CaliMag

It should be pointed out that Viduka, Geremi and Cacapa all came on a free as well so they are going to have inherently high wages.

Smith couldn't save Leeds when he was still a half decent player. No chance of him doing anything for us other than help bankrupt the club.

That's some keen insight there.

Other than signing louder at games and supporting the team there is not a lot we can do. And of course there is a significant portion of people on this Board like myself that live outside of the UK and can't make it to the games. We're even more helpless.

Well said. I totally agree.

that's it

Nothing that each and everyone of us wouldn't have done for the cause.

I've said to much...

Honestly Sunderland was the better team and we got lucky - a dubious pen and Secret Agent Chopra saved us from a loss. We'll be lucky to stay up.

I CAN'T believe Chops did that.

From home... at 5:30 in the f*cking morning... I must hate myself. Santa Barbara, California

Meh. Doesn't surprise me. JFK has no player management skills and lacks the respect of the players. Zoggy has said stupid things in the past and will probably continue to do so at other clubs... and this being Newcastle, I fully expect him to pull a "JDT" on us and do very well, eventually ending up at a top team and getting regularly capped by France. You know its true.

I agree with Crumpy. This is not a knee jerk reaction. I just can't see it. We don't have a natural leader or a set of scrappers to keep us up. We have a set of demoralized players, a joke of a manager and a tight-fisted and mecurial owner. I rarely agree with Crumpy either so this isn't one of those N-O clique things (where the same sets or groups of people all agree). I have never felt this strongly since we came up. Even in the darkest depths of Gullit, Souness and Allardyce I remained hoepful. Not now though.

No Jonas either. I can't see us getting anything from this game.

Watch Shay come out at halftime in a Man City jersey while we are trailing 3-0 (to a Bellamy hattrick). That would sting a bit.

I'd rather we played with Carroll as a lone striker and drop Owen back to the midfield at this point if all we are doing is protecting our goal difference. This is shite - we are going to get killed.

I hate the club for lying on their official site like that. Best to say nothing at all than "Zoggy and Shay are errr.... injured.. yeah that's right."

No Jonas?

Butt is suspended - I think we'll see something like thsi with Barton and Geremi in the middle.

-----------------Perez Goma----- Dumas--Bassong-----Bernard Sibierski----Zoggy--Ginola---------Robert ------------Guivarc'h-- Saha

Hmm... Doesn't look too bad tbh.. Not a bad start for a Championship team tbh We might even make teh play-offs...

The league is only a couple years behind the music industry. They will need to change to survive. This new campaign is just like shutting down Napster - delaying the inevitable.

No. But then I don't think Leeds was either. Its not just the squad, its a number of things like morale, the fans booing the team (or being silent), and the Manager (who is merely a reflection of the ownership ATM).

I do agree with AS9's Robert comment tho, though probably a better comparison would be with Dyer in terms of what Jonas brings to the side. in that sense we're still to replace Robert's end product rather than his position. That is a good comparison actually, Jonas is like a slower version of Dyer who isn't a c*** and doesn't get injured, also works harder defensively. Whilst Jonas looks destructive when running, he flatters to deceive imo. Take his late run in the box vs WH; can you see Robert not converting in that position? He would have cracked it like a bullet. Jonas has the work ethic which people seem to desire so much, but you cannot replace technical ability. He will never score a goal like the many Robert smashed in. What I'm trying to say is technically, who do we have in the squad who competes with the likes of Robert/Solano? Nobody. Considering we can't even deliver a proper corner you have a real point there.

This current world economic crisis certainly caught out Ashley (along with his rapidly falling personal fortune). Like most rich people he is probably a tight fisted bastard and it was all well and good when his personal fortune was over a billion and rapidly expanding but now that it is contracting I have no doubt that has tempered his abitions at NUFC to our detriment. Ashley's problem is that I doubt he ever had a plan. His purchase in retrospect seems as if it was done on a whim. The endless articles about not having proper "due dilligence" in sussing out our finances speaks to this. For me it was Ashley's hiring KK that exposed him as having no master plan. The current youth set up and hiring practices were most likely sold to him by his mates in London who believed the model being adopted by Tottenham should be followed (and to be fair this seems to be a positive under Ashley). As much as this global economic crisis has probably impacted Ashley's running of this club, it could have been worse. Fat Fred and the Halls did not have the ability to bail us out in the current economic crisis. They simply didn't have enough money and we were already in serious debt. I believe we dodged a bullet on that front - sadly it seems to be only temporary as we will certainly be relegated this season or next if things are not sorted out soon.