afar

TBH I think the more mature dicussion has been coming from those on the 'impatient' side of things. It's the others that have been posting crap like this in response. They even resort to administrators of this very forum starting gloating "i told you so" threads, after 1 signing that no one know much about ! There have been a few very good posts from people such as TT and and mrmajorism (sp?) about the need to break the cycle of panic buying by being proactive in the transfer market and making early moves, if you chose to interperate that as OMG panic panic panic, then so be it. Don't take anything ShiteaM says literally, we all know he's either a WUM or completely insane.

I'm not defending Barton here by any means, I'm still very much undecided on him but what I will say is that a lot of people here seem to think that he won't change. It's probably because the majority on here seem to be around his age or younger but Barton will mature, we all do, I know when I think back to my early 20's I cringe at some of the things I did (nothing like what Barton's done, I hasten to add, I'm not the violent type). But at that age we think we are all grown up and know everything, it's natural, we are not kids anymore so surely we are mature adults. Well there's still an awful lot to learn for most of us, I know I really didn't 'grow up' until I was 30. Without sounding like your dad or headmaster, all I'm saying is he'll change and hopefully for his sake mature and the time in jail could act as a reminder to him that such behaviour is unacceptable.

It is good news, it's been long over due, I'm quite happy to admit I was getting a little nervous and still will be until our squad is fully bulked up. Lets remember it's still so far 5 out and only 1 in to an already thin squad. There's a lot more work to be done, but it's a good start. As for the player himself, I don't think anyone knows too much about him on here, so we are gonna have to hold off on judging the quality of the signing until he's had the chance to porve himself to us. One good sign is the fact that no press conference has been called, this indicates to me that other signings are in the pipeline and they'll call a joint press conference later on this month, something KK has done in the past notably with the Ginola, Barton and Sir Les signings.

If we can afford to make a stand, make a stand but we can't at the moment. Geremi and Butt for your central midfield with Smith backing them up, that midfield all season will get us relegated. I'm not convinced relegation is a fair price to pay for the moral highe ground. For me it's get rid but get rid on our terms when we've got replacements through the door and we've got a means to recoup our losses. I'm pretty confident that won't be our midfield, anyway regardless it shouldn't mitigate our response to a player who clearly doesn't deserve to wear the black and white. It absolutely should IMO, our first and foremost concern should be what's best for Newcastle United, our standing on the moral issues for this situation should follow that. At the moment the best thing for the football team is to hang on to him. That might change if and when bodies come in. But if we sack him now without those bodies we take a big gamble, I would rather us not take TBH. Also sacking weakens our hand in negoiations with his replacements, our paper thin squad will look even more in need and our desperation will be noted by the selling club. The club have done the right thing thus far for me in not saying anything problem is the pressure is now mounting on them to act but we are not in a position to take the correct course of action. Another reason to be a little dissapointed at our lack of transfer activity.

Initially I thought the delay in releasing a public statement by the club was down to waiting for the Dabo verdict but it could be they are waiting to make those signings so they can be in a position to sack him.

If we can afford to make a stand, make a stand but we can't at the moment. Geremi and Butt for your central midfield with Smith backing them up, that midfield all season will get us relegated. I'm not convinced relegation is a fair price to pay for the moral highe ground. For me it's get rid but get rid on our terms when we've got replacements through the door and we've got a means to recoup our losses.

The stark reality is, until we get some players through the door we simply can't afford to sack him (from a personnell point of view not financial). That as well. I'm only bothered about my club, tbh it would be fair enough to see the guy get his legs broken in prison and not be able to play football again and we receive insurance money. But that won't be happening, were not that lucky enough. People will bleat on about damaged reputation, well the only rep in football that matters is what you do on the pitch, our poor performances over the last few years are a bigger deterrent to potential fans and players than Barton will ever have on the club, keep him or sack him. End of the day he's worth money when he leaves, we need to keep hold of that stock especially since Ashley is doing his best impression of Scrooge. The bit I highlighted in bold, is something that needs to be pointed out to anyone that says sack him. In an ideal world I would sack him too, he's not the role model you want for toon fans but we have to do it on our terms, if we sack make sure we recover our losses as Chelsea are pursuing with Mutu. But as you said, having Souness and Roeder and to an extent Allardyce as manager has done more harm to our reputation that Joey Barton.

The stark reality is, until we get some players through the door we simply can't afford to sack him (from a personnell point of view not financial).

Am I the only person fascinated by the number of legal experts in this thread (Not just aimed at you btw) So who was it aimed at then ? TBH, I don't see too many people claiming to be legal experts here, just a mature conversation anybody with a half decent education could contribute too. Certainly it doesn't take a rocket scientist to post anything I have posted in this thread (or any others for that matter:)). But I could be wrong as I've only read the last few pages.

Blackburn's is pretty damn impressive TBH. Who was the manager before Hughes

Like I said I doubt there's anything there to protect us against the Dabo trial, as that was already due to take place when we signed him, his lawyers surely wouldn't have been stupid enough to pop a condition in there to say that should he go down Newcastle can terminate the contract with no penanlty and he'll be liable. However I'm sure he would have signed on a good faith basis that his behaviour has improved, under the promise that he'll not drag the club's name through the dirt and any subsequent court appearance and jail terms will leave him in breach of contract and give us the option to terminate and recover costs. If we haven't got that in there, then Mort especially being a lawyer himself wants his head examined. Shepherd was the one signing players when Barton was signed iirc. OK I wasn't sure on dates and stuff so did a little research on the ever unreliable Wiki: Ashley bought SJH's shares on 23 May. Confirmation that he was to buy FS out on 7 June. Barton signed on 14 June. Shep may still have been the chairman but I find it hard to believe that anyone other than Ashley (with Mort advising) would not have had the final say on the deal going through (which obviously mean't looking at the contract), this was his first purchase and an extremely controversial one at that. Anyway it doesn't really matter as whomever was in charge, to not protect us would be completely mad, considering Barton's history. Barton signing was confirmed on the date you mentioned. However, all terms were agreed weeks before, but Barton was messing around over a £300,000 bonus he was owed by Manchester City. That's true but before sanctioning that extra 300k payment our new owners would surely have wanted to OK the contracts, we didn't have to confirm the deal, if we didn't want to. Anyway I think it's a mute point because surely there's something in there that protects us, it's in most every other contract of employment for all walks of life.

Like I said I doubt there's anything there to protect us against the Dabo trial, as that was already due to take place when we signed him, his lawyers surely wouldn't have been stupid enough to pop a condition in there to say that should he go down Newcastle can terminate the contract with no penanlty and he'll be liable. However I'm sure he would have signed on a good faith basis that his behaviour has improved, under the promise that he'll not drag the club's name through the dirt and any subsequent court appearance and jail terms will leave him in breach of contract and give us the option to terminate and recover costs. If we haven't got that in there, then Mort especially being a lawyer himself wants his head examined. Shepherd was the one signing players when Barton was signed iirc. OK I wasn't sure on dates and stuff so did a little research on the ever unreliable Wiki: Ashley bought SJH's shares on 23 May. Confirmation that he was to buy FS out on 7 June. Barton signed on 14 June. Shep may still have been the chairman but I find it hard to believe that anyone other than Ashley (with Mort advising) would not have had the final say on the deal going through (which obviously mean't looking at the contract), this was his first purchase and an extremely controversial one at that. Anyway it doesn't really matter as whomever was in charge, to not protect us would be completely mad, considering Barton's history.

TBH, I don't think the problem is the Judicial system more the infrastructure that backs it up. The lack of space in jails forces judges hands to place unduely lient senteces. Build more jails is the simple solution, but with lands prices in the UK that's bloody expensive and I would imagine a lot of people resist having a new jail pop up within their community. Personally I would be all for building one on a remote island off Scotland but all the civil liberties groups will complain because the families can't visit their axe murdering paedo relatives.

Like I said I doubt there's anything there to protect us against the Dabo trial, as that was already due to take place when we signed him, his lawyers surely wouldn't have been stupid enough to pop a condition in there to say that should he go down Newcastle can terminate the contract with no penanlty and he'll be liable. However I'm sure he would have signed on a good faith basis that his behaviour has improved, under the promise that he'll not drag the club's name through the dirt and any subsequent court appearance and jail terms will leave him in breach of contract and give us the option to terminate and recover costs. If we haven't got that in there, then Mort especially being a lawyer himself wants his head examined.

It's strange that he would change his plea so late on but kind of understand it must have been a difficult decision to make. He probably thought that due to his previous that it would be to hard a case to fight to prove his innocence. The evidence, eye witness accounts must have been stacked up against him. He may have got involved in some plea bargaining reducing the term he's getting, which undoubtably he'll get and like mentioned above may have got some concessions to allow the term to run concurrently with the 6 months he's already on. Also another factor he and his advisors will have factored in is his potential employment post jail term. Having a long drawn out case, dragging dirty laundry in public may have further damaged his re-employment prospects, especially if found guilty in the end. I believe the club have been waiting for the outcome of the trial, we don't know the details of his contract but I doubt we are too protected against the Dabo verdict, although if we don't have something in there to act on the case he's currently serving time for then our legal team want shooting. I expect a sacking with a legal suit to try to recover lost revenue should someone else take a punt on him. The club clearly has to do something, they won't be able to sweep this whole thing under the carpet.

Viva Espana !! I'm pretty damn happy Come on lets go one better than 84. I'm actually felling confident that one of my teams can win something meaningful for the first time in my life

Thanks for your permission, I might just do that (cue the smileys, and pathic jpg posts). And thanks for using your role, to add to the debate. If you read what I said you would realise my comment was not aimed at the forum in general but the quality of posts of late, that in turn was in response to a comment Matty made about on of IMO the few decent threads we've had of late. But if you find you look more cool posting "well if you don't like it fuck off" then so be it.

http://www.moorethanenough.com/images/crying_baby.jpg I give up.

I'm not quite sure if this guy is being ironic or proving my point

I agree that the board did turn to the negative side after that interview KK gave. Which makes me further question, why the hell did he open his mouth ? It was a negative comment which only brought the fans from a state of eager anticipation for the future to a down, anxious and worried. If it was a crude attempt to lower expectations, it had that effect unfortunately it worked too well. If it was an attempt to force Ashley's hand to release funds, well there is hardly any evidence of that working. In terms of the quality of threads on here, it's been awful for a while tbh. And I'm questioning the amount of time I spend here, so will probably take another break from the board again, doubtless that'll please a fair few on here. I've tried to liven things up a little by being a little controversial and atagonistic but without too much success. So far we have multi page threads on players we've only vaguely linked with, 2 fashion related threads that the kids keep posting in and bumping to the top and the good old faithfuls, "other clubs transfers" and "Realistic Transfers". It's all rather mundane, which is only partly due to the lack of activity coming from SJP. TBH we need more threads that encourage debate, to a certain degree this one does. Sometimes to get a debate going people have to come from "left field" a little. If some posts "we are shit we are never going to sign anyone. FACT." then yes it is negative crap that we can do without, but if the write a reasoned account of why they are feeling down at the moment , then that should be encouraged as it opens debate. TBH I have noticed a lot of "one liner" poster on here now, the vast majority of their posts are aimed at looking "cool", making a humourous remark, belittling someone, personally abusing another member or even some just quoting another "one liner" whithout even typing a word of their own! What do these people add to the debate...absolutely nothing. There's nothing wrong with one line post but use them in moderation, when 99% of your posts are of this type then ask yourself what are you adding to the debate. I've noticed some posters I remember from a long time ago on here, who used to be post some really good stuff, but now have fallen into the "one liner" camp and that's a shame to see. Mattypnufc, this wasn't aimed at you, just a opportunity to voice my opinion. I enjoyed your post even though I don't agree with a lot of what you said, it's opened up a debate, which I have temporarily hijacked, sorry bout that.

TBH, Spurs is probably a good fit for him. He's a London boy, joining much buigger club the where he's come from. A club that like it or not has a fair amount of glamour about it, looks to have an exciting future and he'll be gaurenteed first team football. I agree with your comment about him being a dickhead though, but he's a great player and he probably sees Spurs as a good career move and frankly I can see why.

I thought that was quite entertaining and scarily plausible.

TBH, I would pay 17mill for Bentley, in today's market it's not that bad, considering his talent, age and proven ability to cope with the PL.

I want a title like Shiteam has. I'll settle for "Cunt", "Wanker", "Tosspot", "Arsehole" or just "I fucking hate Brummie"

I would prefer we stay well away from the Tottenham reject TBH.