stalker

Gambling. And paying off landlords, allegedly

Was absolutely brilliant today, good to see a defensive midfielder who doesn't have to go to ground to tackle.

Even the 25 blackburn fans can't!

From reading the Russian Minister's quotes he doesn't even necessarily suggest racism, simply says that "morally" there might have been similarities, which could suggest any number of chants etc. It's disgracefully shoddy journalism by the Guardian yet again, we do appear to be an easy target for the national newspapers although I'm very glad that Niall and Biffa from nufc.com keep making it very difficult for them to get away with such libel, if only through badgering the journalists involved.

I thought he was backed by the Chinese Government Investment fund (or whatever they call it), so don't think money was the issue, just think he wanted to buy with a decent amount of time left in the transfer window. Not sure how I'd feel if Newcastle were owned by the Chinese government but can't be any worse than fat ashley

Am I right in assuming we'll be getting no actual sponsorship cash from Sports Direct for this? I thought the sportsdirect.com @ st james park was only meant to be for last season so as to drum up interest in the naming rights.

Just saw this on the bbc gossip column, Kilmarnock have handed a trial to former Liverpool midfielder Mohamed Sissoko. (Daily Record) Weirdest and most inaccurate transfer rumour of the day!

Brilliant, best news I've heard all summer

What the hell have Sky done to their transfer clockwatch page? Used to like it, because although it's full of crap you could scan read it pretty quickly to see if there were any stories of interest. Now I have to look at a load of pics of "journalists" I have never heard of. http://www.skysports.com/football/transfer_clockwatch

what is the music they are playing now?

Yeah for sure, but that only applies to up-and-coming players. I try, optimistically to reference my thoughts back in 93. If we can get a balance as we did then between talented up and coming players and experienced ones I think we'll be ok. I also think after years of watching overpaid failures the fans would prefer to see a bit of hunger if you know what I mean. Would be nice, but the key player we signed was Peter Beardsley. Sadly I don't think there are any world class geordies who want to return to the toon available this time around.

What is there to decide? It is a twenty year old with Premiership experience on a free in a position in which the club are thin. Definitely worth the risk. Btw, was it him that nearly died in a match or one of Everton's other players. It was another player, young irish lad called Shane Duffy who lacerated his liver. My mate is a big everton fan and is shocked that they've lost him, didn't think he was ever going to be a world beater but would have become a regular in the first team there over the next couple of seasons.

Out of interest does anyone know what the rules on loan players are? How many can we have in our squad, how many from the same team etc

Dude, he's 20-years old. Well aware of his age, doesn't make my point any less valid. He's pace and strength, with erratic form, poor technique and no composure. Yes, those are part of the game that come with age, but good players have usually developed at least some technique and composure by the age of 20 (certainly the better ones). Would be interesting to see what Drogba's technique and composure were like aged 20.

Absolute legend!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10212982.stm Red knights have pulled out of buying man utd. Keith Harris was involved in the bid again, has he ever been involved in the successful sale of a football club? Would love to find out how much Ashley forked out to him for his useless efforts to sell newcastle.

Does anyone know of any good webpages for setting up a world cup fantasy football league, the ones I've found so far look pretty poor.

Aye Chris but he paid a fair few quid for them, not the bargain bucket s**** you'll be looking at Yeah exactly what I thought when I read those quotes. Think Lescott was £5 mill and Jagielka was £4 mill. I don't think the championship has ever been regarded as a cheap league to buy from

Out of interest how much of our debt is owed to Ashely? and of that how much is based on the money he spent buying the club?

Never understood this viewpoint. So what if some people don't usually watch football but enjoy the WC. It's a time for the whole country to unite, have a good time and enjoy the atmosphere. Maybe if you got off your high horse you could enjoy yourself aswell. I sort of get the point. I've no problem with people who don't normally watch football going to the pub and supporting England, my problem is when these idiots try and tell me the finer points and qualities of the game and the players based on the first 15 minutes of football they've seen in 4 years.

Dave Whelan was a footballer, think he's the richest current or former sportsman

Doyle > Kuyt 8 days a week. Agree completely, if you just look at his stats its not impressive but watching wolves play the amount of times he's able to knock it past a man on the half way line and carry it for long enough to get some support is very impressive. Relieves a massive amount of pressure on the defence and is the springboard for most of their attacks. Think you'd have to part with at least £10 million for him and there'd be some competition as well from the teams challenging for uefa spots so not sure we could get him.

I think the idea is if you are running a football club as a business (as opposed to the Man City, Villa model) it's virtually impossible to make it work if you spend more than 50% of your income on wages. The last set of accounts for us were when we were in the Premiership in 2007/2008. Income was £100m wages were £70m and other running costs were £50m so we lost £20m as a result. Whereas if wages had been at 50% of our income we would have broken even - so in our case the theory sort of works. Fair point although I'd imagine a large amount of the other costs were debt repayment.

A lot of people raise the issue of wages being 50% of turnover but this doesn't make sense to me. 7 or 8 years ago it was apparently appropriate for wages to be around 50% of turnover (not sure how they worked this out but I'll accept it was correct then). However, in the intervening years revenues have increased massively (in the premiership) but other costs, with the exclusion of wages, shouldn't have altered that much. Therefore the 50% figure which is consistently bandied about appears no longer to be appropriate to me and I don't know why people preach it as the gold standard of financial management.

Amazing that Nolan gets championship player of the year but doesn't get a single vote for being newcastle player of the season.