afar

All in all a good transfer window, B+ grade from me, a creative midfielder would have put the icing on cake but I'm more than happy, I think we've got a good enough squad now to compete for a UEFA spot. Lets hope we can get them playing a system that gets the results they are capable of.

Phew can stop worrying now Beye deal is up too

why is official site just reporting Faye deal not Beye ?

hmm it's shut and no word. SSN not even talking about this. Can't believe Sam's let Solano go without getting Beye in.

Still waiting

I must admit I have yet to be impressed with Geremi, perhaps his best position may not be in midfield.

Despite Marseille and the player thinking that he is coming here? Just a feeling, probably just being my pessimistic self.

Got a feeling this one won't come off, I doubt we have a back up plan now Johnson's signed for Pompey.

it's incredible how long this one has taken, I hope he's bloody worth the wait, not sure he is personally but hope to be proved wrong.

Agree with Bentley being in there, England aren't unfortunately in a position to take the moral high ground. Don't understand picking Young ahead of Milner however Milner has been much more consistent over a longer period of time.

Got to say I'm disgusted by the attitude of some people on here, embarrased they follow the same team as me. Whatever happened during his time with us, laughing an injury a serious as this is bang out of order. I wish him all the best and hope it's not as serious as it first looked.

On the evidence of yesterday not much between the sides. However we have more potential to improve than they do.

Now that's a respectful reply although not siding with the OP, he doesn't feel the need to belittle the blokes opinions and entertains the possibility that he could be right. Wish there was more of that kind of attitude on here, I think it's called being a grown up. I too have been reasonably pleased just think that with a bit more investment we could push on a bit further and worry that if settle for a improvement on last year but still short of where we need to be it'll be a lot tougher to make that last push in the years to come.

Boro are there for the taking at the moment, Selling Yakubu and replacing him with Mido is sheer madness may give them a short term lift but Mido's not the guy you want in the trenches with you and I think Boro have a huge fight on their hands to stay up this year. I really expect us to nick a 1-0 here.

Nobody asked him to buy the football club ! It was his choice. In return for his 170mill he's got a extremely sellable assest, just ask the Chinese and the Icelanders. He could make a good profit on it , if he sold up tomorrow. So why exactly should we be thankful for that ? When you buy a football club you need to invest in the paying staff to succeed, if he's gone into this without the plan to do so then he's either a fool or here to milk the club for what he can get and walkaway. I don't think he's the former. You know the size of the Chinese offer? There really was an Icelandic one too? I cant believe you arent bright enough to work out the contradictions in what you are saying. He has invested over £170m (Should we be thankful? Hmm well that depends on the size of the queue of people waiting to invest similar amounts). He now has an extremey sellable asset does he?. Well it wasnt that sellable beforehand, not even dodgy hedge-funds wanted in. Its more sellable as he has just cleared loads of debt. How is he milking the club btw, that is a f****** stupid thing to say. If he sells it to someone willing to spend £250m to purchase it and makes a huge profit how the f*** is that 'milking the club'? Is there really any need to be so bloody agressive ? Is it the in thing to do on here, the OP made a decent if somewhat inflamatory comments, you and others just decided to ridicule him and other people who preffered to read his post and took on board what he was saying. As for your points, they are as much conjecture as mine are, you know no more about the financial proposition the club is as I do, don't start pretending you do. But if you think Mike Ashley bought into NUFC cos he just loves the Toon, then you are sadly mistaken, he's here for the same reason all the other new owners are; "To make money", I'm sure you're right he's not trying to milk the club, so if that's not the case why aren't we seeing the levels of investment in the playing staff we expected ? Spend £10-20 mil now on a good RB and a creative force in midfield and it could reap huge dividends. I certainly trust SA to spend the cash a lot better than his last two predecessors. For me, it's so damn frustrating because I can see we are so close to getting back to SBR days, we just need that last push, a short push now may be financially more prudent than holding off by which time other teams have pulled further away from us and our appeal has fallen lower.

What's the point, when exactly would we wear it ?

I'm sooooo excited by this deal I can't find the words to express it. For me there are more pressing concerns an RB and a creative midfielder is where our time and effort should be spent.

Nobody asked him to buy the football club ! It was his choice. In return for his 170mill he's got a extremely sellable assest, just ask the Chinese and the Icelanders. He could make a good profit on it , if he sold up tomorrow. So why exactly should we be thankful for that ? When you buy a football club you need to invest in the paying staff to succeed, if he's gone into this without the plan to do so then he's either a fool or here to milk the club for what he can get and walkaway. I don't think he's the former.

You people still don't see the point the OP is making, I think we can all acknowledge that improvements have been made, he's just questioning whether we've made big enough strides to propell us to were we feel we should be. Personally with the improvements to our squad and to the squads of the other teams in the league, I think we'll finish in 8th or 9th, better than last year but still mid table and out of Europe. That's the point he's making, he was hoping for better, me too if I'm honest. If Ashley had said when he took over I'm going to give Big Sam the grand total of £7mill to spend on players this summer then a think a lot of people would have been disappointed, most would have expected at least £20mill, "the blokes a Billionaire for goodness sake".

F***ing hell nowt like jumping on someone case, this board just seems to be littered with sheep these days, "ooh it's the popular opinion, I must ridicule anyone that thinks otherwise". /sigh Read what the OP said and he's actually making a lot of perfectly reasonable points as BottledDog has pointed out, the depth of the squad has not been addressed, we look well stocked up front but there's not much backing up the first team at the back and in midfield. Barring an extremely fortutious draw we have little chase of winning either of the 2 cups we have entered this year and considering the quality of the other teams we'll have done really extremely well to finish in the top 7, although it is possible I would not say it's probable. When you look at the investment in the playing staff, £7mill net, it is not lavish, I don't think anyone want's trophy signings for the sake of it but we do need a couple more quality signings, that can give us a little more class and help us to push on and compete near the top of the division. SA has addressed alot of our shortcomings, we are going to be much more difficult to beat but my worry currently is were not going to win enough of the matches we should win because we don't have that quality which is needed sometimes. It's been a good start to a big rebuilding job but it's only a start and I must admit with a Billionaire owner I probably expected a little more. Comparisions will be made with Man City, whom I think have bought excellently, it'll be interesting to see who'll get to where they want to be first.

Yeah I'll agree with that, I thought he and Milner and to a lesser extent Charlie, could be proud of their performances yesterday.

Do you think booing the players after a draw will help Sam and what he's trying to achieve then? It's not a question of being holier than thou, but your reaction to one game is certainly thicker than thick. Did I say I booed the players ? Did I say I condoned booing the players ? So now I'm an idiot and thick, fantastic what next; dense, ignoramous, stupid, 2 sandwiches short of a picnic ?

Love all the "Holier than thou" attitudes here, "I'm a super fan me cos I didn't have a pop at the side after a poor performance, anyone who does is an idiot" Well I freely admit to being one of those "idiots" because that performance was truely shocking, and but for the inemptitude of the Villa Strikers would have sent us away with a defeat, a defeat we would have thoroughly deserved. More worrying than the result was the performance, I can live with a 0-0 against Villa, even though Villa are nothing more than mid table dross themselves. But the performances lacked everything, don't be conned into thinking we kept them out because we gifted them a few good chances, they just weren't good enough to take them, we created very little and showed no desire to step things up and win the game. I still believe in Sam and what he is trying to achieve but things need to improve drastically if they are to achieve what Mike Ashley will be expecting this season, which is Europe whether Mort says it or not. There is still plenty of time of course, and it's still very much early days but don't be surprised if the new owners get impatient if no signs of improvement are made, remember Sam's not their man.

That's an understatement, he was bloody awful.

Gawd awful performance, we are crying out for some creativity from the midfield and just as worrying seemed to be a lack of urgency out there. Played terrible in the first half but whatever Sam said at half time had completely the opposite effect and they were even worse. Geremi's performance was shocking, worst player on the pitch for me. Taylor not far behind him. Butt did some good things but did a lot of bad. Owen was anonomous when he came on and Carr was well just Carr. On the postive side, Smith showed an awful lot of commitment, Charlie did well in patches and Milner for me our MoM looked our only real threat. The positive energy from the Bolton game have evaporated and been replaced with the realisation that not a great deal seems to have improved on last year. The words "false dawn" spring to mind. Sam obviously needs time but he'll not get too long to put things right.