macphisto

I thought the Clarke Carlisle was very one sided and had an agenda, why did they not speak to Chris Hughton and Chris Powell at Charlton, two managers who have done well in the game? It would certainly carry more weight if they thought racism existed and had been a success despite some barriers they had to overcome (that's if they think football is racist). It was also a glaring omission that they didn't ask Barnes about Suarez as he was very public in his support for Liverpool and the player.

As amazing as Ronaldinho was, I'd put Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of him. That team would score 10 goals a game Good team, but I'd put Matthaus ahead of Redondo and Van Basten in a front two replacing Ronaldinho. At a time when Italian football was much more defensive and the off-side rule was in favour of defenders Van Basten was a fantastic player, such a shame he had to retire early. I would also rate Keane as the best midfielder of the Premier League years, Man U were so lucky to follow Robson with Keane. No luck about it. They bought him and developed him. Too much in football is put down to good or bad luck, or lady luck according to Souness. Ferguson has to be credited for the signing. It was a British record at the time n all so Ferguson definitely put his balls on the line with it. By luck I meant to have two successive midfielders who were the best of their generation. No doubt they were going to be good players (fair play to Ferguson and Atkinson for paying so much for Keane and Robson) but I don't think anyone would have predicted they would turn out to be so exceptional. Paul Ince is a an example of a player where you could see he was decent as a young player and knew he would do well and be a solid player and lived up to those expectations without exceeding them. In many ways it reminds me of when we bought Andy Cole, we paid a lot of money for someone in the 2nd Division (3rd division in old terms) and I'm sure Keegan thought he was going to be a good player but I doubt he thought he would be as good as he was in the Premier League. I'd also put Rob Lee in that category too as we bought him as a winger.

As amazing as Ronaldinho was, I'd put Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of him. That team would score 10 goals a game Good team, but I'd put Matthaus ahead of Redondo and Van Basten in a front two replacing Ronaldinho. At a time when Italian football was much more defensive and the off-side rule was in favour of defenders Van Basten was a fantastic player, such a shame he had to retire early. I would also rate Keane as the best midfielder of the Premier League years, Man U were so lucky to follow Robson with Keane.

Just heard Lee Ryder's interview on Talksport, just embarrassing: http://www.talksport.co.uk/radio/kickoff/121009/newcastle-journalist-magpies%E2%80%99-new-sponsorship-deal-wonga-182764

Lived in London now for almost 5 years and really enjoyed the place. I'll probably look to leave next year but that's only to get on the housing ladder, if it wasn't for that I'd happily stay here for the long term. With regards to Newcastle and London there's no comparison about where you go if all things were equal as Newcastle isn't in the same league as a place to live if you were on a footballer's salary. Saying that as a footballer football should come first and we are way above Fulham as a football club, I'd much rather play for club where you get the third largest crowd in the country and the potential to be a very successful. Indeed the only two clubs I'd sign for ahead of Newcastle if there were some London clubs in for me would be Arsenal and Spurs (I wouldn't go to Chelsea).

They have so much money that they have invested in a few places, I know in London that they built the Shard in London and also own Harrods.

They get not too much less than full house anyway and gate receipts of 3-7,000 extra people won't make that much difference I'd have thought. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/029ffd93e9ae0e16b1aa688909a49f95.png Unless they're planning a move to the Stade de France. I don't think these people come into football to make money through the club itself so I don't think they'll be bothered by attendances, TV revenue or any other income stream. It's more to do with how to raise their profile, marketing, and who knows what else....

PSG is probably the best club to invest in the whole of Europe as Paris has a large population (2nd most important European capital after London???) and is pretty much a one club city. Their exposure in France and former French colonies around the world will be fantastic. They will also reach a big audience through the Champions League.

Wonder how he will perform over the next month as Ramadan starts on Friday.

Don't think it's been mentioned but Rob Lee deserves an honourable mention for the goal he scored in his own half against Brentford even though it was disallowed.

I know you're in Germany Parky so I understand why you know a lot about German football but I think the points about Germany having to rebuild are being overstretched. Not even taking into account their record pre-1990 they won the world cup in 1990, Euros in 1996, final of the world cup in 2002 and 3rd place in the last two world cups and were runners up at the last Euros. So basically they had two poor Euros (in between which they got to the world cup final) and we beat them 5-1 in Munich. I think it's more to do with them experiencing cyclical bad period more than them having to rebuild, indeed their record is so good what did they need to rebuild? I'm not saying that they haven't changed their youth system etc, but I think that is German forward thinking for you. There's no comparison between Germany in the past to what England are like now. I would say better examples are France after they didn't make the World Cup in 1990 and 1994 and rebuilt resulting in the team that won the world cup and Spain who have always under achieved apart from recent times. For me I would simply replicate whatever training, youth system they have in Holland as they sure do produce world class players for such a small country. I know it doesn't always work like this but if they had a population comparable to ours then I think they would win everything in sight.

If he's under the impression that there are girls anywhere in England as fine as those in Madrid, he's gonna be searching for quite some time. London girls were sharp, tbf. A very pleasant and diverse selection of females. Reading, Nottingham, and Liverpool were barren, though. I hope Newcastle is at least decent or better than Wigan. I thought Nottingham had something like 3 lasses to every 1 man in terms of population? Best looking lasses I've ever seen on my travels were Arabic women, bloody hell, when they don't cover themselves up... Masallah! Ugliest women, and this is not biased.... Boro lasses. Ugly doesn't describe the horror! I agree about Arabic women but most of them lose it after their thirties, they go down hill dramatically.

Wonder what impact this will have on our transfer strategy this summer? Certainly increases the chance of us holding onto our players

I'd consider the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes 'bigger' car companies than most others btw, they don't sell the most cars... Also you'll get some absolute s**** that that have sold more records (especially recently) than some absolutely massive all-time artists. I'd say that is more to do with who is better not who is bigger.

I do find it strange that football differs to all other areas when it comes to who is the biggest. For me it should just go off people through turnstiles/shirt sales/TV subscribers, something tangible with regards to number of fans, simple as that. I can't think of any other area where it's not a question of who has the most fans/sells the most things. For example biggest car company is the one that sells the most cars. Same for music, might not always be an indicator of how good the artist is but the number of fans/records sold is the answer to who is the biggest band/Artist.

I actually think he come across all right and talks a lot of sense. I did like the part where he pointed out that he pays their wages via the license fee.

Never seen this interview before, but well worth a watch. I wonder what he would think of MOTD today???

A lot depends on the result this weekend for me, if Everton lose I think we'll go really close for the Champions League as the pressure will be off knowing that we've qualified for the Europa League. If Everton win then all of a sudden the pressure is on and I'm not sure how we'll handle that situation.

I'm not sure if I've understood you right but for me it's all about winning something first and foremost (we haven't won a domestic trophy in nearly 60 years). We would then all be in a position to say whether we would prefer George Graham style football and winning trophies ahead of playing well like under Keegan and not winning a trophy. Obviously there's a massive area in between the two styles and Barcelona epitomise how you can win by playing attractive football. Simple truth is hardly any fans are in a position to say what they would prefer as very few have experienced winning a cup. All we've ever had is playing well and not winning anything or playing poorly and not winning anything.

I think it's slightly different when you could be super-rich and achieve some worthwhile career goals by signing for a good club in a decent league, but decide to become super-mega-rich by going to Russia and live in a secure compound manned by armed security. Either way they'll be set for life, it's just weird that the greed is such that they would opt for a complete non-team. Not saying I would be able to turn it down, but I'd like to think I would. Secure compound is a bit too far, they live in Moscow which is a pretty cool city.

Like most people in a state of shock over this and just can't get my head around it. Also angry about the whole thing, such a terrible, terrible waste. Just been reading the lyrics to the U2 song Stuck in A Moment, kind of sums up my feelings.

Fair enough but I don't really understand where people are coming from as it's better than doing nothing. If as a fan base we are not willing to even do this then we deserve everything Ashley throws at us. 100,000 people signing a petition that could be potentially discussed in Parliament along the lines of "Does the House of Commons agree that the renaming of St James' Park is an act of cultural and sporting vandalism towards an iconic North East institution?" (very draft wording) could only be a good thing in my opinion.

Just been reading about the new stadium name and was wondering what people thought about doing an e-petition? Obviously can't stop Ashley doing what he wants but it would be a way to publicly demonstrate against Ashley and would generate a lot of negative publicity towards Ashley. There is the argument that no publicity is bad publicity but in the case it would be way to demonstrate our feelings towards Ashley on a national platform. It would also be worth seeing it debated in Parliament. Anyone got any ideas about what the question should be? If people are in support of it then maybe we could have a few suggestions about what the petition should say and put that to the vote on here? What are people's views? Here's a link to the site: https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/new

I liked the house analogy, would he be happy to live in a caravan (in housing analogies that's what our current strike force is comparable to) for 12 months?

Read through your quote and tbh you blame Carr and cannot wriggle out of that one ,Carr identifies and leaves it to the clowns to get them . I'm being serious here, where am I blaming Carr in this statement: "If the statement is true and it’s not but if it is then Graham Carr should be sacked already." I was saying that if we took the club statement to be true then in my opinion Carr would be to blame but I acknowledge that the statement is not true so by implication this is not the fault of Carr. That's not wriggling out of it, it's what I said. What I am saying is that for my mind in view of our current strike force the following does not compute: Board serious about buying a striker+good scout=no striker Obviously I think the board was not serious but I was making the point that if their statement was true then I would blame Carr for our failure to sign a striker.