Chris_R

Well, as he says "good luck to John", I assume he has no problem with Terry for accepting the contract. It's not his fault that people are daft enough to pay him a reported £150k per week. The fault lies with the football clubs. If no team in the world was prepared to pay Terry anything more than £5k per week, it's not like he'd say "F#ck you then, I'm retiring to stack shelves in Tescos!". He'd accept £5k, and continue to play to the high standard he does now. The clubs pay £150k though because us, as fans, make it viable. Be it by going to the matches, subscribing to Sky, buying replica tops, whatever. It all counts. It's only when we say "No more" that we'll see an end to all this.

In the Newcastle end, probably £50-£70, on the proviso that Sam plays Milner and N'Zogbia from the start, and plays for 3 points not 1. If he sets his stall out like he has against Reading and Derby, then you'd have to pay me to go.

Like Madras, I'd fear the football that we'd play to accomodate Crouch. Passes upfield would be coming down with snow on them. Apart from that, as a player I'd like to see Crouch here. I think he offers a lot. Though Martins and Crouch would have a height difference of about a foot, which would be quite amusing.

Yeah, Jol to Ajax seems likely. Reminds me of when we sacked SBR after he did so well for us then had a bad start to a season. We went downhill all the way after that, hope the same happens to Spurs. Chances are they'll recover though. Sadly.

Am I the only one who thinks Zambrotta's wife looks ridiculous? So out of proportion, frankly I think she's horrid.

You're all making me feel old. Mine was Vs Portsmouth, 1992. We won 3-1 I think, I seem to recall David Kelly and Mick Quinn scoring for us, and Guy Whittingham scoring for them. That could, of course, all be rubbish. It was a long time ago!

Too right. The place would go absolutely mental.

Can't argue with anything he said. So he admitted coming for the money? Do you think half the rest of the Sheppard signings are here for any other reason? Duff? Owen? Dyer when he was here?

Only time will tell, I understand where your coming from, but I think that this is the last chance saloon for most of these. Put money aside for the moment, who would want to sign the likes of Dyer and Bellamy if they fu*ck up again. This is make or break for them...... Dyer, Bellamy and Bowyer are all millionaires many times over. It's not make or break, they're already made. If they were all 18 years old and paid £500 per week you might have a point, but the contracts WHU have given them will see will into the wrong side of 30. They have no reason to ever need to move again and can see those contracts out if they want, no matter how bad they play.

\o

And a lot of Newcastle fans think exactly the same. Myself included.

Gahahahahaha: 3-0, Martins. Just keeps getting better!

Good news, happy with those 2 coming in. Still need another couple - Baines would be great, give us our best leftback since John Beresford.

How would he do that - Attach a small parachute to his ankle?

Well, if it's good enough for Romario...

Looks like he stays.

Well Allardyce seems to think they do need convincing. We don't know that sufficient money is there, all we know is what he's told us, which is that the board have been slow to act and that deals have been falling through which suggests money is very possibly an issue. Nobody seems to have considered that this could be Allardyce playing a very clever media game. By announcing publicly that he's struggling to secure funds, it stops other teams ramping their prices right up just because we've got a billionaire owner. I mean look what happens whenever Chelsea delcare an interest in a player - his value multiplies by about 3 overnight.

Doesn't leave much room for any replies at all really, does it?

No, I'd suspect just about the entire messageboard hope for the exact same thing.

Yes, 3 clubs confirmed as Newcastle, Portsmouth and Rangers. Give yourself a biscuit.

OK, so Newcastle, Portsmouth and Rangers confirmed. Here's some facts for you, make of them what you will: Newcastle bought Boumsong from Rangers. Newcastle bought Amdy Faye from Portsmouth. Graeme Souness was manager of Newcastle when both deals were done. Willie McKay was the agent of both players. Both deals were amongst those not cleared by the recent Lord Stevens investigation. Finally, from the Wiki article on Willie McKay: According to Wiki, that's from a Telegraph article called "What Stevens said about each club", but the link on Wiki is dead now. Still, looks like we have a chief suspect.

I think I've just spotted the flaw in your plan.

Still, it used to be £500k prize money per Premier League placing, surely he's worth an extra 5 places up the table to them? Especially as that could then determine European football / survival / relegation (Depending on how you see Bolton doing next year). And that's ignoring the fact that prize money has gone through the roof in the last few months with the overseas TV deal. They'd be mad to sell him, better to let him leave on a free and get another year's service out of him.

Yeah, like they'll let their most important player leave for that amount! Might as well bid £1.99 for Cristiano Ronaldo whilst they're at it.

Nikos Papavasiliou. Played only 7 games for us and I seem to remember him looking quite decent (Disclaimer - I may have been drunk). Then he vanished off the face of the earth.