gonufc

To be fair to the Times they are usually very good with transfer speculation and the majority of things they report seem to happen.

The Times have just released an article with the headline : "Martins seals Newcastle victory" ??!!!!?

We do know what Ashley's intentions are though? I thought he said he wanted to make us into one of the "top clubs" again...

He'd be an okay back-up midfielder. I think we should sign him, he would (presumably) be cheap and we need bodies at the moment.

I'm half iranian and so I'd love us to get Hashemian but if I'm being honest he's not really good enough for us. Although I suppose he could do a job as a back-up striker, he's fantastic in the air.

Bellamy was a great player for us, I can't believe people would ever deny that. Yes he had attitude problems but he was such a good player that it was worth putting up with him. Bobby Robson says that himself in his book...If a manager is good then they should be able to handle these "personalities" so they can produce on the pitch, not take the easy option like Souness did and shift the guy out. Long and short of it is that Bellamy was a fantastic player for us with a large attitude problem, but he always gave 100% and was worth puttting up with. Having said all that I wouldn't take him back now, we have enough strikers and I'm not convinved he's ever going to be the same player he was for us back in the Robson era.

There's no standout candidate for the role but I'd go with Owen. Yes, there were issues over his commitment but he's here to stay now and making him captain seems the most sensible option: he's experienced, leads by example and knows what being a captain entails. There's just too many problems with the other candidates: Given is a goalkeeper, neither of Butt or Solano are guaranteed starters, Barton's got a temper and could be irresponsible off the pitch and in my opinion Taylor is too young and rash to be given the armband. You could argue that giving Taylor the armband might calm him down a bit but I'm not sure about this, I'd rather he proved he can be calm before giving him the armband.

Iran for the asian cup!!!

The way I see it: Given (harper) Geremi (Young) Rozehnal (Taylor) New CB (Ramage) New LB (Baba) Milner (Solano) Barton (Emre) Butt (Dyer) Duff (N'zogbia) Viduka (Shola) Owen (Martins) If we're looking at two players for every position then Young would be pretty good back up for the RB spot.

Small fee, decent back up and competetion for places. I don't see why not.

I've only seen him at the world cup where he didn't really impress me but from what I gather he's a much better player than he showed there.

Given © Geremi Rozehnal Taylor Duff Dyer Barton Emre Milner Viduka Owen subs: Harper, Ramage, Martins, Butt, N' Zogbia/ Luque

Munich?!?! He is more likely to end up @ Munchies (Haymarket,Newcastle) Have Munchies offered £5.5M? ...and free food sponsorship? Seriously, no poit is selling Emre (whatever the price) when we don't have ANY creative midfielders...we need ANOTHER one; not sell the only 1 we have.... As much as i like Emre the fact is that he isnt a creative midfielder...that would require him to actually create things for players. You seemed to want to build a team around him, well that's hard when he gets injured so often and goes missing away from home. His dead ball deliveries are terrible as well.

very average player. Could be back-up but thats about it. Not worth the 6mill imo

Emre is not world class and he has never been world class. World class is Kaka, Christiano Ronaldo...not Emre. Maybe if Emre was coached right he could become a very good player but not a "world class" one.

I think Emre has changed a lot since he first came he. When he joined he would surge forward with the ball, control games with his passing and just generally add nice touches to midfield. Now though he seems to deliver crap dead balls and hit long passes (which are rarely successful). If Sam could get him playing like he did before then he could potentially be very useful.

I think we needed someone like Viduka first because if we can't score then we won't win games. I don't really see Owen and Martins scoring many together and personally I just don't rate Ameobi. Now we (pretty much) have someone like Viduka we should concentrate on the defence.

He hasn't really played well for quite a while, can't even get into the Fulham team...I think he's like 30 or 31 now anyway.

Barton = best player Parker = best attitude NRC = potentially best player with an attitude problem I don't think there's much doubt that Barton is the best player, the question is whether he's significantly better than Parker to warrant his potential attitude problems.

So what do you sugggest, keep him!!!!! Well, unless we can find someone who is significantly better we should keep him

Sack him and replace him with who? It's only worth sacking him if we can get a significantly better manager instead. There's no point getting rid of him and putting Coleman in charge. If we could find a class manager then yes we should sack him, but i don't see us attracting Hiddink or anyone else decent in the near future.

Roeder: "Albert Luque was just terrible today. He's got to win the shirt and today he hasn't done that. Frankly, it's his fault we lost today. I'm not usually one to blame the players but he alone is responsible for our poor performance in the league this season."

Capello's got nothing on Roeder. Roeder is God.

Difficult maths, isn't it. just didn't read it, whoops. no need to try and be condesending.

I'd get: Ben Haim - free Viduka - free Sidwell - free Luisao - £7mill Baines- £7mill Get rid of: Bramble - release Moore - release Carr - £500k Luque- nothing probably Onyewu- end loan First eleven: Given Solano Luisao Ben Haim Baines Milner Sidwell Parker Duff Martins Owen subs: Harper, Emre, Taylor, Viduka, Zog