Rich

No Channel 5?

Boom

niel pls

Doubt that. Harry said he'll get some injections and they'll see how it goes. Think he'll play. Doubt that. He hasn't played in their last three and Sandro has deputised prety impressively.

Difficult to nail the Everton selection, given the fact that they're looking likely to have almost a full squad available. It appears that Baines, Gibson and Neville are going to make it after training all week, with Anichebe and Rodwell the only two missing. I'll take a stab at: Howard Hibbert Jagielka Distin Baines Osman Gibson Heitinga Pienaar Fellaini Jelavic Bench: Mucha, Neville, Coleman, Cahill, Gueye, McFadden, Stracqualursi. Neville and/or Cahill could easily start, though, most likely in place of Hibbert and/or one of the central defenders (with Heitinga moving back). Think we'll revert to the "away formation", which needs to be a lot more like a 4-2-3-1 than the 4-3-3 it was at Wigan. Looks set to be a cracking game.

I think Diame's a cracking footballer, I'm not entirely convinced with his attitude/application, though. Would quite like him here to see if we could get him to perform to his best on a more consistent basis, but wouldn't be too upset if we didn't bother going for him at all. I'm certain we'll have a wealth of other targets in mind if we are looking to get more than one midfielder in this summer.

Had wondered the same. The article is oddly vague on the length of the deal, maybe Big Mike is keeping it on a rolling contract with the aim of driving the income from it higher and higher as we *hopefully* continue to progress?

Aye, it's on the official site: http://www.nufc.co.uk/articles/20120511/magpies-extend-puma-deal_2281670_2765670

What a gonk.

:lol: Love a Mrs Bimpy joke like. Get me every time.

Howwwwwayyyyyyyy!!!!!!11111

£4-5M when he's only got 12 months to run? Would be amazed.

We could just go for familiarity, of course: Hart Jones Smalling Ferdinand Cole Cleverley Scholes Carrick Young Welbeck Rooney Can also work in a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1. Fuck it.

It'd be Johnson and Baines for me, but there's no way I'd start Baines ahead of Cole at left-back and I'm a big fan of Walker's enegery and tenacity as well. We're alright at fullback, I reckon, it's just the rest of the team I'm worried about.

Looking at it again, think the Ox needs to go but it's just a shame he's lost a fair bit of form and momentum due to his sparing use by Wenger. There's just not enough flair or pace in the front six otherwise. How the fuck have we, as a nation, got into a situation where Gareth Barry and Scott Parker are automatic selections (probably starters, too) for the squad? I don't even dislike either, tbh, I completely see their worth in a week-to-week basis for their respective teams, but it's fucking depressing when you look at the lack of footballing talent in the middle of the park for us. I can't really see Scholes returning for this, but I'd love it if he did, just to have someone in there capable of dictating the tempo and enabling us to keep the ball a bit better. Even if you have to pick Barry alongside him (ahead of Carrick, who I'd prefer from a purely philosophical perspective) I think he'd improve us significantly.

GK - Hart GK - Green GK - Carson RB - Walker RB - G. Johnson LB - A. Cole LB - Baines CB - Terry CB - Ferdinand CB - Lescott CB - Cahill CM - Scholes CM - Carrick CM - Barry CM - Parker RM - A. Johnson RM - Sturridge AM - Lampard AM - Gerrard LM - Young LM - Welbeck CF - Rooney CF - Carroll That would probably be my 23, with 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 as my default formation and two players selected for each position available. Some selections have been made with the idea of extra cover in mind (Sturridge ahead of Downing to add someone else capable of playing up front to the mix, Welbeck for the same reason ahead of someone like Oxlade-Chamberlain, although Danny was probably in regardless). I've tried to use realism for the most part, but have admittedly combined that with what I'd like to see in a few instances. For example, Scholes may be a fanciful inclusion but if he would agree to go I would take him and have him as a starter in one of the deep midfield roles alongside Barry. Other players I considered but didn't go for were: Ruddy (just think the keepers are settled, although I'd personally be inclined to take him to freshen things up a bit there) Jagielka (always like him for England but see him at about 6th choice if everyone is fit at the moment) Jones (may well be taken as a utility player, but it's difficult to make a really strong case against any of the selected defenders to be culled, bar the two old-heads in the middle who will probably get in on reputation) Smalling (prefer him to Jones and could be deployed as a brick wall in the midfield if needed, but again struggling to shoe-horn him in for similar reasons) Richards (may well go ahead of Walker due to experience and capability to cover in the centre, but hasn't been first choice for Man City lately while Walker and G. Johnson play every week) Milner (not playing regularly, quite difficult to make a case for him ahead of any of those selected but will probably be the one to go if Scholes doesn't bother) Cleverley (come back into things too late, has lost a lot of the momentum he was building at the beginning of the season) Downing (will probably go in reality, and may well deserve to ahead of Sturridge anyway who is hardly on form at the moment and A. Johnson barely gets a kick at Man City these days too but just offers a bit of guile that nobody else brings to the national team) Oxlade-Chamberlain (I'd probably chuck him in ahead of Sturridge AND Downing if it was just down to me, but hasn't played a great deal lately and a lot of his aura has been diminished because of that) Defoe (just think Welbeck has jumped ahead of him although Roy may take JD because of his experience and record) Crouch (just think Carroll is going to be the form player and will offer more of a difficult threat for oppositions to handle) My team for the first game would be: Hart Walker Terry Lescott Cole Scholes Barry Johnson Lampard Young Carroll See how things go and bring back Rooney where required if we're still in with a shout come the third game... Uninspring overall, tbh.

The fact that people can no longer simply reply to this with "6th" says it all to me, really, we just continue to outstrip people's expectations and doing the business this weekend would be a final slap in the face of negativity. I'll admit that the loss at the weekend was something of a hammer-blow, especially when we'd got them to 70 minutes at 0-0 and they were going to start having to take big chances in a game they knew they needed to win, but the fact that Arsenal couldn't put fucking Norwich away at the Emirates (and deserved to actually lose, if we're being honest) keeps the fire burning for me. We've come so far that we're not even defying the odds at this stage, we're heading into a two-hour period in time with a legitimate chance of doing something truly wonderful and enabling our club to keep it's best players, earn a shedload more money and kick-on to previously unimagined heights under this regime. The great thing is that even if we don't do it, the whole thing has been a resounding success anyway and we're heading into next season with passports at the ready and a renewed sense of belief in our football club. It's just fucking brilliant. I understand people being tentative given what has gone before but as I said in the OP, this has been the season of the optimist so far so I don't see why Sunday should be any different. I must be some kind of sadist as well as a borderline mental optimist too, as I'd love to go into watching the CL final with so much at stake for us if we do finish 4th.

Didst it not stir thee in thy loins, good Sir?

We're still in there with a shout. The penultimate round of fixtures have come and gone and we remain in fifth place, which is where we were exactly four weeks ago when this thread began. However, we now sit just two points behind Arsenal, Tottenham have snuck ahead of us by a solitary point and after tonight the only way in which Chelsea can affect things is by winning the Champions League outright in Munich. They've still got a huge say in things because of that, but they've fallen by the wayside in terms of outright league finish. I think tonight's was a good result for us because of that, as it means we know that fifth place is assured regardless of the next weekend's results. Still, let's not just settle for that at this late stage eh? I didn't much care for the air of resignation around SJP after the whistle on Sunday, but I could understand it after the way the game had gotten away from us. It felt to me like people accepting that was it "over", but it's not by a fucking long chalk... We head to Everton on Sunday afternoon in a fixture that brings back warm memories from last seaon of Hatem's wonder strike and an imperious debut by Cheik Tiote in the middle of the park. That game down at Goodison was similar to the Stoke (a) game from this season, for me, as it was something of a watershed that showed just how far we had come at that particular juncture - it was definitely one of the highlights of the entire year and was something of a masterful away performance against a decent Everton side. Thing is, we're going to need much of the same this weekend to give ourselves any chance of achieving this unbelievable feat. With Fulham and Liverpool just a point behind them now, I'm hoping the pressure of hanging on to seventh may just play into our hands, but they're a pretty professional outfit from top-to-bottom and so I'm not sure how much it will really affect them. A win is entirely realistic, but it's not going to be easy at a place where we've taken maximum points just five out of seventeen times in the Premiership. Arsenal are at West Brom for Roy Hodgson's last game in charge of the Baggies and they are on the worst form out of the three of us. I wrote them off as being "too far gone" in the opening post, but since the creation of this thread they've taken just six points in their five games, three of which were at home and the only win they have in that time came away at Wolves, comfortably the worst side in the divison. Come Sunday night WBA will either be tenth, eleventh or twelfth in the table (barring some insane scores), they can't fluctuate too much and so don't have a great deal to play for but their comeback at Bolton this weekend gave me hope that they'll offer something against Arsene's mob this weekend. The Gunners are struggling in all areas with injury, losing Sagna most recently against Norwich, and don't exactly have a great record of coming up trumps in pressure games with this squad. It's a big ask for them to lose and us to win, but again it's far from impossible. Come on the Albion! Finally, Tottenham have a home tie against Fulham and unfortunately appear to have turned the corner, although it wasn't a win I suppose a 1-1 draw away from home when you've had ten men for basically an entire half isn't exactly a terrible result. Cheers again Villa, by the way, you utterly useless cunts. Like Arsenal, Spurs are suffering with injuries and a lack of left-backs thanks to Rose's red card, but off the top of my head I seem to think Fulham have a pretty terrible record at White Hart Lane (a check confirms this as being one win in ten games during the PL era, way back in 2003/04) and so to say I'm not entirely hopeful of the Cottagers doing us a favour is an understatement. However, unlike WBA they do have something to play for with seventh firmly in their sights (which would equal their best-ever PL finish), a record PL points haul on the cards if they win and it's Jol's first return to Spurs since they sacked him. They're also on pretty decent form overall, with thirteen points taken in their last six games. Howay you Cottaging bastards! I've reset the poll for what will potentially be the final time (barring us finishing fourth and then needing Bayern Munich to beat Chelsea), with the results to this point as follows: Rolling Results Tuesday 10th April @ 6pm - Sunday 15th April @ 9pm: Yes = 89 (24.7%) No = 271 (75.3%) from 360 votes Sunday 15th April @ 9pm - Saturday 21st April @ 5pm: Yes = 62 (37.6%) No = 103 (62.4%) from 165 votes. An increase in belief of 9.9% Saturday 21st April @ 5pm - Saturday 28th April @ 3pm: Yes = 94 (41.8%) No = 131 (58.2%) from 224 votes. An increase in belief of 4.2% Monday 30th April @ 10pm - Wednesday 2nd May @ 9pm: Yes = 5 (15.2%) No = 28 (84.8%) from 33 votes. A decrease in belief of 26.6% Thursday 3rd May @ 1am - Saturday 5th May @ 1pm: Yes = 33 (25.6%) No = 96 (74.4%) from 129 votes. An increase in belief of 10.4% Of course I've gone "yes" again, as I have done every time so far because I just think we're very capable of taking maximum points at Goodison Park (though I'm not taking this for granted by any stretch of the imagination) and I reckon the other two we're competing with will both have a bit of a wobble due to the pressure on them, although I certainly can't see both losing. To be more precise I can see us finishing fourth and relying on Bayern to do the business in their backyard, which they'll do. Whatever happens though, it's been an absolutely tremendous season and whether we finish it in the best style possible or not I think all of us will look back very fondly upon 2011/12 as a campaign of surprising brilliance. Put it this way, if you'd offered me fifth before a ball was kicked I'd have bitten your hand off, but if you'd told me we'd head down to Goodison on May 13th 2012 with even a remote chance of qualifying for the Champions League I'd have... well I'm not sure what I'd have done to be perfectly honest. Howay. The. Fucking. Lads.

That was horrendous, but the beast is definitely awakening.

Get the big AC on that plane, Roy.

Noooooo, please no. f***ing hideous that song, cringeworthy as f***. Proper grumpy recently Disco I like it

I think Simpson is total dross, but have to agree with the sentiment.