Rich

A decent tidbit about Babel at the end of the Piquionne <a href="http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/newcastleunited/journalsport/tm_headline=safety-first-for-roeder%26method=full%26objectid=18554318%26siteid=50081-name_page.html">article</a> in today's Journal... I still think Roeder's lack of quotes on Babel means that he is our #1 transfer target, even at this late stage, as earlier in the article he himself says something along the lines of "the less you say about a player the more chance you have of getting him". It's a bit of a conspiracy theory, as such, but it makes sense. Babel is far more of a coup than Piquionne and so it makes sense that we would be doing our utmost to get him in, while not wanting to give anything away. Whereas Roeder has been very open about Piquionne. As for people who've said things won't happen because of the Villa game, it will be Shepherd and the like dealing with transfers anyway, not Roeder, so it won't make too many odds. Something will surely happen today.

Some decent stuff from this <a href="http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/newcastleunited/journalsport/tm_headline=safety-first-for-roeder%26method=full%26objectid=18554318%26siteid=50081-name_page.html">article</a> in the Journal this morning regarding Piquionne, from Roeder... Interesting reading.

Monkey, I think you're genuinely a top-class poster but that last line is pure bollocks. Smacks of nowt but ego to me and it basically alludes to you being 100% correct with this and everyone who disagrees with you being way-off. As for the "debate", I'd venture to say that there have been good points raised on both sides, but much like everything else that sparks interest on here the main protagonists are never going to agree. Anyone could simply sign-off by saying "agree to disagree", but wording it the way you did isn't the way to go about things. You've made points based on not much more than personal opinion with a lot of guesswork/prediction interwoven, just like everyone else has in here. I came at you without calling you a Mackem (laughable that people have), or ridiculing you, and offered an alternative to your story of "what might have been", now you're bowing out of the "debate". Bad form. Theres nowt else for me to contribute to in a thread where there are plenty of posts that do nothing except ridicule anyone with a different opinion. Its not arrogance, ego or me saying im 100% correct - ive not said any of that, and im not sure how youve got that from one line where im trying to cut myself off from debating this topic any further because id merely be repeating myself, and hence wasting time. What you also need to realise is that although I initially replied to you, I also have the habit of replying to other posts/posters within the same reply. I dont mind debating if youre going to bring up some actual points that can be debated, which youve done, I was more pissed off at the childish replies on here that noone can "debate" with since theyre just one line comments bearing no relevance and followed up with a smiley or two. Yes, I do, otherwise I wouldnt be arguing any different. IMO we lost the title for several reasons, but most of all because we lacked the defence to win it, that was the key difference between us and ManU. Games like Blackburn away when Shearer and that other Geordie lad, Fenton or something like that, bagged two sitters iirc, with horrible defending, is what cost us big time. Too many away games like that that season. Bring some good defenders in and wed have been a different team. I was hoping at the time wed move for someone like Southgate, who imo we could have landed at the time had we put a good bid in, or one of the many highly rated defenders from Euro 96, like Thuram who looked really good (and others who have turned out shiite but also looked good, cant really remember them now). Instead, we got noone for the defence. Why? Because we spent all our money on one forward for a world record fee. The defence was shiite for a side looking to win the title. Any team in the Premiership could score against us, and easily so, completely different to the likes of ManU. It was a lower mid table defence, the reason why the stats would probably show that defence to be in the near the top is because the rest of the team was very good, and at times sublime - St James' was a fortress, many a team spent most of the game pegged back in their own half Obviously there are always other factors into why we failed to move forward since 95/96, no doubt the new board put a chokehold on the finances, which was probably why Keegan walked - but thats not what is being discussed - its whether or not we were right to spend 15mill on one forward, when the squad could have done with several players and the defence particularly needed a top class recruit. For example, the notion that Asprilla caused the side to be unbalanced - imo it was Gillespie's injury that did that, not Tino's arrival. Like the defence, Gillespie's injury and the resulting lack of cover cost us the title, although imo not as much of a factor as the defence. We went from a fluid, two flanked team, to one with an out of position player doing nowt on the right, and Ginola being the only true winger getting marked out of the game - which is why in the second half of that season, the likes of Ginola and Ferdinand were shiite in comparison to the first half. We needed another winger, I remember it took ages for Gillespie to get fit, and when he returned he was poor, a shadow of what he was previously - like us needing a defensive recruit, did we buy a replacement right winger? No, we bought another striker with all the money we had, and as you suggest, probably more than we had. Thats the thing, we wont ever know. It could be either way, but it pisses me off that people say with such certainty "wed have gone down". Of course wed have gone down if we hadnt had Shearer AND noone to replace him, but then thats a silly notion to think that without Shearer wed have just sat around doing nothing. Shephard has never been that thick to think wed do well without a decent goalscorer. If we hadnt bought Shearer in the first place, or had sold him at some point during the time we were shiite, wed have replaced him like weve replaced him today. Maybe we got lucky with Martins, but the point is that there are plenty of good forwards out there, ones that we either dont know about or dont watch regularly because theyre not in this country and rarely on telly, and its just not on to say theres absolutely noone. Who knows. Maybe we wouldve been the ones who signed the promising Vieri from Juve (following summer after 96), and not Athletico, and wed have been laughing it up when hed have been banging it in for fun, or maybe wed have gone for someone like Yorke, or Heskey, or someone shit. Who knows. Shearer deserves praise for what he did, but again, its not about what he did. Its about what Newcastle United did at a point when they had enough money to spend to break the world transfer record and a team that was lost the title because of inadequacies in the defence and an injury that upset the balance of the team in midfield. IMO, they spent the money wrongly, and the fact that Shearer had to keep us in this league just 2-3 seasons after we lost the title suggests that it was the wrong thing to do. Top class response, that, more like the usual you. I'll happily take all that on board as my recollection of the 95/96 season is shabby at best, which is why I asked those questions that I did. I can't really argue much of it back with you, which is a great shame, but surely there's someone else who can take up the debate without being a complete arsehole over it. It's a shame that there are posts like that on this board and all people can do to reply is take the piss and make daft comments. Granted, not everyone has the time/knowledge to debate like demons, but there are plenty on here who do. To anyone else who wishes to join in, or just back to Monkey... do you think it was the defensive players themselves that were poor, or was it the style of play that put too much pressure on them? From what I remember of that season, Albert somtimes went on darts forward and our fullbacks were hardly defensive-minded. Was it the personnel or was it the style of play that was our undoing? The right-winger (Gillespie) argument is one I've never heard before and I'd love to hear some other opinions about it from some more that are older than me. The 95/96 is fascinating to me looking back, I was only 9 at the time like, so can hardly speak with authority on that particular year (regarding the defence.) My main defence of signing Big Al is for what he did in those subsequent years here.

Howay man HTL, any signings made towards the end of the window are quite blatantly panic-buys/fifth-choices/worse than shite... how the fook can you not know that? I mean, look at Martins, he obviously wasn't first choice... oh, right. Roeder/Shepherd cannot win when it comes to signings, or anything really. I personally think it's mainly because of the public front that they put on things - i.e. sometimes talking pure shite. Surely that could be perceived as being sensible, though? Probably better to deny interest than to tell the footballing world who your exact targets are, etc. Not saying that it's always what they do, but Shepherd hasn't got to be in the biggest job in the city by being as thick as people make out. Aye, he'd probably not win Mastermind, but his business savvy often gets blurred out because of his public image. I don't care much for him at all, I'm certainly not proud to associate him with NUFC or even happy that he's the public face of our club with how he goes on sometimes, but the bloke does do some things right, sometimes.

sorry mate, he's comming to us tomorrow. Hopefully Bale will join him but unlikely :'( For £3m? yeah i read the papers too 2.5m and future add ons. He's not in the Derby squad because hes travelling to London to have he's medical. Oh and Bale hasent officially rejected us yet but he's probably going to. Typical Spurs signings these days, must be nice

Yes, he basically made a public "come get me" plea to Keegan in an interview with the BBC iirc. Stoichkov was a top, top player who had passed his peak but was still a very good player, had more all round ability than Shearer but was of course a different type of forward with Shearer being alot more predatory and entering the peak of his career. He (Stoichkov) had had a good Euro 96, iirc all Bulgaria's games were at Newcastle and he absolutely loved the city, which is mainly why he was desperate to sign for us. Of course its not possible to say for certain what would have happened had we got someone like Stoichkov, or anyone else. I personally think hed have been as big a success as Zola, similar calibre forwards, because he had the ability to punish Premiership defences and with our midfield and the likes of Ferdinand, Beardo, Tino etc around him, hed have been a quality addition in my eyes, especially considering how open the Premiership was back then. Thats not the point though, whether Stoichkov wouldve been a success or not is iirelevant, the point was that we had money to spend on a side that only needed a strong defence to win trophies and establish itself as a top side, and if we needed cover for Ferdinand we could have gotten top class forwards for decent amounts and spent the bulk of that money on defenders and/or keepers. I also think that if we did indeed sign Shearer to prevent ManU getting him, it was just a pathetic show of throwing the towel in. No matter what side the competitor builds, success will always come if you have a good team with solidity and ability in every department. Real Madrid were meant to be unstoppable when they signed Zidane on top of Figo, and then Ronaldo. Of course a team like that will remain in and around the trophies, but good enough teams will regularly challenge them, and depending on how the season goes, will sometimes win or sometimes lose out. Again, pathetic to just throw the towel in and gamble in such a big way just to prevent a top player who we didnt truly need go to our rivals. All im arguing is that we should have spent the money in a way that befitted the team we had so that we could win trophies. Im not trying to deny that it was great for a local lad to come home, for him to lead the club to some good seasons, and to score heavily for us during his time here. What im looking at is what the right thing to do at that point in time was with regards to the club I support winning trophies and nailing its position down for many years to come as one of the realistic title challengers - and imo, it was just a bad decision to gamble all our money on one forward. I think ive made my points clearly, so will jump out of this "debate" because theres nowt else to say that hasnt already been said. Monkey, I think you're genuinely a top-class poster but that last line is pure bollocks. Smacks of nowt but ego to me and it basically alludes to you being 100% correct with this and everyone who disagrees with you being way-off. As for the "debate", I'd venture to say that there have been good points raised on both sides, but much like everything else that sparks interest on here the main protagonists are never going to agree. Anyone could simply sign-off by saying "agree to disagree", but wording it the way you did isn't the way to go about things. You've made points based on not much more than personal opinion with a lot of guesswork/prediction interwoven, just like everyone else has in here. I came at you without calling you a Mackem (laughable that people have), or ridiculing you, and offered an alternative to your story of "what might have been", now you're bowing out of the "debate". Bad form. At the time Shearer was arguably the best striker in world football and we brought him home. Do you genuinely think Keegan and that squad would have ever fully recovered from losing the title in 95/96? If you're not debating anymore, could someone else answer this for me? Was our downfall buying Shearer instead of strengthening the defence or the other factors surrounding the club at the time? Things like the losing of the title, Ginola wanting away, Asprilla "upsetting" the balance or the PLC business? Was the defence even THAT bad in the first place? Alternatively, what might have happened to NUFC had Keegan still left and Shearer hadn't have been around to bang the goals in for 9 years afterwards? Granted, things could have been brilliant, but things could also have been a hell of a lot worse than they are now, after Shearer. Anyway, I think you make some excellent arguments, as do some others - the usual suspects.

Think we've been telling him porkies? Or honest mistake? "My ambition is as big as my frame, how long since you last won something?" "Erm, well, its been a while, you could say to.." "Two years? Good enough for me. where do i sign?" Think it was more a turn of phrase than anything else. You dafties. Reeeeeeeally? Of course. Imbecile

We could really do with Wigan taking at least a point from Reading tonight league-wise. Let's hope that Sheff Utd can hold on an' all, and that 'Boro/Portsmouth is a stalemate. Don't give a toss about West Ham/'Pool.

Has Bale rejected Spurs officially yet? Or were SSN talking shite before?

I can't believe some of the shit I've read here on Shearer. The only thing that has been 100% right is that he was the one true world class player we had, and the idiocy of surrounding him with crap like Howey for example, beggared belief. Averaging more than 20 a season, frequently carrying the team in some ludicrous one man shows - even after the injury that slowed him down a yard - yet the number of "What have you done for me lately" dickheads have me shaking my head with disgust. There was also the fair point he should have gone a season earlier, at the very top. Like Bobby R should have. Yes. Bobby should have gone the previous season all right. Preferably upstairs in an advisory role. Somechance with these bloody directors. Completely agree with this, amazingly. I dread to think how good Man Utd would have been if they had been allowed to buy Shearer... that's the key to this argument from my perspective. We wouldn't have fucking touched them with a twenty-foot barge pole if they had Cantona/Shearer up front with Scholes, Giggs, Keane and Beckham behind them... not to mention Andy Cole, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Peter Schmeichel, etc. No matter how we diced that £15m (it's questionable whether we would have had that much cash to spend if it wasn't to be spent on Shearer as well) we would have been blown away. Maybe we would have still come 2nd every season, we might have even knicked a domestic trophy, but I'm not sure I would trade that for what Shearer brought to this club. He gave everyone some sort of hope, he was a symbol of Geordie pride and was a pleasure to watch. Is it 100% fact that Stoichkov wanted to join? What if he got a career-ending injury on his debut, what then? It's all conjecture. He could have simply not been as good as you predict he would have. Granted we didn't even win a fucking raffle with Shearer, but we also didn't get relegated or go bust, and we had some fairly amazing days/nights with the great man wearing the number 9. I know these days it's all about success on the pitch, maybe that's what it should be all about, but I think there's still something to be said for seeing a Geordie wearing that shirt and playing like a demon for the majority of 10 seasons.

Think we've been telling him porkies? Or honest mistake? "My ambition is as big as my frame, how long since you last won something?" "Erm, well, its been a while, you could say to.." "Two years? Good enough for me. where do i sign?" Think it was more a turn of phrase than anything else. You dafties.

I find it hard to accept the "situation" when none of those points you mention are facts. EDIT (to sound less arsey): 1 - None of us know the club's financial situation for sure, there's the new TV money to consider, etc. 2 - I don't know about you, but I'm fairly chuffed with Martins and Sibierski and I still think Duff will come good, hell, even Bernard might do enough to be kept on if he can stay fit. 3 - This is another thing that you cannot possibly know for sure. I'd bet a fair few "goalscorers" could be bought if the money was right. 4 - Self-explanatory. 5 - Loan deals aren't always as smooth as you suggest there, if he does really well then we might not be able to keep him (which would be a right smack in the chops - see Distin, who I thought looked better than most of our defenders at the time. Distin/Woodgate would have been a sight.) We'll still be paying the wages, which will amount to a considerable sum. Could cost us loads if the bloke got injured or something.

Add me to that list Yorkie... I also reckon Bramble is a better footballer than Ramage, by a considerable margin an' all. Jon's point about the attributes is exactly my feeling and for you to say that a player at 23 can mature and a player who is merely 2 years older cannot is laughable. This ain't Football Manager, players can improve significantly when they get beyond 24 years old. Not that Bramble needs to do much, other than to cut out his infamous lapses in concentration... and he needs to get injured less, if that's at all possible to control. It's beyond me how you think Ramage is better and has more potential. (Which I would associate with previous form, physical attributes, mental attributes, etc.) I'd say Bramble is quicker, can use both feet, is stronger, is a better passer of the ball, is better in the air and is a more intelligent footballer than Rampage. As people have already said, he's also proven himself to be able to play at a high level, where Ramage has not. The fact that these three managers you speak of have (the "top-class" one being the bloke who shelled out all that cash for him) all preferred Bramble to Ramage is another point in the chubby bastards favour. As I've said before, though, it's all about opinions, it's amazing how we all see things differently.

Aye howay man, a riot would mean that the 50-75% of people who go to the match and sit on their hands and moan, while sipping their tea/coffee/hot chocolate, would have to be involved in some way. People will have a bit of a whinge during the game and then bombard the football talk-shows with angry words. It's just how we roll. (Not advocating rioting here, but we'll fucking maul Villa anyway .)

I might bury the old noggin for a few days until this shite is over.

What disgusts me about Oliver is the fact that he uses his column to rubbish stories reported in other papers "With some of the national press today linking us with so and so, I can reveal that this is wide of the mark." Brilliant. Is that what they pay you for? No dickhead, it's not. Aye, but Alan Oliver is a winnet on the crack-hairs of the club and so gets to hear more or less everything that is said and done, sometimes though being in that position means that he doesn't get the information spot-on. I am genuinely amused by the fact that NUFC.co.uk, by all accounts a pretty God-awful website journo-wise, posts Oliver's "exclusives" hours before his paper goes on sale. And in all of the articles he writes "Glenn told me today", "speaking exclusively to the Chronicle today"... hold on a minute pet, the exact same story (usually with more quotes) was on the official website hours ago... Do the people at the Chronicle think that we all lack internet access, or something? It's like how they give their stories away free on icnewcastle... surely that affects paper sales as a lot of people would only buy it for the "footy news"? I know I'm not interested in reading about how many rapes there've been lately, or how many deaths, or how many grannies have been "viciously" treated.

At the same time!? The filthy, yet freakishly talented, bastards.

More like 1pm when the Chronicle gets uploaded. I love how Oliver and the official website post the exact same "news" every day.

Heh, it was exactly the same on PES5. Babel and Braafheid were mint. Anyway, we surely can't advocate signing him because of that! 250k seem awfully cheap. He looks big as well, and I have a penchant for the larger man.

Thought exactly the same when I read that.

Is he still good on PES6? He was the bollocks on 5.

I hate the cockney mackems.

That last bit was sarcasm... just for the record.

The way you word things is a constant source of pleasure to me. Keep up the good work. (That's not sarcasm, btw.) Braafheid was mint on PES5... let's get him!

When's that Onyewu bloke arriving, then? :