AyeDubbleYoo

I really don't want to stop shopping at Sports Direct... but I think now is the time.

At least none of the money at NUFC is going on Public Relations experts.

This is so tacky I want to cry. Bracing myself for the abuse from other fans. All I can say is that I'll never say that name or write it again. Starting from now.

I literally can't believe that this has happened... even the BBC news item seems surreal.

What, so he's suddenly telling the truth? How did this happen? The thing I don''t get is how Llambias ever expects anyone to believe a word he ever says again, Well, most people anyway. I never said I believed him, in fact I specifically said that the comments might not be true.

The most valuable ones?

I hate him as much as anyone, but those comments actually make sense. Whether or not they're true or not is another matter, obviously, and everything he hasn't done in the past makes it hard to swallow. (Just to clarify, I would rather spend some more money on the team as well).

Yes, absolutely. The heritage of this club isn't for sale... it's all we have of value. I don't think the future of this club is at risk here, say we miss out on £5m or £6m, will be go bust? I don't think so.

Care to expand on what it is exactly that I am missing here? History, pride, love, honour, roots, all that stuff.

What a load of shit, nothing more to be said really. They realised getting rid of SJP would be unworkable, so now they want to tack something on to the name. This only makes them look more idiotic, and if anything makes the deal even less appealing to sponsors. Just admit that selling the name was a mistake.

I agree, but Kevin Keegan and the Premier League have different views apparently.

That's that sorted then.

Baba, I was just about to post that I think we'll be seeing some serious rethinking of contracts for managers from now on. I mean, I thought it was a basic part of being a manager that sometimes players would be sold who you wanted to keep. If the manager has to have overall financial control of the whole club, some more training is going to be needed! 10 years in top flight football, plus an MBA and accountancy training maybe.

It's bollocks basically, there's no way to judge it. Some people would say crowds, when that's essentially random, or number of hardcore fans, when that's impossible to measure. I suppose you could say it's something to do with winning things, in which case let's just call it 'successful club' and save ourselves a lot of hassle.

Just going in to football matches with a chance of winning them is a big relief for me, even if the opposition are poor.

Yeah, but if you're separating 'performance' and 'results' to mark them both then you should look purely at stats.

Don't think you can have a go at the council for this. SJP is owned and run by NUFC so they can call it what they like. You're right, the council could object and express their displeasure, but that's about it.

If results are considered alone then they must get at least an 8 or 9, surely? We're top of the league. My overall impression of this season is that it's been surprising how easy the championship is compared to what we were led to believe in the summer. I don't think we have played really well, so I'm diappointed in that. Also encouraged that when it looked like the wheels were coming off we put together another couple of wins. Makes me less scared that everything is suddenly going to go downhill.

The game is too fast for him in Prem I think, good player at the moment mainly because we've dropped down a level.

I love the way Drogba plays, except the diving. Rooney is an all-rounder and brilliant at what he does. Torres has the ability to complete confound a defender and score goals nobody else would, also very very quick. I can't choose, I'd probably go for Torres if I had other world class players around him. Otherwise Drobga/Rooney.

Rafa doesn't seem to be able to make a team more than the sum of its parts like Fergie can. On paper Man Utd have almost as many players you might describe as 'average' (O'Shea, Fletcher, Brown etc), but together they get the job done. And the amount of nothing players he has signed is alarming. Ironically he might have been better off not going for Torres and signing 3 decent players instead.

Someone like Ranger? Yep.

Glad to see he's showing some potential to be really useful, I'd just love to see someone up alongside him with decent pace and movement.

I think this is an important misconception that is a major reason we aren't happy with being top of the league. Football doesn't work like this. It's 11 against 11 and nobody has the right to beat anyone else, even the rubbish teams have physical attributes and movement that can make things difficult for us. It's interesting that we're able to simultaneously complain about how few good players we've got and also expect to win every game. I dont complain about how few good players we have. Our team is better than every other team in this division. Our players in the majority of positions are individually better than anything else in this division. What surprises me is how good fans and pundits make this league out to be. When we got relegated a lot of championship supporting friends suggested it was a tough league with loads of quality and not far away from the Premiership. They were wrong. I honestly think that the difference in our quality and the rest of the league on paper makes it like shooting fish in a barrel. Its funny to watch Ameobi waltzing through a defence, but at the same time I know deep down thats hes just not that good and thats what deflates it for me that tiny bit. It would be so much better to see it against the very best rather than the current bunch of crap we face week in week out. Our rapid demise also contributes to this. We all freshly remember European victories and being up there in the top 3 or 4. To go from that to this in a space of 5 or so years gives me that feeling of its fun but just not quite as good. You will argue against this no doubt and make some very valid points, but I just can not believe how rubbish some of the football is in this league. Don't disagree much really, you're right our rapid decline means it is harder to enjoy what is a fairly minor period of semi-success. The main thing that keeps me going is that we expected to be really poor this season, some people even predicted another relegation, so it's good to know it's not as bad as all that.

I think we're lucky that nobody else seems to realise how good Enrique is. You see it every week, teams seem to target him and wingers take him on, but he just gets ahead of them and gets the ball back easily. I still hear commentators and pundits saying he has been disappointing, it's mental.