Teasy

How is it any different? The Abu Dhabi people have already admitted that we were on there list ahead of Man City. So they obviously didn't come to Ashley and say "name your price". Also Shiniwatra was hardly in a position to haggle..

If that's what he's said then it doesn't really make much sense to me. A time when the fan base is up in arms and protesting against the man you want to buy the club from is a great time to buy. All of a sudden you're the conquering hero, which means people will be a lot more inclined to give you a chance.

Unfortunately Tsunami you're exactly right, some fans here are happy to cheer the balanced books at the expenses of any hope of success on the pitch. We've gone from a team who were challlenging at the top, to a team who where challenging for Europe, to a mid table team, to a team that's statisfied to remain in the top division. This clinging on to the hope that we'll be another "Arsenal" is fanciful in the extreme. Don't think anyone's happy with that scenario, the thing is most people don't believe that's the case at all. Personally I think the team and squad has been improved and that if the new appointment isn't a disastrous one we should finish at least mid table. If Keegan was still in charge I'd say top 10 at least with a possible top 8 finish.

How many businesses do you know where the customers can set their own prices? The gist of those against the 'Master Plan' seems to be let Keegan sign who he wants for however much it takes. Does M&S operate like that cos I think 50p is more than enough for a sandwich, the bastards are surely ripping us off? That analogy doesn't work at all. The situation would be more similar to customers complaining that M&S were buying there stock from the cheapest places possible with less concern for quality then for saving as much cash as possible, despite the high prices for those products to the consumer. NOTE that personally I don't believe the signings have been poor or that effort hasn't been made to spend on quality players.

Thought they said they had no interest? Now they've withdrawn that lack of interest

Is £16 million not 'some money' like?

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run. An offer came in for him which we turned down. As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise. We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract. Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it. To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO. There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

Bassong struggled at Coventry?, not really.

We can probably assume that the new TV deal has taken our revenue up to around £100 million (looking at it optimistically) and that our wage bill will probably have dropped a bit. But that still means over half of the money we make will be going on player wages. There are then also plenty of other costs (cost of the merchandise we've sold, wages for none playing staff, energy costs ect). There's no way we've come out with £60 million a season spare, maybe £30 million at a stretch. Still enough to spend the cash so you're point stands, but to be honest I think money has been available to spend on the players they see as the right ones.

Who says he did?, we got a striker. we didn't at the time the left back thing came to light. unless of course he knew we were getting a striker,who it was and was happy with it ? Obviously he wanted players in a few positions and was told that certain positions would be filled, left back being one of them.

Acuna was a good little player at least. Also Wise doesn't scout players, so please don't give him that kind of credit, Vetere is obviously the one with the knowledge of players.

Who says he did?, we got a striker.

Milners problem was most NUFC fans wouldn't know a quality player even if they were kicked in the n*ts by one. This is also beginning to look as if its true - but then, how many quality players have fans under the age of 20 seen in the last 10 years, assuming they started going to games at the age of 8 or 9 AND can remember those games.. Plenty, hundreds of them better then Milner as well.

But that's exactly my point, had Coloccini decided not to come we'd have spent even less and yet people would be judging the club based on Coloccini's decision.. Or Milners's or Modric's ect ect That's why this shouldn't be judged on net spend. We should judge it purely on the players that have gone out, the players that have come in and the players we know the club tried to get. But we didn't decide we needed to sell him. He asked to leave and a club put in a ridiculous offer for him that not one person here would have turned down even without his transfer request!

I can never understand this argument. Had Milner not decided he wanted to leave our net spend would have been much higher. If Modric (or his owners..) had decided to come here our net spend would have been much higher.. No doubt many other situations out of the clubs control will have effected this as well. Having x amount of money available to spend on players and being perfectly willing to spend that money on the right players does not equal x net spend.. which is why its a completely pointless figure to look at out of context.

I've definately never been of the opinion that Ashley isn't willing to spend on good players or that he isn't interested in the team doing well. Like I've always said we've made big bids for very good players. I am concerned now however that he's a toss pot with too much influence from the likes of Kemsley and Wise.

Agreed.

Back the sword! Crack the horde! Hack the cord! Smack the Nord! Jack the Ford! Praise the Lord! You're all bored.

Yeah he was shit to be honest, hattricks are two a penny in international Football..

Like I said his problem is lack of pace and lack of technique, I don't agree that all of his attributes are average, but in the Premiership you need either pace or technique.

Exactly, Milners great again Championships sides because he's got great workrate and a bit of flair (yes I said it ), problem is he's got absolutely no pace and is quite raw. That's not such a problem against the likes of Coventry, Geremi was beating there defenders for pace FFS!! But against Premiership sides its a fatal flaw, especially for a player like him. £12 million was absolutely insane money and it would have been equally insane to turn the offer down.

Croatia haven't lost at home in something like 38 odd games, 78% of there games under Billic have been wins. Any team on the planet would consider this a brilliant result FFS!!

Was it simply his inexperience that caused him to lie to the fans for the last 6 months then?

First of all we don't have managers at Newcastle United any more, we have head coaches. Wouldn't want anyone getting in the way of little Mr Wise would we Second, I doubt anyone's going to direct there anger at a new 'head coach', unless its someone like Wise or Poyet. Oh and finally this isn't just about emotion towards Keegan, its about the whole situation. Its about the unmitigated tossers we have running the club.

Setanta are the most useless load of pricks around. A couple of months ago I tried to get it on the special £6.50 offer to watch a couple of friendlies. Tried online "sorry there's been an error please phone this number" after filling everything in. So I phone the number and after 5 minutes listening to the recorded shit finally get through to someone who tells me I need to phone customer service. So I ask him the wait while I get a pen to write the number down. I come back to the phone and say ok, he says "ready?", I say yes and he says "Ok Goodbye" and hangs up! So then I go to and the website to find the customer service number this backward irish tit was supposed to give me in the first place only to find customer service isn't even open.