Rich

Lighten up, man!

Geremi, Solano, Taylor, Cacapa, Rozehnal, Enrique, N'Zogbia can all still play there in the immediacy, not counting those two you mention, so I'm not at panic stations just yet. Hopefully the paper maché brothers will return this week as well (Babayaro and Emre) to relieve some more pressure on the squad. If Solano leaves then my arse will start twitching, though. Come on Abdoulaye Faye, is all I can say!

I have tended to think it's a problem when watching, myself.

Sorry, just seen this now... Did you miss the part where I used "if" in my post? I understand you're saying "if", but you surely cannot deny your response to numerous stories like this over the summer, and I've only called you on about three of them! Have we had more interaction than that? Also, on at least one occasion my response to your ridiculousness has been very tongue-in-cheek. The victim thing won't work here mate, it's simply not true, and telling me to "lighten up"? I'm not the one predicting bloody doom and gloom from almost every story I see! That hyopcrisy has almost knocked me from my chair. Unless I have some mistaken opinion of myself, I tend to find I have one of the rosiest outlooks on most things that get discussed here, looking for the good in everything rather than the bad. Finally, of course you are entitled to discuss media reports, and sometimes you tend to make some very valid arguments that nobody else has raised, but I was just pointing out my personal frustration with the stance you adopt on practically every two-bit story that gets printed in the Sunday papers. I apologise if that's upset you somewhat, but I have assumed it is fair play to criticise perceived idiocy on here - everyone else does it - and usually in far worse ways than I did yesterday. Chillax.

Somehow the standard of refereeing in Spain is even poorer than it is here. And the bias towards the bigger clubs seems to be even greater with Real and Barca in particular benefitting from favourable decisions. Exactly how I see things as well, or at least how they appear to me as a complete neutral... well, not complete, like I said I do tend to hope for underdog victories whenever I am a "neutral". That could be where I get my viewpoint from, being biased against the "big teams", perhaps?

I wonder if Spanish supporters see the Healy "goal" last week, the Malouda penalty, the Wes Brown handball, etc and think the same thing of ours? I wouldn't be surprised, although the lack of technique on display would be the #1 turn-off from a Spaniard's point of view, surely? Of course these things rankle me as much, which is why I'm tending more and more to just watch Newcastle games and catch MOTD/Goals on Sunday if I can. I do support a team IN the Premiership though (and dislike a fair number as well), so I don't have much choice but to keep tabs on it. Whereas I watch Spanish Football for entertainment purposes, I have no allegiance to any specific club and I don't dislike any clubs any more/less than others over there. I will sit down on a Saturday/Sunday evening hoping for an entertaining 90 minutes of football, not particularly caring one way or another what the score is (although I do admit to rooting for the underdogs the vast majority of the time, which is possibly why so many decisions peeve me.) There are a lot of instances where ridiculous refereeing decisions completely spoil my enjoyment of a game I was thoroughly engrossed in, the second Getafe red card being my case in point, and will cause me to turn off. A lot of these decisions aren't simple mistakes, either, like the ones you mention, they are brought about by the culture/play-acting/overzealous officiating and are often incredible. The amount of red cards in any given La Liga week surely speaks for itself? The amount of "dodgy" red cards I've personally seen is ridiculous from over there, even moreso than here, and for the past few years I've been a fairly avid watcher of live Spanish football/Revista de la Liga, etc. Surely you see where I'm coming from here?

I watched 10 minutes of Sevilla-Getafe, saw yet another ridiculous red card decision in La Liga to send the away team down to 9 men in the first half, and turned it off. Cannot be doing with Spanish officials at all, spoils the rest of the action for me personally. With all that time left it became too obvious how things would turn out, after the game was looking very nicely balanced prior to that.

I think we were already in the market for Faye plus a right-back, so hopefully we'll already have a number of targets identified/in progress (remember the mooted bids for Steinsson and Belletti?) Obviously prices may go up this late in the window, but hopefully after seeing the injuries in the flesh the board might be more "flexible" releasing the funds to Allardyce to sign the player/s he needs. Still, even if we just get Faye things are looking alright.

Then what are they going to print? To be honest they probably know full well about Allardyces methods but that wont fill the big empty space in their section of the paper. Its quite sad how predictable these things are though, really should be some sort of regulations in place stopping them making up stories because they are too fucking lazy to do some proper work! Exactly. Thing is though, as I keep preaching, a lot of morons will have bought that paper because of that story, so what do the journos care if it's true or not?

Jon, surely that's an exaggeration. If Luque does perform for Ajax (and by that I don't mean just scoring in his first game), then those who defended him and said that he could have done well for us had he been given the chance surely has the right to point out the club's mistake in selling him especially if players like Duff continue to frustrate, and yes it works the other way around as well. Are you unable to see the major flaw in this argument? Who is to say Luque would have ever been a success here in this league? It's a bit different doing the business for Ajax in the Eredivisie than it is doing the business for us in the Premiership, why can't some people just accept the fact that certain players don't work out at certain clubs? Fair enough he should have had more of a chance, but if his sale gets labeled a "mistake" because he does well for Ajax then the people who do so need an e-slap. It's fairly obvious that the bloke wants to leave now, as well. Surely it's sensible to wish him luck and hope he does well, realising that he was never really destined to "make it" over here for whatever reason.

Good luck to the bloke, surprised he's managed to get himself to such a famous club after his time here. I hope he does well for them, but I'll possibly be regretting that comment when the idiots start going crazy with the "we never should have sold him" posts.

one of the stupidest things i've ever read.. maybe you should go support blackburn. He was messing about, as usual.

You are seriously taking the piss. Am I? Why? Do you believe everything you read in the papers, mate? Because that's certainly the impression I get from you. You're quite happy to complain about Ashley and Mort's intentions for the club, yet practically every single story that comes from the People, the Sun, the Mirror and the News of the World (papers with notoriously bad reputations) that has some bad-vibes about it you'll be there in the thread saying "oh dear, if this is true then it's bad news for us..." Do you understand why I find that frustrating? Take a step back and have a look at the stance you take on almost everything that is posted on here, you are always, always looking for the negatives and always seem to be expecting the worst-case scenario. I can understand that people are pessimists and all and I don't hold it against people who have differing opinions to mine, but when people seem to take their cue from what is written about us in the Sunday papers especially, it annoys me somewhat.

To sell papers, man. How hard is that to understand? If you notice, every fucking Sunday there is some EXCLUSIVE in one of the red-tops, some outlandish story designed to get to #1 on NewsNow and more importantly to sell lots of papers to people who love to read something, anything about Newcastle United. It's not just us who gets this treatment from the papers, despite what some people will have you believe, I'm sure MJ, brummie, Dr. Spec, 1878, SAFC and others will come on and say exactly the same - that their club gets dross written about it on a regular basis, especially in the Sunday rags. Ask yourself how many weekends go by where we don't feature in anything paper-wise, apart from a match preview/review, and then think about why this is. Just because a lot are based in the South doesn't mean they don't need to flog papers in the North East. I don't think it's that hard to believe that journalists, qualified or not, do this sort of thing because they get massive fuck-off wage packets from their national papers and help their employers to sell more and more copy to idiots who believe everything they write. They aren't writing for the good of their health or to report the facts, they are writing to keep their jobs, their massive wages and to keep selling papers for their employer. It's the nature of the business, by and large, although some are obviously worse than others and it's why after initial interest in becoming a sports journalist myself/a fair bit of research into what it entails, I've veered away from that path altogether.

You are seriously taking the piss.

Bit of a non-story from today's Sun about this stuff, which pales into insignificance when compared with what Allardyce says in the Guardian if you ask me.

Probably to do with the attitudes of a lot of the players who are still here as much as the ones who have left when you cross-read it against some of what Nicky Butt says in the same paper today. All good to hear though, that cannot be denied. Wonder how accurate Farrington is with his "Faye this week plus a right-back (Diarra or Johnson possibles)"...

I have to admit I'm suspicious of the bloke and that he hasn't endeared himself at all to me, personally, since his fantastic arrival almost two years ago to the day. He has a lot to prove to us, whether he thinks he does or not, and the only way to do it is by staying fit, playing regularly and scoring goals. If he is still here after this current contract expires then I'll be amazed (i.e. if he signs an extension). I won't shed any tears if he goes though, especially if he plays as sparingly as he has done since he joined here. We'll see what I'm like if he bangs in 20-odd goals this season...

I know Nicky Butt isn't going to come out and say Allardyce is the worst manager he's ever seen, but the bloke doesn't seem like the sort to blow hot air up anyone's arse just for the sake of it. I know there's the question of keeping Big Sam sweet to get a new contract/keep his place in the team as well, but it certainly bodes well to have stories like this in the national media coming from players who have a lot of respect and experience in football. Nothing we don't know already, but it's nice to hear more positive soundbites coming from within the camp and it's good to see that the players seem to be responding to Allardyce's methods. Martins was saying similar things recently about training being far more professional since Roeder was replaced. Can't help but feel that we're in good hands.

I'd like to think I'd be man enough to never play for Spurs no matter what... though it's a moot point in regards to your post because we all know every other club on the planet offers twice what they do in wages to players, anyway.

Joey Barton is fairly exciting, I'd say, looked brilliant for Manchester City last season and seems exactly what we were missing in the middle of the park under Souness and Roeder. Jose Enrique comes from Spain with a good reputation and is a £6.5M full-back... another one that I find personally exciting. Mark Viduka is getting on a bit but was Middlesbrough's best player last year and the year previous and on his day is unplayable. Smith, Geremi, Cacapa and Rozehnal all seem like decent enough players as well, although I admit it's difficult to get excited over the two centre-halves in particular - despite how good Rozey looks already. It's not necessarily about "exciting" signings though, or "expensive" signings, especially when you consider some of the players already on our books (Owen and Martins in particular). It's buying what we need and buying players who are good enough to improve the team/squad. The "exciting" signings will come when the time is right, I'm sure of that - we might even see one before September 1st, who knows? Even if we just add Faye to this list I'll be happy, personally, then January is only 4 months away.

Faye can play there, apparently, but it's not his natural position and I've never seen him there myself. Caçapa has played there a good amount in the past, but might not have the legs for it these days. Rozehnal says himself he can quite happily play "anywhere" and looking at him as a footballer I wouldn't be surprised if this was true (for the most part) because he seems to have the lot (to varying degrees.) And I think Taylor has had some of his best games for us in his admittedly short career in the right-back position. Geremi has obviously played there a good deal, mainly last season for Chelsea, and Solano has looked a better bet than Carr there most of the time. While a quality right-back coming in would be fantastic, it's really "ideal world" stuff that people have only really started demanding happen since we covered the problematic left-back area with Enrique. It's another case of "now, now, now" and "more, more more" as far as I can see, although I do agree it would be nice if we could get someone decent to play there regularly. We are looking for a right-back, it would seem, with the previous bid for Steinsson of AZ Alkmaar and the recent mooted interest in Belletti, but we might have to wait until January though to secure a player of the necessary quality. If Faye does eventually sign, I can't say I would complain too much if that was the case.

Most definitely not. And that last sentence - provided Solano stays - also has some sound logic behind it.

I'd take it with a pinch of salt although I think if somebody did offer that sort of cash and he didn't sell then he'd be mad. Back to these claiming to know about his intentions, before Ashley bought us we knew nothing about the possible sale, nobody in the media predicted it yet now they all think they know what he's up to, they haven't a clue, they're only guessing. Ashley doesn't seem to be the type of person who people know much about yet all of the papers are speculating what is going to happen, pathetic. They have to fill their NUFC quotas though, keep the idiots up here buying the papers when we're on the back pages. I'm still alarmed at how much people believe the rags... especially the likes of the Mirror/Sun/News of the World. Granted, they occasionally get it right and have some substance behind the words, but the vast majority of stuff written will come from nowt more than rumour, imagination and ill-informed gossip and be purely designed to shift copy - which is the nature of the beast, as I've said before. I won't slag the papers, editors or writers themselves off for doing it because that's what they get paid to do. This is also why I don't bait Oliver as much as most on here because he's just doing his job and trying to make money for his employer - he certainly gets us all talking and reading what he says, even if just online, so he's probably not doing a bad job from the Chronicle's point of view. Why do they care that they're accurate and impartial all of the time if they sell more papers with the current methods? Also, and this is the real key thing that has just struck me, I love how there are certain people on here who don't seem to trust Mort and Ashley as far as they could throw them and question their every utterance, but these same people are quite happy to go cock-a-hoop when there's a story in one of the newspapers which tries to show the club/owners in a bad light. People need to open their eyes a bit. I'm not saying that Mort and Ashley are all sunshine and happiness and that we should trust them unequivocally, but I personally trust them far more at this particular moment than the hacks who are paid to write stories on Newcastle United that will sell their papers.