Unbelievable

Absofuckinglutely. If he has any respect for the club and the fans he can't afford to just stay schtum over this shitstorm..

So much agenda driven drivel. Colo has to come out now and put this to bed, he HAS to.

We need Colo to come out today and tell us what's what. Can't have this hanging over the club and team with an important match coming up tomorrow in the middle of a crucial transfer window of a season where we're flirting with relegation. You're the club captain for f***'s sake, show some leadership!

He left, rejected out contract offer. For a 20k/week deal elsewhere. Worth matching. Didn't Guthrie leave in search for first team football? Shame it hasn't worked out for him so far.

What the flying f***? It's not a sense of entitlement or even unrealistic expectations to state that considering how well our recruits are lately, and based on the fact we are doing things on a shoestring budget, that a relatively small outside investment (in footballing terms obviously) such as the one that was promised by Ashley but hasn't been delivered would go a very long way towards us being able to challenge for those top 6 positions structurally. There is a lot to be admired about the way Ashley has gone about bringing the club back on an even financial footing whilst being able to maintain a good first team. Where we are losing the battle is by not having enough squad depth, something that doesn't require hundreds of millions to fix. I don't think asking for a positive outlay in transfers like most other Premiership clubs is deluded by any means, if you think so you have well and truly bought into this mentality that we somehow should just be glad to be one of the also rans of the Premiership. Personally, I would want us to aim a little bit higher, but each to their own I guess.

Why shouldn't we? During his tenure we are one of, if not the most frugal club around. I'm not advocating Sounness like spending or putting the club at risk, just sensible investment to allow us to compete.

I've moved past anger and into acceptance now. It's easy to fall back on 'we are Newcastle, we should be challenging' for everything, but even if you agree with that you can't just leap from where we are now to that ideal situation. I disagree, being said divvy. As I've argued in that earlier post, our current transfer policy coupled with that promised extra 20 million a year by Ashley would see us having a much better squad depth and challenging for CL qualification. The frustrating bit is we are so close yet so far away from this scenario due to Ashley's frugality and lack of ambition. We only got as close as we did last year because of his ambition in the first place. The moment he stops trying to improve the team I will agree with you but that is very obviously not happening We could concentrate fully on the Premiership what with not being in Europe and out of the cups early on and were also helped by not having as many injuries as this season tbf. We are slowly but surely improving the team, and for that I am grateful, but things could be so much better if Ashley was willing to invest. As things stand last season was a one off and achieved largely despite Ashley, not thanks to him.

We can build and develop all we want, as long as Ashley is not willing to invest like the competition for those CL places do we don't stand a chance of breaking that barrier.

I've moved past anger and into acceptance now. It's easy to fall back on 'we are Newcastle, we should be challenging' for everything, but even if you agree with that you can't just leap from where we are now to that ideal situation. I disagree, being said divvy. As I've argued in that earlier post, our current transfer policy coupled with that promised extra 20 million a year by Ashley would see us having a much better squad depth and challenging for CL qualification. The frustrating bit is we are so close yet so far away from this scenario due to Ashley's frugality and lack of ambition.

I will celebrate when I want to

Get in!

Might be things in his personal life though which he would prefer to keep quiet. Also I think the chances of a move right now are extremely slim due to finances so no need to rock the boat. This summer might be different though. He doesn't have to indulge anything about his personal life. As the captain of this club especially he has an obligation if you ask me to knock this on the head and tell his father/old club to stop putting forward his name in the process if they know he's not a realistic proposition. We 're in enough trouble as it is without rumours about our club captain not seemingly being 100% committed.

Toulouse director trying to make some money of him whilst they can, although contradicts what they have said earlier. I don't think we'll go for him, but if somebody does it could mean he wants to leave now rather than wait for his contract to expire. Coincidentally, being linked with two left backs now I hope it means we are on the verge of selling Simpson on, rather than the talks about Santon going back to Italy being true..

Santon replacement?

Sib for president

You don't remember correctly and I think you underrate Sturridge, not that I'm saying that he's better than Ba. Sturridge has the potential to be an excellent player if he gets the starts through the middle like he did when at Bolton. Fair enough. Apologies.

How many clubs can ever really say that though? Honest question. The ones competing for top honours do. The fact we don't and won't anytime soon tells you the extent of Ashley's ambition for his club, sadly. Well we're not competing for top honours, I knew that unfortunately. Oh, I know it too. Doesn't mean I will ever accept it. Shepherd was an idiot, but at least he showed some ambition. Imagine what we could do with our current approach to transfers (good scouting, focus on personality, age policy, etc) combined with an owner willing to subsidise the club to a decent extent? If Ashley had kept his early promise of making the club financially stable and additionally putting 20 million per year of his own money into the club (by means of sponsorship or whatever to make it fiscally attractive for him) we would potentially be rubbing shoulders with those competing for top honours now. Well, if he also knew how to find a very good manager too that is..

How many clubs can ever really say that though? Honest question. The ones competing for top honours do. The fact we don't and won't anytime soon tells you the extent of Ashley's ambition for his club, sadly.

Both clubs needed a forward, both have them and I'm not sure what "the other one has signed Daniel Sturridge" means, I'll be over the moon if we get somebody in who is as good as he is. We just sold a striker who is much better, yet you weren't that bothered if I remember correctly..

What was the last transfer window you were happy with out of interest? Depends how you look at it. There have been windows where we've come out stronger than we went in (January 2012 springs to mind with Cisse coming in and no outgoings), but I don't think I've ever felt completely happy with our squad, in the sense that we have genuine competition for places all over the pitch like the (other?) big clubs do. What I meant though is we always penny pinch, look for bargains rather than focusing on the positions that need strengthening (last summer!), try to unsettle players to force the selling club's hand. We also like to bring in unknown youngsters in the hope they develop well, which in fairness they sometimes do (Krul, Bigi). As fans we always go mad during windows at the apparent lack of progress on our reported targets, but then again we also seem to do a lot of business under the radar too. As I said earlier, our approach to transfers has its merits and its drawbacks. Personally I think we've done pretty well since Ashley came in with regards to transfer policy on the whole. My main gripe is that there seems to be a lack of understanding of the need to build a squad rather than a first team, which is especially damaging with the additional fixtures in Europe and considering a fair few purples are quite injury prone (Steven Taylor, Hatem?) and our back up players are mostly mediocire at best. You just have to look at the benches we regularly have to put out to see where our primary problem with regards to transfer policy lies.

Every fucking transfer window is the same with Ashley in charge

Didn't watch, but by the sounds of it it was another case of Ba >>>>>>>>> Torres? Even Torres wouldn't keep picking Torres man..

Wish I could have watched this. Sounds fun..

Meh, about on a par I would say. You have to consider Michu is doing it in an otherwise midtable at best team.. Cisse did it in a relegation team punching far above their weight tbh. Give over