Chris_R

Yep, you're quite right. That's what happens when you try to work things out in your head at 10am with a hangover! £9.4m / year. Ridiculous.

OK, it's possibly been done before but I can't recall seeing it and the front page is full of so much sh#t that's about 2 years old that a bit of new life in here wouldn't go amiss. So as the title asks, what's your favourite ever goal? I'm setting no criteria here. It doesn't have to be anything famous, it doesn't have to be something you even witnessed yourself, it doesn't have to be a Newcastle goal. All I ask is that you explain why it's your favourite. It could be the brilliance of the strike or the significance of the moment or any other criteria you can think of. Myself, I'm going to go with Andy Cole's 40th against Aston Villa to break Hughie Gallacher's record for goals in a season. I was tempted to go with Shearer's 200th V Portsmouth for similar reasons as they're both record-breaking goals I've been lucky enough to see first-hand, but I'm going for Cole's as I think the whole atmosphere about the place was better then (I don't mean atmosphere as in noise, I mean there was optimism and we believed, incorrectly as it turned out(!), that we were on the brink of winning things). The celebrations when he scored were immense and the rendition of "Andy Andy Cole" that followed seemed to go on forever with everyone from the Gallowgate to the Platinum Club up and singing. Anyway, enough from me. Over to you.

As others have said. Allegedly £70k off the wage bill, £50k off with Emre going and £60k if we can get rid of Smith. If reported wages are true, that's £180k PER MONTH we're saving, or just over £2m per year. Given the contributions of the above trio, that's money that could be much better spent elsewhere. Mind that said, setting fire to it in the centre circle on match day would be better use than giving it to those 3.

Man City somehow managing to release FOUR tops this summer!

Nothing wrong with telling players you don't want to go look for other clubs publicly because if you do then clubs become interested and make offers. These are the kind of players though teams who don't get who they want in early will be chasing at the end of July and through August, but would still be nice to get them out, off the wage bill. Publicly? Surely just alert all the clubs privately that he's for sale. Why make it public? What possible benefit will it being in the papers have over just telling the clubs themselves? (Other than the benefit to you, that you'd know we're trying to ship these players out!) Everyone knows deep down that Smith and Duff aren't part of Keegan's plans. They weren't getting games last season, and we're looking to strengthen. Every manager in the league knows that and anyone who wants him will be likely to make the relevant enquiries, you don't need to publicly humiliate a player by announcing he's for sale and therefore dropping his value etc etc in order to try to get rid of him.

Why's that so hard to believe? Mort and Ashley have already done this once before - Keegan was announced with no press speculation at all. I'm not a mindless optimist by the way, and I'm not saying that everything definitely will be alright. I'm just saying we should complain WHEN things go wrong, not in case they go wrong.

The lack of concrete signings is disappointing, but it's in no way a disaster. If we get to August and it's still the same, then that's the time to worry. Keegan, Ashley and Mort have all tended to keep their cards close to their chests in recent months so just because there's nothing in the papers doesn't to me indicate that we're not in the advanced stages of negotiations. It wouldn't surprise me if the first we knew about a player signing was when we announced a press conference. As for people (Toon's Taylor for one) saying that possibly Keegan thinks Smith and Duff are good enough... I highly doubt that. What do you expect him to do? Come out and state that he thinks they're sub-standard and wants them out? All that will do is massively reduce their value and our ability to sell them. Also, if things DO go tits-up in the summer and we can't get our targets in, then we have to play with players the manager has labeled unwanted and not good enough. Again, I'm sure Keegan will be trying to get rid of the rubbish but it'll be done in private, not through the press. The window hasn't even opened yet and already people are getting annoyed at the lack of signings. Impatient? Us? Hmm.

Go on then, explain. Are you just saying that anything south of Newcastle is classed as South? York is the cut off point. Used to be Northallerton but I like York so I moved it. Actually, geographically you're about right. Get a map of the country, find the most northern point of England. Write down the approximate latitude. Do the same for the most southern point of England. Use this to divide the country into 3 equal sections, and you'll find the dividing line between the north and the midlands runs between York and Leeds. Humorously enough, Manchester is closer to Wales than it is to the north. Where on a compass is the midlands? Leeds and Scunthorpe are both North. I'm not being a f***ing southerner for anyone! What about Cheshire then or am I classed as a Southern fairy?! Cheshire is below York, so it's firmly in the midlands. Unlucky. Sheargol - It's universally accepted that there's such a place as the midlands and geographically, Leeds and Scunthorpe are in it. York and above for the north, I'm afraid. If you don't like that, move house!

Go on then, explain. Are you just saying that anything south of Newcastle is classed as South? York is the cut off point. Used to be Northallerton but I like York so I moved it. Actually, geographically you're about right. Get a map of the country, find the most northern point of England. Write down the approximate latitude. Do the same for the most southern point of England. Use this to divide the country into 3 equal sections, and you'll find the dividing line between the north and the midlands runs between York and Leeds. Humorously enough, Manchester is closer to Wales than it is to the north.

At least he's getting more mature with age. Oh, hang on.

Personally I'd prefer it to be a thread for attacking anyone who doesn't support a club where they don't have some sort of affiliation to the area where the club is based. I was born and brought up here, but I can understand people supporting any club if it's where their parents are from or if they lived there for a few years or some other equally good reason. But not otherwise. I understand financially why glory-hunters are good for clubs (Even our club, we have some still from the original Keegan days or the Robson days) and are a necessary evil, but I can't take them or their opinions even remotely seriously.

So why THE FUCK do you support Arsenal then? What made you choose them over, say, Havant and Waterlooville? Why not bloody support York? Muppets, the lot of them.

I can't take the opinions of those that support clubs from areas they have no affiliation to seriously. And yes I'm afraid that includes Newcastle "fans" from foreign parts. So if any of these plastic fans tried to rub it in that Man U had won the Champions League, I'd just laugh in their face. I honestly think I'd get more enjoyment out of telling them what I thought of them as supporters than they'd get out of trying to brag about winning something they had no involvement in or connection to whatsoever.

The fight continued outside, that's where things got nasty. The stuff in McDonalds was just the prelude.

Been happy with Mort, but he was only ever intended as an interim chairman. Guess we'll just have to wait and see who replaces him.

Yeah, we'll spend big and then the press will claim that it was the pressure they brought to bear on Ashley that made him realise our deficeincies and dip his hands in his pockets. This despite the fact that there was never a money crisis in the first place (As our early bid for Modric proves) and we always intended to spend big anyway - We were just being clever about it and not shouting out that there was £100m (Or whatever) in the kitty as it would immediately inflate all our targets prices by 50%. The press are f#cking morons, the lot of them. But that's not news (Pun intended) to anyone.

I haven't bought a newspaper in about 18 months and I'm not about to start anytime soon. You can get news free online just as easily. I can't stop the press writing insulting crap but I'm sure as hell not going to pay them to do it.

That's pretty much what I feel. There's nowt else to talk about other than transfers and transfer rumours, so seperating the transfer stuff out seems foolish to me. This forum would be like some kind of ghost town if that happened with threads taking about a month to disappear off the first page.

The word "Legend" is frequently overused. For SBR it's not nearly enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_transfers_Summer_2007 July 1st then, I stand corrected. I'll go for August 31st, another Sibierski last-minute job where we get an ageing workhorse in with an hour to go.

Out: Smith Emre Owen Duff 4-3-3 In: A top-class striker A fast, tricky, creative central midfielder A fast, tricky, creative right winger 4-4-2 If N'Zogbia goes as well then add a fast, tricky, creative left winger to the "In" list as well. With the money we'll raise from selling the above (Plus the saved wages), then the whole thing should be just about self-financing. That for me will provide KK with the platform he needs to get us into the top half of the table and possibly challenging for a UEFA cup place.

That's what makes Smith so inept. No matter where he plays, he doesn't score. He doesn't even have a shot which would enable him to score. Hell, he doesn't even get into positions that would make it viable to have a shot that would mean he might score. He just provides zero goal threat.

Zarate Barnes Shorey Certainly not convinced any of them would be the answer to our prayers mind, but all could do a job even if just as squad players.

Keegan said he was going to make changes for this match to give a chance to those who've done well in training but not got many games of late. He then makes said changes. Now everyone gets in a flap and wonders why so and so isn't playing. It's just mental.

Transfer window opens June 1st iirc, so it seems unlikely we'll sign anyone before then.