STM

Just using and abusing the lad. Now run off and find more quotes

The good thing about that is he obviously believes we will sign him.

Don't worry you had me giggling away, even if this lot didn't get it.

I wonder if the "he'll never come here brigade" with their automatic certainty of our inferiority, will ever change? As my Dad used to say - "like the poor, they are always with us". As change happens here (from the immediate past) under Mike Ashley and Kevin Keegan - will their perceptions and comments (clothed in a blanket of "realism" . . . ) ever change. I doubt it! It is going to be hard work - but you need 'vision' to succeed in life (and football is life) but this club is the PERFECT club (with all the ingredients) to be a big, big, success. Small thinking (even if stating 'current' obvious fact) such as 'we are Newcastle United not Real Madrid' is a useless, pointless way of thinking and acting. Realism - yes, but let's MOVE ON from the strange 'immediate past' that we have had. Lets get moving in our minds (I'm sure Ashley is). The objective has to be - as soon as possible - to be alongside the biggest clubs, as equals - AND YOU DON'T GET THAT BY CONSTANTLY THINKING "HE'LL NEVER COME HERE" . . .. If we have constantly progressed over the next three-five years then I would say that it would be possible to bring in some of these names. The main point here being we are so far behind the bigger clubs now that we have to build ala Villa, Everton before we can consider signing bigger players. In the real world that we live in why would such players sign for Newcastle? They want to be successful and win trophies, they have more opportunities to do that elsewhere AT THE MOMENT. Personally I thinkyou are dellusional to expect players of that calibre to sign for Newcastle. Some might point out that Michael Owen signed, well I will argue that he panicked, realised by not playing he would lose his England place, and couldn't get a better offer. If, and it's a big if, we develop and improve over the next few seasons to come, I can maybe then accept that we would expect to be signing players of world class quality. At the moment I prefer to live in the "real" world and I for one certainly won't be getting my hopes up. I expect players of the Crouch, Ashton mould and quality to be signing, not Henry and Modric. I stand to be proven wrong, and will gladly put my hands up if I am pleasently suprised, but I doubt I will be! Completely disagree with you. Newcastle, whether you believe it or not, ARE a big name club and how we have done over a couple of seasons won't change this. Look at La Liga right now, if you were a decent young footballer from an obscure country in europe and you had to choose between Racing santander and Valencia, who would you choose? Correct, we would all choose Valencia. Yet if you looked at the spainsh league table you would see that Valencia are in 16th where as Racing are in 5th. What does this mean... reputation counts for something. When we signed Owen we had just finished 14th iirc. Just because we are "off the pace", doesn't mean we are less likley to sign the top players. With that said for obvious reasons we will find it difficult to compete with the top four, because of the champions league. However against every other team in the league we are still an top player attraction.

ANAL will have some "exclusive" for us later on, to keep us going/laughing.

I've been saying all summer that we will be in for Henry, however i just don't see us signing him. If we don't then you can guarentee he won't be the last "big name" that KK will be in for.

Derby

If he is sent down, there's no point in releasing him. His sentence would be no longer than a bad injury, despite what has been said.

It's like a fucking pub around here. Someone makes an innocent remark.... Someone takes it out of context..... They reply with something about shepard..... and before you know it 30 pages have gone by, noone has changed their opinion and then it starts all over again in a new thread. You people are forum cancer, and this place seems to be terminal

Don't you get the impression that the money is there, but we're not willing to pay over our own evaluation for players? They're not like Shepherd, who would probably say something like "Sod it, offer him £120k per week!" :S 5,4,3,2.... 1 lets all have a disco lets all have a disco la la la la, la la la la

When you clutch at straws CHECK

Stereotypical positive signs; When a player visits the city CHECK When a player visits the training ground CHECK When the country of origin is reporting it alot CHECK When a player has been advised by ex players to join us CHECK When it's been reported that we have agreed a fee and the clubs stayed quiet about it CHECK What we need now is the one of the parties to make a comment.

L'Equipe i think is the one your on about.

From what i hear KK normally keeps his transfer low key until it's confirmed. Would be nice to see how he reacts to the question.

Aye, RIP. Horrible to hear. P.S That puts a right shitter on Chelseas title hopes..... not that it's relevant considering the circs.

That's where I think he'll play, I can't see him moving Owen unless he goes to him and says he doesn't want to play there but judging from comments from him he seems happy with his new role in the team. One thing Modric will give our midfield is better ball retention compared to the other lot, when Keegan spoke about Owen playing deeper he mentioned how he hardly gave the ball away so I think it's something he's looking for in his midfield, I can see Keegan going for another midfielder even if he does get Modric to play on the other side and if it's a player of similar quality then the quality of our football can only improve. Fair play to the club if they pull it off. Aye would be very interesting to see how much more KK wants to improve the midfield. I'd be tempted to look for a DM to replace Butt, however there's a big chance he will revert Barton to DM (after his comment) and sign another AM. I get the feeling he would rather sign more attacking players than defensive ones............ which won't upset me.

Hmm, I can see Keegan driving from Newcastle to London tomorow, with Modric on the roof of his car in a toon top. The point was if this lot get no confirmation, it will turn into a circus round here. Have you ever been on here in transfer season?

My worry is that this is going to be like Voronin's move (no not a failure). Everything could be signed and sealed but nobody really says anything until mid june or july. I don't mind that happening if we actually get him but it will leave everyone on a knife edge, which will be frustrating as fuck.

I feel similar. Although, i don't think contract details will be sorted yet. Like i said before, you don't pay 20m on a player if your going to be put off my a 20k difference of opinion. Modric won't of been on over 30k over there anyway, so i don't see wages being a problem. There will most likely be a few negotiations before anything is sealed.

Didn't they used to have lonsdale too. Pretty sure ashleys got shares in them too? So Modric is on them then eh?

Sounds like both Billic and Maric are both recommending the lad to newcastle, as well as Krancjar to england. If he has been to Newcastle i will feel a little bit more confident but there's no real proof of that. All the papers are reporting that we have agreed a fee and i think it's fair to say,that it's from more than one source too. However, alot are claiming that we have not agreed a wage yet. Let me ask you this. If your paying 20+m for a player do you really think we will struggle to agree his wages? It's a negotiation proccess, it doesn't happen in one day.

Trust me if you do that 20 times, you get from page 7 to page 19 in no time

"Modric was accompanied to Newcastle on Tuesday by Zagreb vice-chairman Zdravko Mamic, who happens to be the brother of his agent." We were wondering last night why the vice president would be negotiating his contract, this might have something to do with it. Mystery solved.

I think Modric could play in the three, with a right to roam a little when we are in possestion. I hope you are wrong about going back to 442.

Barton's got quite a defensive role at the moment, Modric is further forward usually. Probably where Owen is playing I think. Leave Owen where he is man. As i said, direct replacement for Geremi.