Unbelievable

"Luque is hoping to persuade the Magpies to allow him to leave on a free transfer despite the fact that he still has three more years left on his contract at St. James' Park." What a joke we are..

A number of fairly reliable sources in Holland are saying that Ajax's technical director and chairman are currently in Newcastle discussing a deal for Luque: http://ajax.netwerk.to/nieuws/artikel/14520_Ajax%20naar%20Newcastle%20voor%20Luque.php

Not quite. Although everything Sam says is factually true, he also ommits some important facts (such as Martins saying he's very happy to be here and doesn't want to leave and us being in talks to secure a new deal without the infamous clause), which renders the message as a whole a bit strange if he indeed wants to keep Martins here. He could equally have stuck to the facts by saying "Martins is very happy to be here and in we're in talks to keep him at the club for a longer period of time, so I don't think it is very likely he will want to leave even if somebody bid the amount that's in the clause" and conveyed a completely different sentiment.

Looks like Martins is being made available for the right price. Dontcha think? He's available at £13m whether we like or not. f*** all to do with him being made available. True, but those Allardyce quotes practically read like we've started an advertisement campaign to get shot of him. Captain Pessimist returns You do have a point, although not to the extent that you've taken it. *takes a bow*

Looks like Martins is being made available for the right price. Dontcha think? He's available at £13m whether we like or not. f*** all to do with him being made available. True, but those Allardyce quotes practically read like we've started an advertisement campaign to get shot of him.

You're right. These people know nothing about football. Much better to leave these footballing matters to an offshore and marine business executive or a City lawyer.. Coming from the man who reckons Dien was a DOF. That's ridiculous. Wenger said as much. He reffered to his search for a Director of Football as somebody doing the job that Dein did previously. Of course, you would know better..

You're right. These people know nothing about football. Much better to leave these footballing matters to an offshore and marine business executive or a City lawyer..

Same newspaper, different article: http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/premiership/article2747706.ece Avram was only DoF at Portsmouth for one year, which coincidentally was their best season in the Premiership by a landslide (2006).. Lunacy indeed.

Spurs wasn't at the level that they have been in the recent past. Also, Dein has been the DoF (maybe not in title but certainly in role) at Arsenal from before Wenger was appointed in 1996 (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/6571099.stm). Chelsea is the only other club I mentioned, and a bit of an anomaly as you mention, but still a good example as apparently Abramovic saw the sense in appointing a Director of Football rather than completely depend on the manager in place and entrust them with the cash. What has the DOF at Chelsea done? Why is Mourinho constantly bemoaning he has no youth players coming through? It's all very well signing young players for huge fees that other big clubs are after, but surely that is the anti-thesis of the DOF role? Dien is not a f****** DOF. He was from the old Arsenal board who understood/headhunted and worked closely with Wenger. He didn't suggest or buy ANYBODY...He had zero input in the youth setup. As I said, he may not have had the DoF title officially, but he certainly acted the part by all accounts. The club itself states it is looking for a DoF to replace Dein itself: http://www.arsenal.com/article.asp?thisNav=news&article=477261&lid=NewsHeadline&Title=Wenger+-+My+delay+over+Director+of+Football

Spurs wasn't at the level that they have been in the recent past. Also, Dein has been the DoF (maybe not in title but certainly in role) at Arsenal from before Wenger was appointed in 1996 (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/6571099.stm). Chelsea is the only other club I mentioned, and a bit of an anomaly as you mention, but still a good example as apparently Abramovic saw the sense in appointing a Director of Football rather than completely depend on the manager in place and entrust them with the cash.

All I see is a team supposedly 'buying for the future' but the future never comes. Bar Berbs Comolli has had little affect on the current side apart from making Jol feel his job is unsafe for the last year or so. Have a look at his cv. 7 years at Saint Etienne (hardly big guns in Euro are they?). Wenger was thinking about Rodent ffs...My questioning of his judgement was too kind it seems. That story probably emanated from Thompson House though in fairness. Perhaps. But this thread has blown wide open all this DOF bollocks. Three out of the top five teams in the past two seasons have had a DoF structure in place, whereas most if not all of the rest of the Premieship do not. If Shepherd would have kept Robson on as a DoF, do you think we would have been where we were at the end of last season three seasons down the line..? The alternatives to a DoF are having managers taking care of the long term decision making at the club (not ideal because it costs precious time they should spend on first team matters and more importantly detrimental to the club's finances because managers will be replaced every few seasons and will want to bring in their own players at the expense of the investments made by the previous manager) or having a non-football chairman making important football-related decisions (something we have seen with Shepherd quite frequently, resulting in us having a top of the range training grounds described by our new previously midtable Premiership manager as at the level of an above average squash club and the chairman actively involved in bringing in the playing staff). In the past few seasons Newcastle have suffered the consequences of both alternatives. As I said earlier, the DoF structure is not without its problems if it is badly executed, but it is not a coincidence that most of the successful clubs in this league have chosen to organise things this way.

In the case of Jol if you pay even scant attention to the Spuds sites there is definitely the opinion that communication between the DOF and Jol broke down last year over a number of issues and hasn't been right since. For Jol who I consider a competent manager it must be frustrating having this geezer working against you behind the scenes. Why would any Toon supporter in their right mind waste their precious time on there?

Alternatively, if the bloke who has to get results doesn't have a clue about who to bring in or which buy represents value for money you end up with a lot of expensive dead wood, which is what we've witnessed with our previous two managers. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses. I personally believe that a DoF who works well with the manager and is concerned with the long term planning (i.e. youth setup, scouting network etc) leaving the short term first team decisions to the manager can be a real asset to a club. Just because Jol is under pressure doesn't mean their setup is a failure. They've still got an awful lot of talent and if they bring in an even better manager like Ramos it could push them forward even more than their two respective top 5 finishes (which people seem to conveniently forget about after Spurs' disappointing start to the campaign).. Just because there's apparently some issues now doesn't mean the(ir) DoF setup is worthless all of a sudden. Even at Chelsea where the roles seem to be clearly defined there was friction all last season..Arnensen/Kenyon/Mourinho it is said rarely saw eye to eye on purchases (Schevchenko and now Alex), to the point that Mourinho it was felt might even leave in the summer. Weave into this Pini Zhavi and his 'cut' and there is quite a spiders web for any manager to handle. With Big Sam if he didn't chose the DOF I'd leave things as they are....Notwithstanding recent rumours...wink wink.. If the chairman of a club wanted to install a DoF to oversee the long term planning of the club, the last thing he should do is let the current manager chose this person. Consult the manager yes, take account of his preferences and considerations certainly, but I can't see the sense in letting the manager (somebody who is there temporarily in nearly all cases) chose the DoF..

Alternatively, if the bloke who has to get results doesn't have a clue about who to bring in or which buy represents value for money you end up with a lot of expensive dead wood, which is what we've witnessed with our previous two managers. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses. I personally believe that a DoF who works well with the manager and is concerned with the long term planning (i.e. youth setup, scouting network etc) leaving the short term first team decisions to the manager can be a real asset to a club. Just because Jol is under pressure doesn't mean their setup is a failure. They've still got an awful lot of talent and if they bring in an even better manager like Ramos it could push them forward even more than their two respective top 5 finishes (which people seem to conveniently forget about after Spurs' disappointing start to the campaign).. Just because there's apparently some issues now doesn't mean the(ir) DoF setup is worthless all of a sudden.

Agreed, but we were mostly solid during games last season and the season before. It was the occasional lapses in concentration that hurt us, and the free header or quick breaks through the middle on Saturday were no different in that respect. The quote from the article is a bit neejerk insofar as lady luck was on our side a few times. Our midfield protected the back four better (I wonder what the fan reaction would have been to Roeder playing three defensive midfielders mind), but the back four itself looked a bit shaky and if Villa would have scored from one of our concentration lapses nobody would have said progress had been made defensively or we currently have strong foundations at the back. Still, a clean sheet is a clean sheet and a point is a point. I just wanted to point out that I don't think the "we would have lost this match last season" necessarily holds true as Aston Villa clearly didn't have their shooting boots on.. Solid in previous seasons? We looked shakey as f***. Believe it or not, but for a while Boumsong and Bramble looked an excellent partnership in the making. Than there was a blue patch last season where everybody was singing Pearson's praises for making us look solid at the back while we were playing the likes of Moore, Bramble and Ramage regularly. In short, we have been here before and if it's too early to say 4-3-3 will not work for us at home or a defensively minded midfield does not create enough for our strikers than surely it is also too early to say we currently have solid foundations and are making huge progress defensively? It's not just too early, in the two competitive matches we've played so far our defenders have made mistakes that cost us on one occasion and could have cost us dearly on the other..

Agreed, but we were mostly solid during games last season and the season before. It was the occasional lapses in concentration that hurt us, and the free header or quick breaks through the middle on Saturday were no different in that respect. The quote from the article is a bit neejerk insofar as lady luck was on our side a few times. Our midfield protected the back four better (I wonder what the fan reaction would have been to Roeder playing three defensive midfielders mind), but the back four itself looked a bit shaky and if Villa would have scored from one of our concentration lapses nobody would have said progress had been made defensively or we currently have strong foundations at the back. Still, a clean sheet is a clean sheet and a point is a point. I just wanted to point out that I don't think the "we would have lost this match last season" necessarily holds true as Aston Villa clearly didn't have their shooting boots on..

If Agbonlahor would have passed that ball to Reo Coker or Laursen would have headed anywhere but on Harper's body from 3 feet out we would have lost it. We didn't look extremely solid at the back and were kind of lucky not to conceed.

I can't see either party wanting a minority stake.. Makes no sense, it's got to be all or nothing.

Quality comparison Spot on. Nope, 20 million is 20 million. The comparison would be more factual if Bill Gates would have just won 500 million in Vegas.. I think he would be tempted to call it the day and order a bottle of champagne.. 40 pounds would be used as toilet paper by either billionaire, so I don't see how this would be a good comparison...

That's a good way of looking at it, but it ignores the fact that if he sells at a profit so quickly it is partly at the expense of investments that could have otherwise been made into the club by the new owners (aside from obviously our previous owners, who would have sold too cheaply).

I hope this isn't true. Even though commucation from Mike Ashley has still not been up to scratch, at least Mort was making all the right noises these past few weeks.. It will be interesting to see what they will do now. Can they resist the temptation of a quick, huge profit if this materialises into a serious bid? Also, how will the Halls and Shepherds feel if that's the case?

No they don't.. They look at the performance of Newcastle United and Newcastle United only and conclude there is still a lot of work to be done regardless of other teams' performances and results..

Do you think booing the players after a draw will help Sam and what he's trying to achieve then? It's not a question of being holier than thou, but your reaction to one game is certainly thicker than thick. What an utter disappointing reaction to a point well made. Also, nothing too wrong with that Neil Farrington article. Why can't people just call it like it is and say we were lucky to get a draw and we will need to do better..?

It looks solid enough for a match away at Old Trafford or something, but not to be repeated for a home game against midtable opposition please..

Well, this will put the fans back with their feet on the ground.. Still a long way to go..