Theregulars

I remember when I came up watch Newcastle vs Southampton in 2002 (I am based in London), and my Dad mentioned that he might be able to get me Bobby's signature as he once reported an England tour with him. Bobby remembered his name and face, strode out to say hello to my Dad again and shook my hand, a shaky 16 year old Newcastle fan. He could have just left it there, but not Bobby - he signed my ticket, took me and my Dad to a complimentary dinner in the club and anytime a player was near he bolted up to get them and bring them over to say hello to me and sign my ticket - I met Shearer, Dyer, Speed, Bellamy, Nobby, Andy O'Brien, Shay Given, Aaron Hughes and Hugo Viana. He talked to us for a good hour, asking me about my school and ambitions in life and stuff, it was just incredible. The next time I saw him was at Brian Clough's memorial (Brian Clough being my Godfather, another friend of Dad's) and he'd just been sacked. The man even remembered my face, and stopped his conversation to come up and see how I was doing. I said sorry about the decision and that I really didn't agree with it. He just smiled and said "it's football, and don't lose your love for that great club". He even asked me the score of a low-key Newcastle European match later that night after the service. I told him we won 1-0 with a Shearer goal. He just smiled and said "Who else but Alan?". I'll never forget him and the two amazing memories he provided me personally, and the years of great memories with what he did to my team. I'll be so, so gutted when the worst happens, I wouldn't be surprised if I never met a nicer person.

Club clearly recognises: see bids for Modric and Aimar. I still think it was daft to get rid of Emre - yeah, had a bad run with injuries, but still best we had. Would have been happy to get rid once we'd brought a replacement in. Every time Geremi goes near a dead ball I walk to the fridge to get a beer/refill. I know by the time I've parked my ass back down the other tea mwill be in counter attack mode/the goalkeeper will be bouncing it.

There is a God/misguided twat and his name is Moyes.

The only reason the Mancs loved him is because he hardly ever played, and when he did he tried hard, normally when Man U were 3-0 up in a game or something. Furthermore, at United they have 9 other excellent outfield players at any time, As we have roughly 1 or 2 really top quality players, his shitness cannot be excused/made up for. If he had played regularly for Man U and didn't have Rooney/Ronaldo et al banging in goals/setting them up, I bet the case would have been different. Furthermore, I think they liked him as an up yours signs to the Yorkshire folk. He's always been dogshit. Each day that goes by without us siging a new centre forward, knowing Viduka is going to be out for the first month or so, makes me want to watch the start of the season less. If he plays, and it looks like he will, then we automatically have no points from the first few games. That's how bad he is, I genuinely believe he single handedly denies us victories. So many players have had career threatening injuries and have come back just as good or adapted. Shearer and Owen anyone? Fair enough it was a horrendous injury but something's got to give. You can't continue to pick a player who everybody in the stadium thinks is complete kack. If he even got near scoring a goal I wouldn't mind, but he just kicks everybody, loses the ball or passes it backwards/off the pitch. Honestly the single shittest player we've had in my time as a fan.

If Depor president has stayed in Spain until tomorrow and he's telling the Spanish press that we'll be announcing one out there... could the timing mean that Coloccini is coming?

Yes, the squad's small. We know it, they know it, they'll do what they can. The only significant player we have lost is Emre, really. Troisi didn't play, neither did Diatta, Peter "Damage" Ramage doesn't need words and Carr was a waste. I guess Rozehnal was a useful-ish squad player but I haven't seen anybody too disappointed with his departure and we didn't miss him. We need to replace Emre but if we got somebody who actually played games for us, and I was a big Emre fan, it would probably be better in the long run. By trying to get Modric and Aimar it is evident that they know we need a creative midfielder. We can't do anything about it if someone prefers the allure of London or their wife wants to live in a designer beach climate. Our only option is to throw silly money at them, and we can clearly see it got us nowhere. We will get bodies in, it's a fact, I reckon 2-3 more by the close of the window. Yes, it's irritating that they'll miss pre-season/the first few games, but the long-term benefit of a player over a whole season who we haven't been rushed into signing will outweigh the benefits of a short-term stop gap solution to appease the fans (Luque, anybody?). Also, I think our current squad, while small, is quite underrated. I think KK will get them playing pretty well this year. Don't forget that our team when he nearly won the league had some truly useless players or players who weren't previously considered world beaters performing well above their peak - Peacock, Lee Clark, Keith Gillespie, nobody had really heard of Rob Lee... Keegan has a well-known knack for getting the best out of players and picking up good ones. We will be fine. Rant over.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Alan Smith.

They seem to be looking for a replacement, so maybe this mad president fellow is using the time it takes to find one to squeeze a bit more money out of us. Once they find a replacement, see how much he costs, perhaps something will go from there. If the player wants to leave, it usually follows that they'll go eventually. This is exactly why the club did well to not leak Guthrie and Jonas, because 50 pages worth of useless speculation means not enough work done and too much hope generated. It's like that episode of Father Ted when Dougal hits the big red button: we just can't help ourselves.

Fell for that facebook thing true and proper... my word do I feel like a gimp.

I know, what a hottie. Just a standard digital camera, but my beautiful self did the hard work.

It is indeed me, posing like a twat by some fountain in Paris. Pardon my computer uselessness, what does "disable my sigs" actually mean? What dog noncery.

Why, in the name of all things holy, does a caption picture of my facebook keep popping up on people's avatars....? I particularly enjoyed the "dog nonce" tag.

He's overrated whatever the case may be. Don't see what he's going to do at Liverpool - Mascherano and Gerrard are both better, actually would rather have Alonso in my team than him anyway. Think he's got far too much hype after some steady, nothing more than that, performances for England.

I, like most, am alarmed about the depth of the squad, but Robson took us to great things with a pretty thin first-team squad. If anyone can work managerial magic like Robson it's Keegan. Don't reckon we'll get four more, probably more like two in reality, and then we'll just have to hope for the best. Still think we'll do miles better than last season anyway.

Only the top 4 could really afford his wages, and I doubt any of them would sign him - in fact, he would decimate Arsenal's wage structure so couldn't go there. Maybe Man City could afford him but with what they just dished out for Jo... That's me being hopeful. In reality I don't think any other team would offer Owen more than £80,000 a week considering his injury record, and he seems to be enjoying his role as captain and the like.

nobody is saying they won't support the lad when he plays mate Did I say they wouldn't? Man alive...

Bleh, signing's a signing. From his first stint here I think it's fair to say KK had a pretty good eye for players, and whoever mentioned Rob Lee could be an interesting comparison. We've now got a tight, hard working scouting unit and they've obviously seen something they liked about him. I'll go out on a limb and say he's better than Alan Smith and less likely to miss games due to being in jail than Joey Barton, ergo for the minute it's a squad improvement. I'll give him my full backing when he's on the pitch for us next year.

Don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere but maybe it's worthy of a thread of its own given that every player we are linked with usually gets one. Don't think it's going to happen but would be a good enough addition and probably a better option to Barton, certainly mentally. Been mentioned in Mirror, Sun and (I think) Mail, as well as Sky Sports website and TeamTalk.

I don't think the annoyance of bad press reaction should be a factor, we're always going to get bad press for whatever happens. Nor does it really make a difference. He'll be ridicules/booed at all away games so depends how this affects his performance. Seems to be the kind of player who gets riled (mooning away fans) so might be a bit of a problem. He did perform pretty well after KK returned. I think a lot depends on what Keegan makes of him now. From a moral point of view I'd like to see him gone as he's a twat but, that said, right now we don't really have anything better in central midfield. Woul dbe a different situation if he was a squad player but he is a first teamer whether we like it or not so, while I don't like him, if he performs in the black and white next year I won't begrudge him for it. But any more offences and he's got to go. It seems that's the approach they're taking, hopefully that will keep him on the straight and narrow for a while.

Update: Ramos has now changed his mind from astronaut to bullfighter.

Goalie isn't he? He can save miraculously at times, but gets crucified on crosses. Take a bow, son.

To be honest he's got 'Steve Bruce signing' written all over him.

Apparently God's got a son who's pretty nifty too, rising through the ranks at some team in the Israeli league. Why won't we turn the table? My friend who took a wrong turn in North London and ended up at White Hart Lane decided to get out for a piss and overheard an evening standard salesman informing an OAP who was passing by that Juande Ramos is set to quit and take up his long-standing life goal of being an astronaut. Apparently, this is after Daniel Levy hinted he may not have a job anymore after last year's disappointing finish and has instead lined up a team of former talismanic Spurs trio Gary Mabbutt, Jason Dozell and Darren Anderton, the latter expected to be the team's physio. It's equally as reliable and just as worthy of discussion. Idiots.

The words 'Sunday' and 'Sun' mean I'm not too excited.

We bought loads of players in very quickly last season at the then manager's recommendation. Only2 out of the 7 really turned out to be worthwhile, and Geremi's OK. Have some hindsight man. OK it' frustrating that there's more talk of selling players and cutting wages than us going for players, but did you ever think that these money-saving measures would be to free up a few more funds to transfers as well as putting back on a decent budget? I would doubt, considering his investment and paying off Shepherd's debts, that Ashley is going to not allow us to sign anybody. We clearly will move when we consider it necessary - tried for Modric, which came out of the blue because, thank God, gone are the days of Shepherd telling the press who were are going for before it's done - and it's no bad thing signing up young talent for the future. We all agree that we need immediate first-team players, but there's a lot of pressing stuff that needs to be sorted out first. Let Keegan have a sit down, evaluation, chat with everyone about who he wants/who they have targeted and we'll move from there. If we don't sign anybody before the start of the season I will eat my laptop. You can hold me to that.