afar

While that would make sense, the thing that kind of puts a question mark against that is the fact that Llambias seems to know already how much they will lose next year. But as Shak correctly points out, this is still an improvement and past windows. Although we are running low on saleable assets now.

Is this really enough to begin to turn the squad around ? "However, Llambias has vowed that United will spend again in the summer and with several players set to be out of contract in the summer, the MD believes the wage bill will be freed up to allow Newcastle to sign players who fit into the new structure. He added: “There is £8m there and it will be spent in the summer. “Mike isn’t afraid to spend money out of his own pocket. “Last year we lost £34m, this year we’ll lose £20m, and next year it will be around £7m." http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2009/02/10/five-year-plan-in-glory-quest-72703-22893622/2/

Seems like an appropriate time for a bump. Those of us that were worried early on were sooo wrong weren't we ? Thee point we were trying to educate people on, is the fact that we had been through this all before and the signs were all pointing to what we have here, which is one hell of a fight to stay in the league. If you wouldn't take 17th right now, you're officially of your freakin head.

Damn I'm a slow typer, come on lads !!!

Hardly unexpected, but what's really unforgiveable is that here we are on Jan 28th, and what have we done to get us out of the hole even Stevie Wonder could see. Brought in one free transfer. Enjoy the next 15 games, we might not get the chance to watch top flight football for a while.

Man City's home form has been good this season, they've got the boost of the new signings they've made. We are in horrible form, injuries everywhere, no desire within the team, Shay's situation will add further to our problems. We've got a clown of a manager and a fool of an owner. TBH, the best we can hope for is avoiding a hammering, our goal difference can ill afford another 3-0 loss like last time out.

In one word, a "Miracle".

Completely outclassed, we are going down

Not very confident about this one, got a feeling old boys will once again come back to haunt us. Can really see us winning the midfield battle. I'm going for 2-1 to west ham.

What will be interseting is what the fuck happens at the end of the season. It feels like almost a phoney war atm, that we are just all being unified for the sake of the club. Come the end of the season what happens to JK, if we stay up he's got a good chance of getting another contract, if we go down he may be seen as the best manager we can hope for in our situation by the people running the club. Who goes, well Owen of course, Given, Zog, Enrique, Viduka, Gerimi, Cacapa and Harper are more than likely. If we are in the Championship then good players like Martins, Colo, Barton and Jonas won't stick around, if we stay up those will be cherry picked anyway by other clubs, with likely little resistance from the owner. So who do we replace all these players with, who's frst going to come here, secondly does anyone really expect Ashley to splash the cash ? Season tickets sales will be in the toilet, as the credit crunch carries on, nothing much to look forward to on the pitch and continued uncertainty off it, those fairweathered supporters who boosted our attendances for so long will invest the money save into something else. Sorry to sound overly pessimistic, but tbh we have not hit anywhere near the low yet, much worse days are on the horizon

As much as I have appreciated his return to form this year and realise that his best years are probably still ahead of him. I would still cash in. We need the cash to finance other parts of the team more desperately, in Harper we have a more than able deputy and with Krul and Forster and Soderberg, I'm pretty confident about the future. I fee of plus 10mill or a player exchange plus cash for a priority position though is the minimum I would take.

Then again, how many players have been given a £100+k contract at 25, and then still offered £90k aged 29? Will Owen see it that way though? Do you think he'll consider himself lucky to get that offer in what he (and others) will consider the peak of his career? To be fair to Owen he's a world class striker and not a player you can honestly ategorically doesnt warrant a £100k wage in the first place, it'd be a massive thing for him to be takng a pay cut whilst players like Lampard and Terry are getting a pay rise AND longer contracts offers at older ages. How do you think that will bode for him? People get salary increases because other clubs will pay them that amount, Owen started on a wage far more then anyone else were willing to or even could pay. He's a world class striker IMO that would be worth £100,000 a week if he wasn't injury prone he's not stupid so he'll realise that has to be taken into account. Remember, we're not just talking anout £90,000 a week, more then anyone else will pay IMO, we're talking about a 4 year contract which means he'll still be on £90,000 when he's 33. For a player with such major injury problems that's an incredible deal. If he doesn't see it that way then I hope we don't offer him a penny more. You know teasy, that's probably the best thing I've seen you write, absolutely spot on.

Aye, Lee Ryder is awful, truely awful, makes Oliver look half decent tbh

fantastic result, we really need that, after yesterdays results.

Can this thread not be closed now: Surely the answer is: no one !

I've been more or happy with JK. Thought he had done a pretty decent job up until now, under the circumstances. However his mismanagement of the game on Saturday, which followed similar displays of poor choice making, has me re-appraising him. His tactics (since half time) and substitutions on Saurday were just plain bad. We've got to win home games against teams who will be in and around that relegation battle. Teams like Wigan and Stoke. We've thrown away 4 points there, 4 points which would have significantly pushed us up the table. It'll not be so easy when the likes of Chelsea, Manure and Liverpool visit SJP. At this moment in time I'm really worried that we've lost the knowledge of how to win games. That'll come and haunt us soon enough when others around us pick up points. We need a big transfer window, something I'm not sure JK and MA can deliver.

this is a absolute disaster

That's actually not even true, we have a very good record against Wimbledon at SJP, including a few pastings for them. Where we struggled was when we had to travel to their place.

This has possibly already been said but really can't be arsed to read through all the pages. This is an absolutely must win game, a huge chance to pull away from the bottom three against a team that will be near the relegation battle come the end of the season and one that doesn't travel all that well. A draw is not good enough from this one.

I hope he doesn't go. I have no doubt in my mind that if he stays they'll go down, without him they have a fighting chance.

I'm sorry but that's a load of bollocks. Both Zog and Jonas were wasteful on the ball today, their final pass was poor, except for one time right at the end when Jonas got to the byline. It's easy to point the finger at Butt and guthrie but TBH of the four midfielders those 2 played better today, Jonas and zog were not starved of the ball at all.

Thought we did ok today, a draw was probably a fair result overall. We looked very solid at the back which is a good thing, but we lacked a bit of creativity in there, didn't think zog and jona had their best games for us. Thought Owen was poor today, should have come off when Viduka came on. Viduka did well in the small time on the pitch. We need to start winning though, unbeaten in the last 3 but we could have gotten the same points haul had we beaten Wigan at home, which are games we have to win. Bolton fans are talikng about europe now, considering they were bottom of the league only a few weeks ago, shows how tight it is. There is a chance though to pull away from the 3 at the bottom right now, all of whom are in awful form, we must capitalise by starting to win a few.

To be perfectly honest JK has perform way beyond my expectations when he was appointed. My expectations however were extremely low. The obvious assumption that we can make from this is that the club will not be sold before the end of the season. This is not good news at all unless it's coupled with a complete overhaul of PR from Ashley and his board, an acknowledgement that mistakes have been made and a commitment to putting things right and backing the club. But we all know that's unlikely. Will we survive? That's the big question this season, and for a club of our size, it is utterly embarrasing and simply not an acceptable situation to be in. But even if we do, the damage of the non sale may only give us a respite from a plunge down to the fizzy pop league. If we survive, Ashley will surely hand JK a longer deal, season ticket renewals will be in the toilet, and the squad's quality will deteriate as JK buys players on past reputation as opposed to current ability. The future of NUFC is far from bright unfortunately.

Excellent performance today. Though Bassong was immense and Colocini had a great 2nd half, the whole team worked their socks off, thorouly deserved the point.

I'm concerned for next week, even the most optimistic of us will not expect anything other than an arse beating at stamford bridge. Couple that with a few other results which could go the wrong way and we could get plunged deep in it again. Off the field we are still a mess, that could get worse if progress is not made on the sale of the club soon. When I started this thread, I really thought my feeling that we could struggle to stay up was a temporary thing and that soon we would have the direction that would take us out of the mess. Unfortunately that's not happened and we are still very much in it, with no real sign of it changing. The easier games ticking away, we only played two of the eight games we can usually write off. You would have to be off your head not to take 17th spot right now with two very grateful hands.