Mick

Get rid, he's spineless.

Emre seems more motivated when he comes off the bench, he rarely looks it when starting a game.

No manager deserves anything out of football, they've got to earn it and Allardyce hasn't done that so far. He's got a very important 5 months coming up for both him and us because if he doesn't show he's worth time then he's gone because he'll have had enough time to have shown something. I'm glad he's been given time but he's got to prove that he can take the club forwards. His signings haven't been too good so far and you can't put that down to money, if it was money related then Smith Barton and Enrique would automatically be better than Beye and Faye, they aren't. It doesn't matter how much you spend, you can screw up, just look at Souness for proof.

I think Emre should be moved on in the summer, he's never done enough to justify his place in the team. He looks OK when coming off the bench but he's too much of a luxury player who offers very little.

Was it not also the 95/96 shirt?

He shouldn't, he should start in front of him.

I'm no big fan of Duff but I'd love to see him finally come good here, he's had a terrible injury and done well to come back from it.

Smith having had an injury doesn't stop him from shooting, too often yesterday he just didn't seem to know where the goal was and went out of his way to make a pass when a shot would have been the simpler option.

I must have watched the same game as Dave because I also thought N'Zogbia was by far our best player.

I think I'd give the Turkey a miss tomorrow, you never know which bird he shagged.

On another day we were beaten by Derby, the only team who have suffered that indignation so far and it could have easily been a double yesterday. I thought we were the better team until we drew level in the first half then they were better than us, that's not good enough and feels as bad as losing at home to Sheffield United last season. Allardyce needs to pick things up or I think he'll be looking for another club in the summer. The jobs his to keep and lose, I think he's more likely to lose it than keep it because of his self opinion, he doesn't appear to think he can make mistakes so will never try to put things right. He needs a big turn round during the second half of the season because so far he looks out of his depth at this club, we might be winning when playing poorly but that will not go on forever as we've got a tougher 2nd half to the season. I hope he does turn things around but I see no evidence of it happening.

Allardyce can only have himself to blame if that's the case, he spent £18 million on Smith, Barton and Enrique. He's brought in 9 players so has the basis of a full team of his own players if he wanted to play them, it might even be slightly more balanced than the one he actually does pick.

Merry Christmas to everybody, I'm not naming anybody so it goes out to all.

How do you know who is reading him correctly?

I'm surprised that you didn't pick up on this "If the old board had not been successful in re-financing the club by the end of the financial year it would have folded like a pack of cards." I'm not trying to have a go at you but I'd be inclined to think that somebody who was closer to the problem might just have a better knowledge about the state of the club than somebody who is on the outside, would you agree? The Adidas money wasn't even spent early, we borrowed against it so what you were saying about spending early being better goes out of the window if we're actually paying interest on a loan which enabled us to spend it. As for the top 4 carrying more debt, you're right but we're not top 4, we were closer to the bottom than the top. I also agree about debt not being automatically a bad thing if it's manageable, you must admit that the state of our debt was in some doubt.

The source for the 63% is Shepherd as he signed the 2006 accounts, how was the debt being serviced if it was increasing every year?

I suggest you read this: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2007/09/25/without-takeover-united-could-well-have-folded-72703-19844203/

Obviously you have missed something, you've missed that I keep "going on about that" because somebody keeps asking for the board to show ambition so I point out that they've shown more than the last chairman, if only 10% more. The situation we're now in is almost a mirror image to when Bobby Robson took over the club. Bobby had nothing to spend back then until his second season, what he did was spend £700k on Kevin Gallacher and he bought/loaned cheap foreign players to make up the numbers and get some bodies in, Allardyce has had to do the same because our squad was paper thin, something that the previous 2 managers both complained about while they reduced the squad size further. Allardyce has been backed more that Bobby was in his first transfer window so he’s got a head-start. Who is to say that he can’t have the same impact if he’s as good as some people think and he’s given the financial backing to be able to compete in the transfer market? If we had the reported £100 million debt and have paid off £75 million of it then we've still got £25 million plus any that we're adding to it by making a loss which Macbeth predicted was £2 million per month. The bottom club gets £30 million in prize money this season, the top team gets £50 million so if we finish mid-table then we can expect to get £40 million which will finally pay off all of our debts. If Macbeth said we had £20 million in debt then he was wrong so I doubt he said that. We had a loan for £35,157,000 which was costing us 7.36% and we had another for £10,380,000 which was costing us 7.65%, these were due to run until September 2016 and were "The Mortgage." The club accounts for 2006 can be found here http://www.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/staticFiles/ea/3d/0,,10278~81386,00.pdf Here's an article from June this year where the takeover was being debated with a "football financial expert." not my description of him so I have no idea how true that is but he does mention £80 million debt and we've since been told that the surprise part of the debt was shown as future income but it had already been spent, we'd spent our future income from Northern Rock and Adidas. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/news-archive/2007/06/08/what-will-the-new-owner-mean-to-the-club-and-fans-72703-19266683/ If the £100 million is bullshit then why did Shepherd not question the amount when he commented on the level of debt? All he said was that the debt was manageable, at least that's all I remeber his saying.

He did OK but wasn't brilliant, he did clear a header (I think) off the line.

I can't believe this thread has gone to 27 pages, I've been away for 5 days and thought this might have died, I guess I was wrong.

Would somebody contacting the board who have spent more than the average net spend under Shepherd not just look daft if they requested that they showed some ambition? Is spending more than the average under Shepherd while spending £135 million buying the club and paying off £75 million of the £100 million debt not ambition enough?

Yes you’re right, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference, I'd go as far as to say its good business practice, and all good companies should do it. The puzzling thing for me is that the new people have cancelled the agreement instead of taking full advantage of this best business practice, I think they’ve dropped a massive bollock but they’ll have to live with that decision.

Duff will have to do a lot more when he comes back if he's to get a regular game, so far he's been a waste of time, even an erratic Martins pisses all over the Duff we've seen.

http://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2007/11/10/mort-caught-in-the-fervour-61634-20088718/

Hey you always on the run Gotta slow it down baby, gotta have some fun. Disclaimer, I had to look that up.