Shak

Great news, should save the club a couple of grand in airfare, accommodation and food expenses while in the US. Hopefully this will mean we can afford to have nets at St. James' Park again this year.

Gosling and Lovenkrands - Off their face on pills. Colo - A massive bag of Coke Jonas and Jose - A sensible few drinks, nowt more. Taylor - A few shrooms, poor fucker clearly thinks he's having his picture taken for the Sky Sports line-up thing.

I think what we should be after is a player who can play either out wide or just off the striker. Pardew seems like he fancies playing a 4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1. Ba would appear to be the likely first choice as the one up front, and I suppose I could probably stomach having Best and (*sigh*) Shola as the reserve options in that spot. But we're a bit thin in terms of the pacey options you need out wide to make that work, and we also don't have anyone else in the squad that I feel could fill in for Ben Arfa if he gets injured/struggles for form/needs a rest. Vuckic theoretically would be a good fit in that spot, but I don't know if he's ready. It's why I'm so disappointed that we seem to have given up on N'Zogbia, think he'd have been the perfect addition.

On the topic of songs, how do you actually pronounce Cabaye? I found myself singing 'The Boxer' by Simon and Garfunkel the other except just yelling "Yo-han-Cab-aye" over and over again.

Like the two situations are even remotely comparable. Was class when the guy ran into the endzone with the ball and just destroyed one of the people in the band.

By all means chuck abuse at him if you feel it's the way to go, it's a free world. I just don't see why anyone who does that then thinks moaning about no big signings is consistent. It's effectively saying "spend some of your money and buy some players you cockney cunts" Now if I was a cockney cunt I might well think "well fahck you you norvern baarstards I'll start charging interest on the loan" Far as I recall people were very happy when Ashley and his lot first took over the club. People aren't just chucking abuse at Llambias for the laugh like, they're doing it because he represents a regime that has come in and basically pissed on the fans and the club for the last couple of years. But yeah, maybe had the fans been nice to him yesterday then they'd have changed their outlook entirely and started to really try and take us places.

Aye, I'm sure he's pulling the plug on all those big money transfers we had planned as we speak.

Mrs Llambias: Derrick, why haven't you called? You know how I worry. Dekka: I'm givin' it up, Maggie. I'm quitting the club. [removes his jacket, and places it on a coat rack, then walks to a desk] Mrs: Quitting the club? You? Dekka: None of it makes sense anymore. [sits down and unloads his frustrations] I don't even know if what we're doing is right. The last thirteen days we've been working on a case, trying to get a real top class player off the books. And when I walked up to the fans today, I could have sworn they weren't happy. Maybe I can't tell the difference anymore. Maybe it doesn't matter. Because it seems like every time we get rid of one of these important people at the club the fans turn against me again in no time. It's just like Doug Ellis. Do you know how hard he worked to destroy that club? The tireless hours he put in?? And then he just gets cast off because somebody messed up and tells some Yank that he should buy a football club and run it the right way. I guess I'm just tired. I'm just damn tired. Mrs: [approaches and consoles him] Not another word of that kind of talk, Derek Llambias. [he looks up at her] Believe me I would love nothin' more than to have you quit the club and no longer have to worry about whether or not you're comin' home. But I know you. Lying to the fans and destroying their football club is in your blood. Wipin' that joyful smile off their faces is the only thing that puts a smile on yours. You're a good chairman, Derek Llambias. You don't have to question that. Because I'm here to tell you. [she caresses him, he kisses her hand] Dekka: And you're a good wife, Maggie. You know me better than I know myself. [abruptly rises and goes to the coat rack] Mrs: Where're you goin'? Dekka: Think I've got a little more work to do. [puts on his coat and heads outside]

Can't really blame people for being upset to be fair. Looks increasingly likely that we'll have a net spend of next to nothing this summer, on the back of selling an emerging local hero for one of the largest transfer fees the game has ever seen. It's natural for people to get their hopes up that at least a sizeable portion of that money was going to be reinvested in the team, especially when the manager comes out and says that's what will be happening.

STUNNED. Reckon we'll make a profit on our ins and outs by the time the summer is done, blatantly no intention to spend the Carroll money ("ZOMG teh Bore Hole ftw!!".)

Hey, at least we tried though!!

Do it instead of the community shield maybe. I still wouldn't watch, and it'd be unbelievably shite, but fuck it why not?

This was posted on an American football forum I use the day after that Brazil game. USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nL3_EbHc8MA/Tg9or6CC2UI/AAAAAAAAAMk/0vc3EzkSEQA/s640/72dpiHulkHoganFlagLG.jpg

Aye, been a tough summer for your lot this summer VI. Chin up though mate, things will pick up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w15BH39QDxY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYjEm1FLYOI&feature=related Maybe?

A release clause you say? That should get our transfer team "releasing" some semen fairly sharpish.

"The signings we've made thus far have us in great shape and we're excited about starting the new season. We're still in the market for another player or two but we won't be signing players for the sake of it, they'll have to be the right ones for our vision for the club."

Hope to fuck we get Sturridge out of this if their interest is real. Although if we sold him for just cash we could probably buy some truly amazing training bibs so that's tempting too. Does make a lot of sense for them tbf, Essien is a player who relies massively on the fact that he's an absolute specimen of a man, so he can only have a couple of top years left in him even if he does come back from this injury, and that has to be in doubt.

If he's not going to sign a new deal then we should just take what we can get for him and be done with it tbh. Really don't want to see him running down his contract and leaving for nothing.

Massiver. Aye but to be fair Tooj for many years we've had absolutely abysmal players in the middle of the park. Having a midfielder who could actually run, tackle and pass a ball was a completely foreign concept to us, so of course Tiote looked like an absolute colossus out there.

It's not just as simple as saying that better attacking players = more goals, tbf. Blackpool scored the same number of goals as Spurs did last year, yet it's pretty obvious that one of them has vastly superior attacking players than the other.

Don't think he's worth more/more important than Carroll was tbh.

Anything north of 15m and I reckon we'd sell, personally.

The question for me though is have we gotten better than we would have been had we kept Carroll? I've said all along that I felt we got far more for Carroll than he was or ever would be worth, but that only really matters if you use the money to improve beyond where you would have been had you ignored the big money and kept hold of him. As it stands we've swapped Carroll for Ba and Marveaux. Actually use that money (rather than continue peddling this nonsense that every single penny we ever spend again must be covered by the Carroll money) and buy a couple of quality players to improve the team and the Carroll deal can be remembered as a good one for the club. Not optimistic though.

Do agree that Cattermole doesn't seem an ideal captain given how dirty he is. Plays with the kind of intensity you want from your captain for sure, but you need to be in control for the most part too and he doesn't seem like he has that yet. Buying a new player and just anointing him captain is a very risky move IMO though, especially if it pisses the existing captain off. Suppose it'll show whether O'Shea is good captain material or not pretty quickly... you'd have thought waiting a wee while might be a good idea though.