chicago_shearer

Goals for Newcastle, Wigan & Fulham please.

Fulham come very close. On another note, I hope Keegan takes a look at Kranjcar this summer.

or he gets bitten by a radioactive spider, repairing his damaged cruciate ligament and also giving him superhuman powers.

What a blow for him. Hope he makes a full recovery.

Griffin has clearly not eaten all of the pies. Those lovely ladies from Stoke look to have been in the tin too.

Owen unhappy Oba to Arsenal Ashley to sell up No funds in summer A negative Newcastle story is always worth a few extra paper sales because there is a massive national fan base and nothing going on - so just make it up and cause a little panic among the high strung. If I was a journalist, I'd do exactly the same thing. Easy money.

That's probably the worst idea I've read about how to change football. I assume from your name that you're American? Clubs in this country should be enhancing their academies, not getting rid of them. Yes, because that's worked well for England hasn't it? Producing shit players and the very few good ones ending up at the richest clubs. Even the smaller club academies with a good record like Crewe lose all their talent to richer clubs as soon as they show signs of development. How are average clubs supposed to strengthen their academies when the incentive for young kids is to play for Man Utd or Arsenal etc.? When a mid range club like Southampton get lucky and develop a player like Walcott, he inevitably moves on. It would be better to get kids playing and learning under professional coaches and then worrying about contracts when they grow up.

Is this salary cap idea based on turnover like someone suggested? Because how does that help when the clubs earning the most from shirt sales, sponsorship etc. will just end up having more to spend on wages just like they do now? The only ones that will suffer will be the mid table clubs like us who won't have the money to pay big money disproportionate to our income to attract the same talent as more successful clubs. 70% of Man Utd's income v. 70% of Newcastle or Villa's income doesn't change things. Ronaldo, Tevez, stay at Man U and in the unlikely event that they need to be cut to fit another player under the cap, they will go to the club offering the highest wages - Arsenal or Milan or someone else with huge international revenue and the ability to offer higher wages. And there is simply no way to to introduce an NFL style hard cap where the top earner at Derby earns the same as the top earner at Man Utd unless you want a mass exodus of players to the Dubai Premiership etc. I would restrict the number of foreign players, and introduce some sort of draft based on league position (bottom teams get the better youngsters) from a national academy. No more club academies. 14 or 15 year olds shouldn't be signing contracts with clubs anyway. If they have talent, they should go into a national pool and then go in for a draft once they turn 17 or 18 with poorly performing clubs getting the better prospects.

The actual quotes from the Sky interview: "You don't feel like doing a lap of honour after the season we've had at Newcastle ... "People have to understand this Premiership...the players on (Chelsea's) bench....there's a massive gulf. (...) We can't get near them. There's a massive gulf. It's impossible to bridge. It's a frustrating division to be in for all the rest of us." "What have I got to do to get near them? There's nothing I can do at all, and the fans need to know that. I won't have enough money to do it because they are spending a lot (...) but I won't be able to get their players. Maybe 1 or 3 depending on what money's available. I see Sheva, Lampard come on and Cole.....maybe the owner thinks we can bridge that gap, but we can't." http://www.skysports.com/video/0,20285,12606_3525515,00.html

A summary of the next 30 pages: A: Say what you will about Shepherd but at least he put money in and had ambition. B: Oh no he didn't, he left us with lots of debts and lined his own pockets and made lots of cash off of the Woodgate deal etc. A: But Ashley hasn't spent anything! And now it looks like Keegan will be left with nothing? B: We don't know that though, Mort said otherwise and he could be bluffing! A: Idiot B: Lunatic A&B: Abuse, abuse, abuse, laughing sarcastic emoticon, etc.

What was the actual quote?

I wonder if the reason it hasn't been released yet is the uncertainty over the sponsor. Seems unlikely that we'll be advertising for a state owned bank.

You can all fuck off. Taylor played well today, and I don't care if I'm the only one who thinks that or not.

Maybe we can sell him back to Leeds if they make it back to the Championship.

Seriously, what's going on here? We could put the money towards a self sufficient striker, a forward who doesn't require half a dozen chances before he eventually takes one... Like? You seem to be under the impression we can go out and buy another world class striker? We aren't even in the top half of the table ffs. Out of our 3 strikers we should look to replace Viduka and a young backup striker. Owen? World class? Seriously? Your pulling my leg right? Don't see why we should be building an entire system on him, stick two up top and go back to four-four-two... What are you talking about? We aren't playing four-four-two for a number of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with Owen. Our wingers are injured and shit, for example. We don't score playing 4-4-2 being another good one.

Peter Crouch. Good close control like Viduka but less injury prone and with a set of legs on him. I could see Crouch doing really well at Newcastle.

I was thinking that too. Hopefully we did our bit to make sure Ronaldo is crying next weekend.

Get rid of Smith, improve midfield over summer. Lesson learned.

Well done Harper.

Fat cockney bastards.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK. DAMN IT

Free kick, come on!

Duff coming on

He thinks he's fucking Gattuso the useless fucking cunt. 0-1, lovely.

Alan Smith is the anti-football. Bring him on and things just crumble.