alexthegreat

True, I think he should have waited with those commentaries. Unless he's spot on, such utterances are only going to destroy his reputation. And the drop could now be significant since the the transfers have yet to be concluded. MA could be liable to spend money just to prove KK wrong. Oh aye, like Ashley has run the club according to anything other than his own agenda these last three and a half years. And if you had any real feel for the history of our club, you'd know it would take more than KK having one pop at a discredited regime, based on bitter personal experience, to destroy his reputation up here. The truly alarming thing is that Llambias feels compelled to have a pop back. He doth protest too much... very good post, that last one

I agree thats the way to approach it. But its far from certain thats what Ashley is doing - he may want to run a Premier League side as cheaply as possible - survival every year as the aim. If selling our best players is the plan then we will never not be 'in a transistion period'. In fact I can barely remember the last time we werent 'in transition', although you could also call it shambling from one crisis to the next, which is what selling our best players every year will amount to.

Was watching a game in Australia a few years back and the commentator said that he thought that Shola just didnt have the 'competitive edge' to be a top player. I thought that was quite a good observation - fits in with what Ive seen from him. Hes always been useless coming into a game off the bench cold - his complete lack of impact is in contrast even to the likes of Ranger and LuaLua. Ive a vague recollection from years ago of him getting wound up by a whack off a defender early on and then being amazing in that game. His record against Sunderland suggests that when he gets himself fired up he can have a good game

Ridiculous that the (fully justified) general consensus is that this won't happen. Hes not happy there, wants a move, didnt play well last season, they need the money, they have a replacement. We desperately need a left back and have THIRTY FIVE MILLION POUNDS sitting there, can offer premier league football (which was enough for Cabaye to leave the champions and join us), and hes supposedly a very good player. Any normal club in this position would just do the deal, but not Ashley

sounds encouraging

Sami Ameobi driving through Gosforth about an hour ago

Presumably if Rubin Kazan beat them they are more likely to need to make a sale

Need to get something sorted today or tomorrow, Thursday at the absolute latest. the clock is ticking down to Ryan Taylor at left back in the derby

Just did exactly that. Their defenders had a big hand in all 4 of our goals. I was at a talk in before the 2-0 derby a few years ago with John Beresford and Kevin Ball (who was in charge of the mackems during the 4-1) as the guests. They fielded a few questions at the end and someone asked Kevin Ball 'how did it feel to conceed four goals after you'd celebrated the first by running over to Glenn Roeder and pumping your fist and shouting right in his face?' Ball's response was that he had never done this and he never would as he had too much respect for his fellow professionals to do such a thing. I couldn't remember whether he had or not, can anyone on here?

From that forum: In fairness that is a very good point

This is the rule: Andy Gray et al started saying 'raise your hands and your off' but it isn't actually the rule. Referees consistently interpret it that way though. I doubt its worth an appeal but doubt its frivolous either So if violent conduct = red, it begs the question as to why Barton wasn't sent off. I don't agree, fwiw, that either player did anything particularly nasty - it wasn't like Song's. But using this definition, if one goes, surely the other has to? That you Arsene? yeah you'd suspect that Arsenal will make that point during their appeal. Nothing further can happen to Barton though as he was given a yellow on the spot

This is the rule: Andy Gray et al started saying 'raise your hands and your off' but it isn't actually the rule. Referees consistently interpret it that way though. I doubt its worth an appeal but doubt its frivolous either

Im gonna believe Andy Gibney and ignore Andy Brassell

More 'other clubs lack of transfers' but look at this site for Everton's transfer activity: http://evertontime.com/

Would still like to see this happen. 2 weeks to go and hes still not gone anywhere, and I doubt hes gonna get near the city first team - could get him on a season long loan. Would mean Ashley wouldnt even have to suffer the pain of actually paying a fee for someone, in fact there could even be a possibility that City might contribute to his wages

http://www.caughtoffside.com/2011/08/14/man-united-to-make-shock-14m-bid-for-newcastle-united-star/ Manchester United have earmarked Cheik Tiote as the right man to beef up their midfield. Sir Alex Ferguson is reportedly keen to add more steel to the centre of his midfield, especially now that Owen Hargreaves has been released by the club. None of the club’s current midfield options are considered out and out defensive midfielders with the likes of Anderson, Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher all being considered players that play more of a role moving the ball forwards. Chelsea were expected to renew their interest in the Ivory Coast international following the injury to Essien in pre-season training that has sidelined him for six months but instead it is United that are showing the strongest interest. Given the uncertainty that appears to surround Newcastle United and the reported unhappiness displayed by a number of the club’s squad at the manner in which Mike Ashley is running the club, perhaps a move to Man United would tempt Cheik Tiote? The Ivorian cost Newcastle United just £3.5m a year ago and an offer four times that amount may also tempt Ashley for he is clearly not immune to the idea of selling a player for financial gain even if it upsets the St James’ Park masses. Alan Pardew has been given precious little of the £35m the club received from Liverpool for Andy Carroll and has had to pick up freebie bargains or cheap talents such as Demba Ba, Yohan Cabaye and Sylvain Marveaux. The Magpies have lost captain Kevin Nolan and Jose Enrique and there is still a chance that Joey Barton will also be on his way after his twitter tirade. Ferguson is apparently a fan of the former FC Twente man and could do with some added steel in his midfield so an offer for Tiote would make sense, not least because in his debut season in the Premier League the 25 year old impressed greatly. caughtoffside have never been right about anything have they?

hes 5ft11 according to wikipedia. Never seen him play but going off youtube and comments on here he seems to be a pacy type who plays off the last man

Still got a feeling we'll end up with Erdinc. I saw a quote from him saying hes going to 'fight for his place' which usually means sit and pick up money for doing nothing If hes just sitting on the bench at PSG then surely he'd come here if we matched the wages hes on now. Cabaye has sacrificed champions league football to come here from France, cant see why Erding would be that desperate to stay.

Any idea what time? match commentator just said 10 past 6

thats one idea I hope never gets off the ground

Thought he fitted in with what we'd been told he'd be - good on the ball, but really poor decision making - once he gave the ball to Cabaye (I think) for what was an obvious give and go and then didn't move. Also seemed to attempt a cross to no one at all from 15 yards inside the Arsenal half out wide on the right. However he was still better than I expected - really fast, looked to take players on and i thought his first touch looked immaculate.

Could just be me but I thought that he was anonymous for the first 15 mins and then was growing into the game more and more after that. I wouldn't have taken off - thought he was just starting to influence things. Was happy enough with him - was left with no doubt that he is a definite upgrade on Guthrie anyway

Funnily enough I was chatting to wor kid today about Hughton and we remarked upon how he was quite good at making substitutions. Even Robson was f***ing awful at changing it up (unless he was making a triple change). you were not alone mate

sigh What? As I said, if it was a player from the other team people would have gone off it. Sick of him posturing as a moral benchmark on Twitter when he dives and stubs out cigars in peoples eyes. I entirely agree with you, was wonder what afar was sighing about. There's this "Barton gets overly victimised" mentality. He acted like a grade A t*** today and should deservedly be criticised for it. Barton has serious problems. In his head he is always the victim. Having a bunch of people jumping on twitter and encouraging his delusion is only going to make the whole thing worse. Why on Earth they were reading his twitter ramblings on MOTD is beyond me. Shouldn't be encouraging him or footballers in general to be on there talking rubbish all the time. Agree with this like. I wonder if he has had this aspect of his personality "rehabilitated": “I used to sit in school and look at the other kids and think, ‘These aren’t the same as me’. And I even look at people today and think, ‘They’re not the same’. And I don't know what it is. I almost felt like I had a higher calling, you know, there was some reason. And I thought it was football but the more and more I play football, the more and more I think it’s not football. I don’t know what it is, and until this day I still haven’t got my finger on it.” - Joey Barton From Aug 2008: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle4449472.ece