Rich

I still don't see the logic in Ashley wanting us to do badly - or even to just be average. If that was the case why would he spend £4.6M to sack Allardyce when things were going bad and then spend millions more to bring Keegan in to replace him (i.e. the most ambitious/ludicrous appointment he could have realistically made)? Surely at that time he was doing exactly what NE5 has just demanded he does now - making active movements to retain our Premiership status? Aye, you can question his methods and his decisions, but I find it fairly mad to think he wants to own a "poor" football club. The whole debate hurts my head to be honest, so many people blinded by different things on both sides.

Sad to see him go, but if the money rumoured is near the mark then we'd be daft to turn it down. Fully expecting a 'keeper injury crisis now and Srnicek returning again to keep net like!

Harper, Krul, Forster, Soderberg will do me as far as 'keepers go - but we have to get £10M+ for Given, whether it be in pure cash or in cash/player/s. Maybe Harper will finally get the #1 shirt next season, hope he does the business for us.

Have to agree about the constant "smokescreen" stuff during transfer windows. Usually clutching at straws.

That second one reckons the offer has been accepted, although the first (more reliable by the looks) says it hasn't. He's a bit one-paced from what I've seen, definitely a defensive midfielder who can pass it mind. Not sure.

Sorry about that folks. Was just updating the search engine as Wullie spotted it wasn't showing anything properly from the past couple of months. Should be fully up to date now, although it might be a bit slower than normal until it settles down again and people use it a bit. Didn't realise it would pause everything, but I suppose it makes sense. Nowt to worry about! The new search engine (not a part of SMF) should be ready soon like, which is supposedly lightning-fast and much more accurate - while using far less resources on the server... or so I'm told...

Thought it was alright overall, good to see some honesty.

Have to admit to that being my feeling. I'd be worried if I was coaching a team where there was fighting at training "regularly". I've seen lads on my own team fighting on nights out where women are involved and when plenty of ale is involved, but not on the pitch.

After a look in the technical support, it's actually a bug that can't be fixed on this version of SMF without having to press "CTRL+F5", but it's one that has been remedied for SMF 2.0 (where we're moving everything over to soon), so there's another benefit of upgrading the forum I suppose. No fix at the minute that we can implement, though.

Just tried it again and needed to press "CTRL + F5" for it to work, as Andy suggested. Shouldn't have to do that like. Will see what the craic is.

Given, Harper, Beye, Coloccini, Bassong, Taylor, Enrique, Jonas, Guthrie, Barton, N'Zogbia, Martins and Owen are the only players that I'd consider as having enough quality to be involved with us IF we were somehow able to keep them all/offload the others and have enough cash around to bulk the rest of the squad up so that there were 2 players "competing" for each position (RB, LB, CB, RM, LM, CM x2, CF x2 needed.) In fantasy land, basically... Outside of that I'd be happy to see us retain Krul, Edgar, Lua Lua and Carroll for "spare" players in each position. Cacapa and Smith are two I'd love us to get rid of, ASAP, and I also wouldn't be too upset at losing all the others not mentioned (Duff, Butt, Geremi, Viduka, Ameobi and Xisco - although I don't think any of these are completely without use as squad players, but you surely cannot justify the wages of the likes of Duff, Butt, Geremi and Viduka in that case.) Seems a dream-world at the minute to expect anything like this. If anything we'll be retaining the players I consider expendable and expending the players I consider retainable. Such is life and all that.

Is it any better? I've just tried all 3 different methods of adding avatars after fiddling with some settings here and there and it worked immediately.

Good spot lads. Will have to have a look at it as I've just tried it myself and the same thing happened.

Further to that, the squad may be barely recognisable come July, which is a worry when you consider the lack of leadership we had already...

While I'm perfectly confident in Harper, Krul, Soderberg and Forster being left with the goalkeeping duties, it's the symbolism of the deal more than anything that is hard to take. Can't blame Shay for leaving if the rumours are true and I suppose all you can do is hope all of the money is reinvested on some quality outfield players.

The magazine is called 'True Faith' not 'Blind Faith'. I appreciate what you're saying, but people are being far too pessimistic about the realistic issue that we are in and the bit of optimism I have (and many others may have) is the only thing keeping our 'support' supportive. I'm hoping come the Sunderland game the atmosphere is going to be that sort of defiant magic we've seen a few times (I'm mostly remembering games against Arsenal, for some reason) from the crowd. One of those games where everyone forgets the shite around the club and focuses everything they have on what it's all about at the end of the day: the football. Obviously everyone is royally fucked off with how things are going and how things have been, but if we can get some venom and direct it towards the Mackems and really get the players in black and white brimming it could be a magical occasion. Might define the season, so I'm praying we don't buckle. If things go badly against them and we haven't made any waves in the market then I'm absolutely dreading the repercussions.

Going through a Sports Science degree myself and having things like Black talks about impressed upon me it's hard not to admire him for how far he's come off his own back. I can only applaud him for his obvious enthusiasm and constant desire to find new "edges" for players and everybody else around him. I only wish I had half of his motivation! Obviously it's not an exact science but a lot of the stuff he's implementing has a lot of solid research and practice to support it (the high-intensity training set to a strict timescale and the motivational talks with the players, breaking down the superficial walls). The whole thing shows more than anything else how important it is to have a solid management TEAM built around a solid manager. One man can't do it alone and it's here where Kinnear struggles as much as anywhere else, the backroom staff has been chopped and change loads recently and is a bit of a mish-mash as it stands. It's hard to blame JK for that. Hope Clarky, Terry Mac and the rest of them down there do the business. He'll surely end up with the top job here someday so I wish him all the best and hope he turns out as good as Black thinks he could do.

IF this is true then it's another shocking indictment of the lack of control held by Kinnear at the football club. I'd also be interested to know how stuff like this gets out.

At this very moment in time? Absolutely no chance. Not just because of the KK stuff and all that followed in the days/weeks afterwards, but because of numerous things such as being on day 20 of the transfer window without any movement in or out, because Joe Kinnear is our manager, because of the contract situations of numerous players (I include Shola Ameobi's new deal in this), because of the apathy that is sweeping the support... I could go on and on and on. It's possibly the most disheartening time I've had as a Newcastle supporter (not as old as some, obviously) and for that he has to take an awful lot of the blame. I genuinely believe we're at the stage now where he's too far gone. Too much has gone awry and I'm not convinced he has the ability, the desire or the finances to turn it around. Such a shame as well, because unlike some on here I don't believe this has been his "grand plan" all along. Whether the bloke is just clueless, has been badly advised, or just unlucky; I can't believe he's happy about how things have turned out. That doesn't mean I support him though because the buck has to stop somewhere - and at the end of the day he bought the club, he owns the club and he's in a position to make a difference and for whatever reason it just isn't happening.

Shit comparison.

Can't disagree with too much there. I feel like I'm getting kicked repeatedly when it comes to NUFC at the minute.

Pogrebnyak is a big Russian striker, been impressive for Zenit (scored loads in the WAFFA Cup) and scored on his debut for the national team. Scored against Man Utd in the Super Cup, too. He seems to know where the net is, that's what I'm getting at... Ideal replacement for Marlon Harewood, by all accounts, and should do well if he does indeed go to Villa. Him and Carew would be cracking "target men" options.

He is a fucking currant of the highest order, I said it weeks (months?) ago and have felt it ever since. Most Mickey Mouse manager we've had since I've been old enough to properly support the club, he is an embarrassment, plain and simple. We're stuck with him though, it would seem, unless Ashley jerks his knee again if some pressure gets applied. I get the feeling any fury vented will be aimed over Kinnear's head though, which will spare him the sack. I also refuse to believe that "nobody else" would want to manage this club, even now, although I worry that more upheaval could be the end of us anyway at this stage. Think we're going to have to grin and bear it and just pray we get the 15-20 points or so that we'll need to stay up.

Barton pushed Enrique, Enrique pushed him back, they were separated. Happened after Jose had lost the ball (again). Bad times.

Go on the Villa, that's what I say. Proper club, play proper football with proper players. Don't begrudge you lot anything and you're one of the few things in football generally that warms the cockles. Just wish we were up there with you.