Chris_R

I'm sure wherever he is, he's got Sky and a mobile phone. Not being there will still have an effect though, of course.

You can get 50/1 quite easily, I posted a link 2 or 3 pages ago. Again (To everyone, not you): Mike Ashley is not putting up £20m. He's staked £400k @ 50/1 and will use the winnings to pay the players. This saves him over £600k vs what he was going to offer for league placings, ie £1m+ depending on position, which would have been much harder to cover with a bet as the odds of us finishing 17th or greater are nowhere near 50/1. He's a known big-time gambler and I'm as sure as anything I've ever been sure on that this is what he's done. This is not affecting our transfer budget at all This is not costing Mike Ashley £20m, nor is he risking £20m if we do win it This is not money we could have spent on players by Rafa, in fact if anything Rafa now has an extra £600k to spend because of this though of course a far more likely outcome is a guesswhowinsagain moment where he just trousers the difference I hate that fat cunt as much as anyone for what he's done to the club, and this offer is still shit for a number of reasons, but let's not pretend this £20m is anything that it's not.

No, because he's just stuck £400k on at the bookies at 50/1, saving himself £600k+ against his league offer.

So instead of bettering his offer of £1m for finishing 17th and having a sliding scale up from that, he's instead offering £20m for winning the cup. On the face of it a generous offer, but what he'll do is stick £400k on us at 50/1 (Plenty of sites offering those odds https://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/fa-cup/winner) and that's the full £20m covered, and Ashley has saved £600k against what was previously deemed a stingy offer. guesswhowinsagain.jpeg

We currently have 0 loans. I'm not including.merino due to the obligation to buy. It it obligation or option? Must admit I wasn't sure. Between work and kids I can't keep up with all the rumours and deals these days! Doesn't really matter. Either he's definitely ours or he's ours if we want him. There's none of the negative connotations of a loan here.

I hated Amdy Faye and Obertan too. Remind me, was it Byker or North Shields they were born in? I can't remember which.

Hope it's true. Nothing against him personally, but he's just not a competent footballer. Stifles all our attacks and gives away stupid fouls at the back. Offers nothing positive on the pitch at this level whatsoever.

My god. You had one of the most entertaining players in world football and you played Gouffran instead of him, you utter lump. Then you paid another team to take him off our hands. Macktracking? This is spacktracking.

I think the top brass at Newcastle are hoping that prices go back to £5-10m for a player, and that clubs can then just keep pocketing £100m+ each year in TV revenue. They don't realise that the thing which will determine whether or not this continues isn't the other clubs' desire to make a profit, it's their desire to fucking win something.

Well he's definitely a young 29, given that he's actually 28.

Christ, no way am I clicking on a Chronicle link without an i9, a 1080ti and at least 3 adblockers.

It's literally on the last page. Well the page before now.

Considering this is nufc i bet we can't even reach the number of games agreed It's probably 1. Or 1000.

Yeah not playing does not equate to injured. You can't look at appearances and automatically decide that when someone wasn't playing they must have been crocked, that's daft talk.

Not sure I'll ever buy into the school of thought that a visible lack of effort is a positive trait for a footballer. I could not possibly disagree with you more on this. Not chasing back is not, in itself, a lack of effort. Not provided the reason for not chasing back is so that the winger can run at the opposition goal. No player can run for 90 minutes at full speed. Even marathon runners only run for 120 minutes and they're not exactly sprinting. If you want your attacking players to be able to provide full effort running at the opposition, they simply must conserve energy when deciding which balls to chase the other way. It's not lack of effort, it's using your effort wisely because you only have so much to give, no matter how fit you are, and being intelligent.

I don't want to see players like Ben Arfa busting a gut to chase back when they can save their energy for running in the other direction with the ball at their feet.

Both wide forwards, both quick and good on the ball. Both reckoned to have bright futures. I didn't get too much from him as it was a brief conversation but he seemed gutted we might be signing Jacob.

Told my Norwich-supporting colleague we're after this guy, his response was "you bastards". Says he's quick and skilful, and that we could do a lot worse than buy either of the Murphy twins. Reckons that for £10m we'd be getting a very good deal.

Would be incredible if he returned, not that it's likely.

Fucking hell. This is just shocking. Awful stuff.

I'm more worried about trying to get away with fielding 2 goalkeepers, but then still putting Given up front on his own. Personally I'd go: Owen Xisco N'Zogbia Geremi Butt Duff Edgar Cacapa Coloccini Taylor Given

Well that'll have knocked his value down a bit. If he did do any of it on purpose, it's to get his value down to make a move more likely, not so he can stay. If he wants to stay he can just reject a move. Fucking helmets.

Moyes saying he wants £30m puts an upper limit on what they can ever hope to get for him, that's the starting price for bargaining and that price will go down the longer things go without interest. I reckon they'll probably get around £20m. They absolutely have to sell this window, because his value will plummet if they don't. Once he's out of the eyes of the MOTD cameras, everyone will forget about him.

I think they'll start poorly, dip a bit in the middle and then tail off badly towards the end.

Well Pickford next season.