Rich

If we lose to 'Boro after they played 120 minutes on Tuesday and we had no midweek game then it will be nothing short of disgraceful. We should beat them, but it will probably only be by the odd goal. Will be interesting to see if Woodgate plays after playing the whole of the WBA game, as Southgate has previously only tried to use him in one game per week in order to stop him breaking down. Wonder what the odds are on him going off injured if he plays? He is back at SJP, after all, would only be keeping with previous form if he got crocked.

We just need to provide him with the bullets. He'll benefit enormously from playing off a mobile partner and having the likes of Dyer/Emre/Duff/N'Zogbia/Milner/Solano in the team. I can't wait until he returns, personally.

Think that's wrong mate, because they've left N'Zogbia out and there's no mention at all of Peter Ramage. Lazy journalism.

Given Solano Onyewu Bramble Taylor Milner Parker Butt Duff Dyer Martins SUBS Harper Huntington Pattison N'Zogbia Sibierski I'll be very surprised if this isn't what Roeder goes for, assuming that Ramage isn't ready yet, as he seems to be the only player off the injury list in with a shout of making the bench for this one. I'm looking forward to seeing Dyer and Martins torment Woodgate, because he has looked utterly pedestrian in every game I've seen him play this season, he's nowhere near as quick as he was when he was here.

From BBC.co.uk... although they've also missed N'Zogbia out of the squad, so it's not exactly bulletproof information. I thought Carr wasn't in contention until the AZ game, personally, from what Glenn "The Birdman" Roeder said in a recent interview.

It might rain still but the roof covering all sides of the ground hasn't been in place for that long. Try sitting in the front row of the Gallowgate, mate. Roof doesn't extend as far as my seat.

Eh? Sibierski isn't even first choice now mate, so I can't work that one out. Dyer/Martins is Roeder's preferred starting pair up front, Sibierski only gets a game when Dyer has to drop back into midfield. Which is why Milner seems to be the obvious answer to this one, because there's no way he'll leave Martins, Owen or Dyer out and the obvious answer would be to move Dyer back onto the right. If Emre is off, then it could be the case that Dyer will play AM and Milner will retain his position. If we're going to play with Martins/Owen up top, I'm not sure how effective Milner will be as it seems a strikeforce more geared towards using "wide midfielders" rather than "wingers" in so much that we'll be looking to play the ball on the deck, rather than load the box with crosses. Think Pires/Ljungberg at Arsenal. I wouldn't be surprised if Roeder's first-choice front six was: Dyer, Duff, Emre, Parker, Martins and Owen, however the chances of all six being fit at the same time aren't exactly brilliant.

In relation to the point about Gerrard not doing any signings/photographs and the fans being "lepers", I've heard a few stories from lasses I know who work in the executive sections of SJP about players who do their absolute utmost to avoid any interaction at all with the supporters. For example, my cousin works in one of the most luxurious bits and says that Kluivert used to have a member of staff tell all the waiting kiddies that he'd be leaving out of a certain exit at a certain time and then fuck off early and in a completely different direction, leaving the lasses/lads up in the suites to get abuse for giving false information, simply to avoid 15 minutes or so of interacting with the people who pay his wages. Fair enough that the lad wants a fairly peaceful life, but he's at SJP for fuck's sake and is obviously injured (otherwise he'd be on the pitch), so what the fuck else is he up to? Hardly a shocking revelation by today's standards, but it just seems to be the way things are going. It's amazing how much things can change in two generations, because my Grandda was always going on about Toon players riding their bikes to the match and drinking in the local boozers with the fans. It does take the piss, but the powers-that-be know that for a lot of us football is an integral part of our lives so we're hardly going to cut all ties with the club we've been indoctrinated with. It's hard to blame the players these days for being cunts, an' all. I'm not quite sure how I would have handled being a millionaire by the time I was out of my teens, but I probably wouldn't be the delightful chap that I am these days

Its not a bad thing if you are from a culture of inherent racism. Apparently. Aye, but have those people called the Spaniards racist? That was my point. The "inherent" racism could be used for the Spanish an' all, like, but it doesn't exactly make it right.

To be fair, I haven't personally noticed anyone who has done what NM has just said. I certainly don't think there are many people saying it's "okay" for Emre to be racist.

Dirty Don's ICONS Page Maybe he was a Mackem, who the fuck knows? I've definitely read a story about his family being Toon fans, though, he might have even been a dirty little turncoat as a child.

Aye, his whole family were Toon fans like, as he was himself.

Funny thing is, I would have loved him here during his Sunderland spell, he was brilliant for them.

The 2-3 at Spurs would be my pick, recently. Would have loved to have been there for that.

"Dirty" Don Hutchison ranks up there as high as any in my books. Lee Hendrie deserves an honourable mention and Jermaine Jenas is easily up there as well.

Already a thread on it, big fella! "Betis/Sevilla Abandoned" Is it merge time?

I think NSG might have been joking.

Disgraceful how some are trying to defend his alleged comments tbh. Let's see what is found, eh? The usual lack of a middle ground is amusingly typical of this forum, like. Dave is right, let's wait and see what the final judgement is before we try and make excuses for him/cast him aside. I just hope he plays against AZ next week, personally.

Saw this as well and the main thought that springs to mind is: urgh. It's getting embarrassing now, especially when the Daily Mail use terminology like "Newcastle will go to war over FIFA's £1m offer..." What the fucking hell are we expecting, really? Are we really that skint?

Classic Spanish fan action. There was also a big fuckoff bottle chucked at Ronaldinho in the Zaragoza/Barcelona second leg, not to mention the gazillion overexaggerations whenever anyone was so much as grazed by an opponent from the players themselves. The refereeing was appalling, as well. Messi, in particular, was a proper cunt - even more so when you consider that Andres D'Allesandro is supposed to be one of his "good friends" (got him red-carded). No need for the "headbutt", though, playful or not. It was a decent game, that aside, but by-and-large the fans in Spain are nauseating.

sorry but it aint gonna happen Classic KD.

The FA have already been paying around half of Owen's wages (50k-ish) since he got hurt, it equates to a fair wedge since June (£2m-ish).

Made me chuckle to see that he wants to return to play in the first International at Wembley in May, simply because of what people on here tend to say about him and England.

Definitely won't turn my nose up at £1m, as while it hardly pays for a "replacement" for Owen (load of nonsense if we ever really thought we'd get £6m+), but if you break it down and add it to the £50k p/w that the FA have providing it goes close to meaning that Owen hasn't cost us anything since he actually got injured, which is very good news as it means we've had a total of around £2.5m from FIFA/The FA since his injury. That's £2.5m we could have paid to a lad who was not fit to play. Plus, we'll have had cash from our own insurers on top of that. Definitely won't complain at getting almost 15% of the entire FIFA budget for injures at the World Cup, although I think Blatter saying we don't really deserve it because we are in a "rich league" is fucking bollocks. It would be interesting to know how many millions Owen's absence has cost us in prize money since he was injured, it's got nothing to do with the fact that the Premiership has a lot of cash. It's all relative to the losses/gains. Blatter is an utter cunt.

My stance on him remains the same: he'd do a job for us and I'd be eager to see him partnered with Martins/Owen. Can't see it happening with Shola's return, Sibierski's new contract and the potential of Dyer and Owen being involved a lot more than usual. I also share people's scepticism about him settling as a "backup" player - even if he did fancy it he'd be an outrageously expensive one, at that, wages-wise. But if we can afford to pay Luque £40k p/w for nowt, then it could be feasable.