Shak

He's the type of player we need in the way he plays, but we should be looking to get someone a hell of a lot better than Koumas. He's only alright IMO.

From the Boro board -------------------------- My six-year-old son (who is Viduka mad) just came up with the perfect way to deal with the news: "I'm going to start supporting Newcastle!" Er...No you fooking won't, boy! ------------------------------ Though if any of you reading this are any of those tossers who signed up just to gloat on their board then you're , well ... tossers. Pathetic really.

It's pretty good song. We need Verlaine to make a Newcastle version, one with lots of depth and layers though.

Dear Wullie, With the events of the last few days it has become quite clear that our friendship must come to an end. Therefore, I will be seeking new flat/best mate opportunities effective as of immediately. Sincerely, Your Flatmate. PS: You're a cunt, ya cunt.

To be fair, they just had all of the Goal of the Month winners as contenders and Essien and Taylor both scored theirs in the same month as Scholes. Scholes was the best IMO, followed by Essien.

Wish you hadn't edited that.

I'll do no such thing. You pervert!!

READ THE f****** THREAD. If you could read i said i havent read it and could someone please update me. YOU READ THE THREAD!!!!!!!!!! You could have read the thread in the time its taken you repeatedly asking the same question. Don't be so lazy like.

Can you not read the rest of the thread? Would appear he's come back but nothing official has been announced as of yet, so nobody really knows for sure.

Probably not a great deal more than what Parker was on, and he's a better player so not too fussed about the wages. Surprised they are that high though.

This thread could be about anyone with the new title.

I'll not be disappointed at all if he leaves, but I'm well up for playing Dyer at full back if he's happy with it. If he's not open to the idea he'll eventually start to sulk I reckon, it'll be quite the test of Allardyce's management skills getting the best out of him at full-back and keeping him happy too. He has all the physical tools to be a top quality full-back though in my opinion. What he'll have to learn is the tactical side of things, and he'll have to play disciplined football. His size isn't an issue at all, Ashley Cole and Evra are smaller for instance. Tackling isn't massively important for a full-back, its more about positioning and reading the game. His quickness should help him against wingers as they can't beat him for pace while good, clear tactics will help him to function competently at least in defense. What we get going foward is the real upside. The pace and stamina to get up and down the flanks all day and create chances on the overlap. He's also got pretty good control and can play a bit, which will be a very, very welcome change from our full backs of times gone past. His crossing has never been good but its hardly awful and can be improved.

Can't imagine why people would be too upset by such an avatar. At the same time though, don't see why anyone would have such an avatar for anything other than the purpose of trying to annoy people.

If the whole thing starts to drag I would assume at some point they'd agree to release some funds to Allardyce to at least give him some money to spend.

Hadn't heard anything about us beeing after Geremi, he'd be a good squad player but I'd imagine his wages might be a bit of a problem.

Can't believe a couple of people have actually agreed with the original post. If its still like this in mid June then you can maybe start to worry, but the transfer window has only been open for 3 days at the moment.

Its not that, its the fact that the whole "Takeover" thing might effect his budget, the more time Freddy and Ashley drag this on the less time he will have to buy the players he want, also real life is not FM, you don't buy a player overnight and he will definetly need time and money to buy new players, i don't think he will get all the targets he want and we might see Carr or Babayaro (hell even Ramage) in the starting 11 come the first game of the season and that is never good. Give it time, man. Nothing wrong with getting rid of players who he doesn't want. I'm sure Allardyce is working to bring players in but, as you said yourself somewhat ironically, these things don't happen overnight.

Aye, with the season set to start tomorrow its ridiculous to have such a small squad.

Bit disappointed Ranieri won't be in the Prem next year, great character he is.

One of my best mates is a Wigan fan, I'm having a field day with this.

Agreed, Ireland would be fucked for one. Not fair if a team has no worthwhile national league that they should be forced to bring lesser players. This would all just play into the hands of the big nations, which goes against what you're saying about trying to stop the superpowers always winning. My memory of last years World Cup will always be that Argentina v Germany game in the quarters. Never in my life have I seen a manager get it so wrong. Argies take the lead and look like they could easily coast to a 2 or 3 goal victory. Germany are putting absolutely nothing together going forward, struggling to even get the ball near Argentina's box, never mind creating any chances. So what do the Argentinians do? Completely take their foot off the gas and sit back allowing the Germans to go at them. They even take of Riquelme, who'd arguably been their best player in the tournament and replace him with a holding midfielder in Cambiasso. Then with 10 minutes to go they make their final substitution... Cruz on for Crespo. A straight fucking swap, bringing on a worse player at that. Inevitably the Germans get a poxy goal out of nothing and it goes to extra time with the Argentinians having Riquelme no longer on the field and Messi, who'd looked dynamite when he came on as a sub in earlier games, as an unused sub. They go into extra time having somehow raped their entire team of any creative player with the exception of Tevez, and as a result the game goes to penalties and Germany win... obviously. As bad a display of management as I've ever seen in terms of one game.

Can't agree really. I'm not English so I can look at England in a fairly detached manner and I have to say there should be absolutely nothing stopping England from winning the big tournaments. No stand out goalkeepers at the moment but its certainly not a glaring weakness. Incredible talent in defense. One of the best midfielders in the world in Gerrad and countless other top players. Rooney and Owen up front, not fantastic options after that but hardly a real problem. The problem is the manager. You need a strong minded manager who won't just be a yes-man that tries to keep everybody happy rather than playing the best team he can put out. Instead you have McClaren, who's a fucking woefully average Premiership boss, not fit in the least to manage such a talented group of players as what England have. Really missed the boat with Scolari, he'd have been fantastic for you lot. Could do worse though, you could have Steve Staunton in charge. He still persists on playing John O'Shea at right-back and Steve Finnan at left-back for a thus far unexplained reason.

As much as I'd feel sorry for Allardyce, I'd have to agree. The thought of watching us play the football Arsenal do would be too much to resist, he's on a whole other level to Sam tbh.

Depending on how much a team has to spend then it does, surely? Say a club has a value of 300m, and another has value of 100m. Surely the second club would be risking just as much paying 5m for a player as the first would be paying 15?

Anything relevant to say on the matter then? totally irrelevant is it? Not by your usual standards, admittedly. But more or less, yes. Didn't see much about other clubs being after Hargreaves or Anderson, this mean Man U are skewered as well? Barton has been linked quite a bit with West Ham as it happens, though that's not really relevant. comparing the signing of Hargreaves and Barton? excellent And how exactly are they not comparable? the price? the timescale? the circumstances of departure? the buying/selling clubs? The prices are comparable considering the clubs involved. Man U paying 17m is about the same as us paying 5.5m really, as we still don't know Ashley's intentions. Regarding timescale, surely teams have had more time to show interest in Hargreaves? Two players who both wanted to leave, quite comparable circumstances. The buying/selling clubs are a level down in the Barton transfer, just as Barton as a player is a step down from Hargreaves.