80

P.S. Thought his comments about their atmosphere being 'one of' the best he's played in when he's played in so few games, largely against 2nd Division opposition as opposed to 'the biggest rivalry in football', were quite insulting to Liverpool and therefore honest of him, it wasn't just 'new signing, kiss the badge' bollocks.

In general agreement with Ronaldo. Also don't think the Liverpool move is as bad for him as has been made out. In ways the people/supporters aren't that different from here and given the momentum of the moves, with Nolan and Barton offering their mates to help him settle in, it can be a home away from home.

He's hardly likely to have made them up. More likely some journo has asked him about the rumours and he wants to nail them early. Going on his quotes it would presumably be a local journalist though, and there's not much they think without publishing snide allusions over and/or without having ordinary people put it in their heads in the first place, so it goes back to "how could we have no cognisance of what he's on about?". Actually, I see Wallace has basically made this point.

The question is why he's chosen to publicise these rumours. Or make them up, if there really weren't any seeing I can't see what he could have been aware of that none of us have known about.

Suspicion of whom, though...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/newcastle-united/8360360/Newcastle-manager-Alan-Pardew-dismisses-reports-of-Joey-Barton-strike.html What whispers? I hadn't heard any whispers until the club started whispering to me just now. Have I missed something?

We weren't plagued or blighted by injuries under Hughton. We've picked up a lot more strains recently. Not obsessed with bigging him up, but seeing as I don't think the medical team has changed since the switch I don't see why it should now be slagged.

Not wanting to get into the whole thing here, but re: this - I can't prove intangibles, no one can. What I can say though is what little we can be confident of knowing about the deals done in that period includes that Keegan found Bassong and was the driving force behind bringing in Guthrie - both for relatively nominal fees. So it at least suggests he wasn't as out of touch with modern football and financial reality as was alleged and incapable of going with a 'restrained' approach. Guthrie certainly wasn't obviously stellar but he was a decent young lad who 'could be improved' and play a role in a passing game. As a total case can't be proven beyond doubt, you'll just have to go with your judgement based on everyone's past histories and characters to fill in the gaps on the rest. I would think that goes heavily in Keegan's favour.

By your logic, is the club getting relegated your fault too? Seeing as you didn't help as much as you could have to stop us going down and all that kind of thing.

Something brilliant about that if you're into social history.

Sorry, but the two first seasons, Enrique was not our star performer, like he's now. In fact, he was shit sometimes. Often being directly the cause of goals: misplaced, forgetting to mark his man, making far to many risky passes in defense that sometimes were intercepted and led to dangerous attacks against us. If we've had the same lack of patience with him as we've had with many others, he may have been sitting on the bench instead, missing the continuity that he needed to develop into the player he's today. So you're actually missing cause and effect here. Enrique didn't become good player DESPITE NUFC (that attributes every accomplishment of his with him as an individual) Enrique became the player he's today BECAUSE of NUFC. This club enabled him to play on the highest level DESPITE his early wrongdoings. That he experienced some turmoils, so what? He's a professional, and earns more in a week than most do in a year. He should be grateful, and not complaining about club's lack of ambitions when the club in reality was the cause of him raising his ambitions in the first place. For starters, in turn he's paid to play to the best of his abilities so if he did that and he wasn't good enough, it's still not his problem. James Perch doesn't owe it to us to sign up for another 6 years, for example. Futhermore, he could have played games regularly at a large number of other teams - teams with better reputations for improving players too. Likewise, you seem to be suggesting that just standing on grass wearing a football kit makes you a better player and he should be grateful it was our grass he was standing on, which I just can't see the sense in. I don't think I need to convince most people that some people have more potential to be good footballers than some other people, and he was one of the first group. As such him now being one of the best Left Backs in the world isn't to any important extent because he played for this club. Secondly, he wasn't always played by the club - Allardyce, the man who signed him, didn't have him as an automatic starter. Nor did Keegan. While Kinnear was pretty desperate to oust him, which I don't suppose took much account of Enrique's feelings about his contract being broken. Thirdly, you may disagree about how good Enrique has been for this club in his earlier days, and I'm not arguing he hasn't improved as a player, but if you go back to BooBoo's original post it shows the vast majority disagreed with his criticism and that view only got stronger as time went on - and this is in his first season at the club. He was a star player in the team, albeit relative to his team mates in what was a poor team. He's never not been one of our best performers for any significant period.

I might disagree a little about Barton, but fundamentally I respect your point of view regarding him. Everything you've said about Enrique is totally wrong, though. He's always been one of our best players and the club has only offered him the prospect of regression in his time. Incompetence, instability, a relegation on his CV, 'experience' of the 2nd Division, coaching by Joe Kinnear, management by someone the club thought was inexperienced and not up to it (Hughton) - he doesn't owe it anything.

Agreed, shy of any weird clauses we don't know about. Don't fully believe the 50k figure as yet either given it came from SSN, but we'll see. Nearly posted earlier to say I was pleased. And nearly posted earlier to say that it didn't mean virtually anything. And nearly posted earlier to agree with Dave's original point about not being able to see anything good in this meaning you should stop following the club for your own sake. But they're all fairly mundane things to say so I didn't think it was worth the bandwidth. Have now thought of this, though - I wonder if Pardew has decided to use whatever leeway he has got over funds to try and secure the genuine retention of players we have got instead of being allowed slightly more options for buying others in exchange for being more willing to sell the current squad. For what it's worth, for that I'd applaud him.

Interesting in the context of that interview he did where he was saying how significant it would look if he was holding out on signing, so he intended to sign up and show faith following the Carroll sale.

Hate to be insensitive here, but are we sure Nicky Butt isn't the "Falling Man?" :lol:

How so Jonny Well half the people are talking about local players (those from the area etc.) while others are referring to it in the sense of players that have settled at a club, been there for years (not necessary from the area) Ya I see your point on the confusion, but to me it makes no difference, both are not prerequisites to be successful. I think the latter certainly is. Man City have shown that you can't just throw money at 11 of the best players and expect them to win. There is a 'spine' to every team, like Wullie says. You need money to make a team great and successful, but Chelsea have Lampard and Terry at their centre, Man United had Giggs and Scholes, Arsenal have Fabregas, Liverpool with Gerrard and Carragher (a few years ago). You can't have success without a team. Yes but this 'spine' can be anyone regardless of whether the player is local born or came through the local academy or foreign players who had no association with the club before they signed. The key is that these players must be willing to give their all to the club. I would say our spine now are players like Colo, Enrique, Tiote, Barton and perhaps Nolan, all of them bought (some quite expensive) and none of them which would qualify as 'locals' (even using the broad definition) Nobody would argue against having a spine for a club to be successful, that would be silly and was not the original argument. It was whether we need 'local' players (through birth or academy) which has now somewhat morphed into having a 'spine'. It's only morphed because you started off misrepresenting your opposition. I voted yes, because you need players who are as local as Rob Lee and Nobby Solano. Perhaps the best way of phrasing this is that you need players who've 'developed' at your club, and by this I don't even necessarily mean in terms of technical skill but, as I said in the other thread, players who've earned experience that can't be obtained elsewhere because they got it here. Players who have been socialised - not just participants in a team but members of a tribe. Maybe they've learnt from prior adversity and know what this particular club needs to avoid that in the future, maybe they've developed a relationship with the people of this locality and want to reward the affection they've been offered, or don't want to let other incoming players exist as wasters and make that affection dissolve. Or perhaps played a first-hand role in the development of a 'resurgency' narrative which is of huge psychological importance in generating the determination to overcome teams they otherwise could succumb to. It's also true that some players are more tribal than others. See Craig Bellamy, who's virtually a one man army in himself, or Kevin Nolan, who seems to be a professional founder and mentor of packs. It's also important to define what 'local' or 'good' players are supposed to be useful for. Personally, I accept a bunch of good players can win a game, maybe even a season very occasionally, but they won't win an era and define an institution beyond their physical peak, that's the point. That was the origins of the debate and the reason for this new thread/poll Regarding this by the way, you've misconstrued him because you don't rate Carroll. Whether he's Geordie or not is irrelevant to whether he comes around once or twice in a generation, the latter is true just in terms of raw ability, present and potential. The fact he was possibly the spiritual fulcrum of the team, given he was so well liked and rated by his teammates and players like Enrique may now think this club is a dead duck like it used to be back in the 1980s just compounds the issue.

C**t Replacing Hughton will never been a good idea. Just becuase things are going in the right direction doesn't justified that stupid decision. Mind you guys we are in that right direction because of what Hughton starts 18 month ego. It's ok to call someone "cunt" now??? I guess so since most of the admins/mods belong to the Hughton fan club Try and name three out of the twenty without getting embarrassed.

Excellent post, highlights the folly of this idea we could and should just turn over players and expect to keep finding new ones who'll play just as well as the previous squads. When you pursue a development strategy with a club like ours, you find a good player and you hold on for grim death. Players like Enrique are players you do break any supposed wage cap for because they're absolutely blue chip - players you know will earn their wages and help make sure others will earn theirs, too. They have experience which is literally unobtainable elsewhere because they earned it here. It's one thing to limit offers made to new signings - they're unproven and could end up like Smith, so you want to limit the potential damage, but when they've proven themselves to be special, you make the necessary accommodations and harness the momentum instead of squandering it.

Maybe that is what he was thinking of, but that was Jan 2010, though i.e. under Hughton.

But didn't they admit in the tribunal that the 'manager has the final say in transfers' was wrong? isnt it also true that we first tried to sign mike williamson in january 09, long before hughton became manager? suggests at the very least that more than one person is responsible for identifying targets. and given how long the average manager lasts, that has to be a good thing. I don't know. No particular complaints if that's true though, I was always open-minded on who was driving our transfers, as well as who had authority over them. As I've said, there are positives to take from the person/people responsible for all our good signings are still at the club. The only thing is the handful we do have evidence on, along with subsequent statements, tend to promote the idea the manager was re-established as the supreme authority (within obvious financial restrictions, for the pedants - he handling other people's money after all) following the Keegan affair, while scouting has also been more in the manager's domain, with statements to the contrary have been proven false or heavily impugned by more firmly founded facts (public quotes from people with no evidence other than conjecture against them like Ben Arfa, Bassong and Hughton etc.).

Get used to it. We used to be a club who bought players for large fees, give them massive career fulfilling contracts, and then could never get rid of them. We are now a club who aims for players on lower fees, on lower wages, but with potential to be a hell of a lot better. It is a natural consequence of the second option that we will worry about the players we sign who turn out to be great player, and then leave for bigger and better clubs. Do it consistently enough for a long period of time and you might get lucky and hit the sweet spot between the Arsenal model and the Man Utd model! ...and if you get it wrong a few times, you end up between the Sheffield Wednesday and WBA model...! go the other way and it's leeds and pompey........and us to certain extent. Leeds and Pompey do NOT have our crowd potential or drawing power. Still, we can always settle for second best instead of 3rd best, eh !? Leeds and NUFC's problems were the result of having a complete dickhead in charge instead of only a partial one.. you just don't want to get it do ya ? it doesn't matter what the size of crowds, turnover or prestige of club,'crowd potential or 'drawing power'......if you try to live too far beyond your means you'll end up fucked. the only difference is the size of the numbers, the premise is the same for all. Indeed, but some clubs have more means than others. That's a key point.

Probably says a lot more than a 100 pages of forum discussion. http://www.shieldsgazette.com/sport/football/newcastle-united/black-white/harper_hails_iron_mike_1_3101734

Think so... or something similar. Didn't actually happen of course.