Wallace

I think the fact that he also plays well at centre half is something to consider especially for Villa who have a small squad and lack experience at the back.

I can't see any improvement since the end of last season. There is even less pace in that team now and we have lost 3 strikers. I am seriously worried about where the goals are going to come from? Carroll did well today but it is not fair to rely on him. I would like to have seen more of the other young strikers coming on as late subs. Take Shola out of it then I am sure the next highest goal scorer is Steven Taylor. I will be really worried if we don't bring in a decent striker before the transfer window closes.

Spurs have a reputation of being a nightmare to deal with in transfer negotiations. They seem to manage to upset a lot of clubs with the way they do business. Bruce seems to be the latest - implying that the goalposts keep moving just as they think they have a deal for Bent. Any deal with them is going to be very complicated with loads of add ons etc and if they did bid £10m, I would think very little of that would be paid upfront.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/fans-turn-stadium-into-shrine-for-sir-bobby-1766130.html From The Independent: A groundsman at the stadium, who did not wish to be named, said: "The idea was to open the stand today and tomorrow to allow people to pay their respects but the board has decided it will go into next week. "It is hard to say how many people have been in, but we estimated there to have been 5,000 yesterday and there has been easily twice many already by noon today. "The giant football shirt had been tucked away in a corner for a couple of years. "It used to be passed round over the heads of supporters at home games. We thought it would be a nice gesture to put it out for fans to sign. "The front is covered already and people have begun signing the back."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2292055/DIC-eyeing-possible-Newcastle-United-bid.html Interesting find, cheers. Funny that they were supposedly interested in Shearer then too. I've never seen this comment before from Allardyce. He certainly had them worked out. Over the weekend Ashley and club chairman Chris Mort were the subject of a thinly veiled attack from Allardyce. "Huge businessmen, multimillionaires in their own right, very clever men, but never been shouted at," Allardyce said. "They can't stand the pressure, their knees buckle, they don't stand strong and they use the easy option to take the pressure off themselves. They have to be the strongest ones and often they're the weakest ones."

If the rumours are true, the Scousers will be furious.

I've read all this stuff about how certain players will be fine at this level, players like Nolan, Smith, Butt and Ryan Taylor come to mind and I can't say I'm as confident. This division is full of players with that sort of limited ability, I would think that the main difference will be hunger and fitness. I can see the leading teams in the division having more of it than us unless some signings are made. Agreed. The team needs freshening up. Looking at the line-up the other night, you would think that team is good enough but they have already failed and nothing seemed really different to how they played last year. When Lua Lua came on, he went forward and had a bit more direction about him. A couple of others like that and with a bit of pace, it might seem better. At present the team just seems tired, ponderous and unimaginative.

Oh and what about the criticism in those articles of the attendance the other night ------ for a friendly!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Mirror - "only 17,000 turned up" Star - "Fewer than 17,000 fans turned up for the friendly against Leeds – less than a third of last season’s average" Sun - ".. the laughable 16,000 crowd for the Toon's tie with Leeds at St James' Park on Wednesday - with 5,000 of those visiting fans"

The thing is that the club needs some players to talk to the press now and again and very few of ours can be bothered to do so. Even our captain last season chose to withdraw from his media duties. At least Taylor is willing to do that and he has to put on a positive face. Even if I sometimes cringe at what he says, I think that at least the kid is getting out there and doing what some of his more experienced colleagues should be doing ahead of him.

I think the club is hoping the players will put in transfer requests so they don't have to pay the bonuses. I can't imagine that Bassong will be due that much and he is going to get a massive pay rise wherever he goes so I don't know what is holding him back. For players like Coloccini and Jonas, I can see why they would hold back as they will probably not get as high salaries elsewhere but I am sure some players would be better off financially if they moved even if they put in a transfer request.

HP? SSN Looking at Bassong and Delph apparently. Broomfield was looking at Jonas as well. The options seem to be Bassong or Dunne and Jonas or Petrov. With those options I hope we stay well clear of City. Redknapp was after Jonas when he was at Portsmouth.

You could hear the Ashley chants in the Milburn.

When the Hudderfield fans started given Smith a load of stick, our lot got behind him!

Purely co-incidental I am sure, but the posters on the Chronicle Forum have been very critical in recent weeks that Ashley is being given an easy ride and that the Chronicle needed to start asking awkward questions. I am sure Ashley will not give a toss but the media are starting to take an interest. And I think the situation is deserving of closer inspection by the media. He has basically walked out the club and left it to rot (or has at least given that impression), there are players for whom bids have been received who are desperate to leave and those bids have been knocked back when we know the wage bill is unsustainable. We are led to believe no players will be arriving and no manager will be appointed until there are new owners. Potential buyers are being suggested as friends of Llambias to flush out interest. There are now stories starting to appear that those interested in buying are finding it a frustrating process and whether that is true or not, we do know Ashley has form for messing people around. Now Administration is being openly discussed when a few months ago, we were being told that the club had no debt. This is all becoming even more pressing because the season starts in 10 days time. I even heard a journalist on the radio the other day put forward the opinion that it looks like he is trying to destroy the club to get his revenge. An opinion that is often raised here but is discounted as too implausible but like us, the media are finding it difficult to fathom out what is really going on at the club.

The 'Newcastle Evening Chronicle' is (as we know) the Regional local evening paper for North East England. Ashley doen't live in North East England. The only local evening paper he will see (or care about) is the 'London Evening Standard' Still, 'word' (might) get back to him, I suppose. I also suppose he will LAUGH and ignore it (as always). He will do EXCACTLY what HE wants. He IS doing exactly what he wants. Anything the Chronicle puts on its website is immediately reproduced by other media organisations around the world. Look at Newsnow. Most of the storiesreported in the national newspapers are lifted from the Chronicle and re-written with a slightly different spin.

People said he was good for Falkirk. Just had a s*** defence in front of him so conceeded a few. The one game that I saw him against Celtic they conceeded 5 or 6 but he was also their MOM. Very Givenesque.

Chronicle going on the attack now. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2009/07/29/calls-for-mike-ashley-to-show-some-honesty-72703-24268154/ Calls for Mike Ashley to show some honesty

Not sure if it has been mentioned elsewhere, but Radio Newcastle are doing live commentary tonight.

I guess the last released figures for the wage bill also included Given and N'Zogbia and I imagine Given was one of the high earners.

I would imagine that if Shearer is offered the manager's job at a later stage and if he wants it, it will be easy enough to get out of the BBC contract.

I was surprised but then I don't recall him ever playing in any of these charity games so maybe he is not able to like Terry Butcher who has had a knee replacement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jul/29/newcastle-united-championship-fans-plight Mike Ashley must end Newcastle's torture and catch their drift to neglect Mike Ashley meant well but he has squandered his opportunity to make good at St James' Park Another day and another joke email comes pinging into my inbox about the plight of Newcastle United. Photoshopped spoof Oxo cubes with Mike Ashley's head superimposed above the legend "laughing stock", adverts for the team's clubcall (0800 won nothing, won nothing, won nothing) and that old standby, a viral video corruption of the subtitles for the film Downfall, have all been sent by people glorying in the club's demise. Last weekend's 6-1 drubbing by Leyton Orient has given those connoisseurs of schadenfreude new impetus and with 10 days to go before Newcastle begin their Championship campaign and with no new owner, manager or players in sight, the situation could hardly be more bleak or the barbs more cruel. It's fashionable to knock Newcastle fans. Last year in the Times after the resignation of Kevin Keegan, Matthew Syed wrote an astonishing polemic, ridiculing them as "whining, whingeing, self-pitying, self-indulgent and deluded". Despite the fact that his description could at times be applied to almost any football fan I know, his characterisation of the Magpies' faithful seemed to strike a chord with supporters of other clubs who waded in with an orgy of piss-taking and derision. The opportunity to mock afflicted clubs is one of the joys of being a fan and payback time is difficult not to relish but the sadistic edge to the jeering spree is getting harder to stomach. Newcastle fans do not possess uniquely contemptible qualities and trying to pin the blame on them for the club's travails in the two years since Ashley purchased the club is the ultimate red herring. Ashley has always portrayed himself as a football ingénue and, by implication, any mistakes he made were perpetrated with the best intentions. He has had three shots at popularity – by buying the club from the Hall family and Freddy Shepherd who made millions out of it while leaving the trophy room in the same state they found it, sacking Sam Allardyce and replacing him with Kevin Keegan and that last-gasp appointment of Alan Shearer in a failed bid to stave off relegation. Each time he has squandered it. You can discount Shepherd's apologists who say the new regime's jettisoning of the former chairman was its first error, as if darkly hinting in Hilaire Belloc's words: "And always keep a-hold of Nurse, for fear of finding something worse." But the goodwill Ashley stimulated with his "man of the people" routine ran out when he insisted on the "continental structure" and headhunted Dennis Wise to be its recruitment supremo. The departure of Keegan over the sale of James Milner and the arrival of Xisco instead of the manager's preferred target, Bastian Schweinsteiger, pitted fans against the board and provoked Ashley's first attempt to relieve himself of the burden of ownership. When that failed he let the club drift on under the management of Joe Kinnear, sanctioned buying Kevin Nolan, who has looked too slow for the past two seasons, and got Ryan Taylor, the epitome of a makeweight, in the deal that took Charles N'Zogbia to Wigan. When Kinnear became ill, Chris Hughton took charge for six games before Shearer was given eight games in a bold but doomed gamble to secure Premier League survival. Since then it's been back to drift, with Ashley determined not to take the rudder and potential buyers locked into a stalemated game of hardball with the vendor. In the eight weeks since Newcastle were relegated it is as if the club has been taken hostage and with 10 days to go before their Championship debut fixture against West Bromwich they are left back in the hands of Hughton, a capable coach but, after various lacklustre caretaker spells, palpably not a manager. The players they are left with are the ones for whom they paid too much, reward too handsomely and are reluctant to rack up future liabilities by either paying them off or subsidising their Premier League wages at other clubs for the duration of their contracts. In the past boards have counted on the loyalty of fans to endure all hardships but if ever a statement needed to be made, it is now. The BBC reported the fact that only three people turned up at the St James' Park megastore to buy the new canary away strip as if it was a bad sign and it might be argued that the arbitrary choice of yellow was a mitigating factor. I hope, however, that it was more a sign that enough is enough and that Ashley's relaxed approach to the club's summer of aimless meander will not go unchallenged. "Sitting here in limbo," sang Jimmy Cliff, "like a bird ain't got a song." Tonight's friendly against Leeds gives Newcastle fans the perfect opportunity to use their voices again and call time on the neglect that has left their club in such a parlous position. Posted by Rob Bagchi Wednesday 29 July 2009 00.10 BST

He was f***ing crap for the reserves at Hillheads the other week, if that helps. He did well at Falkirk and Carlisle on loan. Think he started off shakily both times but got better and better as he played more games. He is highly rated internationally and if he is available, he will probably have a choice of top clubs but at the moment he needs to play regularly.

From The Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1202724/TRANSFER-GOSSIP-Arsenal-hold-8-5m-Eboue-fee-Spurs-Hutton--Tuesdays-stories.html?ITO=1490 LATEST: Arsenal are in talks with Newcastle United over keeper Tim Krul. The young Dutchman has been on loan with Carlisle but found his opportunities limited at St James' Park. Arsene Wenger was interested in the keeper prior to him signing for the Tyneside club and is likely to land his man at the second time of asking.

The whole thing doesn't make any sense. From Ashley buying the club in the first place all the way through to his running it into the ground now. I wonder how the media would be reacting if the people who bought Man U, Chelsea or Liverpool had done the same sort of thing to them that Ashley has done to us. It's funny how Mike Ashley is a 'fit and proper person' by the Premier League ownership rules but we'd have been better off if a Taiwanese dictator had bought us! Huh? We are one of the most talked about teams pre-season, i don't get your point at all. We are one of the most talked about teams but most of it very inaccurate and resorts to the old cliches. With the exception of George Caulkin, there are few if any print or broadcast journalists reporting the current situation in what I would consider to be an accurate manner. As ever, everyone else thinks it is all the fans fault and that Ashley has paid off all the debt and we are an ungrateful bunch obsessed with former idols and so deserve everything we get. Furthermore we would not be in the mess if we had kept Allardyce and so on. I don't even think the comparison with Leeds is that relevant other than where we might end up. There are so many times in the last 2 years that you can point to where the wrong decision has been made (if they had just made the correct decision on one of those occasions, our situation might be different now) - it has not been about chasing the dream as with Leeds and overspending in trying to achieve that. It has been about employing the wrong people, employing people with no football experience, choosing to back the wrong people, selling the wrong players, not reacting promptly and letting things drift, employing Xisco for £50k a week for 5 years (still cannot believe that is true) and Bassong on £5k for 2 or 3 years to mention just a few. Most of these things are being glossed over. We've already had a play written on this season but there is definitely a whole book waiting to be written on how not to run a football club based on the last 2 years under Ashley.