Rich

Llambias lined up to be Newcastle chairman By Michael Walker Friday, 23 May 2008 Seems like the rags reckon it'll be Dorty Derek as well.

The Coupet stuff was in the BBC Gossip this morning, man.

Didn't realise he was 35 years old! Dear me. Despite that, signing the vice-captain of Lyon and the French #1 can't be bad.

the end of the window is the time to judge the overall success of our transfer policy, but ideally, if we have targets competing at the euros we should tryand tie them up before it starts. elsewhere, we should try and get players tied down before we start our pre-season training rather than bring them in at the end of august when the season has already begun. Common sense stuff here, however, I'll take it a little further and say that even though this is probably ideal, it's still by no means a travesty if we don't make some signings until the last minute. Faye and Beye have been the two best acquisitions from the summer and both of them arrived right at the last minute. People just need to keep occupied with other things, waiting for every slither of NUFC transfer news isn't healthy, it's fucking infuriating. personally i can't help obsessing about it, i wake up every morning hoping something has developed over night. not healthy i know. transfers are long term rather than short so even if we make a transfer at 1 minute before the deadline shuts, it is still fine. but it helps get everyone on the same page if theyve been training together or having friendlies with each other before the season starts. regarding faye and beye, Beye didnt start a game til the end of september iirc as he joined late in the summer. this can be an issue for foreign players as often their season starts later so they either have to miss a chunk of fixtures early on to get their fitness up, or leap straight into the deep end which could harm their fitness over the whole campaign. martins for instance got injured on his debut which did us no favours, though over the longer-term he's been fine. it just gives us that bit extra at the start of the season and looking back, the beginning of the campaign was always a crucial part of the season for Keegan's sides. with Faye it is a bit different as he was already at an English club, so he'd already started his pre-season regime and already settled in the country so could slot right in without hassle. so really this mainly applies to overseas players. getting players signed before the euros can prevent their value rising and/or other sides being alerted to their talent. and often players or managers don't want to discuss transfers while tournaments are ongoing so it is more difficult to negotiate while important matches are being played. even getting called up might affect a player's value, Gomis being included in the provisional squad for france has heightened his profile and made him slightly less attainable if you believe some of the rumours coming out. I understand all of that, good points as well, was merely stating that even while what you initially suggested is obviously "ideal", people shouldn't get too het-up if it doesn't work out that way - especially if we still get our original targets in (as we did last summer.) It's never as simple as "ideal", unfortunately.

the end of the window is the time to judge the overall success of our transfer policy, but ideally, if we have targets competing at the euros we should tryand tie them up before it starts. elsewhere, we should try and get players tied down before we start our pre-season training rather than bring them in at the end of august when the season has already begun. Common sense stuff here, however, I'll take it a little further and say that even though this is probably ideal, it's still by no means a travesty if we don't make some signings until the last minute. Faye and Beye have been the two best acquisitions from the summer and both of them arrived right at the last minute. People just need to keep occupied with other things, waiting for every slither of NUFC transfer news isn't healthy, it's fucking infuriating.

As I just said, I'd be surprised too, not least because a completely new person would already be losing time in the transfer market. Personally, I think all of this sheds more light on why the Wise/Jimenez/Vetere set-up was brought in, to transcend both the managerial/chairman positions at the club and so that we're not solely reliant on one man (or two men) as we have been in the past to do absolutely everything at the club. I think it's been done so that the club can run whether we have a manager or not/chairman or not (in extreme instances, of course). To that end, I'd personally be surprised if Llambias/whoever is involved much at all with the transfers (especially directly), although I'm sure he'll always know exactly what is going on. I have a feeling that even if Mort had stayed, then he would have seen his role in that side of things reduce and reduce as time went on.

Can anyone really see it being someone other than Derek Llambias? I'll be shocked if it is.

Mos def.

Dave's just too quick! Fairly expected news, quite sad to see him go to be honest. Good man.

Did he not give Drogba's away? I'd have done that and kept my own one.

Never liked the bloke, but felt sorry for him when he was collecting his medal at the end, dunno how anybody couldn't really. He looked a broken man.

Great stuff mate, good luck with it, I'm sure all the fansites/fanzines will be very willing to help such a good cause so it might be worth getting in touch with all of them too!

Like Anelka? The difference in reaction of the two of them says a lot about them both. Aye. Anelka's a real man.

You obviously want somebody to ask why so I'll go for it, why? I honestly wasn't, I'm not Yorkie And just to prove it, I'll not reveal anything. You bassa

Don't you think the poor lad has gone through enough? We can't we just let it slide? I didn't even realise you were online, cometh the hour cometh the man!

Are there any Terry/slip jokes doing the rounds yet? If not, let's start some. I'm not funny, so don't look at me!

If one of my family members ever did that to me after we'd lost the biggest match in our history, I'd fucking maim them. Even if it meant getting a train 300 miles South to do it.

This is setting itself to be the worst summer of my life, unfortunately.

Aye, it was excellent. Gutted that it had to be Terry to miss for Chelsea, he didn't deserve that, but I'm glad Man Utd won. I was also thrilled with Drogba's red card. The cunt.

He's passed it out of play on at least two occasions, but he's not been bad. Drogba's getting bullied, which is brilliant to see.

I hope not, but with Chelsea scoring right on half-time, I fear you may be proven right!

Aye but those two don't harry defenders all over the pitch. Tevez isn't a poacher, it's never been his game, but he's still played a massive role tonight. I'll not count him out just yet, he's scored a lot of big goals for them. This second half could be off the hook.

Good fucking game, but dear me I fucking hate Chelsea. Lucky cunts. If Tevez had scored that header it would have been one of the best goals ever seen in a CL final, absolutely unreal stuff from Rooney/Ronaldo in the build up. Then Carrick fucking side-foots the bastard rebound! Miles better than I anticipated, but cannot believe that lot equalised in that fashion... I can actually. Lampard is the Bobble/Rebound King.

You've conceded ground, I've conceded ground, everyone's a winner (drawer?) baby. My initial point was that I couldn't believe people were having a go at Ferguson's tactics when it's gotten them to the final this season. Granted, it hasn't been beautiful viewing along the way, but you can't knock it when it works unfortunately! Anyway, 12 minutes until my terrestrial coverage starts (no Sky!) and I'm looking forward to a bit of Pleat personally! No Souness!

They've only gotten to a couple like, it's not like they're perennially good in the Champions League. If anything, they've underachieved in Ferguson's time there, given how consistently good they've been in that time. This season is the only one where they've really played "defensively", for me. It's not great to watch, of course, but it's f***ing worked for them. They've been like that to an extent for years IMO, ever since they bought Veron and started playing 5 in midfield in Europe. It's just that it's worked better this year. So you're wrong, basically... I'm not having that! Semi-finals last year, where they lost to the eventual CL winners in a tie that was 5-3 on aggregate and where they apparently "weren't defensive enough" according to some at the time. Admittedly they've had a rocky spell prior to these last two seasons, but I personally haven't seen them as cautious as they've been at times this season in Europe. Perhaps I have a bad memory, but I honestly can't recall it.