ikri

Actually, it's not. Clubs don't just go offering 120k for 4 years to a 29 year old just because it's a "free transfer." He's not getting better terms at any team not named Manchester City. So it's up to him whether he'd rather have the money here or UEFA cup glory with another club. Personally? I think Owen knows this is the best deal he's going to get from anywhere. What's the point going to Spurs/Everton/Villa for significantly less money? Unless Villa gets into the CL this year and offers him a contract, or Man City fails in their bids for Villa, Drogba, Zlatan, Henry, and Eto'o and needs to go for plan F, I think he's going to sign. I doubt we'd offer him 90k a week. With his fitness issues, 90k a week for 4 years is an enormous commitment, I really doubt many clubs would be prepared to pay that. That's what, the sharp end of 20m over 4 years? God. Yep, its a fcking top offer if true and not many will offer him that. If any. There's only Man City & us that I can see offering him anything like that over a 4 year contract.

Whilst they might not be able to pay the reputed £60,000 per week that Duff & Smith are both on, Celtic do play in Europe each season which brings in a decent amount of cash, so even if £60,000 per week is out of the question, £30,000+ and the guarantee of a winner's medal at the end of each season might be enough to tempt them. If it's not enough I'd be happy for us to subsidise Duff & Smith's wages for a year or two, just as long as I never have to see either of them in a Newcastle shirt again.

Fits the bill quite nicely - young, available, probably not too pricey, plays on both wings. We could do a hell of a lot worse. Will be pricey as fuck. Don't think we need him personally. Already have Jonas and Zog for the left wing. Jonas & McGeady can play on either wing, so in theory they could switch whenever it suited them during a game, just to fuck with the full-back's heads. Not sure that he'd be that expensive either, he's fallen out badly with Strachan by the sounds of things so they may be tempted into a short-term loan deal till the end of the season or a deal involving players like Duff & Smith. We'd be crazy not to investigate how much they're after for him at the very least.

Fits the bill quite nicely - young, available, probably not too pricey, plays on both wings. We could do a hell of a lot worse.

Scored 3 goals for them so far this season, Saint Étienne are 17th in Ligue 1. Not sure if he's had any injuries this season or if the team's been a bit shit.

There's a story in the mirror today claiming that Souness is off on holiday in a couple of days & had they kept Ince as manager for another week their preferred choice for manager - Souness - would have been unavailable. If they do appoint Souness it'd be a great chance to put some cheeky £500k bids in for McCarthy & Dunn.

The home team will generally be more offensive minded so they'll push forward more leaving Martins with more space to play with.

Graeme Souness Jr. Never admits any of his own failings, can never admit that another team has played better, constantly blames the pitch, referee, etc when they fail. He'll never be a top class manager.

West Ham may sell at that price, Diarra will have better offers than NUFC. In the worst-case scenario for west ham they sell no players in January & get landed with a £30million+ compensation bill for the Tevez affair and get forced into administration. If that happened then we might get him for £2-3million.

Owen & Harper are the only ones worth their wages. Viduka too, possibly, if he can remain fit for the remainder of the season.

Whilst I'd love that to be true, it probably isn't. Dubai is essentially bankrupt at the moment & is having to borrow money from neighbouring countries. They've got a lot of investments in banks around the world, and their oil supplies running out at a time when the price of oil has dropped massively. They've got no more money for vanity projects like buying football clubs.

You can see it coming in the 2nd half almost every fucking game. They bring on a new player, we utterly fail to adapt to the substitution, they score & we look clueless.

Pathetic 2nd half tactics.

Slightly unfair to Marcelino, he was a quite capable player, he just never played. Maric would be the more obvious choice, signed for a load of cash (£6million+), didn't play too often & when he did play he looked totally out of his depth & devoid of any ability. I never understood why we signed Babayaro. Brought in as Bernard's replacement when Bernard had the temerity to ask for a 300% wage increase (to £15,000 per week) we ended up with a player long past his best & no where near good enough as the player he was replacing and payed him (a rumoured) £25,000 per week. Almost as if the manager at the time was more concerned about getting rid of players he didn't like than he was about the team. As for Carr, he was never good enough & should have retired 4 years ago.

Are Blackburn secretly Man Ure, Chelski, Liverpool or Arsenal? No? ITV won't show live games that don't include those four teams except under duress. I sometimes wonder if ITV commentators watch other teams & scream LampAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArd or GerrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArd periodically because those are the only names they know.

meh, could have been better could have been worse. Not sure how the game would have gone had Owen gone off instead of Martins but Martins was looking dangerous throughout the game whilst Owen barely got a touch.

He's not exactly going to come out and say Smith is s**** and that he's looking to flog him as soon as he gets fit is he? Why not? He's already said that he's going to sell some players to buy players. Yes. Kinnear publically saying Smith is shite is going to have potential buyers queuing up round the bloke.... Worked for Souness with Bellamy. Oh wait....

Since I can't remember the last game in which Smith even took a shot on goal I doubt anyone will suddenly be able to get him playing football again.

Ultimately he's got to go, but considering the squad we have at the moment and assuming there's no massive spending in January I don't think we can afford to let him go before the end of the season when his contract expires. Players like Shola, Smith, Duff & Butt are holding the club back and ironically would be the type of player who would probably stay if we got relegated. They're not good enough, too old, too slow, or some combination of all three. Add to that they're on very decent wages and we're left with players that are on too high wages to go to a club more fitting to their abilities and aren't anywhere near good enough of playing for a UEFA or CL club who might pay their wages. So we end up stuck with them until their contract expires, even then the manager/board are sometimes convinced to offer them a new contract under some misplaced sense of loyalty.

Where's the option for No, we should let his contract expire at the end of this season?

I dunno if he's still with McKay. Sure I read sometime last season that he'd got a new agent. My memory is immense at the minute: Does McKay know yet?

I've just remembered who N'Zogbia's agent is. Explains a hell of a lot.

Don't forget the season ticket money. the club runs on nothing,all the monies brought in are purely for transfers and nothing else. Well, all the TV money, ticket sales and transfer fees gained from flogged players should at least allow us to have a higher net spend then 12 million??? Should it not. And what has happened to the Milner dosh? Not making excuses for anyone here, but we do have a stupidly high wage bill. Smith, Duff & Viduka are on a reported £200,000 per week between the 3 of them. Owen's reported to be on over £100,000 per week. Collocini & Jonas will be on very decent wages, especially Jonas considering the manner in which we got him. There should be money still available after this though, but the £12 million from Milner's transfer covers the wages of Duff, Smith & Viduka for a little over 12 months.

I'd assume that there's some scope for Barnsley and/or Iain Hume suing Chris Morgan and/or Sheff Utd over this if Hume is unable to play football again. Ben Collett was awarded £4.5 million following a career-ending tackle in a reserve fixture only a few weeks ago so there's a chance that Hume could be able to sue for loss of earnings & the club could sue for the loss of potential transfer revenue.

For the more important players like Owen & Shearer when they're returning from injury don't they just arrange a behind-closed-doors friendly against Hartlepool or Gateshead? Pretty much a reserve fixture but more consideration given to not kicking the crap out of the half-fit £17million striker.