merlin

If that was Hoddle's assessment of Cole, its a good job Martins isn't English and had been around when Hoddle was manager ; he wouldn't have merited CONSIDERATION for the England squad, let alone be left out.. Also, Hoddle had the luxury of selecting one Alan Shearer as his main striker - are you now going to try to compare Martins to Shearer as well...!

I've been saying that ever SINCE his snubbing of the would-be purchasers in Dubai.....

Cole was ten times the striker Martins is - and ever will be...

....and a new owner by then !

I think football (ie top flight football) will have to undergo a very real crisis if it is ever to return to its local roots. When you hear stuff like that Game 39 proposal, it is really flaunted in our faces that we're not the people who matter any more, it is the mass audiences in the Far East who make the tv rights so valuable. So valuable that the league wanted to introduce an extra match which would, at a stroke, destroy the validity of our league being based on every club playing every other club twice - the last vestige of the "level playing field" gone in the name of money. As a supporter, I don't particularly feel the benefits of this being the richest league in the world. My season ticket still costs me a lot of money, I'm watching the same four teams win pretty much everything, even breaking into (for one or two seasons only) that top four is seen as an achievement of the size of Burton Albion winning the FA Cup. Talking of which, the FA cup, in the new Wembley, and yesterday we have 25,000 fans of both sides getting tickets, meaning 40k for stuffed shirts from the FA and corporate sponsors. The entire game is wrong, wrong, wrong from top to bottom, and ideas like following the Barca line of membership (ie great ideas based on noble morals) are f***ed from the start The entire game is drowning in a sea of wrong. A very good post, Brummie, with which I agree. I can see quite a number of fans of former so-called 'big' clubs doing exactly what Madras said that he & his mates are doing - going to see smaller clubs in their area because(in a similar way to voters not bothering in elections), they see that the results over a season are pretty much cut & dried in the Prem. The cost is also becoming prohibitive in these difficult times. In addition to all the points you make, I also believe that there is far more corruption in the game than people generally are prepared to believe ; the amount of big money and media influence is now so important to the administrators at the top that nobody with any sense would rule out jiggery-pokery, and it certainly happens in World Cups.. This is not to say it hasn't always,because it certainly HAS, and I had that confirmed by a senior former coach of a major NE side(No names, no pack-drill..!) - however, the money sloshing around these days is much greater and therefore, so are the stakes.... For me, the best thing to have happened to the English game over the past couple of years was Burnley's fairytale season which ended with them gaining promotion to the Prem ; its 33 years since they were in the Top league(we played them in the FA Semi-final at Hillsborough in 1974), and for such a small club, its a really great achievement , although they will probably not be there long - their population is probably less than that of Darlington and its surrounds at 90,000 and that is declining... Just to put that into perspective, I bet nobody on this board could ever imagine Darlo being in a higher league than NUFC - but that is what Burnley have achieved. The only hope on the horizon is that the Credit crunch problems force changes in the game - but that would mean real hardship, esp in the UK, for ordinary people before such a scenario came into being.

The Tea Lady(now probably made redundant)....!

THE LADS TOO DAMN GOOD! HE HAS TO STAY. F*CK ALL WHO SAY HE'S s***. ..And the same to you..try drinking something less strong - say, 5% instead of 7%...!

No you're not...!!

This, as I've already said......

Couldn't care less if it was a choice between you-know-who and a Martian with brains & ambition..!

Thanks Merlin this is what it means to me. Thanks for understanding everything. it would depend on what fred learned from last time. I've learned MORE than enough about him after his first stint at the club - my views stand, and I won't change them ; neither will he or his acolytes....

I cannot believe how many on this site would be doing handstands to see Shepherd back at NUFC - as someone already said ' has too much alcohol damaged your memory cells?' Talk about a dog always returning to its own vomit - it is Shepherd's fault that the club was in such a vulnerable position to be taken over by Ashley in the first place ; he was the Chairman who failed to take the correct decision about SBR(he should have been given a place of the Board and asked to recruit his successor in the summer of 2003), but because Shepherd had his own agenda, it suited him to wait until a year had passed and the club's situation had worsened with SBR being another year older.... The club needs a complete revamp from top to bottom as Shearer said last week - no going back to people who failed in the past, it needs a new vigorous ownership who will run it as it should be run, even if it takes 3 years to put it right - and I include in that their right to choose their own manager operating with PROFESSIONALS in the Boardroom - not Casino managers.... This is the LAST CHANCE SALOON for NUFC - mess up this time and the club is finished ; the best that will happen under Shepherd is more of what he achieved after SBR went - the club will become like Sunderland were(note I said WERE, because who knows how they will do under new ownership ..??), and be a Yo-Yo club ; up and down between the Prem/Fizzy, losing any decent players that happen(by accident!) to force their way through the system to make the grade...in effect, a return to the McKeag days. As I said last week on another thread - If Shepherd returns as Chaiman, or even as a major figure at the club - that's me finished after almost 50 years.

Right again BG - this soap opera is far from finished, and I do not believe the club stands any chance of progress until all the chancers and wide boys running it are gone ; sadly, that could take time, and unless something is sorted out quickly any chance of promotion next season will be gone.

Keegan didn't abandon the club, he was forced out by Ashley. Had this argument before, he walked out on us. Not for the first time either. Well, all your current effort means is you've failed to learn anything from this previous argument you had assuming someone of intelligence tried to get the obvious into your heed. Fact is, any manager worthy of the name is not going to be happy without control over which players come in and which players go out. The club is in my blood but I'd walk away if I was working under those conditions. Only a spineless tw*t wouldn't and only a moron would expect someone to work under those conditions. Cheers is that why he went first time round then ? Which first time are you referring to ? The time when we were in the second division and SJH had promised him funds and lied to him or the time when we were floated on the stock exchange and the priorties of the board changed from team building to making cash for themselves? For the last time, SJH did NOT lie to Keegan about giving him funds when we were in Div 2 - KK wanted to buy Kilcline, and SJH was going to fund the purchase by a PERSONAL injection of cash ; the club's Bankers, wanted to impound that cash to pay off some of the club's debts...SJH had to send someone down to the bank to argue the case, and that held up the deal ; KK then walked out on the eve of our game with Swindon, and was persuaded to return by Terry Mac later that afternoon. He DID leave after the Swindon game, but was talked into returning by SJH on the Sunday.... I had a conversation with SJH on the very day that the Bank tried to impound the money(250,000), and BEFORE all this happened, so I know the background to it all - KK took the view, rightly or wrongly, that the problems with the Bank were nothing to do with him, but they clearly were because if the Bank intended to try to grab SJH's personal funds when they were fo team-building, then NOBODY was going to win - it had to be sorted out... Also, making the club into a PLC had nothing to do with being a money-making venture for the board, although it ended up that way ; Man U, for example, were also a PLC and they did OK ; if more fans/businesses had pursued a policy of buying shares(as Shepherd did), then they also would have made money AND raised it for the club - there wasn't enough interest and it wasn't the first time a share issue was snubbed by the fans ; SJH forced one on McKeag in 1990, but it failed through lack of take-up - so much for the club being 'owned by its fans' like Barca....

This - totally agree. Players like Barton are a rotten apple in any dressing room, and I would simply play him in the Reserves/make him train with the kids until he eventually went ; no way would he get into the first team. He has brought disgrace upon the club and I wouldn't give him any chance at all - he's had far too many already. A stain on NUFC.

This has uncomfortable echoes of the situation last Sept when KK walked - as has been said, they either want Shearer as manager or they don't ; his demands, certainly over the transfer fund, do not seem excessive so maybe it is the extent of control he requires which is causing them to baulk at an early appointment. If so, there could be trouble ahead because Shearer will NOT back down on having total control, and neither would any decent manager. The more things drag out, the more concerned everyone should be - clearly, Shearer will have the best legal brains he can hire dotting the i's & crossing the 't's' of any proposed contract - so would I because I reckon if you shake hands with any of the current controllers of the club, it would be worthwhile counting your fingers afterwards...! We shall see....

If Curtis Davies is worth £10 million, then Bassong is worth £25 million! My point is players nowadays are way over priced and I think £15 million isn't an unrealistic price! Not these days - financial reality will come home for many clubs this season due to the state of things generally. There will be pressure to trim budgets and wage bills for all but the very top clubs.

We will be lucky to get 10m for Bassong - he HAS got potential, but clubs know he will probably want to go soon and they know how desperate NUFC are to raise money..the 15m valuation is obviously aimed at scaring buyers off, but we won't get near it in reality.If he leaves, my money would be on a move to Arsenal, maybe with one of their fringe players coming the other way.

If ANY club offered 8m for Martins, I would snap their hands off - he would be on the first plane out, and I would ask Ashley for a bonus because I reckon that 8m is DOUBLE what I would pay for him.

Enrique has been probably the most successful of the overseas big buys - I have always been a fan and believed he would come good - his attitude also seems top notch for a young guy who has had to contend with being messed around by both Kinnear and Allardyce, despite being bought by the latter. He would be a great asset in future if he stays, but unfortunately the club will probably cash in because he is one of the few who will fetch anywhere near his original fee ; a move back to Spain looks likely, but I wouldn't rule out a surprise bid from Benitez at Liverpool. If he goes, I for one wouldn't blame him, because I believe he genuinely DOES love the club and its fans... one of the few players I will be sorry to see leave.

This - mostly on the mark.

Point of order. Man U have been, and not that long ago. Sorry, I love reminding myself of that. Yes, I know Brummie - but NOT since 1978, the last time we went down, and they have only done it once since the war I believe, whereas NUFC.....! I should add to that by saying ' the last time we went down IN THE 70s'...!(OR, the first time over the last 39 years)..!

Point of order. Man U have been, and not that long ago. Sorry, I love reminding myself of that. Yes, I know Brummie - but NOT since 1978, the last time we went down, and they have only done it once since the war I believe, whereas NUFC.....!

Your last line is so unbelievably stupid that its hardly worth commenting on - you clearly haven't been reading many of my posts over the years or you would know that I spent much of my OWN time(and money)in trying to get changes at NUFC whilst with the Magpie Group - hardly the actions of one who had no faith, and after supporting the club for nearly half a century, most of it barren of any sort of success, I resent your childish attempt to label me a 'fair weather fan'.... In addition, you have attempted to answer some of my points in the previous post with what amounts basically to waffle - we deal in FACTS here, or should do ; maybe NUFC would be in better state today if people surrounding the club dealt with REALITIES, not 'might have beens'... Arsenal were NOT relegated - nothing you believe can alter that.. Everton(who you brought up) - NOT relegated, close is as good a miss as a mile - didn't happen... Seeing as you chose to take issue with SOME of my post, its a pity you didn't stick to the point and address the question of Liverpool and Man U's tenure in the Prem and the successes they have had - waffling on about Fergie being under pressure in the 80s is ancient history - they went on to be successful and have remained that way... I probably know more about the KK/Hall years than you do, but they don't alter anything - we were, for a time, the second best team in the land and it was an exciting time, but we won nowt, and that is all that is in the history books - along with the fact that we were relegated in 78, 89, and now 09 - as far as I'm aware, Man U, L/Pool, Arsenal AND Everton have not...facts, not maybes.....

So what? We are still a massive club, just one that's going through some really bad times. Is that so hard to grasp? 'Massive' clubs DON'T go through 'hard times' - ask, Arsenal, Man U, Liverpool for example ; when were these clubs last facing the situation NUFC faces(and has done at least 3 times in the last 30 years)? Real Madrid, Barca, AC Milan, etc etc....? Arsenal were s*** , early 90s, Man u were relegated in th 70s, Liverpool were nowhere before shankly. Were Arsenal relegated ? You are grasping at straws trying to equate Liverpool and Man U with NUFC ; Shanks took over at Anfield in 1962 for heaven's sake - as for Man U, one relegation in 60 years(and winning Europe's top trophy 3 times)hardly puts them in the NUFC failure class ; if you want to make comparisons, choose someone like the Mackems - oh, sorry, even THEY won the FA Cup in 73 - FOUR YEARS after OUR last trophy...! Get real pls....