Offshore

One small plus would/should be cheaper tickets on a match by match basis for all clubs affected. Better to have someone in a seat at £20-25 than no-one in at £30-35 etc etc

...should never have left the Dell.

Best to go 4-3-3 with our midfield, at home anyway. Barton if fit, Jonas and another - Guthrie I suppose. Not exactly awe inspiring, but beggers can't be choosers.

My mate got his ticket for our two recentish FA cup finals from the Army. Think its everyone affiliated or associated with the FA gets a share.....pro clubs, amateur clubs, counties etc etc

I had us losing to Stoke and Spurs but still staying up by winning our homes games. So according to the results so far we are ahead of my predictions. Same here, in fact us getting a point at Stoke is the only (I think) near-shock result by a bottom placed team lately.

Its odd that we write ourselves off when faced with 3 winnable games at home - which they are, but also claim that we 'had' to win two away games - Stoke and Spurs or we're doomed.

my head hurts after reading your post. I'll shorten it to.........7 points will be enough (honest).

Portsmouth is a 'must not lose' game, Boro is the must win game and Fulham, if we don't beat Pompey is a must win. 7 points will be enough.

What is it they say, 'you can't polish a turd'. Shearer knows the main problem is midfield, thats why he's tried different formations to try and get around this. Impossible to properly judge him on someone's elses players.

I don't think anyone thinks the tactics weren't s***, so of course Shearer has to take his portion of the blame. He changed it midway thru the 1st half, didn't make a difference, changed it again in the second with better results. I am pleased that at least we've a manager who's prepared to change his formation/players when necessary as opposed to one who'll only change things due to injuries. Agreed, and as I said earlier in the thread, he made some quick decisions dropping Coloccini and Ameobi when they were s***, so perhaps we'll start the Portsmouth game in the 4-3-3 that at least gave us a chance today. it's a bit hypocritical that he drop's colo and shola because they are playing s***, but he won't drop his mate's butt and owen We had match fit replacements for Colo & Shola - Taylor & Carrol. Owen is fit so plays. Viduka & Martins were probably intended to be 2nd half subs at best.

4-3-3 for the home games.

I don't think anyone thinks the tactics weren't s***, so of course Shearer has to take his portion of the blame. He changed it midway thru the 1st half, didn't make a difference, changed it again in the second with better results. I am pleased that at least we've a manager who's prepared to change his formation/players when necessary as opposed to one who'll only change things due to injuries.

42 points for safety?? We're not in competition with teams that are winning every week. Hull had two winnable games before yesterday, so only one now, home to Stoke but the way they've fallen it wouldn't suprise me if they didn't get another point from now on. Boro have two so called winnable games left, against us and the other home to Villa. Win that and we need 4 more points.

The only 'real' must win is against Boro. 7 points will probably keep us up, so 4 more from the other two home games will do, but we need to get 3of those against Boro. *obviously 3 home wins and anything else we pick up away is preferable, but we're only aiming for 4th bottom for now*

No change. Anything from today would be a bonus but i've got us down to lose. 7 points from our home games, as long as 3 are from Boro, 'should' be just enough. Still think we'll win all three and finish above the Mackems anarl.

Bonus point today - win our three games at home and we're safe. In fact we may not have to win all three, 7 points may be just enough.

No change (again) Getting owt yesterday would have been nice, but unexpected. It'll still come down to winning those three home games. Blackburn winning was a bummer, but the Mackems and Hull will still be bricking it too.

Just driven past (7.15ish) after dropping the bairn off at college. Saw one young lad sitting on the steps. Bless.

Bent is better than Owen in the role that Capello wants him to play. Owen would be better playing off the target man in the Rooney role than Bent would. Square pegs in square holes and all that.

Is that a rehash of his last interview and two cars?

The press just go which way the winds blowing, they can and do change their stance on any subject with regularity. Articles about the toon are no exception, if you looked at the general trend of stories in the papers about us for the last 10 years or so they'd probably show a wave of good/bad/good/bad/good/bad etc Putting us on the back pages generally sells papers.

If we stay up and Ashley's intention is still to sell the club then we're looking at JFK or similar to keep us 'ticking' over, not spend too much and keep us in the main shop window (premiership). If we stay up and Ashley's intention is to keep the club then we're looking at a completely different scenario to above, i'd say that regardless of offering JFK a long-term contract he'll either thank him and punt him upstairs or thank him and hope he does well in his 2nd retirement (more likely), either way we get a new manager in and start again. Mind you, he could always honour his offer and JFK stays on I suppose. However, as he showed with Allardyce, he is prepared to be ruthless when he wants to and if his intention is to keep the club then he'll have to start growing a pair again.

dont think so ah. Just checked............Danny played in the 92 season for Man Utd, and Rod was at Leeds and Bolton in the prem.

dont think so ah.

Fashanu - or were they pre-prem?