget.

Sadly he will be back. The way the Premier League and it's finances have evolved Sam will always be in demand when an end of season escape job is required. Becoming master of this role means will always earn more than longer term, more successful managers. Fat Sam's snout will never be too far from the Premier League trough.

Yeah strange that fans of almost every club he's managed couldn't wait to see the back of him and yet they seem to love him on wearyside. Says a lot really.

If they think this will be a start of better things ahead then they're probably in for a shock. They're going into the close season with no leadership, no direction and no money. As it seems no one in the boardroom or dressing room actually wants to be there it's unlikely anyone with any viable option would touch them with a barge pole.

30 million. Just burst out laughing.

Hasn't taken him long to realise how easy it is to wind up the rabid inbreeds down the road and probably just did it for a laugh

Murphy comes across as quite a bitter person most of the time, not just when he's having sneaky digs at Rafa.

He's flapped at times and didn't look great on either goal the other night. Surely any premier league standard goalkeeper who plays in a team which allows the opposition 36 shots in a game will catch the eye? But does it make him better than a keeper in a decent team ? There again they were valuing Kone at 30M a year ago but will be lucky to get 6 or 7 for him now :-)

The mentality of their fanbase is the one thing that holds them back more than anything else. The owner, directors, manager and players, whoever they may be at the time, know they only have to beat Newcastle and for the rest of the time their performance is largely irrelevant. It's certainly been more evident the past 5 years but that is the general attitude of that football club and it all stems from those who follow it. Newcastle are more important to them than what sunderland are. You only have to look at their attendances in recent seasons. The only time they come close to filling the stadium and don't have to give away thousands of tickets to try and pad it out is when they play Newcastle. They're besotted by us.

In the spirit of European friendship and co-operation a baying mob tried to get at a few middle aged Porto fans at last night's reserve final. There'll be an old hooly thread on RTG in about 25 years time reminiscing about the night they showed Europe who was boss.

He's seems to have given them a new cause to hang their hats on judging by the number of "our Jordan" threads replacing the weary "our fans" ones. I only saw the goals and it looked like he flapped for one of them but I suppose if you play in a game where the opposition has 36 shots in a match your goalkeeper is probably the one who will catch the eye.

Looked like a very inexperienced team we put out. Assume promotion wasn't considered such a big deal?

What a lovely gesture! I assume that's them setting off for the Arsenal game tonight and showing solidarity for north east football and it's only successful manager. They're nowhere near as bad as some people make them out to be.

The game has definitely evolved in a way that favours smaller players over the last decade or two. Height is only a necessity for goalkeepers and central defenders nowadays, possibly central midfielders. Even for forwards a tall player is now an option rather than a preference with many of the world's best players being quite short.

You just reminded me that we've got Rafa in the Premier League and they've got Moyes in the Championship and I burst out laughing