Mick

April is a bit too early to start worrying about how our transfer window is going to go. Out of interest, what's the earliest we've signed or agreed to sign a player since the transfer window came about?

Agreed.

That's 3 changes to replace 1 injured player, I'd rather we make 1 change as the rest of them are comfortable where they have been playing.

I'm not too bothered that we've lost out on him, at least we're going for quality and I'm sure Keegan will get the best out of whoever comes in. I'll be happy as long as we're going for quality players now that we've got a foundation to build on.

Win this and we could finish 10th this season, I hope our players are up for this and don't think the season is over, I can't call it as I don't know how our players see the rest of the season.

8 people would accept us being a feeder club.

I normally don't mind the Liverpool fans so don't usually have a go at them but http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d0ed06028d61476831ee1fc908c28dcf&topic=217775.msg4192946#msg4192946. Someone does need to do some research into why English clubs were finally banned from playing in European football.

I can't remember seeing that.

As far as I'm concerned we would have had the poor Keegan results under Allardyce, I don't feel that confident about the better results under Keegan being repeated under Allardyce. Yes some of the better results have came against poorer teams but these are the same poorer teams who were getting results against us earlier in the season, we are still the only team to lose to Derby in the league and we've only got 3 league games left for that to change. Like you say "results alone don't tell the whole story," we played some very difficult games off the belt and Keegan hadn't really a chance to know his players, under the circumstances I think he's done a brilliant job. We’ve actually started to play football that is worth watching, players who were not performing are starting to look like footballers, mostly Alan Smith isn’t getting a game and that has been a bonus as we now take to the field with 11 players instead of 10 on a good day, not that we had many of those as we had so many under performers. We can now go to a game knowing that even if we do get beat we’re going to go about it the right way and try to win instead of trying to contain the dregs of the league, which to be fair, we had become one of them.

I'm not sure that season ticket sales will mean more than that, it might have been different if Keegan had of been appointed at a time when tickets were on sale.

The charity is doing very well, £294,516.17 so far.

Both the reception Keegan has received and the change on the pitch will have strengthened Keegan position at the club which was already high because they appointed him. Mort and Ashley must be impressed with the turnaround at the club since Keegan came in. They'll be impressed by the way we are now playing compared to previously under Allardyce which they were clearly unhappy with or he would still be here and they can't fail to have been impressed with Sunday’s game. I think they now know what it'll be like to go to a game when or if we become successful. I think they'll have experienced the atmosphere and will want more. If they had any doubts about the potential of this football club, they'll have been washed away on Sunday. I think the mackem game was massive and more than 3 points were gained but we'll only see if that's the case at the end of August and any new players are here.

I think we'll see the best of Keegan next season when he's got his own players to pick from and is starting with the same number of points as averybody else, that's when he'll feel that he can lift the performance as he'll know from day 1 what he's working with and how to get the best out of the team. He came in to replace Allerdyce and had to learn as he went on, he'll not have that problem to deal with, he'll be up and running from the first game.

Agreed, that would make it much easier if he was breaking his contract, we'll have to wait and see.

Look up.

Sacking Barton wouldn't be straight forward and would be harder to do than it would be to sack somebody who had taken drugs, especially performance enhancing drugs. If we sacked Barton we could easily see the club in court to pay up his contract especially since we knew what he was like when we bought him, the offence he committed at Man City was even known about yet we still signed him. The club could argue that Barton had brought the name of the club into disrepute, a lawyer for Barton would almost certainly say that we knew what we were getting when we bought him so we were happy to accept that Barton could do it again. Here's some advice from a lawyer regarding sacking somebody who is in prison. Be careful. Even though your employee has been convicted of an illegal act, you should still carry out such investigations as are reasonable in the circumstances before making any decision. Such investigations must be carried out promptly to ensure that any dismissal is fair. If the employee's offence was related to his or her work, a dismissal would probably be fair on grounds of conduct. Alternatively, the circumstances of the imprisonment might be such as to reflect adversely on the image of your business, and/or destroy trust and confidence in the employee, which might count as 'some other substantial reason' for dismissal. But great care should be exercised and legal advice sought. The fact that the employee is in prison and therefore cannot do his job is not in itself enough: it may 'frustrate' the contract, but as a general rule Employment Tribunals are reluctant to decide that the contract of employment has ended because of the employee's inability to perform it.

A quick Google of "Bobby Robson Boumsong," of course it's not proof but it adds a little weight. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/jul/17/newsstory.newcastleunited What is known is that the Boumsong deal was so odd that it was commented upon by every observer and plenty of Newcastle fans at the time. Four months after succeeding Sir Bobby Robson as manager, Graeme Souness was in his first transfer window as Newcastle manager. At £8.2m, Boumsong was his first big statement in the market and Souness compared the Frenchman to John Terry and Rio Ferdinand in terms of what he might bring to Newcastle's notoriously fragile defence, which had just lost the England international Jonathan Woodgate to Real Madrid. The difficulty Souness and Newcastle had in persuading assessors of the worth of the deal was twofold. First, that no other club was known to be challenging Rangers to sign Boumsong and, second, that six months earlier Boumsong had left Auxerre for Rangers on a free transfer. Newcastle were well aware of Boumsong prior to his departure from Auxerre because Robson had travelled to France to watch him. Robson declined the opportunity to sign the centre-half, even on a free transfer, and his doubts about Boumsong's suitability for British football were confirmed when the club's talismanic England striker Alan Shearer was marked by Boumsong in a pre-season game against Rangers and came off to speak in dismissive terms about the Frenchman's lack of physicality. Shearer, famous for guarded comments, even mentioned Boumsong's previous availability on a free transfer on television and when Boumsong made his Newcastle debut against Yeading in the FA Cup at Loftus Road, and was given a torrid time by DJ Campbell, doubts over the wisdom of the transfer mushroomed.

Bobby Robson looked at Boumsong and didn't go for him on a free.

Newcastle actually winning a proper trophy, I'd settle for that

He looked quite good before he came here, he had skill but it just didn't work out for him which is a pity. I was over the moon when we signed him because he could have been a great player if it had worked out, I was disappointed when he left because I didn't think we'd got the best out of him. He left here and things went from bad to worse for him.

All of the above and a few other things.

Our best 2 players were bought on transfer deadline day because that's when the selling clubs sold them, we were after Faye and Baye for months. Bolton would not sell Faye earlier and Baye initially said that he wanted to stay with his club then somebody got injured and Baye decided that he didn't want to miss the chance of playing for us as he didn't know what would happen in the future, or words to that effect. Boumsong was researched so well that we paid Rangers over £8 million for a player who had moved to them a few months earlier for nothing and Luque was never mentioned until we played against them pre-season.

A good deal if we can get it.