Chris_R

Or perhaps Benfica offered better wages, so he decided to go there. Then he announces that he always wanted to go to Benfica in order to endear himself to his new employers / fans. So it's not "End of" at all really, is it? better wages my arse, the max wage in portugal is 30-40k and that is for the queresma's etc, he decided to go there to play in europe and because he old manager is there we still haven't been named as the club, and the club hasn't came out to say they we're interested until that happens we didn't try and sign him if we try fine, but it was always gonna be an up hill struggle unless we offered stupid amounts Haha, head in the sand - proper "ostrich mentality". Love it. Why would we come out and say it was us? What do we possibly have to gain from that? We've been named by every news source going, in this country and abroad. There's no guarantees, but it's fairly likely it was us. And when I said "Better wages", I apologise. Maybe they DID offer better wages, but I should have said "Better package", which encompasses everything from European football to better wages to nicer weather. The point still stands though that him saying he always wanted to go to Benfica is not worth a thing. He's bound to say that once he's agreed to join his new club.

Keegan needs to be there selling the club to new signings. I don't trust Wise etc to sell the club half as much as I do Kev. His passion is legendary and it rubs off on those around him. Get him in a room with a potential recruit and I think more often than not they'd end up at Newcastle.

Or perhaps Benfica offered better wages, so he decided to go there. Then he announces that he always wanted to go to Benfica in order to endear himself to his new employers / fans. So it's not "End of" at all really, is it?

They (the Chronicle) said he'd told friends about the move IIRC. Still doesn't negate the fact that their conversion ratio is pathetic. Maybe it's OUR conversion ratio that's pathetic? Just a thought. Not defending the papers or anything as personally I don't ever buy them as I think they full of shit-stirring rubbish. But just because a mooted deal doesn't come off doesn't mean there was no interest from us at all.

I think people are taking this "Don't believe the papers, they know nothing" thing to too much of an extreme now. Just because we didn't sign him doesn't mean we weren't interested. Of course it doesn't mean we were either. But to start slating the papers or websites for saying we were the club involved when you haven't a clue yourself is more than a little mongy.

Yeah, right!

I remember being very "meh" when during his first stint in charge Keegan signed a 26 year old midfielder from Championship side Charlton for 700k. Still, Rob Lee turned out all right, didn't he?

I would love all our players to come good, Smith included, but I just can't see what he offers to the team. He can't beat a man, he can't finish or even shoot, he's got no real pace. All he has is a good engine. Well my car's got a good engine but I wouldn't want the fucker playing in midfield for us.

At uni when Shearer signed. Can't remember what I was doing exactly, I was probably drunk somewhere. As for Cole leaving, I was in an A-Level Maths lesson when I was told. I was gutted.

I can understand his concerns (Playing out of position or hardly playing at all) and have no problem with him having the opinions he has, my problem is with the move-engineering little shitbag going to the press with it all. Oh, and can someone do the world a service and find where that pariah Willie McKay lives, go round his house and kick the life out of him. Thanks.

Too harsh IMO. 15-20 points would have been enough. 30 is just silly. They're going to need league-winning form just to stay up.

All our midfielders are better? That's not really the point is it? He didn't say our midfielders are better, but he is saying if we bring in new ones we'd be better off setting our sights higher than Steve Sidwell. A late reply, perhaps, but nevertheless: As Role Model says, I wasn't suggesting all our midfielders are better. For example, Sidwell or Smith? I'd take Sidwell. But I'm hoping that's not the only choice we have. I don't think Sidwell would have represented much, if any, step up in terms of quality. I'm not suggesting we should be getting Messi or anything daft like that, but it would be nice to think that somewhere in the world of football there's someone somewhere with a bit of quality that we can sign. Sidwell is another grafter, and with Smith, Butt and Geremi already in the squad I don't think he was what we needed. We need a midfielder who can beat a man. Who can unlock a defence. Who can shoot from distance. Who scares defenders. That's not Steve Sidwell.

Not good enough.

Perhaps we can now all concentrate on more important things. Not sure what the Chronicle are going to put on their back pages now though.

Well do us all a favour and f#ck off for a week so we can get a decent squad together!

HAHAHAHHA Good work by the club, saw a few mallorca games on the tellybox and he looks decent. Good work by wise et al. Also I think its pronounced Guti-er-ez kinda like its spelt... By all accounts he's going to be known as Jonas, I think that is whats on his shirt. Yeah, but in the Premiership they have to have their full surname. Remember when Hasslebaink first arrived and he had "Jimmy" on his shirt for the first game? Dragutinovic wears simply "Drago" on his shirt. I'd imagine over here he'll have "Gutierrez" on his top. Jordi? Nani? Juninho? None of those are full surnames... Jordi is the exception though. The others are nicknames aren't they? So you're allowed nicknames but not first names? What sort of rule is that? Easy to get round as well. Just tell them your nickname is your first name.

Fantastic. Hopefully he'll be a brilliant acquisition, but the best bit of this is that it's a massive 2-fingered salute to the press, who we can hopefully now all agree know absolutely nothing about what's going on inside our club.

Not really. Mutu took drugs whilst under contract with Chelsea. We signed Barton after he'd already assaulted Dabo. 2 very different sets of circumstances. he was imprisoned for the leverpool city centre attack not the dabe one . as such we didn't know that one was coming . Yes, and we could sack him for that one for sure but the Dabo incident is the one currently in the news so I assumed (Perhaps wrongly) that people were talking about taking action over that one. The McDonalds incident is old news now and was discussed to death at the time.

In that case, you cut your losses for the night and go home. Comes with the territory.

Not really. Mutu took drugs whilst under contract with Chelsea. We signed Barton after he'd already assaulted Dabo. 2 very different sets of circumstances.

Going for a comedy 3-4-1-2 formation! ..........Casillas Ramos Metzelder Zhirkov Silva Deco Sneijder Arda ..........Arshavin ....Pavluychenko Villa

So what exactly has he said this time? Can someone enlighten us non-Sky people?

Bearsley was no giant.

In the event of a tie after extra time, the winner should be the team that has had the most on-target shots from within the opposition penalty area. Unworkable, perhaps, but it would stop teams playing boring, negative football.

I watched him quite closely tonight because of the alleged interest, and can't say he did anything that makes me want to see him in our team. Obviously it's only one game but I wasn't terribly impressed with him.