Teasy

Keep up for fuck sake

Not match fit then? That'll be handy. Not for the first team, but I doubt the fee will effect reserve games so he's probably kept fit through those.

Seems like he was very good at Watford but hasn't played in the 4 or 5 months he's been at Portsmouth. Strange as it sounds the answer to that might be in the fee. They paid £2m rising to £3m on appearances. Maybe once their financial situation hit the fan they decided they just couldn't afford to play him? EDIT: Just seen the post about Caulkin, what a pitty that wasn't posted after my post

Poor deluded fool Also £2m?

Total conjecture. If say for example you got a contract, and then a year later other players get more wouldn't you think you're entitled to the same? Especially if other teams have offered to match it. Which part is conjecture? Also no I wouldn't think I was entitled to more only one year after signing a new contract just because someone else got a new one. I'd think that I was entitled to a new contract if I played well enough to deserve a new one or was at the end of my current contract.

Keegan himself didn't manage any wins in those first few games. I'm not suggesting we would have done any better away to Arsenal or Villa or at home to Man U but we'd have taken points against the likes of Bolton, Boro, Blackburn, Reading, Sunderland and Fulham imo. Those first 8 games included Arsenal (a), Villa (a), Manure (h) and Liverpool (a) though. Of the other four that were actually winnable we got 3 draws and one loss, not great but not that terrible for a manager who was trying to change the way the whole side played amidst some very difficult and morale sapping fixtures. Once he did sort them out we went on to get 14 points from the next 6 games which made us safe. I just couldn't see Allardyce getting 17 points from those 16 games given the difficulty of them and how absolutely abysmal he'd made us.

This. Easy way to prove that then isn't there, search back through the forum..

I most definitely questioned both the way we played and our results. We had the easiest start to any season I can remember and got 17 points from those 9 games. I remember news reports about our best start for however many years and saying to a friend (as well as on here) that when you actually took the time to look at the teams we'd played and were we'd played them it wasn't impressive at all. That as soon as we started playing decent teams we'd be in trouble under him. We then got 9 points from his next 12 games, that was relegation form and I said as much on here.

Maybe, maybe not. But I don't believe Kinnear or Shearer would have either. Maybe even Hughton given the whole season could have kept us up. We got relegated because of our manager leaving, another coming in, another replacing him and then having a heart attack, the second man coming back then a third replacing him for only the last 8 games. Sacking Allardyce didn't force Ashley to make the most unbelievable mess of a clubs management team in the history of Football.

Still though we were in 11th due to a good start that had papered over a lot of cracks. A comparatively easy early run and the fact that he hadn't had enough time to entirely destroy every bit of our players Footballing souls meant we got 17 points from our first 9 games. We only got 9 points for our next 12 though and if anything we were getting worse and worse rather then better. IMO we'd either have scraped through by a point or two, or went down had he stayed.

He should have asked for that the year before though. It just rangles with me that the fucker signed a contract (with a rise included no doubt), played shit for a year and then said "I want another new contract with more money or I'm off" only one year into it.

I didn't really like the fact that he wanted a wage rise after playing absolutely shit all season and just one year after he just got a new contract.

To be fair you got stick because you said he was our best player the season we finished 7th under Roeder, the season he wasn't even playing for us

Maybe he'll talk to them over the stadium tannoy system

Samba off and Villa pen, great stuff!

Stuborn just isn't the word

You can't ignore the fact that he was utterly bummed by a mediocre winger the other night which is worrying if we go up, but he's pretty young and will hopefully improve. It wasn't long ago that most were saying our back five was the only part of our team that was truly capable of competing in the Premier League. He was part of that. He was beaten by a very quick and energetic winger with absolutely no cover what so ever. Plenty of decent Premiership right backs would have been given problems against Thomas that night given a total lack of help from their right midfielder.

Yep there's some right fucking idiots in here like. Decent signing, I'd have been worried had we needed to drop Ryan Taylor into right back, or even worse Geremi. Simpsons solid enough for this league and who knows, he might become a decent Premiership player, if not sell him on.

He's talking about if Portsmouth go out of business though, so they no longer exist as a Football club.

Or Everton's people let Beckford know that they want to sign him in the Summer when he is available for free. Not really an or, it would go along with the "Everton weren't interested when he put the request in" scenario.

Well obviously Everton aren't prepared to pay a fee to Leeds for the player as they haven't even made an offer. Yet the player put in a transfer request expecting to leave in January and it was pretty clear he wanted to come here. So that tells us one of two things. Either he was prepared to sign for us despite Evertons interest or Everton weren't interested when he put the request in. Don't necesarilly believe the sun story at this stage anyway, its the sun after all.

Maybe people are going on the reports that he impressed in training and the obvious fact that we'd basically get him for fuck all? Also who says Colchester ect turned him down? He had a trial there, doesn't mean they turned him down. If Hughton decides he's good enough I'll be happy to get another body in.

I'd prefer sound reasoning rather than sentimental reasoning to be used in our approach to signing players. At the end of the day he's a free player who sounds like he'd ask for pittance or possibly fuck all for wages who could possibly do a job here. If he really has impressed then get him in on a pay as you play deal, no sentiment involved.

I've had this discussion on here before and I stand by my opinion of that prick. Loads of potential and can be good when he's bothered, but he hadn't been bothered for a long time and was just as likely to be a burden to the team (even more so then our other players) then an advantage.

I watched the game last night and I don't think we had anyone playing in centre mid so this could be useful. Very Stupid comment from Chris R..... This football club need midfielders more than anything else. Thats why we are in this league and thats why we are struggling at times. Utterly, utterly wrong. We desperately need wingers. We were doing "OK" until we sold N'Somnia and Milner, both of whom are doing well for their new clubs in the big boys league. We swapped those 2 for Duff and Jonas (Yeah, I know Duff was already here), the first of whom when not injured lived up to his name and the latter, for all his dribbling, couldn't pass water. That's why we're in this league. Though of course now Duff has been replaced with Pancrate which at this moment in time doesn't exactly look like an improvement. We're therefore left with humping high balls up to the strikers, who despite being taller than last year's midget strikeforce of Owen and Martins are massively short of the quality of either of them. And that is why we're struggling at times. More central midfielders will solve nothing, no matter who they are. We need width. Pace, creativity and someone who can bang a cross in so we don't look so hopelessly one-dimensional. Completely disagree that losing the likes of N'Zogbia was the reason we dropped down a division, it had far more to do with the management of the club and some of the wasters that were left behind. I also agree with the other two that our central midfield is shit and we could certainly do with a creative central midfielder, much more then we could do with a right winger (Jonas currently being the only player in our midfield who does any attacking at all). Exactly the same thing to be honest. N'Zogbia was unhappy because of poor management, that poor management affected the whole team imo, and is the reason why we went down. It is all related. A happy dressing room makes a happy team. We haven't had stability management wise since Sir Bobby, and it shows in the way the players felt and the results we got. The fact that they are related doesn't make them exactly the same thing. Basically my point is that Newcastle's management made a lot of mistakes last season that ended up sending us down, but selling that tit wasn't one of them IMO.