Mick

It doesn't have to be an automatic starter to be the club captain. It needs to be somebody who others can look up to and take on some extra responsibility.

Good call, it wouldn't bother him in the slightest.

Rating Duff far too early after a injury hit first season if you ask me! He rarely has a good game while fit, he wouldn't have started many games if it wasn't for Roeder trying to justify his signing. One of my main hopes for Allardyce is that he'll pick his teams on merit and not because he's got blue eyed boys.

I'd agree under normal circumstances but not when the soon to be 32 year old is injured for up to 4 months, has a poor injury record, has never played in this country and probably thinks 20'C is cold, he could regain his fitness when our daily temperature is averaging 6-7'C. Add to that, his use of English seems to be close to zero.

I've just had a quick look at his stat's and he seems to have averaged less than 20 games a season over 14 years. Edit He's averaged almost 26 games per season for the last 6.

An injured player who is two weeks away from his 31st Birthday and is out for possibly 4 months shouldn't even be mentioned as a possible target, this is madness. He's had at least two serious knee injuries so far, I doubt he's going to get stronger with age, if anything, he'll go the other way. Could he pass a medical? I suppose he could if we've got the same people carrying them out.

I sort of agree to a certain extent, we're already stronger up front with Viduka coming in and Owen and Ameobi being fit. The only area where we are weaker is at the back and that is open to debate as we haven't lost any good defenders and our new addition could improve on what has gone. We're down on squad numbers which makes us weaker but we have plenty of time to address that. I don't think we should aim too low as that is accepting a poor season and we should never be doing that, we shouldn't have a comfort zone of finishing low as a target, we should aim for Europe and see how it goes. We need to at least beat the teams coming up when playing them at home, that alone would give us extra points. We were beaten by Sheff Utd at home, drew against Charlton, were beaten by Blackburn and Man City drew with Boro and West Ham. They are all games which Newcastle and Allardyce should be looking to improve on. I know some of them were relegated but we should be looking to do better against the teams who replace them. That adds up to 15 points on top of what we achieved, if you can call it an achievement.

I agree that we need to keep our feet on the ground but I wouldn't see finishing 12th as progress but looking at things realisticly we ended up so far behind other clubs that we could be 10 points better off than last and still wouldn't qualify for the UEFA. 10 points would have had us finishing in 10th, we would probably need to pick up an extra 5 wins to qualify, it's possible but we'll know better once we have the players in place, I think we need 5 or 6 more in if we don't get rid of any more.

We've had plans for a Gallowgate extension for years, it is possible.

We were all over them at home for 45 minutes but didn't turn up after the break and lost 1-2, I wasn't impressed at all because I felt we lost it rather than them winning it.

I'd prefer both, a good stadium and team, I think we have a good stadium already but would like to see it evened up a bit, getting level 7 on the Gallowgate would help a lot.

If Roeder can gain 7th then Allardyce should be expected to do better.

I can't remember that and seem to remember his saying that he'd never promised it, again, like you I could be wrong.

I probably agee with every bit of that.

Technically, I think it must have been 1985, when McFaul was appointed after Jackie Charlton stomped off in a huff during pre-season. The one and only time I've ever sat in the east stand to watch Newcastle apart from when we had the benches.

Keegan, I was over the moon as I'd been through his time here as a player and had a good idea how the atmosphere would improve around the club. I felt a bit sorry for Ardilles but was over the moon with his replacement. Dalglish, I wanted us to get Sir Bobby and would have preferred to have waited for his contract to expire, I thought we'd do OK under him but become boring. I was wrong, we became shite and boring. Gullit, I was OK with this because I was taken in by the promise of sexy football although I can't ever remember him saying it, everybody just seemed to take it for granted. Sir Bobby, over the moon, I expected a lot from him and he didn't fail to deliver. I would have loved to have seen him come earlier as I'm sure we wouldn't still be waiting for silverware if we had waited for him to replace Keegan. It would have been something to watch if he'd inherited what Keegan had left behind. Souness, probably the worst manager ever appointed at this club and we've had some shit in our time. I was gutted when he got the job, just thinking about it now and it doesn't seem any better. Roeder, possibly the second worst manager we've had but that would be a tough call. I tried my best to support him because it wasn't his fault that he was given the job but it wasn't easy because I had him sussed all along and predicted most of what actually happened. While quite a few people thought he'd earned the job, I thought he'd earned nothing, he was just lucky to be at the club when the negativity of Souness was lifted. Allardyce, I was more than happy when he was appointed but now wonder if he's right for us since the club has changed so much in a short space of time. I think he's trying to turn us into Bolton Mk II instead of trying to go to the next level. I still have faith that we can do well but I think it could be very ugly football at times, I think some people are expecting far too much from him and they may be left feeling a bit let down, time will tell.

Another nothing story which anybody on here could have come up with, all it says is that it might not happen.

I'm joining this debate late but it would be madness to sign an injured player.

Just reading through some of these posts have made my blood boil, not the posts but remembering what happened to us when we last bought a player with a release clause. It would boil my piss if Owen left under a clause for £9 million then received a loyalty bonus.

I can't see it being us looking a year ahead, we've got too much to do now to waste time like that, even if it is only a day or two.

I think he is overpriced, but i would put money on it that he scores more goals for spurs, than owen does for newcastle. If i was a spurs fan, given a straight choice id have bent over carrick 7 days a week. I know it's childish.... I know it's been done but

I'm even more shocked that your shocked at me being shocked at your original post. My expression must be like this... lol http://www.weeville.com/Home%20Alone%20With%20MJ.jpg Am I right in thinking that you're shocked that I'm shocked that you're shocked? I've got to say, that's come as a shock.

This closed season just gets better and better.

If we have £50 million to spend and we do it and get good value for money then it's the right thing to do as we need investment to bring an improvement. I don't think anybody has said that we should just spend it because we might have it. It doesn't matter how much we have, we do need to get value for money.

I'm shocked that you're shocked. Bolton and Everton will not gain anything over us by qualifying for Europe, Spurs will gain something because of it but I doubt that many players in the Premiership will look at the two clubs and think that we're not capable of catching and climbing above Spurs, I admit I do have rose tinted spec's where Newcastle are concerned but I think only one of the three come close to us, even with them having Europe and Newcastle not. The only teams that we'd struggle to beat to a player are Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U.