Wallace

It still sounds odd when they say Sports Direct Arena infact it always takes few moments for it to register that they are talking about NUFC when it is said - mainly because hardly anyone uses it and when they do, they often also mention SJP in the same sentence. And often when it is mentioned, it is more as a piss-take than anything else.

I think it will be Hughes and he did a similar job at Blackburn when he went there as they were relegation candidates. I seem to remember though that Blackburn were very over-physical in those early games with him in charge. I just hope the negotiations take a while so he is not appointed until after our game.

If there is a clause in his contract, other football clubs will know about it already regardless of whether Redknapp had said anything. However, what Redknapp has done is to increase the media speculation which will continue until the transfer window closes. With regards to why no clubs have come in for Ba as yet, they will wait until towards the end of the transfer window as they will not want to pay wages for a player who will not play for them until next month. Maybe that was why Pardew said that they would not entertain late offers for any of the players although I think that was probably said more in relation to Tiote. Also players often struggle to adapt back to the Premier League when they come back from the ACoN so if they buy a player whose country reaches the final in mid February, they might find it takes them some time to find their form again so unless they are desperate, it would make more sense to wait until the Summer when the player is likely to be cheaper (although that wouldn't apply to Ba if the release clause is quite low). Ba may well be motivated by money but he came into the game late and we are led to believe that his career could be over at anytime so in this case, it is understandable.

At one of the away games this season, they were singing "Why Aye Cabaye Why Aye" to the old "Howay The Lads" tune.

The media seem to think he will end up going to Spurs.

With the way the club works, I would expect Krul to get a new long term contract in the near future if only to maximise any future transfer fee. I think his current contract runs until 2014

Indeed. Loads of new housing estates or at least they were when I was househunting around London back in the 90s.

Appeal has failed according to Talksport.

We had a spell where we strung about 20-30 passes together but after that I think we were soundly beaten in all quarters. Yep - the fans were doing the oles in the away end at the time.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/evening-chronicle-news/2012/01/04/richard-branson-hosts-newcastle-staff-party-72703-30058266/ "Ms Gadhia said the Northern Rock and Virgin Money brands would “co-exist” for the coming months as the rebranding exercise takes place. But she said the name would not be changing on Newcastle United’s shirts – for tonight’s game against Manchester United, which she is attending."

Well Virgin agreed to buy Northern Rock in November and agreed it would go trough on January 1st, so really Virgin being on our shirts could have been happening tonight no matter what the outcome of these suspected rumours are. Well they would get a worldwide audience with us playing Man Utd which might be attractive as they are launching the new company at present.

Doesn't the Chronicle get printed overnight on Teesside these days? Therefore if it has only been amounced this morning it would not be in today's paper.

Does that mean we can buy a striker now?

The thing is that Ben Arfa was supposedly regarded as the "crown jewels" at the club. I interpreted that as meaning they expected to get big money for him once he was sold on. Unless he starts playing regularly, that won't happen but I reckon there will be plenty clubs willing to buy him for what we paid for him. Is this another Tevez at West Ham situation where Pardew would not play him? As we know, a lot of foreign players take a while to adjust to the Premier League but Ben Arfa has had very little playing time so he is still learning the league. He will make mistakes but at some point, they just have to take the risk and get him up to match speed. There was a lovely moment in the Liverpool game when he was warming up and came towards the away end where he was applauded and his name sung and he responded with a huge smile.

Has no other team dared to do this to Liverpool before then? It happens to us regularly at SJP that we are asked to play towards the Gallowgate in the first half.

I cannot understand these Ba rumours. Unless he has something written into his contract that he can leave on a free (as he did with West Ham), then why would other clubs be willing to pay a fee because you have the same problems that Stoke had when he failed the medical with them. Another thing I don't get, is the rush in the media to try and move players 6 months after joining a new club. Surely, you need to judge a player over at least a season because quite often, a new player on the scene will have a great first 6 months but after than other clubs have worked out how to play against them and they are less effective for the rest of the season.

The loan rumour was saying that Carroll was open to a loan back to Newcastle so it would appear to have originated from the Liverpool end so obviously NUFC would rubbish it. Unfortunately for Carroll, as much as he may want to return home, he has no influence on such a decision.

What is it that "top" teams like Liverpool do in their training and match preparations that is so different from "small" clubs like Newcastle that is causing Carroll to struggle to adjust? I keep reading articles implying how superior Liverpool are in everything they do compared to the likes of us but surely there is not that much difference in practice except maybe their budget allows for more resources.

The club said he was only sold because he had put in a transfer request. They seem to have forgotten that version now. :rolleyes:

Our striker situation is really poor. We have got lucky with Ba so far but then you have Lovenkrands a willing trier who will surely be gone in the Summer, Shola who has the occasional good game but won't stay fit for more than a couple of games and Best who is woefully out of form but who the club have seemingly wanted to get rid of since he signed. There also seems to be a lack of young strikers coming through - Simpson is a prospect but he is only 16 and a few years away yet but other than him, there seems to be very little and Airey seems to be injured a lot. Vuckic can probably play as a supporting striker if needed. There is a lot of work to be done in the next few months to improve the striking options if they are not going to do anything this January.

Bellamy usually has a good game against us unfortunately. Hope Carroll doesn't find his form against us.

I would be interested to know how they "sold" the club to players like Cabaye. If they continue to show a lack of ambition, then it will not be long before the word is out that the only reason to join NUFC is move to a bigger club ASAP. Surely we want to sign players who would hope to achieve success with us rather than just briefly pass through otherwise at best we will stagnate or worst just drop down the table. Enrique lost belief in the club's ambitions. Is Colo about to do the same? If that happens, how long before the rest follow?

If the club can get 50,000 people sharing your view, Ashley has got himself a nifty business model. Staying up is enough, and a professional footballer is a professional footballer, no matter what their actual level of quality may be. What is there to gain by buying now? We look on course to finish higher than last season, even if things don't go as well in the second half of the season we will be OK. If our plan is Europe in the next three years then it is better to make steady progress in developing the squad than betting the house on a player to get us there in 6 months. Because it's quite possible that the 7th position we currently find ourselves in could make this our most attractive period in terms of appealing to players for some time if we now slide down the league? Let's be honest unless we have European football to offer there isn't much difference between finishing 8th and 14th. Also the point I'm trying to make is that whoever the new 'panic buy' striker in January was they would have been a massive gamble. High transfer fee, high wages, long contract and not enough reearch done to ensure they are right for the team. For a club that currently has Alan Smith and Xisco on its books and had Albert Luque on its books for many years surely we should have learnt the problem with this strategy. There is about £4.5m difference in prize money which surely would be of concern to the board.

I would agree that those would be the 3 clubs. If West Ham get promoted and he is still not performing for Liverpool, then I can them coming in for him especially as he has the same agent as Allardyce and Nolan. Not sure what kind of funds QPR actually have and if they could afford to buy him, but I could see him on loan there for the rest of the season reuniting him with Barton. Stoke would love him but could they afford him?

During the last round of international matches, there was a Spanish correspondent on the radio who was asked why Enrique had not been called up for Spain. He said that it had been raised in a press conference with the manager and apparently Enrique was not even under consideration and according to the pundit (can't remember who it was), they have not even been monitoring him. I remember the interview because I had thought once he moved to Liverpool, he would be called up immediately buy obviously he is not in their immediate plans.