AyeDubbleYoo

If we can go from nearly winning the league to relegation, then we can go the opposite direction as well. Things can change, look at Spurs. We consistently finished above them until a few years ago, now they're miles ahead. There's no reason at all to accept that our current position is permanent, the trick is balancing the expectation of progress with the reality of our finances.

Well I explained how I thought it was excellent, so not sure how it's 'beyond you'. I still think he's just a decent CM and a average wide man at best. Villa paying us what they did for him was crazy, and Man City buying him was even worse.

He could take a couple of weeks on the Costa del Sol, would be very surprised if he got a manager's job.

Eh?! Milner? N'Zogbia? Given? Bassong? Beye? Faye? A ludicrous post. Milner was an excellent sale, the money was brilliant and he was average for us at best. We had already pissed N'Zogbia off by signing Duff to the point that he desperately wanted out. Given thought it was his big chance to join the Man City revolution, granted the money was less than we should have squeezed out of them. Beye and Bassong were after relegation, both were new to England and had no attachment to NUFC. Faye was a weird one, I agree I don't know why the hell he wanted to go to Stoke. Maybe he only came here because of Allardyce in the first place. There will always be players coming and going - if every player that leaves means we're a selling club then we've been one for generations. All I'm saying is that I don't have any evidence that Colo, Enrique, Barton, Tiote, Ben Arfa or whoever else is playing well that week is going to be sold. And it pisses me off that people continuously post as if it's a given.

Didn't he suck ass for Burnley when they were up?

I agree with that but we have to measure performance and doing so in any other way is subjective. I agree, but football is a subjective game, especially on discussion forums! Measuring Pardew just by the progress up or down the table in the tiny amount of time he's been here is mental IMO.

Well if you didn't say that then I'm not disagreeing with you! There are a lot of people who are always on about how this or that player is definitely leaving though. I guess it's partly a reason to have a pre-emptive moan at Ashley, and partly because people love wallowing in a bit of self pity.

Yet we appear to be one place higher in the league going into an away game which a defeat will see us at best where we were when he came in, at worst lower depending on other results. Nobody's trying to argue with the table. It speaks for itself, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

We're talking about the future.E.g this summer.With the likes of Jose,Tiote,Colo etc. OK, well I just prefer not to decide we'll sell all these players before anything has actually happened. I like enjoying having good players at the club rather than constantly saying "he'll be off in the summer", "He's gone" and self-pitying bollocks like that. This certainty we're selling all our good players is killing almost every thread at the moment, it's depressing as fuck.

Well give the man a chance, he's kept the squad together and we've turned in some good performances. We could have easily won against Sunderland, Tottenham and today. We didn't, aye, but that's football for you.

But we don't 'keep selling our best players', we've only done in once and that was for absolutely insane money.

Don't see anything negative about Pardew's reign so far, except he's not Chris Hughton. The only really bad thing that's happened is selling Carroll, and everyone must know that that's nothing to do with him.

Class!

Newsflash: we fucking are a big club, we're fucking Newcastle United!!!!

Shut the hell up!

I've had possibly the biggest turnaround in opinion on any player I've ever seen - thought he was the new Boumsong when we signed him!

Time to bang a few quid on Nolan.

It's pointless to propose England squads that don't include Rooney, Terry and Lampard, they'll be playing as long as they can walk.

You would think there was only about 5 football managers in the world.

Every young player should be listening to Xavi and studying him intently. Every parent who shouts at his kid for not "hoofing it" or "getting stuck in" should be slapped round the head with a copy of that interview.

That fact he doesn't look like an absolute fat beast makes me more hopeful that this will turn out to be an OK stopgap signing. If he's fit and ready to work hard then that's half the battle for a short-term loan signing.

Awesome interview with Xavi: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/11/xavi-barcelona-spain-interview

There's hardly any non-crucial points of the season though, are there? You would basically have to stop all international friendlies.

Would have to be global as well, wouldn't it? Would hardly be fair if Man Utd lost Rooney because he missed an England game, while Chelsea still had Drogba playing even though he'd cried off playing for the Ivory Coast (for example). The real answer is to stop calling these players up for England competitive games... then they really would have to decide how important playing for England was to them.

Me too, he's anorexic compared to what Sol Campbell looked like when he arrived.