Mick

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.

I can't see any reason why players already playing in this Country would not want to play for us next season regardless of Europe. Most players will see our club for what it is now, not what it has been for the last 4 years or so. We are a club who will have 52,000 at every home league game next season and the atmosphere will be as good as it has been for many years. Everything at our club is on the up and every player in the Country will know it. I don't think we're a club who needs to make a trophy signing at this time, a trophy signing will not sell a single ticket as they'll all go anyway. We need value for money, that goes for players who cost next to nothing as well as the big money signings, getting a player like Boumsong for nothing doesn't make him any better than the one we paid a fortune for, he'd still be shite. A trophy signing might sell a few shirts but people like Owen will do that already. We need a squad but we also need special players, we've got at least one and we need to add to that number. If Ashley has £250 million to spend over 5 years then the bulk should be spent at the beginning because that's when we need the most players. I can understand if this year is a year of caution because it doesn't matter what anybody says, Allardyce is unproven when it comes to spending large sums of money. You can afford to get 20 players for nothing and see a large percentage dissapearing, you can't do that when you're spending £millions, we know that because we've been through it with Souness, no I'm not trying to say Allardyce is another Souness.

Good call, it looks like he reads your posts so the e-mails are not needed.

Informed or complete guess?

If you don't like reading something then don't read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Sports_Investment Abramovich is rumoured to have a 15% stake in MSI, that really would be a conflict of interest if the owner of Chelsea was also the co-owner of somebody playing for the opposition although is that not what happens when a player is on loan anyway?

This lot seem to think they own him, trying to buy him would be a nightmare as you'd have to identify the true owner first. http://www.mediasportsinvestments.com/

To muddy the waters again: http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2080572,00.html On a day when the Tevez affair took on an international angle with the presidents of both Fifa and Uefa stepping into the dispute, it emerged that, under the terms of his four-year playing contract, only West Ham will benefit from the forward's sale.

This is all I've found so far: http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/premiership/article2617382.ece Now the intention is to pair the two in a new-look strike-force with Carlos Tevez almost certain to leave the club once a fee is agreed with one of the clubs - primarily Real Madrid and Chelsea - who have registered an interest. It is thought that Tevez could cost as much as £32m. West Ham will not receive any of the transfer fee.

I've read that West Ham get nothing but I have no idea as something changed after the inquiry. I don't know if he was bought or officially loaned. I've seen quotes from the West Ham chairman saying that he's not for sale, I've no idea.

I agree, this compensation news has changed the picture a lot. For starters, we could buy a good player committed to Newcastle even before his transfer fee. We could and buy someone like Tevez, a young top class player with his whole career ahead of him. He should really now tell us exactly what his intentions are, although the silence says a lot. The club will know however, and if he wants to go they should actively seek to offload him asap safe in the knowledge that we haven't now lost so much money. That would be like every Christmas and Birthday coming at once, if Owen goes for £9 million and we get £10 million compensation then we could add another £5 million as a first bid. I've seen figures mentioned about him going for as much as £34 million but that seems way OTT.

mackems.gif So predictable, any reason why you took exception to me mentioning the extra penny per share when far worse was said against Shepherd? Was anything about him hanging on for the extra money not factual?

All I know is that 100p wasn't good enough, 101p was. It doesn't matter that Ashley upped the offer to 101p, he'd only do that after the initial offer was rejected, Shepherd had to have his 1p per share more than the Hall's. That equates to £300k that the club can't spend on players because other costs will be fixed unless we extend the Gallowgate and leave £300k's worth of seats out or something like that.

Wrong, Boumsong.

I wouldn't say they were all shit, Hottiger wasn't that bad and went for more than we paid for him. Barton was at the club for about 7 years, he struggled when he first arrived but improved. Fox blew hot and cold but left for a profit and Asprilla left for the same as we paid. We probably only lost £2 million between the four of them, the biggest and only loss was on Barton who stayed long enough to justify any loss.

I'd have to probably say Gazza at Italia '90 although that may be based on some of the hype, but if it was the best I'd seen actually live then it would be Keegan who I watched many years ago at Wembley in a home international against Northern Ireland. We won 4-1 and I missed 3 of our goals for different reasons, I did see Keegan score but missed one from Terry Mac, I think.