Rich

Wouldn't be surprised at all with Dyer's injury.

I refuse to believe Andy (fucking) Hunter! Although it's mint if it's true.

Juninho left out of the Lyon squad last night. The plot thickens ... The number "8" shirt is hanging nameless in our changing rooms, an' all.

'Boro got just over 11,000 people in tonight - and that was apparently very "generous", which I would also say about our 30,500-ish number as well. Still, though, eleven-fucking-thousand...

It's Keegan-tastic, man!

I'm more excited about Wayne Bridge.

It's Monty and his bitch, innit? Forgotten the name. Maggy?

I honestly don't mind the return of Monty, it's certainly not going to dampen my summer any (although I realise you were exaggerating.) My little cousin is a Mackem and is enthralled by their mascots, so I can see how they're useful to the younger audience. At least it's not a "new" thing, which kills a lot of the cringeworthiness of it. The return of Monty Magpie = the return of the good times, surely?

Racialist, tbh. I nearly compared his appearance to that of a Nigerian conman who's weaseled his way into a Premiership team, but thought better of it. ...Whoops.

At least he's honest. Titus Bramble mkII.

A cult hero in the making since the day I saw his bearded mug. Looks nowt like a footballer, but looks like he's a fucking player alright. I'm excited about seeing him in the Premiership regularly, if he can stay fit. With Faye incoming we'll have four central defenders who I'd struggle to between pick to start any given match, which is something I'm not sure I've ever been able to say before.

I knew this would kick off after the match was over with, I've got four pages to read since I last saw it. Marvelous.

Christ almighty, if these two both go through as planned then it's fair to say I'll be EVEN MORE optimistic than I have been recently. Two Senegal internationals, one the best defender at Bolton and one the captain of Marseille, for what will probably be around £5M or so. Fantastic. A few weeks ago people were saying that they'd be over the moon with this sort of income after Enrique signed, I hope that turns out to be the case.

That's only about 1 point we'll be missing out on from those two away games, though. Could say that those are exactly the sort of games I'm happy for them to miss, because we'd probably get chuff all out of them with a full-strength eleven. It's obviously not ideal, but the squad should be beefy enough to cover it if we haven't been beset with injuries. We have two players for every position plus more if Faye and Beye sign!

Is there? That, the video from the Blackburn game away last season and several other anecdotes from a few people on here would suggest that there is. Surely you could say that about any group of supporters of any team in the world, though? Personally, I won't deny that I know/know of plenty of bigoted/racist/sexist Newcastle fans, but the same applies to fans of other clubs that I know as well. Yes you could. But the point is that there is an unpleasant element out there and is something the club should probably take a look into. Thank you, Captain Obvious It's not just football's problem though, it's global society. Not exactly an easy problem to contend with. I'm sure the club will ban fans if they are caught in the act/if there is evidence to pin on certain supporters of NUFC. I don't condone the chants at all, by the way, and I would not have taken part in them personally.

Is there? That, the video from the Blackburn game away last season and several other anecdotes from a few people on here would suggest that there is. Surely you could say that about any group of supporters of any team in the world, though? Personally, I won't deny that I know/know of plenty of bigoted/racist/sexist Newcastle fans, but the same applies to fans of other clubs that I know as well.

TEAMS NUFC: Shay Given, Nobby Solano, Jose Enrique, Steven Taylor, Cacapa, Charles N'Zogbia, Geremi, Alan Smith, Emre, Michael Owen, Shola Ameobi Subs: Steve Harper, Oba Martins, Nicky Butt, David Edgar, Paul Huntington BFC: Heinz Muller, Lewin Nyatanga, Robert Kozluk, Sam Togwell, Miguel Mostto, Grant McCann, Rohan Ricketts, Dennis Souza, Martin Devaney, Dwayne Mattis, Dominik Werling Subs: Nick Colgan, Robert Atkinson, Kim Christensen, Michael Coulson, Jacob Butterfield Referre: G Salisbury

That was a given after he played 90 minutes for Czech Republic last week, surely?

Some comments from Tottenham fans in response: I have to say, I'm loving the continually-increasing venom in this relatively new rivalry. Those Spurs fans have hefty chips on their shoulders about us and I think it's fantastic. Our "rivalry" with the Mackems has been non-existent for years now and 'Boro are even more meaningless than the red and whites, so I'm reveling in this bitterness between our lot and the Yids. It's what football's all about IMO and has made the Spurs fixtures one of the highlights of my season, personally, although I do admit there was a fair bit of history there originally on my part already. "NORVERN MANKIES!"

To give Nicky Butt competition in the fouls/yellow cards stakes?

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. On the contrary, I think your analysis is overly simplistic. I accept that the Dutch League is inferior to the EPL and in a way nobody could tell for sure how he would have performed if he had been given a run of games, or at least shown that the management has confidence in him (remember Roeder playing an immobile crocked Ameobi ahead of him). But given that it is an unknown variable, it's fair to say a player who performed reasnably well for Deportivo and if he does well for Ajax on a consistent basis could have done well in the EPL had he been given the chance. Economist called this trend analysis (after making adjustment to differentiating factors off course). To be sure there are some differences between the three leagues but not enough to conclude that a player who performs in the other two leagues, bought for 10M and sold on a free (?) was not a mistake. Selling an asset worth 10M for free after 2-3 years would be considered criminal negligent in any other non footballing corporation and take the whacky world of football and transfer markets as mitigation factors, I don't see why this should not be seen as a mistake....to say the least. saying that we should "accept the fact that certain players don't work out at certain clubs" is just a convenient way of masking the mistake and making us all feel hunky dorry inside. It's not simply about the quality of the league, though, that wasn't all I was getting at. You need to take things like his injury into account and his subsequent loss of confidence, the culture shock of moving from La Coruna to Newcastle, the fact he didn't learn English until he'd been here for more than a year, the fact that we paid a grossly inflated fee for the lad and paid him huge wages due to an incompetent manager/chairman combination... there's absolutely loads that goes into how well a certain player does at a certain club, I completely understand that and I'm sure you already appreciate it too. As it stands Albert Luque is, rightly or wrongly, a 6th choice striker if we're playing 4-4-2 and is equally down the pecking order for a position up-front down the middle/on the left of the 4-3-3/4-5-1, meaning he's costing us a lot of money in wages and we won't see any return from him at all on the football pitch. He also seems like he wants to leave the club and try his hand elsewhere. His value has depreciated massively from that over-inflated fee we paid back in 2005 and it's easy to see why when you look at his time here. As you've said, it's completely unknowable whether Luque would have ever done really well here for us, which was my exact point in saying IF he does well for Ajax then I will find it extremely frustrating if people label it a MISTAKE for us to have sold him, because he could have done the same for us here. It's not a mistake, it's a necessary move for NUFC and for Luque after his time here has been a complete write-off, due to a number of factors. I don't blame Luque entirely for how things have gone and I was quite happy to see him given a chance under Allardyce, but it seems both the manager and the player realise it's probably best if he heads off somewhere else to chance his arm. Fair play to him, I say, and good luck. But I won't be calling it a "mistake" if he does well for Ajax, I'll just be happy that he's doing well for himself. It was a mistake how Roeder handled him, perhaps paying that £11.4M/£9.5M for him was a mistake initially, it was probably a mistake that Souness threw him in at the deep end, it was a mistake for him not to bother learning English until 2006, there have been a lot of mistakes from a lot of different parties that have led us to this unavoidable point in time. I, for one, will not be crying over spilt milk though.

Good stuff. Rather have a specialist right back tho. Undoubtedly that's the ideal scenario, but if it doesn't come off I'd rather have Faye/Cacapa/Rozehnal in the centre-half position and not see Taylor ousted from the team altogether. If anything, playing at RB would force him to improve his positional sense and his footballing skills, more than just being the pure "blocker" he seems to be at the moment. Might do him the world of good and he could prosper there until he's properly "ready" to make one of the centre-back positions his own. He's had some very good games at RB if my memory is serving me right and I'd like to see him at least tested there. Gives our defence a very heighty look to it, as well, which you know I'm high on, (no pun intended.) We could be looking at the entire back four being between six-feet and six-three, which won't do us any harm in the Premiership at all, especially away from home.

I'm excited to see him and Enrique down the left, like. Imagine if it clicks? Two twenty-one year olds from foreign shores down our left flank, at least until January when Enrique turns 22. Could have Taylor and Milner down the right as well, for all we know, at least in the immediate future - both 22 in January as well! An experienced core/spine to the team with youthful exuberance out wide. Sounds alright to me.

He won't go back to Parma whatever happens, and if a "speedy solution" is to be found then they say it would most likely be in England with Man City (who were in for Baptista, but that seems to be a non-starter), Newcastle or Arsenal. It looks unlikely that a resolution will come about before August 31st and so he might prefer to stay with Inter until January and wait for a new offer from somebody then. Nothing that hasn't already been posted, really. Inter have also rejected 30M Euros for Maicon from Real Madrid.

Deliberate HBK reference? You'll never believe me, but I knew you'd comment on that It's rather fitting, though. Here's a lad who seemed to have the world at his feet before certain events took place which caused him to lose his way for a good while, now he's back looking something near his previous best and with a lot better to still come... hopefully. Can't see him being here "forever", but we should get another good year or two out of him before his head gets properly turned.