afar

Geez christ, are people on this board so f***ing think they can't see what's obvious ? I will try to spell it out. These two meet, this Desmond guy or whoever he is gets them together, he owns a paper or two. There is a story here, he could just run it himself right now, he's there at the meet, so knows what's going on. Instead he thinks, I can stoke the fire a little before releasing my story. I'll call one of my free lance photographers I know, tell them where this is going down and be ready. Lets make sure I'm predominantly snapped in the shot. A few days later I'll give an exclusive to one of my rags, spilling the beans. I honestly despair that I had to write all that out, the whole freakin world is about spin and how to maximise publicity ffs, this is a staged sideshow, the first pump ffs!! Something is coming soon, lets hope the fist pump was well founded and he's not a Mackem !!

p*ss take, surely? Yeah but the wierdo middle man is confusing the situation, someone obviously leaked their meeting to the press, otherwise why would a photographer just be there. If this guy owns a paper or two why is the Sun running with the story and not one of his own. Unless this isn't the real story and exclusive will drop soon ..... It's a public place, in London. Don't you have any idea how the paparazzi work? Yeah the paparazzi is just hanging outside a high class curry shop whose most expensive dish is a massive 15 pounds. They were probably hoping to catch Will and Kate, but happily settled for this story. Clearly tipped off, probably by the guy in the shot himself, who conveniently hung around the doorway long enough chatting to Amanda for the photographers to get a good snap. Like I said this is not the real story, one of his shit rags will break it in the next couple of days no doubt.

p*ss take, surely? Yeah but the wierdo middle man is confusing the situation, someone obviously leaked their meeting to the press, otherwise why would a photographer just be there. If this guy owns a paper or two why is the Sun running with the story and not one of his own. Unless this isn't the real story and exclusive will drop soon .....

There's no picture of the two parties together, could just have been a random coincidence that they were at the same restaurant as each other.

I do think we'll get decent results in our games (apart from Arsenal & Man City) before the end of the New Year. 20+ points going into Stoke away and we're well on track to stay up. Why take a chance though if you are PCP ? If you can't get a deal done in before January is out, just wait it out a little longer, they've no competition, see which division we are in and then push on or look elsewhere.

If I were PCP I wouldn't take the risk in buying us in Feb, if Ashley follows his recent pattern of under funding the window we are going down, even with Rafa in charge. Why push a deal through in those circumstance, you could be over paying for a champo club ? Unless of course our form has completely turned around and we are on about 30 points or something.

I’ve researched the history of the club quite extensively and while the author is kind of right, in fact he is right, NUFC as Newcastle United was ‘born’ in 1982, but as West End correctly folded and not merged East End become NUFC so technically the history of the club dates back 10 years earlier when Stanley were formed. They changed the name to East End as there was already a football team going by the name of Stanley. East End were formed by the cricket club by members who would play football as a hobby going back some 20 years or even more prior to 1881. It was only as the popularity of the sport grew did they decide to get in on the act with their own football team with many of the cricket team representing the football team. The record books show NUFC formed in 1882 but go through the records back to that era and you won’t find 1882 other than when the club become East End and then when West ceased being, Newcastle United. It was the 90s where the club latched onto 1982 which has since become synonymous with the club. I’ll celebrate Newcastle United as NUFC being 125 years old but we are probably more of a 150 year old ‘club’. Btw the club is historically one of the most important in the game, we have played several key roles in the development and formation of it from playoffs to offsides and replica shirts even. In the 20s fans who could afford a tailor would get black and white suits for Wembley which the less well off ripped off by painting their shirts black and white. NUFC fans were one of the first set of fans to attend matches decked out in club colours. Also and I found this quite funny, not long after the club moved to SJP where fans basically stood on wooden boards around a marked out pitch to avoid getting bogged down in mud (the pitch was literally on a hill and when it rained it become a mud bath), a fruit and veg stall would do a roaring triad in tomatoes which were bought to throw at players who basically didn’t perform. The opposition were always applauded for their efforts though and NUFC spectators would soon get a reputation as a tough crowd to please for the home team, but a sporting lot for the visitors who would relish a trip to Newcastle. There are traces of this kind of mentality today in the stands. I love the history of our club, it’s shame the fat c*** has pretty much destroyed the last 10 years or so if it. Time for a new chapter... Yep I do find it odd that they use 1892 as the founding year when it really only the establishment of the current name and the move of the club to SJP as they took over West End's assets. The following year we joined the football league and started the most successful period in the club history, shame non of us were around to witness it.

One thing is consistent with him is that his decision making needs a lot of work, he's always looking to shoot, which shows he's not afraid but he often doesn't look up to see if anyone else is in a better position. If Atsu is fit, the leicester game may be his last start for a while, needs a goal or a good assist from this stretch of games.

He needs to play a lot better than Saturday, couldn't really be much worse, costing us the two goals we lost by ! It's either feast or famine it seems with him lately, 2 assists for us against Brom and two assist against us Versus Chelsea. I highly doubt Rafa will drop him though with Atsu back but he's got to produce positively more the he has lately.

I have always hated the loan system and been thankful that we've not really exploited it like the flithy gits to our immediate south but this January is the time we need to be on it, don't need options to own. With little money available we need quality players and the only realistic options are probably loans, especially in a world cup year where players want to be playing to make their national squads.

You lose some protection in mid though, he gets through a ton of work and allows Shelvey to play. I would like to see him in the ten though Hayden serves the same function IMO, albeit in a more limited capacity when he's in possession. I'm just sick to death of Perez/Diame/Joselu really, scratching for a solution. I've been advocating all season for a flat 3 for Shelvey, Merino and Hayden but it's the one combo I don't think Rafa has even tried. Not sure why that is.

STFU dude, what do you know of me ? I was perhaps the first on here to be openly critical of Ashley while others were still sucking on him for saving us from Shephard and Hall. Rafa is fanstastic but not perfect, if he was he wouldn't be managing us right now that's for sure. He is not above critic, you're right he's not been supported anywhere near well enough, his work last year with transfers was excellent by in large for the short term, but a lot of those signings seem to have one thing in common (great for the champo, just not good enough for the PL), he's also spent the ridiculously limited amount of money poorly his summer signings have be poor and he's focused on the wrong areas. Give the man 40 million or so and we'll survive, 20 million is much more of a gamble based on his record so far finding PL quality for us.

This is wrong. He bought and built really well with us, and also at Napoli where the team he built is the one doing so well now. I thought he bought well for you for last season. Maybe not so much for this, but he wasn't given loads and he found you a bargain in Merino. Yes, he buys a few players at lower prices who don't work out, but then that applies to all who rummage at the bottom end of the market. The problem is when you only have a few quid, nearly every buy has to work out. No it's not. His record with us is rank average really: Good Merino (though still very early days) Clark (Did a great job in the Champo but jury very much out on PL ability) Ritchie (Same as Clark, outside the Brom game he's been downright awful during this run) Gayle (as Clark again) Yedlin D. Murphy (short term, low risk that worked but hardly the single reason for us getting back up) Atsu (could still go either way, but cheap and done OK job) Bad Sels Lazaar Diame Gamez Manquillo LeJuene J Murphy(still early days and may turn out great but not the player we needed to blow half our budget on) Joselu (we overpaid at 5 million !!) The biggest issue we've had this summer with his dealings is he's wasted the bulk of our budget on trying to enhance areas of the team that weren't the most pressing need, instead of wasting 20 million or so on Murphy and LeJeuene he should have spent that money on a number 10, a striker or whatever. I also still think the GK situation was poorly handled, I still refuse to believe Krul wasn't our best option at the start of the season. Yet he makes easily our worst keeper our number one. His original solution to the GK situation was atrocious and is out on loan back in Belgium. Like I said he does uncover the odd gem, but there is a lot of crap too to wade through, that's why I said he needs a buffer, 20 million in today's market is nowhere near enough as he would have to guarantee to hit on the one or two players you could get for that and his record is 50% hit at best with most of those hits still having huge question marks against them.

Few random unrelated points: Sounds like in the top flight loans are not 1 million anymore, unless you are doing the loaning club a huge favour. 20 million will never be enough to fix all our issues, but I would rather us not waste it on 4 Joselu's, it's clear what 5 million buys you, therefore quality over quantity is important. Rafa isn't great in the transfer market, that's clear to see from his time at Liverpool and with us, he does strike gold sometimes though but we need some buffer built into our budget to allow him to mess up or shorten the odds on signing that quality we desperately need. May need to sell a player or two we don't want to lose in order to move forward: Ritchie, Shelvey Mbemba, Clark or Colback obviously integral players but we need the money to reinvest in other areas. Since there's clearly no sign of a takeover then finding additional funds is going to be vital. We absolutely must get rid of the deadwood we couldn't shift in the summer, but it's probably going to be even tougher in a January window, when we've given no shop window for them to shine in previous months, the best we can possibly hope for is a loan move away for the likes of Saviet, Haidara, the aforementioned ginger one and if we secure a proper keeper one of Elliot/Darlow. Mitro and Gayle have some value because they are strikers but we've given neither of them a stage to set there worth by playing a fake footballer ahead of them for much of the season. We absolutely have to hit the ground running in the window, lets not get left behind like we did in the summer and keep missing out on the players we desperately need, I hope they have learned their lessons, but I highly doubt it. Woodman and Aarons need to get some sustained game time, that's not likely to be in our first team, so we need to get them shipped out on loan to a championship team, both should be good enough to hold down a first team place there and we have to see what we have before we don't have it anymore.

I don't know why anyone is surprised this was always the likely outcome, Ashley is an absolute cunt and unfortunately we are stuck with him for the foreseeable.

Surprised at how poor he has been, we desperately need Lascelles back, and resume the partnership with Clark, that looked the strength of our team. Now looks like we can't defend to save our lives.

One win in ten and one point in the last six is relegation form, need to change that pretty soon, this is as a good a chance to do that as we will have. Leicester in great nick though, like Everton we get to play them at the wrong time.

How the mackems are still in the bottom three with so much crap down there this season is a testament to how terrible they are, really Burton Bolton, Brum and Hull are as bad if not worse than Rotherham were last season.

Aguero looks way off pace, he's hardly been involved but had one chance earlier you would expect him to at least test the keeper, especially if he was playing against us, then that off side chance he misses, that's unlike him. Jesus would make a difference I think, but there are so many underperformers there, one change may not be enough.

Wow we are going to be way too close to relegation spots if it stays like this.

I thought De Brunye was supposed to be playing the best footba;; of anyone right now, based on this half that's a crock, he's nowhere near Hazard levels.

Man City have been awful, West Ham done very well so far, bad for us of course.

With Southgate masterminding this World Cup really doesn't matter who we were drawn against, we may squeak out of that group but r16 is the best we can hope for.

How many will he bag on Saturday ? Can't wait to see him play again

2 wins would really shoot us up the table if we could get them somewhere. I would go as far as saying 3 wins before the end of the year and we'll be fine.