TRon

Bit of a shit reason to go back, considering how short a footballers career is. Sums him up as a footballer really. No desire or ambition, just a waste of ability.

Good news for Blackburn more like. That's the poxy small town club the mercenary cunt has chosen by all accounts.

Ferguson looks too lightweight to be starting at this point, to me at any rate. I don't have any problem with Routledge leaving as I don't think he's a premier player but if he's going then we should be getting someone through the door if only on loan.

Basically.

This has the look of being another Cheick Tiote type of signing. Not many have heard of him in this country but might turn out to be a quality player for about a quarter of what we'd pay if he was English. Great if we've done our homework and it comes off.

there has to be a joke there somewhere with a name like barnetta.

Back in the squad for Saturday. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/newcastle-united/nufc-news/2011/01/21/veteran-sol-campbell-comes-in-from-the-cold-72703-28030131/ although he's probably the last one on the team sheet now.

With a name like that we just have to push this one through.

I wonder if this deal has been held up because the Stephen Ireland deal hasn't gone through?

Because playing squad fillers in important matches will probably result in losses.

so the big transfer news is the club not any player. Wow. That is big transfer news.

So you believe that Ashley's decision to sell Given cost us relegation? Not entirely, I'm just saying Shay being at the club might have kept us up. It was certainly one of the factors. In any case, I got the impression that the player himself was exceptionally keen to leave, thinking he would be first choice keeper at the new Man City superclub. So he has to shoulder part of the blame. Which is why I didn't think it was a bad deal to sell Given at the time. We didn't get relegated due to selling Given any more than because Owen didn't score goals, or Barton not playing, or N'Zogbia being sold etc. I would say there were far bigger factors like failure to buy in the January window or hiring Kinnear instead of a proper manager. Selling Given was one of the decisions which probably impacted the least because Harper came in and did well.

So you believe that Ashley's decision to sell Given cost us relegation?

Maybe Given could have plucked the points out of our rivals desperate clutches in a heroic Billy the Fish manner in the last two games of the season!

I think the lack of goals was probably the main reason we went down.

Aye, we only got relegated. Other than that, not a massive miss. Was it because of poor goalkeeping we got relegated? I thought Harper did quite well when he came in.

Unfortunately players won't play for free, so if we are adding to the wage bill then we probably need to get rid of someone.

desperation.

I thought the Shay deal was a good one for us. we got a few million and it's not like he was a massive miss. Enrique leaving would hurt us a lot more. It really depends on what sort of club Ashley wants to build here. He's been right to get us operating on an even financial keel but we can be so much more than that if he has some ambition and vision.

It's risky but in the right way. Ireland offers us something that midfielders like Nolan don't, mobility and flair. On a loan deal that's well worth a punt.

It's just a matter of time before we get serious interest from a top club for Enrique, whether this rumour is bullshit or not. Will we pay what it takes to keep him here, that's the question. I think he'd stay if the terms were what he could get elsewhere but that will be tricky given the wage structure.

:lol:

So we've lost Tiote, Smith, Gosling and possibly Nolan all from the central midfield area? I'm not even counting Vukic btw although if Smith can be considered first team material I probably should.

Not really, he probably shouldn't have been playing with it for the last couple of matches anyway. A longer rest will probably allow it to recover properly.

We have decent options in midfield tbh, not only Nolan and Barton but Gosling as well if he turns out to be any good. Other areas are far higher priority.