STM

Not saying we would have sold him am just saying he would have wnated to go, no way Al would have agree'd to selling him but the lure of joining Wenger at Arsenal would have turned his head. Sometimes i think there are certain players who always just "want to leave", N'Zogbia, Martins and Bassong fall into that catagory. Why can't they just keep there mouth shut and just leave? When they do leave, a little thanks to the fans wouldn't go a miss too.

Although i do think KK has weak mind in tough situations, he is not to blame for what happened earlier on in the season.

I agree with the sentiment that clubs should be tougher on players/contracts. Surely Shearer (when appointed) could sit down with him and say that the club expects him to honour his contract and be proffesional. If we fail to get promoted then we could agree to sell him after that.

Personally, i thought Shearer handled it well. There's no point saying "one last chance" and then letting him off. Obviously there was a bit of politics involved, as it sent a message to the squad about proffesional behaviour but on the whole it was the correct thing to do.

Totally agree. Although i can see why people question whether he's going to be a good manager or not, he does have the ability to galvanise a club which is on it's knees. I also think he will attract the best players possible for us too.

I'd go along with that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Shearer has been making plans, even if it's just in his head. The more planning that has been done by Shearer, the less we will get hurt by the lack of time. I'm also hoping he has an idea of some experianced staff which he wants along side him because he might not have alot of time to concentrate on the coaching side of things.

Not sure i'd go that far but i think he does have a better attacking instinct than Richards. Johnsons improved alot since he's filled out physically.

I thought that Profitable Group had confirmed, or were you not counting that as "serious"? I'm fairly sure Freddy Sheppard wants his hands back on the levers of power too, although noone knows the money behind him. If there wasn't one more interested party added amongst those two i would be suprised, probably a foreign investor of some sort. are they in the corridors of power? right next to the coffee machine of power? Yes

Right now he's already the best English RB in the country, but that's not praising his quality so much more the lack of rivals. What happened to Micah Richards? They are both very similar TBH, i reckon Richards will eventually become a centre half again.

Has there been any links between Man Utd and Rossi this summer yet? Might have missed them but that one wouldn't suprise me if Tevez leaves. They still have a buy-out clause right?

Players like Glen Johnson are made or broken by the managers that sign them. Because of his raw attributes he has plenty of potential to be a very good right back. If Benitez is signing him for 17m then that is a touch on the steep side but considering the market for Brits these days it's not surprising ... look at Milner. IMO Benitez might iron out the defensive mistakes and turn him into one of the best in the country.

I thought that Profitable Group had confirmed, or were you not counting that as "serious"? I'm fairly sure Freddy Sheppard wants his hands back on the levers of power too, although noone knows the money behind him. If there wasn't one more interested party added amongst those two i would be suprised, probably a foreign investor of some sort.

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. We have a group of players who are clearly not good enough for the top flight, correct? In that case, most of them, must leave for players who are good enough to get us back into the top flight i.e the best the championship has to offer. If there are players of premiership quality who want to play us then fine, but i suspect there are not many. There's nothing wrong with speculating as to which of our squad could cut it in the premierleague but i'm saying that it's a more worthwhile topic when we are promoted. So you would prefer us to be like West Brom of last season and not the West Ham, Manchester City or NUFC teams that last got promoted? Forgive me if I find that impossible to understand. None of them sides consisted of good premiership players, some of them simply had good first seasons in the premier league and invested heavily. West Ham for example nearly got relegated the season after, with the same players. Who ever mentioned being like West Brom? They never invested, when the got promoted. I'm saying that we should invest in premiership players when/if we get promoted in order to stay in the league. Not spending money we don't have, on premiership players who won't come to us. How many Chamionship clubs do you see signing "a pile" of premiership players? Players do improve you know? The clearly obvious point that you are missing is that some players may not be ready for the PL yet, but with a good run and experience, they could be excellent in two seasons time. Take Glen Johnson or Gareth Barry as an example of how a player can develop. PS West Ham stayed up, so you kinda shot yourself in the foot with that one. I just think we should concentrate on building a side too get us out of the championship before we start to think about building a premiership side. I'm not for one second ruling out the signings of solid premiership players such as how Birmingham signed Carsley on a free from Everton (very astute IMO). However, we have to be realistic and although we might get one or two players of premiership quality, we can't refuse proven chamionship players to get us out of the league in the first place. By all means if Darren Bent wants to take a step down into the championship then fine but we all know that's unlikely. Therefore the option of a Beckford is appealing logically and financially.

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. We have a group of players who are clearly not good enough for the top flight, correct? In that case, most of them, must leave for players who are good enough to get us back into the top flight i.e the best the championship has to offer. If there are players of premiership quality who want to play us then fine, but i suspect there are not many. There's nothing wrong with speculating as to which of our squad could cut it in the premierleague but i'm saying that it's a more worthwhile topic when we are promoted. So you would prefer us to be like West Brom of last season and not the West Ham, Manchester City or NUFC teams that last got promoted? Forgive me if I find that impossible to understand. None of them sides consisted of good premiership players, some of them simply had good first seasons in the premier league and invested heavily. West Ham for example nearly got relegated the season after, with the same players. Who ever mentioned being like West Brom? They never invested, when the got promoted. I'm saying that we should invest in premiership players when/if we get promoted in order to stay in the league. Not spending money we don't have, on premiership players who won't come to us. How many Chamionship clubs do you see signing "a pile" of premiership players?

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. Agree. We could go buy a pile of championship players, but what do you do when you get promoted? It's not a when though, it's an IF. Noones saying to go out and buy "a pile" of championship players but realistically most of the players in promoted sides are not good enough for the premiership anyway.

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. We have a group of players who are clearly not good enough for the top flight, correct? In that case, most of them, must leave for players who are good enough to get us back into the top flight i.e the best the championship has to offer. If there are players of premiership quality who want to play us then fine, but i suspect there are not many. There's nothing wrong with speculating as to which of our squad could cut it in the premierleague but i'm saying that it's a more worthwhile topic when we are promoted.

Irrelevant anyway really, we are a championship club and need to start thinking like one. If we start to think we are better than the rest of the teams in this league, i think we will get a nasty shock. IF we sign Beckford and he scores 25 goals in the chamionship and we get promoted.... then we can start thinking about how they would perform in the premierleague. Before that point i think we should remind ourselves of where we are.

Is "data room" some sort of technical jargon for a computer room? Seems a strange phrase, why can't he just say, "they are allowed to look at the books"? I know, i know because he's a cretin.

Anyone want to have a guess at the next country to be linked with a takeover. I'll go for Russian.

As you well know Dave, they deliberately write different things so they have different stories. When they do things like this it normally indicates that they haven't got alot to write about at the moment. You will notice when there is "real" news that they start writing the same things again.

Tripe, tbh. Can you say 'dividends'? I know Freddy could. He could also say stuff like... I didn't want to be known as the man who shot Bambi. Newcastle girls are all dogs. England is full of them. You should only say good things when somebody leaves. Robert has gone - good! When we have got 52,000 fans at each home game, the last thing we are worried about is clubs in the third division." Yep all of that and he is still FAR better than Mike Ashley.

The truth of the matter is that we all want Ashley gone, regardless of who comes in. Unless we are the unluckiest club on the planet, we are bound to get someone in charge who has more brains than the current crop. Then we are trying to decide between people who we know nothing about (if in fact their interest is actually true) and someone who we know everything about (freddy) who is about as popular as a sloppy shit. Right now i'm settling for the club being sold, i will critisise and compliment the new regime accordingly. If they have the money and have the correct desire, then that's a start.

If any potential buyer has even thought about the idea of a stadium expansion i will be flabbergasted. It does not make any sense that within two weeks of thought, anyone would be even thinking along these lines. It's for this reason that i am dismissing this as speculation from the chronicle. They must be struggling for stories, i thought that yesterday with the "chronicle gets behind Shearer" bollocks.

Can't believe people are buying this, why would something remotely positive happen to this club? Personally, i think we will be bought by some like Ken Bates or Freddy will return. Sad really because even those two are better than Ashley.

Don't believe a word of it. *please be true*