Theregulars

While I would like to hope a midfield with Cabaye and Tiote will be better, no way we can know - Nolan clearly has his limitations but it's impossible to dispute that he did a sterling job last year. Unless you are sure that you have a replacement who is going to effectively going to improve on that level for certain, then you can't just discard Nolan. The team spirit angle is clearly important, our recovery has been built around it - for me Nolan not only should stay for his leadership and club captaincy, he deserves to stay because for the last two seasons he has played out of his skin and been one of our best players by a mile, indisputably so. On the other hand, the fact that he's holding out suggests to me that he knows that he played above a level expected this year, and he's keen/been advised to cash in on the back of it - I understand the club's position IF they are genuinely thinking "will he do that again?" As others of pointing out, his goalscoring ratio isn't regularly as good as this. Giving him a massive extension on the back of one over-par performance would be counter-productive, especially if our aim (commendably) is to build a younger, energetic pass-and-move kind of team. My conclusion on the matter is that it's not as serious as it's being made out to be - it's just contractual bargaining where Nolan (understandably) is trying to deservedly cash in, but we're not willing to commit as I don't think the club seriously believes he'll be able to produce at that level, especially with increasing age. If he doesn't accept it, we aren't in bad shape - we keep him for another year or two - if he carries on performing at such a level, extend the contract. If he doesn't, then the risk is justified - that's the key word, 'risk' - we are constantly informed that Ashley is a gambler, this is just another example. From a business point of view I think he's played the situation commendably.

My brother is a Manure fan and he's all like: "it's so typical that Geordies hate Owen, not good enough for our club, delusions of grandeur, it was a sinking ship and every player was just as bad as him - even your precious Enrique and Coloccini didn't give a shit as you went down". In the same conversation he maintained that Owen "made a key contribution as a bench player" this year, and that he fully deserved his spot on the bench ahead of Berbatov in the Champions League final. Also, and I quote, "Paul Scholes is better than any player you have ever had". Please vindicate my rage.

Nailed on to be Tomi Ameobi.

"I ran naked across the pitch for you and you chose HER?"

Ou est le shola?

I love the broke black and white hearts bit and they don't even show how the goal was scored, admitting their recognition that it was one of the toshest goals ever.

How did ferguson do?

Arsenal have been pretty good under Wenger for a while with no local players - although if "local" covers players brought in from your youth set up I guess this point's pretty much a nullity! It's an interesting point though - when we were awesome under Keegan, we did have quite a few Geordies in the side with Shearer, Beardsley, Clark, Howey... probably others I'm forgetting. I still think it's tenuous to say you need them though - when Chelsea won the league twice the only real local was Terry - don't forget that Lamps is from the East End and grew up a Hammer. Their team was based almost exclusively on expensive investment (Lamps included). I think Terry was the only local to come through for that team, although doubtless he was pretty important.

Agree. Quite simply we sold one of our best players and didn't get anyone, leaving us with an extremely average strike force. To the extent that our squad is significantly worse for the move we come off badly.

My hero. In a world of Andy Carrolls his genuine love for this club is even more sorely missed.

badly and painfully, with at least one more mega fuck-up from Ashley.

Play colo up front man.

Imagine if Carroll wasn't a money-grabbing whore who actually meant what he said about his local pride.

Lovenkrands is making some great runs, to be fair.

It's Jose v at the minute

My cat is a better striker (to be fair Mr. Worf's got a good eye on him like).

i am out from football until April with a knee injury, so no time before then. An NO match can't happen without the Ginger Pirlo.

COOL! What's Rob Lee up to these days?

Really?

I am incredibly proud to be a fan of Newcastle United right now.

0-7

Surely he's not a million miles away from a cardiac arrest?! Fingers crossed, like.

There's more chance of me being Carroll's replacement than Ashley and Llambias reinvesting that money into the squad. I sincerely believe that.

As if Kenny Dalglish didn't fuck this club over once before by selling our best players and turning us from champions league material to mid-table dickrot. Fucking hate that guy.

Without a fucking shadow of a doubt, yes. I detest him.