TRon

Neither are Pavlyuchenko or Modric for that matter.

With respect what the rest of the midfield did is irrelevant IMO. All he had to do was effectively run around like a headless chicken for 5 minutes, closing down and preventing their back four having time on the ball to pick out an easy pass. It required zero footballing ability, just a bit of effort and desire to help out his team mates who had run themselves into the ground for 85 minutes playing with 10 men. He demonstrated not an ounce of any of that. With slightly less respect, that's nonsense. The second goal came about because we sat far too deep, as we did for the last 20 minutes. Most sides tend to drop back when they are defending a one goal lead when it's 11 v 11. If you have been playing with a man less for virtually the whole match I think it's understandable that we weren't pushing forward in the 85th minute tbh.

Autumn? He's about to go back into hibernation then

it would to us, but the club would still get those parachute payments for the first year, and would force Ashleys hand into a "sale" price. Its possible. A quick promotion and then move forward again in the long run. that is just stupid talk, tell that to leeds and that, who said exactly the same well, quite a lot of people said it was "stupid" to suggest that a successor to Shepherd wouldn't automatically be better, and look what happened there. Whats stupid now ? Seriously, its a possibility, so why rubbish it ? If you don't agree, fair enough, I'm not sure if I think it will happen myself, I hope it doesn't, but it might. well, if shepherd stayed then this club would of went bankrupt within months, and don't give me the re-finance stuff, the banks would of told them to fuck off with it we aren't talking about the club going bankrupt or otherwise, or re-financing. We are talking about who might be buying the club and currently speculating on why it seems to be moving slowly I'm tired of telling you and people like you that the old board saved this club from a position a hundred times more perilous than the current one and don't particularly want to do it again here. I just underlined that last point so people can grasp just how tired you are at having to do this tiresome task again and again, and you are doing it again just to remind them how tired you are of telling them this.

These kind of deals are still rather down to the stupidity of the bidders than the prudence of the seller imho. That has nothing to do with hindsight. You don't need a genius to do it. Not selling Milner for a lower fee was very much down to the fact that it was a risk to reduce the size of an already depleted squad. Brokering an unlikely deal for complicated terms would have to be deemed as good work of a negotiator but not a deal that is just down to the amount of money thrown at the seller. What I meant was I'm surprised the bar was set so high for Milner with us being a "selling" club. Personally I'd have snapped their hands off at £10m. Either he was for sale or he wasn't, and the fact he went for £12m shows he was, depleted squad or not. Anyway this brings other factors into the equation which might have affected the thinking at the time. There was talk that we had Malouda for £12m lined up as a replacement if Milner was sold but obviously City hijacking the Robinho signing from Chelsea at the last minute would have scuppered that if true. Skjelbred was also lined up but that fell through again reportedly because Keegan pulled the plug.

I used to stick up for Shola a lot a couple of years ago, I think Gejon was another one - before finally giving up. I still don't think he'll produce on a consistent basis but at least tonight gave us a glimpse of what we saw in him back then. He did a good job tonight and should have got the official MOM. If we were in prison I would shiv you, you grass! Sorry pal changing your moniker won't get you out of this one All the closet Shola fans are being outed this week.

If Allardyce had actually implemented a plan to use a big man I could have respected him more. In fact all he did was take a bunch of footballers and try and super-impose a long ball game for which they weren't suited. So far in the two matches under Kinnear we've played far more attacking football - to the extent even when we went down to 10 men we kept two strikers on the pitch. Shola hasn't morphed into a super predator overnight either, just used his abilities to better effect in one game. When Owen and Martins are fit I'm sure they'll play, but it should be remembered that they haven't looked a great partnership when they've played together except when Viduka was introduced to the mix.

This view that all Jiminez had to do was wait until Villa offered an obscene amount of money is coloured by hindsight a bit though isn't it? Jiminez could quite easily have taken £8m and not many here would have argued it was too low. Keegan himself only valued Milner at £7-8m allegedly. You can't knock a dealmaker who ramps the price up to £12m when he could easily have settled for far less. The £4m fee we agreed with Stoke for Shola was canny business as well even if fell through in the end.

I think Kinnear's appointment will be allowed to run it's course. If new owners come in and the team has recovered sufficiently well, JFK will probably continue until he hits a wall. If they are in by November that might change as I'm not sure they would back Kinnear in the transfer market, they might prefer their own man in. I think Keegan's chances of coming back have probably lessened though. Walking away from a team which is then revived by Dinosaur Joe won't paint him in a great light with future employers IMO.

I thought Martins caused City problems last night and would probably have caused them a few more if he wasn't shunted wide left after the sending off. I thought Martins and Ameobi gelled quite well, and I would like to see them have a go at Sunderland.

I am with you on this one. I just feel we've turned the corner at the right time and will be really up for it. Beye will be a big loss as Stiles being a cowardly cunt won't put his career at stake by admitting to a second gaffe in a couple of weeks. Geremi should stay RB and hopefully Gutierrez will be fit to play. If not Barton or Guthrie could do a job wide right. Taylor will need to take care of Kenwyn Jones though, he'll cause us problems if he's back for this one.

Something like £1m -£1.5m iirc.

Bassong in the middle for me and Enrique as left-back. Still rather have a more aggressive centre-half next to Colo though. Taylor is aggressive enough, he just gets caught in no mans land too many times. Imagine Colo next to someone like Terry...we'd be awesome. He doesn't dominate though like someone like Faye did, which was more my point. I just worded it incorrectly. Agree with that. I thought Faye was a lot stronger in the air and better marker as well. Had his moments of madness but mostly very solid.

Bassong in the middle for me and Enrique as left-back. Still rather have a more aggressive centre-half next to Colo though. Taylor is aggressive enough, he just gets caught in no mans land too many times. Imagine Colo next to someone like Terry...we'd be awesome.

w0Rd! can't believe this s***! No one's saying he redeemed himself. No one's saying he's now world class!!! Of course, he still has a long way to go if he's ever to convince anyone that he can hack it at this level consistently. But what he did last night was score a goal that raised the roof around the park. He delivered on that one occasion when Newcastle, team and fans felt hard done by a pathetic refereeing decision, and it gave us hope and momentum in the game. are you telling me you didn't celebrate the goal because it pinged around the box and he fluffed his shot? He did more than just score a goal as well. He gave Dunne and Ben Haim a pretty hard time all night, used the ball well and linked up with Martins and Duff to reasonable effect. I am quite optimistic Martins and Ameobi will worry the Scum on Saturday. Worry them then destroy

I think Joe dont rate either of the Spics He obviously prefers working with Brits seeing as he put Shola and Carroll ahead of Xisco in the striker pecking order.

Maybe he could apologise to Fergie again instead? Refs seem to like grovelling publicly to Man U and Liverpool.

I think there's a fair chance Shearer will be asked to manage if this takeover ever happens. Whether he seriously wants the job I'm not convinced yet. I just have this feeling he will turn out to be a good manager though assuming it's something he wants to do.

Geremi was actually pretty good in midfield before the sending off. Looked a lot sharper than he has of late.

I did believe that he would score when he got the ball though. He's not actually bad at finishing one on ones, and the fact he's quite confident taking penalties backs that up. Getting in the box and taking up good positions is his problem, but it sounds like JK has been telling him to do precisely that. Thought him and Martins really gave the City a defence a going over last night and I'm guessing they will put the shits up the Mackems as well on Saturday.

I don't know what he's doing off the pitch but on it he's clearly gone backwards. He played as if he was pissed tbh, and you have to ask yourself why he didn't pull up any trees when he went out on loan either.

For those saying it was a penalty because it was a tackle from behind, if the ref hadn't give the penalty would you have argfued the decision? I doubt it, because everyone would just have looked at the replay and said "what a bloody good tackle it was, great decision not to give a penalty". And it was a fucking great tackle. Robinho was clear and Beye had to time it perfectly to reach out and get the ball without catching the player first. If it was Woodgate everyone would have been creaming themselves over the sheer class.

He's an interim manager and that's what's working so if it ain't broke why fix it? Talk of making the position permanent will add pressure and some fans will resent it. I don't think he's the answer long term in any case but I have been impressed with his knowledge of the game. More than anything I am just happy that we have a manager who really wants to be here

He's gone off Beye and i can understand why but i think Baggio is reflecting on the fact that he was player of the season for us last year, hence his overrated comment. I reflect on the fact that Beye probably was as the rest were utter turd. It was a daft comment because Beye was actually diving in because the central defender in front of him hadn't dealt with it. The fact he made the tackle re-inforces what a good defender he is. Beye isn't over-rated, we'd have to have a better alternative for that to be the case.