OzzieMandias

Very true. It was madness firing manager after manager without any replacement lined up. That's how you end up with a Souness.

I don't think Bellamy would want to come back anyway. Not that many clubs left for him if he leaves Man City. I can't see him at Man U, or imagine him thriving under 'Arry at Spurs. Wenger wouldn't want him. Maybe Villa?

This. I don't really care what they say or think. Not doing ourselves any favours, either, with all this self-obsessed "we are the best fans in the universe, ever" wank.

After us and Albion, the third is real guesswork. I put Forest because they're a club that I feel "belongs" in the top division and I don't want to see Cardiff in the Premiership for a bunch of reasons.

Northumberland is the most sparsely populated county of England. Almost twice as many people live in County Durham.

Some prat on the BBC website: I never heard anyone predicting that, like.

Equally as nuts but with lots more cash.

Liverpool's financial situation will have to change – hopefully for the worse, but maybe it will stabilise with new investment. No telling what the situation will be in the summer, but if they need to dig their heels in and can afford Mourinho, he'd be just what they need. Don't want to see it, though.

I'd been half-expecting Hughes to last the season but be replaced by Mourinho. I wonder where Jose will go now, as it looks likely he and Inter will part company. Please not Liverpool!

I don't really like the guy, but he's obviously pretty bright, can command respect, and maybe has a skill set better suited to a club with limited (as opposed to virtually unlimited, as at Man City) resources in the transfer market. So, well, yeah, maybe....

Latest from NUST, today. Started with a bang but ended with a whimper. Where/who ARE the backers/partners? That really is the most important thing and without any information about that – leaving the suspicion that there aren't actually any backers/partners in place even though we were told they already had these relationships worked out at the start of their "six-week campaign" – the "bid" simply does not look credible. And where is the list of independent financial advisors that was supposedly to be announced in this same time period?

The point is other people have done greater things for us so are more deserving. And that his career highlights were elsewhere. Stand at Ipswich, for example, would make perfect sense.

Apart from wondering why we should name stands after people at all, I think that if we do, it has to be a good long while after they've gone. Only then can you gauge their importance, and our memory of them, within the wider scheme of things. Sir Bobby just died. His status is debatable even now, and will he seem so important a couple of decades down the line? In London, to get a blue plaque (which mark places where famous people lived or worked) you have to have been dead for 20 years. I think that's a sensible, sentiment-avoiding approach.

it's known as that now.....let it be. Agreed. I don't remember it having a special name before that. Popular Side is a better name than East Stand, though.

I don't think the stands should be named after anyone at all. Bring back the Leazes End.

In a league where all clubs have to have big squads, it's pretty much impossible to legislate what constitutes someone's "strongest possible team". Meanwhile, McCarthy is fighting a season-long war, and one game is just a battle. I think his decision makes sense, even though it would have pissed me off if I'd been a travelling Wolves fan.

Oh, I don't know. My main interest in the Premiership this season is the hope that something like this will happen to Liverpool.

It's not a city, doesnt have a proper catherdral Not sure what your point is. It's clearly a city. As much as mackems (the footballer supporters) are deluded idiots, mackems the people are good, NE folk like the rest of us. Maybe yes, but they are still not a proper city, They won it in a lottery for the queens golden jubilee Official city status in Britain is granted by the monarch. That's precisely what makes a "proper city".

That's about how I see it too.

For all the mistakes that made it necessary, I think the club has actually handled the situation we're in pretty well. We've downsized the wage bill by getting rid of underperforming high-earners who didn't want to be here anyway. We haven't brought anyone in, and probably won't bring in anyone in during the January window, but the £20 million per annum that Ashley is still bunging in has been enough to allow us to keep the players we've got, and there has been no fire sale or general meltdown, despite some melodramatic predictions on here. Instead the set-up we currently have is manifestly good enough to get us back up into the Prem and we're on top of the table with a gap beginning to develop between us and the rest. There are, in short, some reasons to be cheerful, no matter how much people enjoy entertaining worst-case scenarios and moaning like a bunch of auld wifies.

Just call the main number and ask them to put you through to whoever deals with this stuff.

How many points clear at the top of the table would we have to be before you stop moaning?

Dolce and Gabbana.

He's too rigid. You can tell he's reading them all out. Never responds to anything that Berbatov says, just reads out his next question. He seemingly can't wait to get away at the end, too.

Berbatov seems like a canny bloke. Shearer's a crap interviewer, though.