Martin Lol

Beginning of the end...............................

I don't think SBR could do the job justice now, he's too old for that job if it's to be done properly as it should involve a lot of travelling and negotiation. I still think Houllier would make an excellent DoF if he wanted it but there is no reason why SBR couldn't be given a job as Club President. That wouldn't involve the day to day hard work associated with a DoF but he would still be at SJP offering advice and his contacts could also be tapped into. Would depend on how the DoF felt about it, but it seems crazy not to use SBR's knowledge and expertise, especially when FFS and SBR now seem to be at peace together again.

Reading don't have a technically gifted playmaker but in Sidwell they do have a player who does drive the team forward.................. but only for the rest of this season. Newcastle should be ok next season (with luck).

I know it's very early days but last night Martins played the worst I've seen him in a Newcastle shirt and didn't look in sync with Owen at all. When Ameobi came on, Martins for the rest of the game was largely anonymous but Owen and Ameobi did link up better, although by that time Owen was more or less knackered. It could be argued that Owen and Ameobi know each other better, but not for that long tbh, and not played together for over a year. I just got the impression that it had the makings of a Defoe and Keane partnership, not on the same wavelength, no reason why it shouldn't work well bu for whatever reason, it doesn't. Be interesting to see how they play together for the rest of the season. First impressions can be misleading as I say, but I didn't really see much link up play between them.

He has been quoted as saying he would welcome a return to the Premiership, he loved life in England. Whether that would include coming back as a DoF I don't know, but the money would be better over here than in France.

Agreed. If he hasn't moved on in 24 years he won't leave now irrespective of who come knocking on his door. In an interview he did a couple of years ago, he said he had only ever applied for one job in his time there, and that was with the Chairman's knowledge and agreement. Technical Director at the FA, a job given to Howard Wilkinson. Not saying Wilko was bad but that was an opportunity missed by the FA imo. Top man!

I thought the team mirrored the effort put into the match by the management team. Wtf was Pearson doing, was he going to sleep?? It looked to me as if he was saying "Well that's me done, we can't win. I'm going to doss down for a bit". There was no passion from Roeder, no drive, no encouragement, nothing. Just a look of resignation that said the match was gone, maybe the job was gone, maybe both. Owen looked fine but why keep him on for the full match? He should have had an hour, 70 minutes at tops. Overall, I thought most of the players were poor but half didn't look as though they knew what their role on the pitch was. They could have done better, some could have done a lot better, but Roeder and Pearson should be ashamed of their contribution tonight imo.

Seems like neither have applied. Or at least that's according to the local Blackburn paper. BLACKBURN ROVERS could be left with a tricky dilemma going into their game with Tottenham in the final week of the season. If, by that stage, Rovers' only remaining route into Europe is via the Intertoto Cup, then a win over Spurs might actually harm their chances of qualifying for the competition. That's because Spurs have also applied for the Intertoto, unlike Reading, who currently occupy the last automatic Uefa Cup place, and Portsmouth. So if Spurs were to finish eighth rather than seventh, they would claim the Intertoto spot ahead of Blackburn. http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/headlines/display.var.1364900.0.spurs_win_may_harm_rovers_intertoto_chances.php So the suggestion is that if Blackburn donate 3 pts to Spurs, Spurs could push Reading and Pompey down the league table and hopefully bring in 10th place to be the qualifying spot for the Intertoto for Blackburn. :lol:

£50 saying Glenn Roeder was the best man for Newcastle! mackems.gif

Rumoured to be the Setanta deal. Sorry Doc, won't do it again!

I'm not overvaluing him tbh, I wouldn't put him much over £20m at the moment and see how he fares in his 2nd season in the EPL after clubs have sussed him a bit. What I'm saying is he is worth £35/40m to Levy's perceived value of Spurs if or when he decides to sell. Levy has proved in the past with the sale of Carrick and the compensation for Arnesen that he will dig his heels in if he feels he has to.

How would you fancy that? It's a no-no from me.

No, I didn't say we wouldn't sell him for £35/£40m, I said that would be value in the event of the club being sold. Actually selling him to another club I doubt that we would get £30m. The point is that with Levy looking to sell but can't acquire the excess shares till September, he wouldn't be likely to sell a star player the result of which may reduce the sale price of the club as a complete entity. So this summer I would be very surprised to see Levy sell Berbatov. This time next year I think Levy will have sold Spurs.

Couldn't be worse than the Cricket World Cup though................................or could it??

Yep, convinced about that.

I'm not surprised tbh. There have been persistent noises about SA having taken Bolton as far as he could. Bolton have been reluctant to spend a lot more because better and more expensive payers won't convert into more bums on seats, more sponsorship or a better position in the league. Allardyce will go to Citeh if Ranson's consortium is successful from what journos are saying, if not, who knows? The fact that, with Bolton's agreement, Spurs have had talks with Anelka ( >) says quite a bit really. Anelka to replace Berbatov? :lol: No, re-hash of the 4 strikers. Berbs, Keane plus 2 from Anelka, Cisse, Bent and a few other names doing the rounds. Citeh still want Mido ( ) and Villa are still the most active in showing interest in Defoe. Who we finally wind up with God knows, but Comolli signed Anelka for the scum and is keen to do so again. Jol isn't keen on the idea at all! Wouldn't Anelka just be another Mido? Pissed off all the time because he isn't in the first team? Ridiculous move by Spurs if it happens ... Not the plan as far I can gather. Comolli ideally wants 4 intelligent strikers, not to be all the same style and not to include 2 little ones. Anelka would certainly qualify under that criteria, Comolli thinks Spurs would be more efficient with a first choice pairing of 2 taller mobile strikers such as Berbatov and Anelka. Jol is not yet convinced although he does accept that Anelka/Bergkamp, Bergkamp/Henry etc worked at Arsenal and Comolli played a big part in that by doing a lot of the donkey work in signing Anelka and Henry.

Newcastle fans are in exactly the same position as Spurs'. We too have been hit with a season ticket price increase, which is all the more galling after the most successful on field season in quite a few years, £5m coming in from the Puma sponsorship deal and £8.5m coming from Mansion. And in spite of all that, the season ticket still goes up. The reason, in Spurs' case ( and probably in for Newcastle too) is simple. The share issue guaranteed by Enic expires in September, any shares not bought will be purchased by Enic for 16p per share. The current share price is over £1. Buying those shares will takes Enic's shareholding to approximately 52%. No doubt in my mind that after September (maybe soon after) Levy will be selling up and moving to the States. Before he bought Chelsea, Abramovich was interested, before he bought Villa, Lerner was interested. What I found interesting in the Telegraph article was the talk of associations between USA moguls and Easter Europeans. In the past few months there has been mention of a couple of Americans but the last year/18 months, the most regular name that keeps cropping up is Vagit Alekperov. Been to matches at WHL on a number of occasions and also has extensive business interests in USA as well. But what if he bought Spurs and Belgravia (for example) bought Newcastle? All that would happen is that all the top clubs would all be owned by moguls and not every team can be the winners. It may sound good in the short term but I'm depressed by the long term outlook for the game in general here. Very true. The other side of the coin is that you dont want to be left behind if it means additional funds overall for investment. But surely the problem comes when only a handful of clubs are mega-rich, doesn't it? If everyone's got a billionaire owner wouldn't that mean increased competition and therefore a more interesting league? At the moment no-one other than Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool have a chance of winning the league and they've even got the cups sewn up as well this year. That's a really boring situation for the rest of us, but if Villa, Spurs and us were added to that group, surely that's got to make it better, not worse. If 3 or 4 teams were added to the big 4, then yes, I'd agree the league would be more competitive and be better for it. I think the problem arises when most clubs (or all) are owned by billionaires and, unlike American sport such as the NFL, one of them misses out on the gravy train by getting relegated. That's when I can see owners possibly cutting their losses and pulling out, leaving the club potentially in a crisis situation. I know that is an extreme scenario but I wouldn't say it was impossible.

I'm not surprised tbh. There have been persistent noises about SA having taken Bolton as far as he could. Bolton have been reluctant to spend a lot more because better and more expensive payers won't convert into more bums on seats, more sponsorship or a better position in the league. Allardyce will go to Citeh if Ranson's consortium is successful from what journos are saying, if not, who knows? The fact that, with Bolton's agreement, Spurs have had talks with Anelka ( >) says quite a bit really. Anelka to replace Berbatov? :lol: No, re-hash of the 4 strikers. Berbs, Keane plus 2 from Anelka, Cisse, Bent and a few other names doing the rounds. Citeh still want Mido ( ) and Villa are still the most active in showing interest in Defoe. Who we finally wind up with God knows, but Comolli signed Anelka for the scum and is keen to do so again. Jol isn't keen on the idea at all!

If Chelsea offered £25m I could practically guarantee that would be rejected. Levy values Berbs at a lot more for one thing but Levy wouldn't want to rock a settled boat when he's trying hard to sell it. Any sale figure for the club would probably be including around £35/40m for Berbs and if the harmony in the camp started falling apart, the value of the entire package would start to fall. With huge sponsorship deals with Mansion and Puma, plus the new TV money, Spurs have never been in such a liquid state, the perfect time for Levy to sell. Even at the reputed price of £250m (against a share value of £100m) there are still people interested.

I'm not surprised tbh. There have been persistent noises about SA having taken Bolton as far as he could. Bolton have been reluctant to spend a lot more because better and more expensive payers won't convert into more bums on seats, more sponsorship or a better position in the league. Allardyce will go to Citeh if Ranson's consortium is successful from what journos are saying, if not, who knows? The fact that, with Bolton's agreement, Spurs have had talks with Anelka ( >) says quite a bit really.

The last I heard (very recently too) is that there is abolutely no prospect of Berbs going anywhere this summer, Spurs don't want it and, more importantly, Berbs doesn't want it too. It shouldn't be forgotten that Man Utd made a late bid for him a couple of days before he signed for us. Berbs said then that he had decided what to do, the decision was made and he wasn't going to change it. More importantly, there is no pressure for Spurs to sell like there was with Carrick. Carrick had 2 years remaining and had said he wouldn't sign another, Berbs is only 1 year into a 3 year contract with an option for a further 2 years in the same way they had with Keane. So Spurs effectively have still got him under contract for another 4 years. Unless Berbs has a serious change of heart and starts making all the wrong noises, I don't think he will go anywhere for at least 1 year, probably 2. Depends very much also on how the club fares in that time but I'm not concerned about the speculation.

Fair point, but you could also look at it from the other side, and consider that Man United are within spitting distance of winning the league, and could very well be about to add the Champions League and the FA Cup to that. If i were a Man United fan, I wouldn't have wanted the takeover to be funded by debt, but if anything was able to make me forget about it, it would be that kind of treble. Do you think those FC United fans are staying away now No idea, but FC Utd are still doing well, League Champions of the North West Counties Div 1. How entertaining it's been is debateable, topped the table with 112 pts and a goal difference of +121!!! http://fcumfiles.co.uk/

Chris Amstrong, currently left back/left midfield for Sheffield United, went to Gosforth High School. GK - Steve Simonsen RB - Brian Laws LB - Chris Amstrong CB - Steve Bruce CB - Jack Charlton RW - Bobby Robson CM - Bryan Robsom AM - Bobby Charlton LW - Chris Waddle CF - Peter Beardsley CF - Alan Shearer Subs so far: Norman Hunter,Brian Little, Michael Carrick. Not a bad line up. Do you a team made of players who are from Newcastle supporting area's who came through NUFC youth system could match it Gazza not good enough to get into the team??? Think he should be fitted in somewhere!

I'm no defender of Roeder but comparing his substitution options with Mourihno's isn't a fair comparison. Look at Chelsea's bench compared to ours. Our bench this season was mainly kids and average squad players not internationals brought in for huge fees. Just about all the players on Chelsea's bench would make our starting 11. It does't really matter who is on the bench, it's showing that he is trying to do something when Plan A isn't working. If Plan A doesn't work, I'd like Plan B to be tried, even if that ultimately doesn't work either. But Roeder isn't the only one. My criticism of Jol is his reluctance to change the gameplan. Against Sevilla we conceded 2 goals in the first 10 minutes, needed 4 to go through. Defoe sat on the bench till the 70th minute. He may not have made the slightest bit of difference but fans want to see the effort to change things around being made.

Newcastle fans are in exactly the same position as Spurs'. We too have been hit with a season ticket price increase, which is all the more galling after the most successful on field season in quite a few years, £5m coming in from the Puma sponsorship deal and £8.5m coming from Mansion. And in spite of all that, the season ticket still goes up. The reason, in Spurs' case ( and probably in for Newcastle too) is simple. The share issue guaranteed by Enic expires in September, any shares not bought will be purchased by Enic for 16p per share. The current share price is over £1. Buying those shares will takes Enic's shareholding to approximately 52%. No doubt in my mind that after September (maybe soon after) Levy will be selling up and moving to the States. Before he bought Chelsea, Abramovich was interested, before he bought Villa, Lerner was interested. What I found interesting in the Telegraph article was the talk of associations between USA moguls and Easter Europeans. In the past few months there has been mention of a couple of Americans but the last year/18 months, the most regular name that keeps cropping up is Vagit Alekperov. Been to matches at WHL on a number of occasions and also has extensive business interests in USA as well. But what if he bought Spurs and Belgravia (for example) bought Newcastle? All that would happen is that all the top clubs would all be owned by moguls and not every team can be the winners. It may sound good in the short term but I'm depressed by the long term outlook for the game in general here.