afar

There is only one club that I have any passion for in football I have no interest in any other club, I don't mind see the local lower league and non league clubs do well but I generally dislike all other clubs, the only time I'll cheer another team on is if they have a direct effect on us or on a team I dislike more than others. My second teams lie in other sports, like the Dolphins in American Football, Falcons in Rugby and Mariners in baseball. If I had any interset whasover in Ice hockey and the CFL (which I do not) I would cheer on the Calgary teams, since I live there now.

Hall went down a long way in my estimation when he decided to take a back seat and let his son look after his interest, he seemed to get bored with the whole football thing. Then as you rightly say he shopped his stake around and was only too happy to gett a fat wedge for his stock, he din't give a s*** who he sold it to. His quotes though some are quite true are just hindsight enlightened stating the obvious crap really.

Personally I think the actally figure is 12 on plus 50k: Owen Viduka Duff Geremi Barton Jonas Colocinni Beye Smith Nolan Martins Butt The following I think are on between 25 - 50K Harper S Taylor R Taylor Guthrie Cacapa Shola Enrique Lowenkrands The following are probably on sub 25k: Bassong Carroll Lua Lua Krul

I'm not so sure about cacapa, he was sitting on the scrap heap in france when we signed him, not too many others were interested. I think 30k is more reasonable for him. It's still 30k too much of course.

Those teams keep their squads though, that's the big thing. We lose pretty much all of ours. Our success pretty much relies on how well we're able to build a new squad and how well we can make it gel, two things I have absolutely no trust in Newcastle United to achieve. No they won't, Boro will lose Downing and Tuncay and possibly also Wheater, the rest are a pile of crap anyway. WBA will lose Brunt and the striker they had on loan, and whoever else has attracted any attention from PL clubs, but again they are hardly world beaters. We won't lose everyone, the ones that will go are the ones that have cost us most in terms of salary. We have Taylor, Bassong, Beye, Enrique to name a few under contract and if we've gotten rid of the high earning dross we are not under any pressure to sell them as they are on manageable wages. We are still favourites to go straight back up as we should be, we had a revenue of 100 million last year with our resources available to us there is no reason at all why we can not come back up and absolutely no reason that we should adopt an inferiority complex to the likes of Boro, WBA and Sheff Utd.

You see it's this kind of stupid comment that gets me. Reading are in no shape or form a better bet for auto promotion than us, that's complete and utter garbage.

I'm not sure it is, and I'm also certain that people have overplayed how difficult a league it is. Cool hard fact is we took 10 pts out of 12 from the other two teams that went down this year, there is no one that didn't come up that we should be afraid of. I'm not saying it's going to be a walk in the park at all. We have to work hard, make the right decisions on managerial positions and players in and out. But at the same time we can't overestimate the difficulty of our task, we should be more than capable of coming straight back up next season. Being frightened and lacking in self confidence is a sure fire way to not achieving our goals.

People that keep saying that Webb had nothing to do with us going down and that the team's performance throughout the season is what sent us down, are not really getting at the point here. Sure we've totally deserved our fate and had we done better in certain games this season then we would not have ben in tis mess. FFS no one is denying that. The decision Webb made has also had a huge impact on our fate, it was a terrible decision and occured at a crucial time in a crucial game. Had that goal stood, which it should have, we would have stayed up, simple as that. If he ever referees a game at SJP again I hope he gets the treatment he deserves from the crowd. I wish him nothing but ill fortune in his life.

Not sure I agree with that. The last time we went up, the following season we went on to finish 3rd in the PL. Football has changed since then though. IF and it's very much a big IF we buck the trend and bounce straight back up (we've never done that before) then we'll probably have to lower expectations to survival and 17th spot would be are target. assuming we reach our goal, a season on consolidation will follow, mid table, then the season after that we would be looking to push for europe. Steady progress. This relegation has put us back by at least 2 years in my book, I know everyone is looking for that silver lining to all the clouds but realistically there isn't one and if history is anything to go by then don't expect things to change too quickly at the club, it took 4 years including a flirt with relegation to the 3rd division the last time to get us back up, lets hope we find a lot faster solution this time.

You can't SELL a player that is out of contract.

Not counting the youngsters like Krul, Carrol, Ranger, lua lua et al because they will stay. But of the first team squad I would like to see the following: Beye Bassong S Taylor Guthrie Jonas Enrique the rest can fuck off tbh.

wow thanks for that.

using guesstimates,which is all we really have to go on we could easily cull £500,000 per week from the wage bill just by getting shot of the wasters. That would still only equate to 26 million, then we've got to replace those players, if we assume that the money brought in from sales is used on replacements, there's still signing on fees and wages for the replacements to factor in. It's just really starting to hit how financially hard this is gonna hit us.

Although I think they'll be strong, I'm far from certain they will be dead certs, they will lose some players in the summer and do have a tendency to conceed too many goals. They did not run away with the league last year when they came up.

Where are you getting all these salaries from, heresay or is there an actual source ? I worked it out before if we work the loss of 45million for the TV money, this is guess work but probably another 5 million or so in advertising revenue and 10 million in gate recepts/match day income and merchandising. Then we look at a loss of 60million in revenue. Now according to the beeb we'll get 11 Million in parachute payment, it's not clear from there piece if that's per year or over two years. I'll assume it's per year and we get a paltry 1million in TV money. So if my guesstimates are correct, we need to find 48million in savings just to get back to where Llambias said we would be losing about 7million this year ! That's a hell of a lot of money.

Obvious statement but it'll be dependent largely on how well we do. If we start off on fire and maintain it all the way through as we did in 92/93, then we'll fill out the ground. If we have a good successful season and end up auto promoted or in the playoffs, we'll end up with an average of over 40k. Failure to finish in the the top 7 will see our crowds tumble to between 30- 35k max. Results will bring the fans to the ground so too will be the action in the summer, the correct managerial appointment, the right players brought in and all or at least most of the deadwood cleared out.

I'm lucky in a sense that I live so far away from Newcastle now and in a country where football is an extremely minor sport. I'm glad I haven't had to come in to work surrounded by people telling me how we aren't a big club and how we are so deluded and how the fans deserve relegation because we never give any managers enough time. All the old cliches are about in abundance on the interweb, I'm sure it must be awful for people living amongst other fans.

i'd rather retire it for a while than let that useless b****** wear it TBH Martins has been a totally undeserving owner of the shirt. We need to wait until someone comes along who will do the number justice.

That is in pretty poor taste, what end of season event is Owen celebrating? "Hahahahahahaha you f***ing mugs! I'm a multi millionaire now and I've done sweet f*** ALL to earn it! Hahahahah Geordie twats" That's about right.

Leaving NUFC, obviously

I'm plumping for WBA, they've been here before and as the quintessential yoyo club they know exactly what they need to do to get out of that division.

Been thinking about this and I think we need to sacrifice Guthrie. I cann't see Butt not filling one of the CM spots and one of our major problems this season has been lack of creativity from the centre mid, that's not really Guthrie's role, but if he stays, he and Butt will be seen as the centre midfield partnership, and that just has not worked for us. Can't see Guthrie staying unless he's first choice so lets cash in on him, we'll get our money back from Bolton or someone.

The other thing with the clauses is it acts as motivation to the players, those sitting on fat contracts don't want to have them cut in half by relegation. I honestly can't believe we've been that dumb not to include them.

I'm not going to miss him tbh. So much talent, that his effective at only not using, go be frustratingly inconsistent someplace like Blackburn or Wigan.

Yeah Butt's not gonna leave, he'll play a major role next season, whoever's in charge. Butt's hardman facade wont last long in that league, that's the only thing he has that remotely resembles a strength. If he plays a major role there is NO way we're gonna be back as a premiership team in 15 months. I have faith that Shearer knows this Unfortunately the evidence does not point to that, Shearer has picked him in every game and he was captain yesterday. I doubt Shearer will be in charge next season but whoever is will fall for the media BS about Butt.