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"Clint is a player we've enquired about, it is as simple as that," said Rodgers. "Ian Ayre, our managing director, has spoken with the club to see what the position is. That is where we're at. "He's a very talented player but we don't like to talk about other clubs' players."

While I'd be reluctant to pay a high price a loan with an option to buy would be ideal. At the moment our striking options are Ba, Cisse and Amoebi. That's one injury away from needing to play Amoebi. Carroll's had a tough time at Liverpool but he's only 23 and clearly has massive potential. If we actually want to start competing with the big clubs then we need situations where we have good players (such as Carroll) who don't start every game but play their part in all competitions and are good enough to (a) provide excellent cover for injuries and (b) try and prove they're good enough for a place in the first team. Like I said I think it would be a mistake to pay silly money for him but a loan with an option to buy is something I would be very happy with - it could also lead to the potential situation where he comes on loan, bangs in 20 goals and we use our option to buy him for £15m at the end of the season.

Like a new signing...

Jacob Butterfield, who we were previously linked with, has joined Norwich.

Only two more clubs need to come out against and then they're out of the SPL?

Pretty sure he's leaving now. It's obviously Ba's team who have leaked that the release clause ends on July 31st. From that you have to assume that they are looking to engineer a move for him.

SSN saying they may speak to as many as 12 candidates.

In a way I'd have loved him to go there because if he could make his footballing style work at a top club then it would be great to watch.

Photos on the Villa forum of Lerner's jet in Norway.

I would love for us to do an annual tournament like we did a few years back. The NewcastleGateshead Cup I think it was called. Sporting Lisbon beat us in the final with a pretty good goal. I'd change the name to the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy, give a percentage of profit to the Sir Bobby Robson foundation. Maybe we could get Barca and PSV involved for the first one? Think it's been mentioned they'll be nothing at home this year because of Olympics so I guess this type of an idea is a non-starter for this year.

On the off chance this isn't a wind up...you do know the game is tomorrow and not today?

According to some dodgy looking Twitter profile seemingly made just for that "news". Yeah, just noticed that. Saw someone else tweet about it and then Ogden from the Telegraph RT'd it so didn't bother looking at the profile initially.

Shinji Kagawa has agreed to sign for Man U according to Japanese TV.

Thought we did OK in second half. If Cisse or Ben Arfa had taken their chances then I think we might have made a bit of a game of it.

Fair play to Wigan, they've been great. Couple of individual mistakes on the first two games have cost us. Once we're chasing the game we're playing right into Wigan's tactics of fast counter-attacking.

Best football team I've ever seen. Shame it's ending like this.

Would love to us win some trophies. It's a shame the cup competitions (especially the League Cup) seem to be devalued. However, the League Cup does have the problem that the majority of it's matches take place early in the season when the big clubs are far more concerned with staying the Champions League or Europa League. That and the fact there is no reward for big teams to do well (Why would Man U want a Europa League spot when they'll get a CL one in league?) makes it pretty pointless. The FA Cup still seems to be doing OK. I'd say change it to give a CL place to the winner (CL place would go to league if winner already qualified). That would give a major incentive for all the big teams to go all out to win it.

Michel Vorm Bacary Sagna - Vincent Kompany - Jonny Evans - Benoît Assou-Ekotto Antonio Valencia - Mikel Arteta - David Silva - Gareth Bale Robin van Persie - Wayne Rooney

Interesting Pardew quote on Ben Arfa - "With Hatem, you've got to let him have his world. It's his world when he has the ball, my world is when he hasn't."

Stunning goal. He's scored two now that are up there with the best goals I've seen from a Newcastle player.

Sounds bizarre but I'd love to see him swap R.Taylor for Simpson at HT and then switch the full back. They're doubling up on Ben Arda which leaves a lot of room for the full back but Simpson just isn't doing enough to be a threat. Santon going forward on the right would have plenty of room to attack.

Only downside is no Alonso for them. Was looking forward to Ben Arfa ripping him apart!

Gone from thinking "I'll take a scrappy 1-0" to "Let's absolutely maul them" in about 30 seconds.

COLO!!!!

Two things I want tomorrow - a win and Ba to get a goal.