simonsays

What was the name of that massive young African striker we were supposed to be interested in? Can't remember his name, but he was about 6 foot 7 and built like a brick s*it house

Im convinced we'll get sturridge in, at least on loan, as part of the transfer merry go round between us, Liverpool and chelsea

Exactly, dont see what they could offer that we shouldnt be able to at this point. We should have a clear advantage really. Bizarre. They think he is worth £35 million and apparently we don't

The reason he is so valuable to us is not just that he has the potential to be very good, but that he actually wants to stay at Newcastle. Having a player with a scrap of loyalty is very rare these days (Darren Bent). While I agree that Suarez is a very good player there is no gaurantee he will settle in England or adapt to the English style of play meaning he is much more of a gamble than Carrol would be fo an English club - it is this together with ability that determines the value of a player.

he's managed to be a squad player in a team which has been good, average and s*** for ten years. think about that

And yet you'll argue in favour of Bothroyd who has a significantly inferior goalscoring record. Weird. Perhaps Bothroyd is peaking now though, wheras Shola has been consistently average through his entire career.

Well considering he scored 10 in 11 starts last season I don't understand what this inference is based on. That division is dogshit. The likes of Ebanks-Blake and Jason Scotland have ripped it to shreds in the past. Chopra is the Drogba of that division and Kevin Nolan was it's Lampard. If Shola could keep himself fit for upwards of 40 games he'd hit 25 goals, absolutely no doubt. With Shola's fitness problems lies the difficulty in him ever achieving this, obviously. would he do it in a team that wasn't far superior to the rest of the league though? Put Shola in an average championship team and I thinki he would struggle to get more than 15 a season - even if he could stay fit.

If there were 4 or 5 players who were knackered why did he decide to play them all?

I agree that Tiote shouldn't have been brought on but surely some responsibility should lie with him. Everyone knows that when you make a tackle like that - whether it is made cleanly or not - you run the risk of getting sent off. Just because he has been one of our best players this season people seem willing to absolve him of any blame.

Read this mate and stop making yourself look stupid: http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/news/2011/01/02/fa-cup-preview-stevenage-out-to-avenge-1998-defeat-to-newcastle-102039-22820394/ No one will remember this in two years time. I guarantee the media will, meaning we will be reminded of it every time we play lower league opposition

Is this a joke? He dealt with it brilliantly. A throw in line with our penalty area is risky at 1-0 man Not as risky as a backpass when there is someone marking our keeper

Get Ranger on -we need someone who'll run the channels

should have scored

Ben Watson is even worse at set pieces than Guthrie!

if it was 6 months on his contract I could understand it, but 18 months? Surely it's bollox

Bale, no? I think Bale is having a good enough season to get the grown ups version. Can a player win both?

I assume Essien will get a 3 match ban for the potential leg breaker on Gareth Bale that the referee missed yesterday?

It was about £1250. Still pocket change to Ronny. Wish I had the balls to put that much money on a bet. Fair play to Ronald. I didn't put £4K on and i've no idea where the figure has come from. It's around half that. Are you not tempted just to lay it on betfair? Why? Because when I last looked you could lay at about 1.14 which means you'd still make a healthy profit without any risk.

It was about £1250. Still pocket change to Ronny. Wish I had the balls to put that much money on a bet. Fair play to Ronald. I didn't put £4K on and i've no idea where the figure has come from. It's around half that. Are you not tempted just to lay it on betfair?

How many players slot straight into a Premiership team after playing all their football in the lower leagues? Writing off a player who wasn't even brought in to be our first choice right back after he has only played a handful of games is laughable. Now that Simpson is back Perch can be given games in the cups, get to know his team mates better and gain a bit of confidence. I'm not saying he is going to set the world alight but he does at least give us a little depth of cover across the back four which is something we have been sorely missing over the last couple of seasons

I agree completely - he has started the season very well but i think we should see how he does in a game when we don't have a 3 goal cushion at half time. As good as he an Colo were yesterday they were caught out a good few times by Young's pace in the first 25 minutes or so.

seems odd that most people would be delighted if we signed Ben Arfa outright now, but would be against a loa deal which specified we would be obliged to sign him for a pre-agreed fee if we stay up this season

this - tbh I would rather wait until the summer for a decent premiership level creative midfielder - despite their obvious shortcomings I think our current midfielders have just about enough about them to get us out of this league

Nail on the head. Typical NUFC signing these days. Seems we're getting ourselves geared up for a relegations scrap next year. No offence, but this is ridiculous point of view on a number of levels. We aren't a Premiership club, we don't have much money, so we need to make signings of cheap players who have potential to do better than they have before. Obviously when we're in the Championship we can't prepare a team for a top half challenge in the Premiership, for one thing we can't afford to take the risk with the wage bill. Don't agree in the slightest. We will be promoted and that means why should be planning for it now. How many players out of our current squad are good enough for the Premiership - 7 maybe? Now is the time to be buying players good enough to play at that level who need time to gel with the current side - this is when we should be looking for the next Enrique (young, great potential and probably not after silly wages). We don't have much money - who does? We've got the smallest wage bill we've had in years and with some good planning it could be even smaller - that must free up some capital. We've got to plan for the premiership so all of this bollocks about being a championship club is short sighted - we've got one foot back into the Premiership and need to start to act like a big club again - that means investing in players good enough to improve the team immediately. Didn't Enrique cost £6m. That seems a lot to spend when we don't have much money I thought he was £4.5m but you might be right - I've not looked it up. Point being we should be scouring the various overseas leagues looking for people with the potential to play at the top level and also change our current playing style. why should we be looking to change our current playing style when we are top of the league? Fair enough we play ugly, long ball rubbish but if it is good enough to get us back in the premiership then I am happy with it. We need to guarantee promotion and then change it because it won't work against those teams that can pass and move nor against those who adopt a similar style meaning we'll be up against it from the off. We're like a very poor mans Stoke or Bolton and Bolton are looking to adapt their style and slowly move away from long ball/bullying whilst Stoke and others are way better than us at the ugly stuff because they have some movement/quality to go with it. I'd liked to have seen us sign people in time to get them to gel with the squad and be able to play football with their feet rather than their heads. In an ideal world where we were already guaranteed promotion I'd agree with you and I think we will have to change our style if we are in the Premiership next season. However I would be reluctant to take the risk of starting to play that way at the moment when our current tactics seem to be working relatively well.

Nail on the head. Typical NUFC signing these days. Seems we're getting ourselves geared up for a relegations scrap next year. No offence, but this is ridiculous point of view on a number of levels. We aren't a Premiership club, we don't have much money, so we need to make signings of cheap players who have potential to do better than they have before. Obviously when we're in the Championship we can't prepare a team for a top half challenge in the Premiership, for one thing we can't afford to take the risk with the wage bill. Don't agree in the slightest. We will be promoted and that means why should be planning for it now. How many players out of our current squad are good enough for the Premiership - 7 maybe? Now is the time to be buying players good enough to play at that level who need time to gel with the current side - this is when we should be looking for the next Enrique (young, great potential and probably not after silly wages). We don't have much money - who does? We've got the smallest wage bill we've had in years and with some good planning it could be even smaller - that must free up some capital. We've got to plan for the premiership so all of this bollocks about being a championship club is short sighted - we've got one foot back into the Premiership and need to start to act like a big club again - that means investing in players good enough to improve the team immediately. Didn't Enrique cost £6m. That seems a lot to spend when we don't have much money I thought he was £4.5m but you might be right - I've not looked it up. Point being we should be scouring the various overseas leagues looking for people with the potential to play at the top level and also change our current playing style. why should we be looking to change our current playing style when we are top of the league? Fair enough we play ugly, long ball rubbish but if it is good enough to get us back in the premiership then I am happy with it.