Ronaldo

He's certainly a decent footballer. He'll never make much of an impression in this league, though. Doesn't have the assertiveness/physicality to dominate games, or the ability to change them.

Because there were no PL clubs in for him. There was a Championship club or two interested.

Judgment's tainted by how poor Colo's been in the last 2.5 years.

Probably insisted on having 3 fit CBs for a laugh.

Don't agree and never will. Woodgate played behind a much better midfield at NUFC. He was very good but not as good as Colo was from 2010-2012.

He's still the best CB I've seen in our colours. Just a shame he's deteriorated so much.

He's gained loads of weight in the last year or so. Blatantly not fighting again with any degree of seriousness.

Wales?

Excellent players don't sign for teams who've just finished 13th under Graeme Souness. At best he was a very good PL goalscorer, never an excellent player.

Should've been pretty obvious, like. He's the Brad Gilbert of football management. Plays better football than Pardew, mind, but only just.

The Championship or Ligue 1. Unearthing that young talent.

Was meant to say unattractive.

Pardew wasn't even close to getting sacked despite winning 5 games in in the calendar year until October, as well as conducting himself horribly on the touch line which apparently is important to Charnley as well. Never ever rule out us going for the cheap option Exactly my point. Sacking Pardew wasn't the cheap option. It's totally different with Carver.

Capital cities. Christ's sake.

It was ambitious, but real football people had Owen sussed out long before 2005 and common sense should've prevented spending £16.5m. Both Graham Taylor and Sir Bobby publically said he wasn't a great footballer and would decline when the pace started to fade long before it did. Owen was an ego stroke for Shepherd.

I'll have that, if you please.

Sim Raleigh. God rest his soul.

Peter Phoenix (Arizona). Hell of a fucking player.

The only thing putrid is this abortion of a post. Pulis rejected the chance to sign Shola for a Championship side 7 years ago. Oh Ronnie, we've been getting along so well! Why so offended? Pulis played Anichebe upfront the other night, and Sessegnon started on the bench. Anichebe might actually be as bad as Shola. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he was looking to sign him. And McManaman? Really? So Sessegnon started on the bench, and you're looking to sign McManaman huh? Okay. Sessegnon's hardly owt special, is he? Pulis is a good manager with an attractive style. I highly doubt he'll go anywhere near Shola Ameobi.

Ah, the days in which a manager underperformed and subsequently got sacked.

Did you not get tired of promoting Tiote a few years back when you spent a full summer lying about Alex Ferguson wanting to sign him to replace Paul Scholes? He's an ineffective player. He contributes less than zero going forward and with him on the pitch we've had most of the worst defensive performances I've seen from NUFC in 22 years. Steel indeed.

Thing is, there's nothing more brutally indicative about a club's ambition than it's managerial appointment. Mongish fans will spend forever arguing about good players and bad players, players who could get better, but if you're hiring a transparently crap manager with no record of anything but failure - and without the nous to placate and deceive fans verbally post-match - most supporters with a semblance of pride in NUFC will just stop going.

Of course that's before you even factor in that Carver's PR sense makes Pardew look like Bill Clinton.

And yet AP took us from 5th to 16th and was never in danger apparently. Hughton won something like 1 in 13 as caretaker and got the job permanently the next season. Is it 'let's talk rubbish' day or something?