Mick

Goals per game isn't a reason to keep somebody who has played so few games. 20 games in over 2 years is pathetic by most standards.

I'm glad they've all gone, Sir John did a good job and Shepherd has done Ok at times, mainly the ground expansion and with the appointment of Sir Bobby. I can't think anything good to say about Douglas although I'm sure he must have done something positive during his time here, possibly in bringing Keegan in, I'm scratching my head after that. I knew somebody 5 years ago who had known Douglas for most of his life and he said that he was a very nice person, he would go drinking with him down the quayside most weekends, I guess the spotlight must have changed his personality.

Is the league table the barometer which we should judge us and Chelsea during the times being debated? I'm guessing that you will agree that it is as you're happy to dismiss cups won by Chelsea while we won nothing but did better than they did in the league.

Dalglish spent almost £16 million more than he brought back in through sales, he was backed more than any manager other than Souness under Shepherd so I think the theory that the floatation of the club caused us financial restraints goes straight out of the window. Dalglish spent something like £26 million while bringing in £10.4 million. Sir Bobby was backed the least per year, then comes Gullit followed by Roeder. As for the figures produced by Chris Mort, he hasn't really said anything about how much debt we had that we didn't already know, the only thing he's really added is that he thought that we were going to have problems repaying the debt. Yesterday I read something you posted about the Hall's selling shares for £4.5 million, they did do that but they deferred half of that amount, they didn't take it all in one go and they also sold the shares to the club for a fraction of what they could have sold them for on the open market, they sold them for 27.1p at a time that the market valued them at 40p each. They could have sold 25% less shares on the open market and raised the same amount of cash and received the total amount a year earlier. Cameron Hall was in a very poor position but I'm not sure how that effected the club although the football club did guarantee a loan which Cameron Hall had taken out, obviously the club would have taken a financial hit if Cameron Hall had of defaulted on the loan but I don't think that happened.

Good idea, the PA is pathetic.

You claim that Sir Bobby had lost the plot at the time of writing the book yet you were more than happy to use him to endorse Shepherd later on when he said something good about him, how does that one work? You have been told many times that we did make an accounting profit on Carl Cort as we'd paid for him in full.

Keegan seemed to think it was when he first got the job, he said as much in the Chronicle earlier this year. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2007/04/18/exclusive-full-kevin-keegan-interview-72703-18923168/ "When Newcastle came calling for me it was very exciting," recalled Kevin. "John Hall phoned and said `Only two people can save Newcastle United and they are talking to each other right now.' That was a powerful message. "We went on a rollercoaster ride, all of us together. Douglas Hall and Freddy Shepherd were great when I was there. John was the figurehead but they drove the club forward. And chief executive Freddie Fletcher – we called him the Jockweiler – was also vital in our era. As for your second comment, Sir John Hall would have been stupid to let a friendship get in the way of making the right decision, it's a good job that he didn't do it.

You seem to forget that Keegan only came to Newcastle after Sir John rang Keegan and told him that only two people could save Newcastle and they were talking to each other (or words to that effect), Freddy Fletcher was the one who first mentioned Keegan as a possible manager, something to do with work they'd done together years earlier. You're right about Sir John not wanting to sack Ardilles as they were friends and socialised together.

To be fair to Owen, he does get a lot of shit from people although he did seem to be saying what he thought people wanted to hear.

Between us we've potentially saved him £7 per game, not bad.

Change seats, it's only £30 for Milburn level 7.

Baggio was going to shout of you but thought better of shouting Pegasus.

The tackle for the booking looked OK to me, I thought he'd got the ball.

The daft thing about the booking is that it looked as if he was only booked for mouthing off, not the tackle.

Yet some think he didn't have a good game, I also thought he had an excellent game. The only thing he did wrong was probably miss a couple of passes, not bad as he had as much of the ball as anybody.

That's what I thought.

I don't know if they started it but if they did they were followed by a few of our idiots, it sounded as if it was coming from all around the ground to me.

Owen looked class for the limited time he was on the pitch, my guess is that the booing was because of Martins coming off, I thought Smith should have come off.

I think we had 4 defenders playing today who can become a very good defence and Faye is one of them, they just need games together.

He seemed to give quite a few away, the TV will prove it one way or the other.

I thought Faye had a good game which he spoiled himself with his grappling, no way were they 50-50. He was penalised once or twice for nothing but I think the ref was just expecting him to pull in the end, try watching him later on.

Given could have cost us a goal as early as the third minute when he appeared to drop the ball in his 5 yard box, he flapped at the first goal and God knows what he was doing for the 2nd. Faye was good in the air but his jumping technique looked weird, I think he ended up on the ground after winning most balls in the air. His holding of players gave away far too many free kicks, he was actually getting whistled for nothing at times because the ref expected him to be holding. I agree about Enrique, I thought he defended well for most of the game and only made a couple of mistakes and that was poor passing. Capaca was my man of the match, that tackle when covering Enrique was a match winner, he worked really well today. I thought we had 4 good defenders playing today, they just need to learn to play as a unit and make some improvements individually and they could become a very good defence, Beye was out of position a couple of times but he still did some good stuff, Faye must keep his hands off the opposition. Agreed about Butt, he could have been off minutes before scoring for a late tackle which just missed taking out one of the Everton players, his passing was terrible but the goal made up for that. I agree about Smith having a good 20 minutes but thought he was the one who should have come off instead of Martins as he was offering nothing and on the rare occasion when he managed to get the ball after the first 20 minutes lost it. It's no good winning the ball if it goes straight back to the opposition and that's what happened today as our players hadn't a clue where to go to pick up the 2nd ball. I also agree with the last two lines.

I hope Sam gets asked about the Milner substitution. Seems a bit odd that he'd play the lad out of position for most of the match then sub him. Maybe he is tired. Shouldn't have been on the pitch in the first place. Played like he wasn't. Faye was MoM. Cacapa's challenge on Anichebe (iirc) was the turning point. Superb. Faye wasn't man of the match, he must have gave away half of our free kicks for his constant use of his arms, the bloke was like an octopus, I agree with Cacapa getting it, he didn't put a foot wrong.

I don't think we were dominated at all and could have had at least a couple before Butt scored.

Given was poor today, did he make a save?