tmonkey

Alongside Giggs, who is still a quality footballer despite having slowed down considerably. Their form last season, despite being in their twighlight years, was responsible for ManU winning the Premiership. Chelsea simply dont have footballers as good as them, despite spending 300 million. Goes to show how worthwhile investing in youth can be, as players like that cant often be bought.

There will be a massive crash in stock markets worldwide. Money will become scarce, and as a result the financing of football - ie sponsors and fans paying extortionate prices for tickets and merchandise - will become non existant. Continental competitions will no longer exist due to the lack of funding for flights abroad with no prize money and little gate receipts in return, and football will go back to being a sport for the local fans, the working class, with tickets costing 20p each and seats being ripped out of the stadiums to hold more standing supporters. Due to the cost of producing footballs, the FA will reintroduce the cheaper, heavier, antique leather footballs, and because of employment problems, foreign national footballers will be sold off to foreign clus to allow for British national footballers to be given priority and make minimum wage, boosting government statistics. Sky will no longer be able to fund its expensive services and will go out of business, matches will go back to being 3pm Saturday kick offs and exclusively highlighted on the BBC, which is now one of the few television channels still able to broadcast shows. Due to the cost of importing gas and oil, Britain's coal mine industry will be rejuvinated, which will then be indirectly responsible for producing the next batch of legendary footballers from these shores.

As long as he doesnt pick up a major injury, then thats fine by me, since Smith + Martins with Owen on the bench for another game or two wont do any harm.

Fixtures from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/fixtures/default.stm Cyprus v Wales, D, 17:15 England v Estonia, E, 15:00 Scotland v Ukraine, B, 15:00 Rep of Ireland v Germany, D, 19:45 N.Ireland play Sweden in Stockholm on Wednesday.

Will score a hat-trick today. Going to take it out on Estonia. Just have to hope he doesnt get injured.

Anelka is 28, and would probably cost over £10mill. But hes as fit as a fiddle, and hasnt had a major injury in his career that has affected his physique or game in any way. Hes in the same mould as Larsson for me, a good all round footballer with pace, someone who will last well into their 30s, and even when the pace diminishes, will still remain a good squad forward due to his ability on the ball, intelligence, movement, consistency, etc. Some strikers peak or remain at the top of their game around the 31 mark, Anelka will be one of these imo based on how his career has panned out thus far and how hes kept his physique and athleticism, which has shown no signs of diminishing - and he wont hit that age for another 3 years yet. Hed improve the first team considerably and in particular enable Allardyce to play his preferred system, he presents virtually no risk in terms of adapting to the Premiership, and hes shown that he can perform just as well in a poor team as in a good one. Arguing about his resale value in 4 or 5 years would be a tad pointless and a bit of a mute point - we're not a feeder club who buys talented players and holds them for resale, we purchase expensive players with the hope that they'll be a success, remain here till theyve peaked, with little to no resale value, with the goal being that the team would be improved considerably as a result. For someone of Anelka's calibre, getting 3-4 years out of him whilst hes still at the top of his game would represent good value for money for £10million, whilst getting someone of his calibre who is relatively younger would cost far more than £10million, unless were talking about taking risks/gambles on unproven/unknown players, which if were considering a replacement for Owen or Martins, would be far from ideal - ultimately, wed be spending just as much over the same period with no return other than the one on the pitch, which given our aims is what we want. Ideally, wed go for the younger player who is as good, and get to build a team around the player for the longer term, but thats an ideal - im sure every club would want a high calibre, proven, versatile, talented, pacey, athletic forward who is around 23/24/25. Whether we could attract that or not, and how much of a gamble wed be taking compared to signing someone like Anelka, would be a different issue entirely.

He didnt - publicly. Souness did, stating that Anelka told him in private he was desperate to come to us, at a time when we were negotiating with Fenerbahce.

Without a doubt. Fast, athletic, decent goalscorer, good all around ability, can play in any formation, good free kick and penalty taker to boot. Looks to have matured, has been desperate to sign for us for a long while now and would almost certainly jump at the chance to join us. Could see him partnering any of Owen, Martins, Smith, or Viduka adequately, purely because hes so versatile and will provide the combination of pace and intelligent movement required in any partnership. Hes basically everything that we could do with right now, and unlike other potential targets, would view us as a massive step up, which for someone of his calibre/ability is going to be something pretty hard to find elsewhere.

You forget about the previous two years then? Was meant to be sarcastic, clearly didnt work.

Have some f****** pride in your team and club man. Pathetic attitude. I don't especially agree with Sniffer, but i'd probably pin that label on those who want rid of the only world class player we've signed since Shearer '96. The same player who has started 17 games in 2 seasons and 2 months. Woodgate (world class imo) started more games than that, and he was here for 1.5 seasons.

Jermaine Jenas. Good footballer unfairly driven out by Newcastle fans because of his goldfish bowl comments.

When Cahill isnt scoring a goal, hes doing nothing except hacking players down like the prick that he is.

£15mill in for Owen, £20mill out for Huntelaar. Great business.

Brown is a clown. Makes shedloads of mistakes. Him, OBrien and Bramble are in the same league, the difference is that Brown plays alongside top class centrebacks which makes him look better than he is - as both OBrien and Bramble would testify (ie when alongside Woodgate).

Snap their hands off. Although theyd be fucking lethal if they kept him fit. Owen with Elano playing just off him. The "if" part is why we should sell though.

Indeed. There was none of that where I was like, I was totally bemused at hearing boos and I genuinely didn't have a clue what they were for. I was just chuffed to see the introduction of two class players who can make a difference in a tight game, which is exactly what the pair of them did - I fail completely to see how that change didn't constitute "going for the jugular", but I fully believe some people probably did think that. f****** dense some of our lot. Was the booing coming from the Everton fans, as a few who were at the match have said? If so, maybe it was aimed at Emre after the racism allegations?

Under water sport if the global warming lot are correct.

The Owen backers arent dealing with the issue at hand. Saying his injuries have just been bad luck doesnt negate the notion that hes rushing back from injury to play for England. Making the point about bad luck merely refutes an arguement that hes feigning injury - which is not an really arguement being made. Owen has been rushing himself back for England games since he first arrived here - his first major injury for us was when he broke his metatarsal in a clash with Robinson near abouts New Year's Day iirc, several months after we signed him, yet that first half season before that injury, he was picking up small knocks and strains left, right and centre, regularly being unavailable for us, yet was always miraculously fit again for an England game. The accusation is that hes rushing back early to play for England, yet wouldnt do the same for us if there isnt an England game round the corner, which is an utter piss take if its true, even more so considering the wages hes on and the fee we paid for him.

I knew it. Youre a closet Anelka fan. That explains everything.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of Diouf or Anelka is in a Toon Kit by either January or June. Hope its the latter, and not Diouf, who is up there with Ljungberg as an annoying, diving, cheating piece of shit footballer who's main talent is the ability to draw fouls by diving.

To be fair to him, if hes fully fit, this must be driving him mental. At the same time, if there was a script to be written for Newcastle fans to utterly turn on Owen, this is pretty much it. Growing suspicion and resentment of the notion that hes rushing back to fitness for yet another England game after years of being injured for club, combined with a crunch qualifying game on an aritifical pitch in near freezing temperatures. If the worst happens and he does get injured, its going to be extremely awkward for him, even if hes completely innocent.

Youve won the CL and got to another CL final since his departure, along with taking a step forward domestically in terms of going from scraping into the top 4 to potential title challengers and concrete top 4. There are enough good forwards out there to replace Owen adequately, a handful of whom are better than him. As your improved success since his departure proves, these players dont have to be better than him - if they can stay fit for much of the season, thats already a big bonus compared to retaining Owen, who despite his class may not have the body to cope with Premiership football on a weekly basis. Or, if they have attributes that the team can work with, attributes that fit in with the team's system and shape, then again thats an improvement, since Owen can often go missing for large chunks of a game even when fully fit, as thats his style of play so to speak. Owen is a good footballer and a top goalscorer when fully fit and itd be great for the club if we could keep him with us and he were to stay fit, but ultimately we're bigger than him and im confident we can replace him if we truly want to - which would only be the case if he were sold. We've replaced better than him in the past with respect to form for the club itself - 40+ goal Andy Cole, 30+ Sir Les, Shearer (who was meant to have been replaced by Owen) - so I dont see us regretting replacing a forward who has hardly played for us over the past 2.25 years, a forward who as far as we know and many of us suspect, rushes back early and puts his body on the line for his country to the continued cost of his club.

Its not even about partnerships. The entire team played better with Smith dropping off and linkup up intelligently, as opposed to tussling with defenders (Viduka) or displaying clown like touches (Martins, Ameobi). Ball retention was higher, there were more team attacking moves, simply because we werent losing the ball as soon as it was played forward, and we looked a better unit all round as a result.

Rubbish tbh. How many games this season, with our style of play, are we going to be deadlocked against a beatable side for 85 minutes? It's already been the case in four of the matches this season, two of which Owen was out of shape and we ultimately drew (Boro and Villa). The other two games i'm thinking of are Wigan and Everton, where Owen was on form and scored what were both ultimately very late winners in both. See what i'm saying. We need Owen more than we need a lot of players. It's the Shearers and the Owens who win you those games, not (as much as i like him) the likes of Martins and Anelka. If the striking department is tampered with in January, i'll be pretty annoyed tbh. Needless, absolutely needless. (Wouldn't be too fussed if Shola were to leave, though) Of course we need him now because the transfer window is shut but long-term? We don't in my opinion. We need someone who is a better all-round player who can play in a number of roles and alongside a number of options who won't miss large chunks of the season. That description fits someone perfectly. Either him, Eidur or Huntelaar. The first two must be logical targets considering theyve played under Big Sam before and are in pretty undesirable situations for players of their calibre.

I share your sentiment. It's a far too simplistic to say " smiths average and not worth 6m", there is so much more to it, as you have pointed out. I always maintained this board would come to its senses reg Smith as the season went on. That's because the majority of this board are like sheep who change their opinions more often than they change their pants, Smith is an average player and isn't worth £6 million and by trying to excuse that by saying he's a good lad in the dressing room when none of us know that is looking for excuses, people should try going to games and seeing how bad he's been for us. If anything people are excepting him because he's here now so they may as well get used to it. Its because for some of us, the £6million fee is in the past, and performances on the pitch are what sticks in the mind more than anything. Thats certainly the case for me - when we were first in for Smith, I was livid that we were spending that much on him, but thats changed now. The £6million fee itself was obviously excessive for Smith, when you consider someone like Elano cost the same, or a proven international and CL goalscorer like Eduardo only a million or two more. Hes not got anywhere near the talent or ability of players like that, and hasnt got the potential to be a better player than he is today - but everyone knows that the asking price for domestic/English players is almost always higher than their foreign equivalents, its something Wenger bemoans whenever hes asked about his transfer policies. Allardyce wasnt in the position to gamble at the start of his Newcastle reign, and hence Smith is about as small a gamble as he could have realistically landed - a competent midfielder and forward with high work rate, not injury prone, an established domestic player with no issues surrounding culture shocks, settling, etc. At the moment, im pleased that we have someone like Smith playing for us as opposed to having to field someone like Pattison or Ameobi, or alternatively a flop from abroad ala Andreas Andersson or Guiv'arch. For £6million, we could have done better certainly, but we could easily have done alot worse too - noone knows how many points we might secure due to avoiding signings like Luque, crocks like Cort, or having to field Pattison/Ameobi/etc.