Colos Short and Curlies

Can see him and Forster going on loan next season. Possibly split the season in loans with one in the reserves and one on loan till Christmas then change over

Off again according to the rags today. And stuff this in the middle business. Right back is where he will end up!

Just reading that second quote in your sig (assume its NE5?). SJH wasn't adverse to the odd trip into the Strawberry in his time was he?

cool, you must've downloaded the 12-a-side patch.. Sorry! Typo on the centre backs - twas only two of them, although they were Rio and Taylor

I used to play a formation in Pro Evo with 3 at the back, 2 wing backs, a holding midfielder, 2 wide midfielders, 2 wingers and a central striker. With Zog, Duff, Enrique, Beye, Spiderman, Milner I reckon Keegan could be doing something similar! Though I had Martins in place of Spiderman and Eto'o up front with Xavi in the middle

Nah, just like Enrique he was hapless and the pair are the joint worst defenders in the world ever. Or something to that effect

If a thread is over 30 pages its a safe bet the board has come into it somewhere along the line

Copied from F365, funnily enough from a blog written about a Toon fans first forray onto the internet "I know what Tony means about message boards and blogs. They do seem to have become a home for a certain sort of person who loves asserting their own fantasies, opinions and lunatic ideas with a conviction so extreme you'd have thought they had come across the Truth Motherlode. You can tell these people because they are ones who write FACT in block caps as though that makes it more true. "

Boro Sunderland Stoke

At least Rush scored a goal for us

I'm always cracking bad jokes man....but thats besides the point I don't see many jokes being cracked about whites and the KKK for example. if people want to take the piss (sportingly) out of the arabs or any other race, why not stick to the conventional jokes always bandied about and leave out s*** like terrorists etc... i'm quite sure there would be absolute uproar if a joke was made in bad taste about yossi benayoun or avram grant I'm pretty sure there was a joke about the KKK and Martins(??) flying around here around Christmas time Well that's piss poor then! Cracking jokes is one thing, and using horrible murderous cunts to crack them is another. Have you lost anyone in a terrorist blast? I have, and it's not funny I haven't no, but I've lost people to heart attacks and car accidents, i've been in a couple of accidents myself. Can still laugh at jokes about them though. FWIW, the above joke I didn't find funny, nor offensive. Ditto the KKK one. Using Arabs for arabs sake in jokes isn't funny, but you can tell a funny joke based on arabs/terrorists/irish whatever. 2J just failed in that his joke was (imo) at best snigger funny

I'm always cracking bad jokes man....but thats besides the point I don't see many jokes being cracked about whites and the KKK for example. if people want to take the piss (sportingly) out of the arabs or any other race, why not stick to the conventional jokes always bandied about and leave out shit like terrorists etc... i'm quite sure there would be absolute uproar if a joke was made in bad taste about yossi benayoun or avram grant I'm pretty sure there was a joke about the KKK and Martins(??) flying around here around Christmas time

Fuck off. Is it any wonder KK only spoke to Newcastle World after yesterday's game?

I get the feeling with Rooney that he is frustrated at not being the main man at Man U and even in his own marriage. If Ronaldo goes and Rooney becomes the focus of Man Us attack then his petulance may ebb away.

Being saying that to the Missus ever since he (Manson) did Stars in their eyes as the block from A-Ha. Sent it to F365 as well but never got it published

As I see it, this summer is similar to when Robson first joined. A number of players on significant wages contributing little who need shifting before we can spend big. For Duff and Smith see Maric and Ferguson. I may be wrong, but Robsons early dealings were wheeling and dealing spending big only on young players. Once he had shifted the likes of Maric, Marcelino, Ferguson from the wage bill we were able to once again offer larger wages to the likes of Robert. Was it Shirley Bassey who sang of History repeating itself?

Be good to see how Edgar does at right back. Also hopefully we'll see a decent run out for Tozer and Guthrie second half

Depends. Do you throw £100m at the first team signing 4-5 top drawer 28-29 year olds and £10m at younger talent then have to repeat in 2-3 years time. Or Do you throw £10m at one or two good older players and the rest on younger players and continue to build the young core and add the occaisonal star. No right answer!

As I was saying. It also diesn't take into account the last 3 seasons Leeds have had outside the Premier league (effectively finishing 20+ each year).

Wise, Jimmy and Vetz. If he can transfer a bit of his infectious personality onto them I'll be happy

My sentiments exactly. Our Premier League record: 3,6,2,2,13,13,11,4,3,5,14,7,13,12 - Avg 8th So slightly below our punching weight, but not massively. so who are the 7 clubs with a higher average ? You're comparing apples with bananas and you know you are! We may be the team with the fifth highest average finish, but in that time our average finish is 8th. For example, Ipswich finished (I believe) 4th and 18th, giving them an average of 11th position. Reading were 6th and 18th - 12th Average. Now off the top of my head... Man Utd Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Everton Man City Newcastle Aston Villa Tottenham Sunderland Boro Wimbledon etc Have all been in the Premier league for more than 2 seasons, meaning that the 11th and 12th avergae positions of Ipswich and Reading do not put them as the 11th and 12th most successful teams in Premier League history

My sentiments exactly. Our Premier League record: 3,6,2,2,13,13,11,4,3,5,14,7,13,12 - Avg 8th So slightly below our punching weight, but not massively.

Football Manager 2008 thread is in another forum, mate. If we had a £4m buy back and 50% sell on clause would we actually only be paying £2m to buy him back???

Remind me when this was again. Kluivert being the best example. It was never a rule though, which is where people fall down in their arguments with NE5. He doesn't seem to mind using the opposite (we've bought Guthrie, so all signings will be cheap) as an argument tbf. Except Kluivert is the only example you can name, and pretty much everybody was happy with it too [except me, ironically] don't let this fact get in the way of anyone's opinion though. I wasn't happy with Kluivert either. In fact it was about 70/30 in favour, but plenty of people doubted the signing would be of any benefit. Strangely though, a Kluivert/Bellamy partnership was actually very good; it was only Robson's desire to keep Shearer in the team which made Kluivert a poor signing. Add Souness to that too.

Stagnation, relegation. It's not about paying massive wages or penny pinching- it's about VALUE. We absolutely must get that balance right. We've clearly got it wrong in the past, but there's a danger we could go too far the other way. Agreed, although value is dependent on the judgement of the manager when he assesse players, not a sodding stupid consortium who can't persuade players to join the club that the manager would like. err NE5 would you care to have a look at the squad robson inherited(1999-2000) and the squad he played for the next season(2000-2001) ? no massive signings etc we built in technique,tactics and teamwork then a full season later, added the,at the time of signing,derided,bellamy ,and robert. the ground work on the pitch had been done....ambition hadn't been ignored through your hero not spending on superstars or were you complaining like an old lady in a wet bus queue then aswell ? At the time, Bellamy and Robert cost quite big fees. Overall, they invested about 40m quid in players over about 3 years to get back into the top 4. The point being of course, that they decided to go for it. And some people were pleased with Bellamy, including me. But when it goes wrong it hamstrings you. Say Duff and Smith (and one signing from each regime so no bias!) are on £60k - not unreasonable? Thats £6m a year effectively thrown down the toilet, or to put it another way £6m unavailable for new signings and contract negotiations. You can only speculate to accumulate so much, without european football we have a limited budget. Add on this toilet money and you can see perhaps why we couldn't go that extra £10-£20k for Aimar if we are looking to bring in another 3 players (for example). If we could get rid fo the deadwood I'm sure we could offer higher wages for players to shoot us up the league - Bobby took a couple of years doing just this before the Bellamy/Robert summer