Kitman

Presumably they'd reduce the number of teams in the premiership at the same time?

Yes very cute...care to tell us any more about the tactics? Viduka: "Now listen here mate, when you get the ball, hit it straight up to me. None of this passing it through the midfield shit you go for in Spain. In England the midfielders are for tackling. If you want to get on at this club, knock it straight up to me, the quicker the better. Look, I'm not telling you anything the gaffer won't tell you. Right son, go on tell him that." Craig's son (in Spanish): "Fatty here says whatever you do don't lump the ball forward to him. That Barton bloke's a psycho and if you don't give him the ball he'll bray you."

I expect this is Keegan's way of saying he has no interest in Toon job

Another nobhead in the making by the sounds of it . He's only young, let's hope he learns from this.

With his football career, he's depriving a village somewhere of a first class idiot

IAN DOWIE LOOKY-LIKEY: http://www.frankievalley.com/diary/images/20060601.jpghttp://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9600/waterandpityrr5.jpg AN UGLY HUNCHBACK IAN DOWIE

THis thread is notable for its gayness

http://www.leblogfoot.com/images/new/Vincent/Ribery.jpg Ribery. Should be playing a banjo on someone's front porch

Agreed. Harsh but fair

If we sold Owen we'd be relying on a combination of Martins/Viduka/Ameobi and Smith. If Martins was injured the lack of mobility in our front line doesn't bear thinking about. The only acceptable replacement that could fit in quickly would be Anelka imo.......but really if we don't have to sell him, and we don't need the money, we're not going to get much better goal scorers. Unless his fitness is permanently in doubt, I think I'd rather sell Martins and get Anelka in.

Let's not get carried away. He's not good enough for Wigan.

Personally I'd keep Owen. Owen = goals, goals = points and points = prizes. £15m to City is an invention imo, the press have it in for us and always have because they're mostly Spurs supporters. The time to be having this debate is at the end of the season imo.

If only Shola played as well on matchday as he talks to the press. Time for him to go imo. Regular football in the Championship could kickstart his England career too.

keep him as backup and motivator? Terry Mac tells the jokes. I think you're undervaluing his skill set personally. He also lights his farts and pulls pranks on the players.

Where's he from again? His name sounds like a village in North Vietnam

Luckily that rarely happens

Owen, Carr and Babayaro are always injured so don't really count Duff has a poor injury record at his previous clubs iirc so not a surprise Ramage and Barton are contact injuries and not avoidable Cacapa is getting on a bit Out of that list, there's only 4 which I'd call first teamers. We'd improve our injury record at a stroke by getting shot of Carr and Babyaro, if anyone was daft enough to take them.

Your scenario is really just a technicality though. Unless I''ve missed something St James Holdings now owns all of the share capital of Newcastle United, and Ashley owns all of (or if not the significant majority of) the capital of SJH. Therefore the only person Ashley has to answer to in terms of the accounts of Newcastle United is Ashley himself. Hence, whever the money was put into the club as share capital (highly unlikey imo) or just effectively gave the club the cash is irrelevent unless there is a structured repayment (again I doubt this to be the case in the short term at least). Ashley (for all his good work so far) is unlikely to die as the owner of Newcastle United, therefore he will be looking to ge this money back (including the debt repayment) at that point. He can (theroetically) make more return on his cash by leaving it in the club (more funds = better transfers = more prize money) than he would in a bank. Sorry if thats a bit muddled, just grabbing 5 mins here at work so can't proof think this through! No that's not muddled. Think you are right about St James Holdings and can't disagree with the rest of what you say. My point was more aimed at whether the loan has been wiped or not and the difference between capital and loan finance. The Abramovich example is an extreme one but I think its interesting that he has not shown the commitment to convert so much of his funding into capital. Makes Chelsea Limited's balance sheet look extremely sick as well! What does that mean in laymans terms? It means that, due to the loans owed to their owner, Chelsea are technically insolvent (by about £300 million) and if Abramovich was so minded he could pull the plug on it. But if he had put the money in as capital instead of loan that danger (although remote) would not exist. There's a further subtle difference. With a loan the money can be demanded by the lender and it would be extracted from the club - for us this is not the doomsday scenario it would be for Chelsea but it means money would leave the club permanently. With share capital it's easy to put the money in and difficult to get the money out unless the shares are redeemable preference shares, a special class of share which can be cancelled. Typically to get your money back on normal shares you have to sell them on. Therefore if Ahsley has put the money in as share capital, I would take it as a vote of confidence in the club, a sign he wants to invest for the longer term, and doesn't - like certain corpulent former shareholders - want to get money out of the club in the short term.

I think that'll be something like the line up personally. The temptation to 'swamp the midfield', 'catch them on the break' and 'play the big man upfront' will be too much for Sam. Unfortunately when the big man is Ameobi the wheels will probably come off but maybe he'll have one of his rare decent nights for us against all the odds, eh?

good luck getting it in mourinho, i'm pretty sure he's married though Just a cover. Er probably.

That's the point HTT is making...they have a new side you know. Thier overall football has been a lot better than ours generally etc... * Howls and bangs head against keyboard *

Weren't City toss against Man Utd and lucky to win?

He tells jokes and rubs vaseline on the players scrotums if required. Actually I made half of that up, he doesn't tell jokes.

If we don't beat Man City we should sack Allardyce and get it in Mourinho. If he doesn't win his first 6 games in style we should sack him too. Ashley should sort it out, we've got loads of money now.

I can't say I'm surprised. For Luque read any foreign player who's joined us in the last 10 years. They don't come to the toon for the stotties, they come for the readies. The failure of the club is that we've utterly utterly failed to properly integrate and motivate many of our most expensive flops - Maric, Marcelino, Andersson, Guivarche etc etc etc. Shepherd did his job in getting the players in. Anybody who thinks these players come top NUFC for the toon or the club is kidding themselves imo - most of them come for the money, it's the way it is these days and we're not a top 4 club and/or a London club so we have to pay extra to get foreigners in. Whether the manager wanted players like Luque or not, it's his job to get them playing for us. So Luque didn't care about the club - so what? How many of the non-Geordie players care about our club do you think? The fact that so many foreign players have flopped for us is an indictment of the whole club - we've been totally crap at integrating them into the club and the toon, and we've been totally crap at integrating them into the premier league. We tend to chuck foreing players into the team and if they don't adapt within a few matches they're dubbed failures. The ones who've thrived either have come from other premier league clubs or have exceptional characters or talent imo. If Luque has been unprofessional, how much of that is down to the management at the time and the messages that were given to him? How would you react if you felt you had no chance at all of making the team? If we want to attract top foreign players, we have to offer glory or silly money. Personally I think Shepherd can be criticised for many things, but I don't blame him for paying over the odds for players when we don't have CL football or the likelihood of trophies to offer a player. There are many questions like, whose choice was Luque? Why was he signed? What formation was he meant to fit into? What steps were taken to ensure he settled in and integrated into the club properly? What steps were taken to ensure he would settle into the premier league? Why did Roeder drop him and never give him a chance? The reality is, we will never know. But I for one won't be saying "Luque is disgusting" or "Shepherd is a wanker for signing him" because I think the blame probably lays wider than that, and I wouldn't blame Luque for signing for the money cos I would do the same given half a chance and so would any foreign player I suspect who wouldn't get into a top 4 team. A start would be for the club to take a professional stance in helping these players adapt to the club, the city and the premier league, before the fans get on their backs and write them off.