Wallace

Wasn't that the game where Nolan shouted to the bench to get Geremi off!!! We struggled in the centre of defence in that game (Simpson and Khizanishvili) because of injuries.

Capello has never been to SJP to watch a game even when Carroll was here. He has been to SOL once. Pretty shocking really. I think the reason given previously has been that he likes to see more than one game a day and we are too far away for that to be possible. And to be fair to Simpson, he was supposedly on a list of potentials that England were looking at but the emergence of Kyle Walker means that he has probably dropped off that list.

Apparently Mancini has said that he has managed to get his board to agree to give free transfers to all the first team players he no longer wants.

On Sunday Supplement, Olly Holt pointed out Larsson's cheating (saying that the ball had hit his face) which has rarely raised a murmur where had it been Barton, there would have been a huge furore about it.

Regardless of whether people rate Simpson or not, I find it alarming albeit not surprising if we were unable to keep such a player at NUFC. I cannot imagine his contract demands are outrageous either and he certainly is young enough.

I seem to remember it being reported that Keegan had a clause in his contract which meant that if he resigned, he would owe the club money. I wonder if Pardew has something similar in his.

Obviously never watched him or has seen him once on MOTD when enrique made a rare mistke. It is obvious that most "experts" have little idea what they are talking about. When you watch one team so much - in our case Newcastle - you hear so much that is incorrect spouted in the media which makes me think that what I hear about other clubs is probably equally incorrect. Unfortunately, too many trust the views of the "experts" and form their opinions based on what they hear.

I am happy for players to come out and say what they think. If they all stayed quiet and just let Llambias continue to sully their names in the media, then Ashley gets a free ride. Up until this Summer, a lot of fans have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt but now it is becoming obvious that Ashley has no real intent to move the club forwards. Fans are no longer believing the false promises. And I don't see how it will unsettle the current players - they are more aware of what is going on than us and will have discussed it between themselves. Player's motivations for staying or moving on differ. Ambitious players will be concerned at the lack of ambition the club has where others aware of their limitations might just be happy with stabllity for their families and ignore all the politics. I have no time for Pardew but I find it reassuring that players like Barton and Enrique are supportive of him and that gives me some hope that maybe he is a better manager than I think he is.

Yeah, 'told' Yeah what? Fact is he has contacts within the club. He knows more than us, although things change quick as f***. He never actually sounds like he know's anything though. His Twitter is just a constant stream of if's, but's, and maybe's. Can you imagine him getting straight onto the blower to some 'contact' early this morning after the story broke, and them giving him the time of day between negotiations to peddle a 'Oh yes we want him, but he's more expensive than we thought, but, and keep this under your hat, we are still interested' line. My arse has he talked to anyone about Cissokho. No evidence of anything, and Taxfree is already calling us a disgrace. They don't just speak to the club though - they will contact the player's agents and other journalists they trust to verify their information. Not saying that is the case here but everyone involved has their own agenda and will use the media to suit their purpose.

Told by whom? I don't believe for a second that most of his reactionary 'I've been told' tweets to stories actually come from anywhere beyond his own fevered bonce. How should I know? Either way, he definitely has contacts like. As a local journalist, he will have contacts within the club however, whether they tell him the truth is another matter. It seems to me that the local journalists are often fed a lot of misinformation by the club especially when the supporters start getting agitated.

I can't believe they would play Perch - Pardew seems to have totallly sidelined him so far - didn't even take him on the US tour and I don't think he has played much in pre-season.

Well Pardew keeps reminding us that we are no longer a big club and to remember our place down amongst the lesser teams in the Premier League.

he would choose tottenham and modric to chelsea! Too old - over 30.

They do archive results from tests etc you know, and they do have staff that worked there before he arrived. I hate it when managers do that because he is indirectly criticising the former manager and coaching staff. At least last year, the players had a decent pre-season and got enough game time unlike this disaster of a pre-season.

Good news I guess. Says a lot about the attitudes of the people at the top though, they simply don't get it. This has been one of the reasons that the players have been unhappy. Hopefully, it will mean a happier dressing room.

If Barton goes to Stoke, I would say it is more about how desperate he is to leave us because of his issues with the board rather than any enthusiasm for Stoke. However they are a club that are showing a lot more ambition than we seem to plan on doing for several years. His agent did say they would speak to every interested club and listen to what they had to say so that might be all they are doing. And whatever offer Stoke come up with, they could use it as a bargaining tool should other clubs show interest.

Maybe they've used the Enrique fee to pay them.

I am not a fan of Pardew and I am still not sure what to make of him. Pardew got a lot of credit for last season but I am not so sure whether he just got away with it. When I look back at last season, all the best games and results came under Hughton. The two exceptions were the Liverpool game which the players (and Pardew) said was down to Hughton and the Arsenal game which could be argued was down to Barton and Nolan. Looking at the second half of the season, yes we picked up points against some of the teams where we had been dropping them in similar games under Hughton and we missed Carroll and suffered injuries but we had some very poor games and average performances. I know we had some very poor games under Hughton but post the Arsenal game, we were just very average. Pardew made strange team selections against Stoke and Everton and his subs cost us the game against West Brom. And I think the defence (his speciality) became poorer as the season went on. Did the team just run out of steam in the end? Whether Hughton would have done better, who knows. However, it is now Pardew's team so it will be interesting to see how he gets on. And he better not come out with any excuses as he has made his own bed.

Great potential? To do what exactly, to become an average Championship striker perhaps? To become a decent Premier League striker. So when has he shown this potential? Scoring goals for the reserves in plentyful (I know, but he has the ability), scoring 1 in 2 in average (12 games, 6 goals) for England under 19, and some very promising matches from the bench, especially the one against Liverpool. He has the ability. Now he needs to get his head together, grow up and gain some confidence. Confidence on the pitch that is. The reserves He's had some decent cameos against tired legs, but he's shown little natural footballing ability and a willingnes to improve At the beginning of the Championship season, he had some very good games - even won MOM against Leicester. He did have a decent run in the team at that point. That may well be his level but his performances last season were certainly much poorer than they had been the year before.

I like Taylor but he would be a disaster at left back.

I get the impression that Ashley and Pardew have bought into the media myth that all NUFC supporters expect to win the League every year and demand big name signings whereas we just want to watch football we can enjoy and be able to compete with most teams. I don't know why they have to keep telling us to lower our expectations - how much lower do they want us to go. A club of this size should comfortably be a top-half team and if not then that is down to poor decision-making at boardroom level whether that is in their choice of manager, transfers, player costs, overall management of the club etc. I am fed up of this lot looking for excuses or trying to pass the blame onto others all the time.

I had expected him to be moved on this Summer but would be reluctant to lose him until we get another decent striker in. Sameobi seems to be Ranger's replacement.

I can see why all the pundits are predicting us to be relegated because it was off the field issues that led to relegation last time and there are plenty of issues surrounding the club at the moment so it could be a difficult season. Also because the squad is lacking numbers in defence and up front, if we have injury problems, we will struggle. However, we do have good players and we could equally have a good season. I just don't know what to expect at the moment.

And yet I just see him as a younger version of Shola. Does all the clever things and then cocks up the simple stuff. Although to be fair, he does manage to work himself towards the goal whereas Shola has the knack of doing the opposite.

We are struggling to get one striker in never mind two.