ikri

Growing speculation... Could... Lots of caveats in their report, I'll wait till it's confirmed before getting excited.

Just a thought, but maybe he loves the club & can't bear to see us relegated?

Who's going to match what we pay Barton, Duff, Smith, Geremi or Butt? Will they take a pay cut for the benefit of NUFC? There have been a few rumours of teams interested in Barton, Geremi & Smith (fuck knows why). They may all be willing to take wage cuts in order to play for a team in the Premiership.

It seems to me that Owen can be a threat for us, even despite his injuries. But for him to become that threat much of the team has to be built around accommodating Owen's diminishing pace and his new role within the team. That would be fine if it wasn't for his injury record. By the time he's back up to full fitness and scoring goals he seems to manage 2-3 games before he's injured again, after that the cycle starts again, he comes back, takes time to regain fitness and form before he gets injured yet again. We need to find a way to win without Owen, his presence in the team shouldn't be a distraction or an encumbrance but a bonus. Right now it's not.

3. Same as S Taylor. Yeah I thought it was three but wasn't sure if it might be just two Anyway while I like Jonas, and prefer him to Duff, three is three more then he's scored. Had a look on the Premier League stats page, Duff has 1 assist and 3 goals, Jonas as 4 assists and 0 goals so their relative value to the team based on goals & assists is pretty much equal. Jonas offers a hell of a lot more to the team both in attack and defence though.

3. Same as S Taylor.

Administration makes no logical or financial sense. Ashley is the major creditor of the club as well as being the owner, in effect he owes himself money. If he took the club into administration he'd probably have to write off either the purchase cost of the club or the loan money he's put in. It's also worth noting that appointing an administrator generally costs a fortune. Putting the club into administration would probably see Ashley coming out of it all with £100million at best, quite possibly a lot less. At the same time he could quite easily put the club on the market again for a similar amount (£100-125m) and find a buyer very quickly (there was one bid entered before Christmas that was rejected because it didn't meet Ashley's valuation, yet I'd put money on that being higher than £100m).

His crossing is still atrocious, even worse than Milner's. And although he's much better at running with the ball, on the whole he hasn't offered that much more than Duff this season. (I do like Jonas, btw) He at least understands that you can't simply stand around on the pitch waiting for the ball. When Duff does play well it's because he remembers what he was told back as a child about finding space.

why? there’s more chance of Shola getting a game now. Playing well for 30 minutes on Saturday shouldn't cloud just how much of a waste of space he's become. He spends most of his games stood waiting for someone to pass to him. He holds up play and slows us down. Shola is a shit player, but he's managed more goals and assists than Duff has this season in fewer games.

we weren't shit during the last few years of the Shepherd and Halls. We are shit now though. If Mike Ashley finishes 13th in the league he will call it success, and so will those who blindly and stupidly thought the last years of the Halls and Shepherd were shit, they will be doing cartwheels if Ashley finishes in mid table in the top league. Thats the message that myself, HTL and a small handful of others tried to tell you. Anyway, this sort of discussion isn't allowed anymore. I hope you will now have more understanding of what shit is, although I have a feeling that if he doesn't sell soon you may see what it REALLY is. Yes we fucking were. If you didn't spot just how shit we were under Souness & Roeder then you weren't watching the same club as the rest of us.

Good.

Clearly the magistrates believed that making him watch more games was a greater punishment.

All four of them (Kenny included) would probably be considered for a place in the side the way we're currently playing. Barnes couldn't do any less work on the pitch than Duff, Dalglish & Rush would do a better job up front than Owen & Ameobi, Pearce would get a game at centre half thanks to the injuries to Taylor & Bassong.

Nothing to do with the way that Ashley is trying to screw JJB Fitness Clubs into the ground. None of the "Big 4" will touch Bruce, if they do replace their managers they'll go for people with Champion's League experience, not someone who has zero experience outside English football. If he wants a chance to manage a Champion's League team he's going to either have to leave the country or get a currently lower placed team up there.

care to elaborate sir? Heard he liked a bet in his day Ask anyone from the Gosforth area where you could find Keith when he wasn't in training. Used to see him go into Ladbrokes on Gosforth High Street and not surface again for 2-3 hours. He was an immense player on his day, but that day started to get fewer & further between throughout his career with us. Having seen how he could play against teams like Barcelona it was incredibly frustrating when he struggled to reach the same heights against less impressive opponents.

He was forced out by shitheadSouness for asking for a 300% pay rise. That's all that really made the press at the time Bernard demands 300% pay rise & all that crap. What wasn't mentioned was that he was on a £5k per week contract and was asking for the huge sum of £15k per week. So we fucked him off & replaced him by paying £1m for Babayaro and paid him £25k per week. Great business there. No real surprise that Bernard's best mate in the team at the time was Robert. Bernard used to translate for Robert & without him there to help Souness was able to shit all over the best left sided played we've had since Ginola. Losing Bernard should have been a sign of what was to come but no one really made too much of it because of the way his pay demands were leaked to the press.

Just what we need, another overrated "star" who would do nothing for the team. Remember how good he was at motivating the England team when it mattered? Have you seen how well he's done with Mexico? Have you seen how well he did at Goteborg, Benfica and Lazio? 10 years ago. Since then he's done f*** all of any note. Whilst he didn't win anything with England he did alright. - Improved England's FIFA World ranking from 17th place (Jan 2001) to 5th place (July 2006) (highest ranking No.4 during World Cup 2006) - Managed to reach the quarter final in three consecutive tournaments (WC 2002, Euro 2004, WC 2006). No other European country achieved this during this period, and on an international level only Brazil. England was also, apart from Sweden, the only European country that did not suffer elimination from group play or failure to qualify during this time (2001-2006). Coincidentally, the same manager Luiz Felipe Scolari knocked England out of all three of these tournaments, first with Brazil and then twice with Portugal. - Achieved the highest point percentage in Major Tournament Matches of all time for an England manager.[9] Lost only 5 competitive games and achieved top qualifying place in all three International tournaments during his five and a half years as England manager. - Rated by the FA as England's 2nd most successful Manager after Sir Alf Ramsey. England played some really shit football under him, really shit. Don't forget that it was down to individual performances from the likes of Beckham that helped England reach the 2002 World Cup, nothing to do with Eriksson. When we did get to the latter stages of those tournaments we played winnable games yet the team looked unmotivated and bereft of ideas. Need to score a goal? Bring on a defensive player. Need to score to stay in the game? Do a like-for-like substitution. The last thing we need is a manager who can't motivate players, who isn't a tactical genius, someone motivated more by the money than the desire to win. Oh, and if the FA think he's the 2nd most successful manager after Ramsey they've managed to forget SBR who got us a hell of a lot closer to winning a World Cup than Sven could have ever dreamed of.

Just what we need, another overrated "star" who would do nothing for the team. Remember how good he was at motivating the England team when it mattered? Have you seen how well he's done with Mexico? Have you seen how well he did at Goteborg, Benfica and Lazio? 10 years ago. Since then he's done fuck all of any note.

Just what we need, another overrated "star" who would do nothing for the team. Remember how good he was at motivating the England team when it mattered? Have you seen how well he's done with Mexico?

There's a dead rabbit on the road outside that could probably do a better job than those 2 tbh

If we can't beat Boro, Fulham & Portsmouth we deserve to go down

We don't play to his strengths at all. True, he's not the greatest passer & he's really not a target man type striker, but put him through to run on goal & he does very very well. Trouble is, we're not set up to play that type of game, I can't really think of any time since Roeder where the team has been set up to play to his strengths. It's more luck than judgement when the team do create those types of chances for him.

I'm not sure that this is a good or bad thing

Im sure this exact same thing has happened to us before. I am pissed so cant recall when but im sure it happened. Man Utd, 1st game of the season

Lack of leadership on & off the pitch. Whilst Taylor was off the pitch why didn't our captain direct Beye to cover the centre whilst R Taylor dropped to right back? Why Didn't Butt take it on himself to fill that gap?