Beren

I'm quite surprised no one has mentioned Newcastle as relegation candidates. Not on the wind up, but Alan Smith/Nicky Butt et al have really bludgeoned all my hopes of Newcastle being a force capable of beating anyone on any given day. Furthermore, players that mitigated their ineptitude in the side somewhat [beye, Bassong, Martins] have gone. I realise we're in a lower division, but with no way of knowing how good/bad we will be at facing Championship sides week-in week-out, my gut feeling tells me to feel saturnine. Hope I'm wrong, but I can see us scrapping at the wrong end of the table - this season, at least. [/hating being the pessimistic bastard of the board]

I'm really looking forward to the game. I know once coverage starts [and I remember we have a team full of passengers, not the idyllic coalescence of Keegan and Bobby's best teams in glorious black and white] I'll be praying for full time and us out of the media spotlight though.

I have to take issue with you at that! Carlos Puyol is a masterful cheater. You have your Didier Drogbas, your Tim Cahills, your Cronaldos... your common as muck street thiefs, and then you have Puyol... a diamond thief! In all seriousness, as cheating has become endemic in football, I previously consoled myself in not minding when two cheating teams encountered one another - live by the sword, die by the dive and all that. It's sad that now every team cheats. Even Newcastle. Anyway, my point is that Puyol isn't the worst. Cronaldos jumping elbow from behind was far more cowardly, petulant and sums up what a little bitch he is.

Well, I'd like to stress again that I was supporting Barca and I am glad they won - but I just thought neither side was at their best, which is to be expected in a final, I suppose. Hopefully they'll draw each other a little earlier on next year. Finals are always so tentative and overly-tactical. As J-pd mentioned, there were so many mistakes and players like Park were giving the ball away for fun. Very uncharacteristic - and while certain errors were forced, a good deal were unforced. Credit to Barcelona - probably the team of the tournament on the balance of things. Would have been interesting to see how the final would have progressed without that first goal. *shrugs* With no subtext or sarcasm, my question for you Apisith is, how do you feel Barca would have coped with Man Utd on full pelt? Or do you not think Barca would allow such a thing? Honestly, if Man Utd had hit their stride, I don't think Barca could withstand an archetypal Man Utd onslaught. I'm reminded of when Chelsea countered Barca to death at the Bridge a few years back. I recognise Barca are a different team now, and this is all just conjecture and speculation to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it'd have been nice to see. Hopefully not too much changes in the time between their next match up anyway...

I feel like I watched a different match to everyone else judging from what I've read on this thread. For the record I was supporting Barcelona tonight, but I don't think they performed half as well as they could have done. I thought Man Utd were a far superior side for the first ten minutes, and when they conceded against the run of play to a fairly ordinary counter-attack that the match as a contest ended. Barca played fairly aimless counter-attacking, and Man Utd just didn't recover whatsoever. Credit to Barcelona for making it so difficult for them, but superlatives are a bit much IMO. It wasn't the masterclass in attacking play that I'd hoped for. Thought it was a piss-poor spectactle personally. Ideally, Man Utd would have taken the league and Barcelona would have had another opportunity on the big stage to prove that they can unlock a top English defence that isn't pouring forward. That also might have induced some of those sweet, sweet Cronaldo tears the world's been thirsting after. Most of the questions posed before the match remained unanswered for me because Man Utd got Arsenal'd inside the opening 10 minutes. Poor end to an entertaining season [not a good season for Newcastle *sigh*... obviously]. Hopefully Chelsea can give Everton a sound kicking on the weekend.

Not a slow news day, either.

Largely dependent on the respect the board shows the club over the summer.

Thinking about it more, we're a bit of a Confidence Club really, aren't we? String a few wins together next year and should we get promoted I think we can ride that wave into the top half on our first season back. Conversely, you get the impression we'd have just stagnated had we stayed up. Maybe I'm just consoling myself, but I look at what happened when we got promoted 16 years ago - times are different, yes, but confidence does wonders for our club - more than at others anyway.

If he is, I'm really going to struggle with watching us. I'd be disgusted. This. I haven't been so adamant a player shouldn't play for us since Peter Ramage.

The focus has to be on young athletic players IMO. We must do everything in our power to ensure we don't have that slow, old man midfield if we have any chance of escaping the Championship.

I recognise the positives of it. I'll enjoy being out of the Premiership Laughing Stock spotlight for a few months [and maybe years].

Fucking hope not. I wasn't really mad at the final whistle, I just wanted most of those players to take the NUFC shirt off. [not like that ] I realise [with more lucidity, anyway] that teams in the Premiership have been improving for many years and the quality of your mid-table club has increased dramatically and without investment there's no way we had a chance this season. The players we've signed have been dogshit bargain basement signs that would have struggled to cut it three years ago.

I hate him. Off-field mismanagement aside, on the playing side of things, he epitomises why we went down.

Gaining 34 points with no midfield is quite the achievement. You win some, you lose some.

C'Mon Shola!!

Throw on Jonas for Duff or Butt. Both look perfectly lazy.

Totally not over yet. It's not like they comprehensively played us off the park and we didn't have chances. Chin up people!

Need to spread the play, use more space.

Settle down, keep some possession.

Duff against their right side has me worried.

bottled it again, has he? Like against Boro, right?

That's very smart. Bookies will award for joint top scorer, non? thats what i'm gonna check. also i want to make sure anelka will start. edit. apparently if for example i had £20 on aronaldo to be top scorer and it is a tie with one other player then it's classed that £10 went on the wining bet and £10 on the loser. (thats betfair rules) Weird. Wonder what other book maker policies are - for example, Will Hill has Anelka at 1/2, Ron at 6/4 and Stevie at 16/1. If ties aren't accepted there, then Ronaldo shouldn't be available given his exclusion from the Manure Squad. It's not the same scheme you were working but 1/2 odds on Gerrard not scoring a hat-trick seems like something one might be willing to lump on. You can always hedge it with a Gerrard win too. That's provided they don't have a similar policy to Betfair.

That's very smart. Bookies will award for joint top scorer, non?

Like: Shola, Martins, Loven, Taylor or Harper Expect: Martins, Taylor, Loven, Shola [all of them ]