Memphis

Yanga-Mbiwa's been good w/ Colo - but Braga represent such a different threat than a garden-variety PL team. Dummett does look a prospect although his inexperience is quite clear at times when defending. Certainly more encouraging looking stuff in the second half, anyway. First half was coma-inducing.

Friendly - yellow Actual match - easy red Yikes, that was just awful.

With this group we look like a shit version of Rodgers' Swansea from two seasons ago. Tons of fart, absolutely no shit. Perhaps with Marveaux, Anita, and Remy in for Jonas, Shola, and Tiote we'd carry some threat up front.

Debuchy clipped his foot - pretty clear on the replay. Think he was diving anyway but there was contact.

http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,92084.775.html Love the forum when a wonder goal happens.

New thread title: "Fee around £8m agreed with Lyon for Bafétimbi Gomis and wages seem to also be agreed upon by NUFC and Gomis but according to Lyon's lunatic chairman and NUFC's senile DoF another club is interfering, believed by Lee Ryder (of all people) to be Marseille, with Gomis' agent(s), who appear to be many and quite greedy"

That goal he scored against Wigan last season... Was still irritated at him for the way he dicked around in January but that was an absolute beauty. Think he's an absolutely essential signing.

That was like watching a dog who learned to juggle.

What about Remy? Isn't he part of the contingency plan? If we were to sign him on loan I would think that gives us two quality forwards, which is pretty much what we were aiming for last January. We've been told (and I think we can see) we're two front men short. Remy and Gomis are a bit different as forwards anyway. Now, two of Remy, Gomis, Bent could just about be classed as a contingency, and perhaps that's it, but if we're going to adopt this approach, more than just Remy would be needed. Just because we take a hard line in every case doesn't mean every case is the same from the selling end. They'll take into account our situation, as we will theirs, and make the determination about how to advance the process thusly. Sometimes we can get away with being complete pricks and get the job done, sometimes not. The point is that we appear to be placing ourselves in a position where if we pull out of negotiations, as is our right, we don't have a great Plan B. And as we're aware of that, Lyon is as well, strengthening their position. All of this is, of course, total speculation as none of know the exact ins and outs of the actual negotiations.

We act as if we're negotiating from a position of strength when in fact we have significant need up front, too. And pressure from supporters, players, and media to buy. Lyon will know that - and can at the very least drag the process out longer while we twist in the wind. You really should have contingency plans based on when things don't go as you expect or want them to. Our contingency plan seems to be Shola. This is part of the idea of ambition - players and supporters alike want to at least have the illusion that their club can win something - or is trying damn hard to do so. That's why this has been such a dispiriting summer thus far. We're barely even pretending we're trying to improve the squad.

If you're going to haggle over a fee like this, it only makes sense to have multiple options. If you've only got one or two options, then you shouldn't consider yourself to be in a position to haggle like this. I just don't know why it has to be so ridiculously laborious to get this thing over the line (tm Pards). I'm sure crazy Uncle Joe isn't helping matters, either. There is an opportunity cost to taking this long, too. If you wait until the last day of the window, you're likely costing yourself points and potentially league places. Even if you eventually get it right, is it really worth 500k or even 1m to wait?

Wish Lee would just use MSPaint.

Very relieved it's resolved. Absolutely critical to do so, though it never should have gotten to this point. Cisse seems a good guy by all accounts. Don't think it's fair to ascribe ill motive to his position without knowing more.

Easy chant, just take the beginning of "Circle of Life" from Lion King "BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-FE-TIM-BIIIII..."

Presumably he's OK with wearing a giant WONGA logo on his chest? Maybe we're waiting to ask him until he's actually arrived - that seems sensible.

That's well put. I totally agree with you and David with regard to Wonga as an outlet. I find their practices disgusting. I cringe when I see their logo on the shirt of the team I support. And I can completely see and agree with why a player or a supporter would find them so repulsive that they simply couldn't wear the shirt. The reason I draw such a fine line under the issue is that to me there is a gaping difference between a truly religious objection and a simply moral one. There are all sorts of allocations made by employers to accommodate religious beliefs and practices; in fact, they're typically required to do so. There are no such allocations required for moral objections. Whether that represents an actionable difference in how this conflict plays out I do not know. It may not, in practice. McCormick helped to shed a little light on some of the differences in interpretations some Muslims may use in observing their religious beliefs. But for me, knowing how professional football works - and knowing that the large pay packets you get as a top-class footballer are funded in no small part by objectionable businesses of many stripes, Barclays being atop that list - I find that a selective religious objection holds less plausibility than a purely moral one, if that makes sense. Again, I come at this from a relatively ignorant place, so I am open to learning more. tl;dr - Wonga sucks, it's a tough, issue, wish Shola was Muslim.

based on what? His more intense response to this issue. I'll admit none of us can know the depth of his level of belief.

There's a substantial difference in Islam between banks lending money with reasonable interest rates and financial institutions that exhibit flat out usury (what muslims call 'Riba'). Most commercial banks are used by Muslims as they also offer shariah compliant financing; having Virgin money on a t-shirt is - in an Islamic sense- a moral grey area. However the extent to which Wonga adds interest to its loans makes it extremely haraam- there is no moral grey area- and any practicing Muslim would well in his/her rights to refuse to help advertise such "sinful"and "unethical" operations. That's interesting, and I appreciate the added insight. It's a really thorny issue.

I think that's well summed up. I'm no expert on Islam or interpretations thereof but if you are taking a principled stance then by definition that principle must be consistent. Wonga are not a bank. It's entirely possible to reconcile your religious beliefs with an understanding that what a high street bank does, I imagine it's a completely different beast to have to do the same with a company that pray exclusively on the financially vulnerable and make a fucking bundle out of doing so. I totally agree and I think you and I are on the same page, for the most part. It's simply a slightly pedantic but very important interpretation that if there is an objection to interest-bearing institutions full stop, then playing in the Barclays Premier League (wearing that logo) while also wearing a Virgin Money logo should also be objectionable. Particularly as barclays have a famous track record of having defrauded investors out of billions through LIBOR-fixing and other rigging games. I suspect there must be a strong moral and religious objection to having to represent, even very indirectly, such an institution. But Cisse did and has done. If he simply finds it personally objectionable, then so be it. Sevilla did allow Freddie Kanoute to wear an unbranded shirt when they had a gambling sponsor. But if it is a strictly religious stance, I'm struggling to reconcile it with the others as religion - if you are a strict believer, as Cisse seems to be - is very much about principle and hard and fast laws/rules.

If they allow him to take the pitch, even in a friendly, in an unsponsored shirt while others are wearing a sponsored shirt, it will have set a precedent that other players can and will use against the club in the future, for varying moral and religious beliefs. It's like the old saying "lie down with dogs, rise up with fleas" - once we as a club got into bed with this outfit, there were always going to be knock-on effects. Bad press, yes. Moral outcry, yes. I must admit I didn't see this one coming, but the club must have known it was a risk doing business with Wonga. We are by far the biggest club to have done so and attract the most attention as a result.

I think that's well summed up. I'm no expert on Islam or interpretations thereof but if you are taking a principled stance then by definition that principle must be consistent.

Virgin Money offer loans for Muslims, sharia banking if you will. That particular brand of high street banking is also such an integral part of society, something that has been around so long there has probably been a degree of modernisation and acceptance from Muslims too. It would be extremely hard for anyone to go about their day to day lives without banks. Payday lenders are a completely different beast. They're relatively new entities that cater to those in dire need and make vast sums of cash off the back of individuals who don't have a lot to begin with. You don't need to be a religious person to feel extremely uneasy that there's an entire industry sprung up around lending money to people who are struggling to get by at frankly eye watering rates of interest. It's sick. And these cunts are associated with our club. And in a region where unemployment is through the roof and more and more people have to rely on them. I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments regarding Wonga as a classless, parasitic outfit. But I disagree with the ability to selectively choose how to display your principled stance. There is a certain awareness that comes with accepting a pay packet from a professional football club that you may at times endorse indirectly products or services you find disagreeable or even reprehensible. You have teetotalers, perhaps religiously motivated, wearing shorts with alcohol sponsors. You have players implicitly endorsing gambling, players who may themselves find it problematic or even immoral. It is difficult to pick and choose morally between a bank like Virgin Money, even if they offer sharia banking, and a payday outlet like Wonga. Most large-scale banking outlets have been involved in operations that are morally questionable, or full-on repugnant. It still represents a stretch of "principle" if you blanch at one but not the other, even if I myself find payday outlets horrible leeches on the poor.

I'm all for players having the freedom to express their personal beliefs, but not selectively. If he had a moral objection to interest-bearing loans, then he shouldn't have worn a Virgin Money shirt. A principle is a principle, or should be. It's particularly unfortunate because there's such a strong (and understandable) anti-Wonga sentiment that helps push this thing forward in the national media. Either way, I really do wish we had a less ridiculous sponsor.

Maybe he could? It's mostly rhetorical. I'm quite sure he could. It's more the idea that our business would naturally grind to a halt while he's away at a highly inopportune time. That seems antiquated and ridiculous. But it does seem true - and maybe it's anecdotal - that our activity, whatever it was before, stopped once he left. If we're conducting business that way - that a brand-new, out-of-his-depth, possibly-mentally-ill Kinnear is now such a vital part of our transfer work that his absence is impossible to deal with, then that does depress me greatly.

Why is it that a Director of Football couldn't take a few phone calls/send a few texts on holiday? Does our transfer activity (whatever the hell that phrase even means these days) simply have to grind to a halt without the cunt? If indeed he is already so vital to our efforts, then a holiday at this stage should have been absolutely out of the question. It really is just a depressing time in general around here. Very little to get excited about. Oh, what's that? Ben Arfa's smiling again? Yay.