Unbelievable

It's the club that wants to extend his contract though, not the player taking the initiative. Let's wait for another year so he has only one season left and lose him for a pittannce or be in a much worse negotiation position when other teams will be tapping him up and offering him much more than we would have to offer now to protect our investment..

It is unrealistic to want 20k per week without being a key player? I think he is somewhere between a squad player and a first team player and should be given 25-35k per week. 9k or what ever we pay him now is laughable for a player who is captain for the U21 team and has been an important first team player for Newcastle in serveal years now... Exactly, why would he accept 15k here when he could and probably would be on 40k elsewhere if he was to move clubs? I wonder how people on here would feel if new people coming into your office doing a similar job would be on three times your wages? Don't think many would happily accept an extension without bothering to negotiate a pay rise.. My...are u serious that he is that good that someone will pay him 40k unless its Chelsea who pay average players huge salaries? You are obviously out of tune with footballer's wages nowadays. What do you think somebody like Curtis Davies will be getting at Aston Villa considering they paid over 8 million to WBA for his signature, or Bale at Spurs? And it won't be just Chelsea willing to pay that too. Wasn't Liverpool quoted with an interest in Taylor not so long ago..?

It is unrealistic to want 20k per week without being a key player? I think he is somewhere between a squad player and a first team player and should be given 25-35k per week. 9k or what ever we pay him now is laughable for a player who is captain for the U21 team and has been an important first team player for Newcastle in serveal years now... Sorry what do you mean several years?? To me he has not a outstanding season yet; always blighted by silly mistakes, rash tackles and sending offs. I do not mean to knock him..yes for a young player to make these silly mistakes are understandable and i have never blamed him or sounded my displeasure until this contract thing as I feel he has potential and ought to be given time to grow and improve. that is why for him to have 15-20k per week is very reasonable for his current calibre. It is just like us being once fresh grad or just out of school seeking job...u start with a lower wage (just like Taylor; at most 3 seasons of average first team football) unless you have outstanding credits. Tbh, really disappointed with this suituation so far. He's been in and around our squad for the last three seasons.. During that time he has been our most reliable defender, even though he was very young and only learning himself. You talk about outstanding credits, but I fail to see how he could have much better credits than being one of the best defensive talents of his generation and having been invited for the England senior team already, as well as outperforming players who were older, more experienced and much, much better paid than him. Again, if this were you, would you accept a much lower pay than your new colleagues if you had obviously contributed to a high extent to your work place just because you are younger and less experienced and had been around for a while (the loyalty factor)? I sure as hell wouldn't, which is one of the reasons why I've left my previous place of work..

It is unrealistic to want 20k per week without being a key player? I think he is somewhere between a squad player and a first team player and should be given 25-35k per week. 9k or what ever we pay him now is laughable for a player who is captain for the U21 team and has been an important first team player for Newcastle in serveal years now... Exactly, why would he accept 15k here when he could and probably would be on 40k elsewhere if he was to move clubs? I wonder how people on here would feel if new people coming into your office doing a similar job would be on three times your wages? Don't think many would happily accept an extension without bothering to negotiate a pay rise..

If he's on less than 10K now he could probably easily quadruple his wages if he moved to another Premiership club, so it's only fair that we pay him what he's worth if we want to protect our investment by extending his contract. I'd say somewhere around the 25-30k mark would be fair.

One of the problems in the Premiership is there is so much money going around compared to other leagues getting proven talent from abroad is much easier and much more cost effective than developing it yourself. This is where leagues like the Dutch Eredivisie or the French Ligue 1 come in the picture, who are at the other side of the same medal. Dutch clubs do not have as large a worldwide audience to compete financially with british clubs, so the lifelihood of these clubs becomes to invest in, develop and sell talent at a profit. Hence a lot of 17-18 year olds are being played in the first teams week in week out. By the time they are 21, the biggest talents relatively have a wealth of experience compared to their english counterparts. Robben was just 17 when he started playing regularly for Groningen, Van Persie 18 when he broke through for Feyenoord, Sneijder likewise at Ajax. By the time these players have proven their worth for a couple of seasons, they get snapped up at a profit for their old clubs, but relatively cheaply by UK standards. They represent a much more sound investment than a squad of promising 18 years olds at Benton too, because in all honesty most of them will never get a real chance to develop in the first team. In our current squad it looks like only Taylot got away, but that was also due to the relative draught of decent centre backs we have had for a couple of seasons. In normal circumstances (i.e. having a few good, experienced centre backs for squad depth) he could well have been another wasted talent.. However, minimising the number of foreign players now will only further increase the prices of average english players and make the Premiership less atractive to a national and international audience, which will in turn cost money. The problem is for real as you are running in a vicious circle, so I don't think there is an easy way out.. The same is happening in Spain I think, where the league is dominated by teams investing in foreign talent at the expense of the quality available to the Spanish national team. Maybe it's just the price of the ticket for having one of the most exciting leagues in the world..

Complete rubbish. The statement was as unambiguous as I have ever seen a statement be. Is it beyond your comprehesion that he was offered an extension at the time, which he agreed to, and he was offered another (and better) one now, which he also accepted? I don't see how you think you can take the mickey out of Wullie for something that was published in a year end financial report of the club, audited by one of the most respectable accountancy firms around..

I think thats a good assessment Big Tron. He has hinted that he could be a real world class player for a while but he's done very little of note apart from score against the mackems really. I read an article about him in World Soccer a while back (before he signed for us I think) and it seems like he's been billed as the greatest ever Turkish footballer since he was about 12. I'd never seen him play much so when we signed him I thought mint - my logic was that if he's the best Turkish player he must be even better than Tugay who i reckon is one of the most underrated premier league players ever. I also remember reading a quote from Steven Gerrard somewhere saying that he'd played against Emre all the way through international schoolboy football and he said he was always the best midfielder he ever played against at that level. Its about time He did something to justify this massive reputation he's seems to have built for himself from his time at Galatasaray. From all accounts he wasn't much cop at Inter either. He's had the excuses that he's played under a couple of duff managers since he came here and been injured a fair bit, so lets hope he can put the injuries behind him and that Sam can get the best out of him. I think he also suffered from playing with Parker, who as loads of people have said on here slowed the play down too much. He might be one of these players who needs everything to go through him, and need s to be on the ball pretty much as soon as we win it - nothing wrong with that, as long as he delivers an end product when he gets it. I seem to remember reading that George Hagi really rates him as well, form when they played together at Gala, so that is a plenty good enough recomendation for me! That's exactly what seemed to happen when he played with Butt in defensive midfield for a couple of matches last season. With Parker having been told by Roeder to play as a box to box midfielder (which was mindboggling as he was quite decent at first as a defensive midfielder), Emre was forced to be much more defense-minded than he naturally is. His game suffered massively as a result. I am confident that a fit Emre with Butt in a defensive role and alongside Barton could prove to be much more effective for us. He needs to become and remain fully fit first though, which looks like it could be a problem..

5-0 Guti... Villareal are getting raped..

Written off Allardyce already I take it?

Last season means nothing! he looks like a different player and hes showing why hes playing at top level at the minute Given will struggle with injuries all season probably aswell It's easy to say that after a few good performances, though. "He's a new man, last season means nothing". It's only 4 games in, and over the course of last season I think he showed himself as a decent deputy but not worthy of taking the position permanently. Keep him in until Given is ready and unless he's really staking a claim then give it back to Given I say. I do think good form should be rewarded, but it's easy to forget how good Given is and how poor Harper was in a lot of games last season. There's no doubt in my mind as to who the better keeper is. ^^^^ what the wise man says

You fool read the title it's what I think not the club. What do you think he is worth £15M? He is a left back and he plays for a dutch side who usually don't want too much for their players. I can't stop laughing about this comment. How much did Babel go for..? And Sneijder..? Feyenoord sold a similar type but less experienced player, Drenthe, for 8,5 million. Expect to pay around the 10M mark at least.

Did you watch the game? I was wondering about that too.. More like: Harper 7 - very good save from freekick and close header in first half. Looked very assured Taylor 7 - solid, and almost scored with a header on the bar from a set piece. Also set up Martins for the assist Roz 7 - solid and effective Cacapa 7 - solid, but I noticed his defensive headers today sometimes went straight up in the air Zoggy - 7 solid defensively and full of running, but not too much end product today Butt 8 - was everywhere, defended, tackled, crossed, shot and almost scored from a a header Geremi 7 - worked hard and kept possession well, but not too much going forward Smith 6 - worked hard, but did not create much and didn't put any crosses in from the wide right Milner 7 - a lot of effot, some decent crosses, a typical Milner display Owen 8 - made some good runs, missed a few chances, but ended up scoring the winner Viduka 7 - good through headers and layoffs in the first half Ameobi 6 - did decent, should have scored when he was through Martins 7 - worked hard and put in an excellent cross to assist Owen

Thanks Deep! This won us the game. You mean to say you forgot to pray when we played Villa and Boro..?

FT!!!

nearly 7 minutes of extra time played

blow...the...whistle...ffs

1 minute left

James in ultra cool mode..

Thanks Deep!

Good cross Martins!!

Owen scores!!!

I think he can carry on, which is quite amazing considering the way he went down..

Matty Pattison on??!

Taylor down.. Looks serious