Wallace

I read a few days ago that he is talking about leaving Arsenal because he has lost his place in the French squad. Even if we were seriously interested, I cannot believe for one moment he would entertain the idea of returning. Can imagine Palace going for him (anything to keep Cabaye happy) but I don't know how good their right back is.

For most clubs it would be too soon to say relegation is guaranteed as there are so many changes that can be made. The issue here is will the club address the problems or rather are they capable of addressing the problems. Their current response as usual seems to be "we know what we are doing, we have a plan and we will stick to it. We won't panic like other clubs". But it is their constant lack of a response to the various situations presented to them over the last few years that have contributed to their current situation. The current attitude seems to be to try and get through to January and then address things but by then it may well be too late. Players who might have been keen to join in the Summer will no longer want to come. Are they really going to be in a position to attract any player that can make a difference? In the meantime, I would expect other struggling clubs to react more decisively to their problems - probably by changing the manager. I think the only way we change our manager is if he walks rather than if he is sacked. Their sheer arrogance and stubbornness will be their downfall.

Both Sunderland and QPR were relegated when Black was working for them.

Has to get international clearance first which will take about a month so he will be available for selection for the internationals in November.

And he quite likes us because his Dad is a Geordie.

I wouldn't get carried away yet as a few players have done OK on debut when there has been very little expectation of them. Did very well yesterday but seems to have been injured for most of the time he has been here.

I do think London and the South are starting to take over. At the moment, it is really just Chelsea and Arsenal but once West Ham and Spurs get their new stadiums they will both be in a position to move forward again. QPR have talked about a new stadium and Palace were in takeover talks and are also looking to redevelop. If players are only interested in moving to London, the lesser London clubs will be able attract those not quite good enough for the top 4. Even the "mighty" Liverpool are losing out on players who prefer to move to London. Those clubs (if properly ran) will all be in a strong position to pull further away from the rest of us and the top half of the league will comprise mostly of London clubs. Infact London has so many clubs that they could easily form their own league. There is surely no other city that has as many professional clubs. However with good management and vision, other clubs could do well but I think they would need to have a strong academy to do so. But two clubs that have that (Southampton and Swansea) are still losing their better players each year. Unfortunately we are miles behind both of them and Ashley has damaged the club to such an extent, I do not see how we will ever be able to close the gap. I can imagine the football landscape will look quite different in 10-20 years time if the authorities don't do something to redress the balance.

They will struggle to find any decent players wanting to join us in January if continue playing as we are at the moment. Austin might have been keen in the Summer but if we are bottom of the league in January, there is no way he will want to come and be relegated again. He may as well stay at QPR. If they are looking at Premier League players, they will be looking at players who are out of favour at their clubs or loans.

Listening to Marco and some of the callers on Total Sport, they seem quite positive.

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/columnists/scottwilson/scottwilson/13781521.Scott_Wilson_Column__Charnley_and_Carr_head_list_of_culprits_for_Newcastle_United_s_troubles/?ref=mac Scott Wilson Column: Charnley and Carr head list of culprits for Newcastle United's troubles AS he trudged off the field at the end of Wednesday’s calamitous Capital One Cup defeat to Wolves, Steve McClaren looked up into the Milburn Stand to see a group of furious supporters hurling abuse in his direction. Such is the way of things at Newcastle United, where the head coach is the only public face of a compromised and rotten regime. McClaren should not be spared criticism. His team selection on Wednesday night was flawed from the outset, and more than three months into his role, he does not appear to have any idea about his preferred formation or best players. Perhaps he has simply concluded that he doesn’t have any. Yet to portray McClaren as the cause of the current crisis is to completely ignore the deep-rooted systemic failures that have turned Newcastle into the Premier League’s laughing stock. This isn’t a malaise that started when McClaren was appointed. Newcastle won three games in the whole of the second half of last season, and were similarly dreadful in the second half of the previous campaign under Alan Pardew. Their problems go back years, so while McClaren, Pardew and John Carver all merit a mention when blame is being apportioned, along with the players who are currently picking up their astronomical pay packets under false pretences, the real villains of the piece are the boardroom triumvirate of Mike Ashley, Lee Charnley and Graham Carr. They dreamed up the flawed transfer policy that is crippling Newcastle, and it is they who continue to cling to it despite all available evidence highlighting that it does not work. Of all the comments made last week, the most alarming was McClaren’s admission that the board are already targeting the January transfer window in order to put things right. Like an alcoholic eyeing their next drink while the dregs from their current pint are still swilling around the bottom of the glass, Newcastle’s boardroom leaders are convinced everything will be okay if they plough headlong into January and throw more money at their beloved continental markets. Never mind that they spent more than £50m this summer and somehow managed to make one of the poorest teams in the Premier League even worse. Newcastle’s dreadful transfer business is the single biggest cause of the current crisis. Ever since Carr recruited Yohan Cabaye and Mathieu Debuchy, and in the eyes of his employer, turned water into wine, the club have adopted an inflexible and myopic approach to signing players. They have to fit into a certain age bracket. They have to come from a specific market and fall within a pre-defined price range. And above all else, they have to have a “sell-on value” once their contract expires. It doesn’t matter if they fit into the squad or not, just as it is inconsequential whether there are gaping holes they do not fill. Newcastle desperately needed experienced defenders and strikers this summer, yet they ended up with a 21-year-old centre-half who cannot speak a word of English (Chancel Mbemba), a 21-year-old striker whose character flaws were well known before he arrived (Aleksandar Mitrovic), a ‘number ten’ who doesn’t have a role in the team because the squad was already well stocked in that position (Georginio Wijnaldum) and yet another over-hyped French winger who clearly sees Newcastle as nothing more than a stepping stone to bigger and better things (Florian Thauvin). No matter that McClaren wanted Charlie Austin, a player with proven Premier League pedigree. His injury record meant he didn’t guarantee “added value”. Hence, he remained at QPR and McClaren felt compelled to play Siem de Jong as a lone striker on Wednesday night. Newcastle is a club without an identity because Carr and Charnley sign players who see it as little more than a transit zone. Nobody makes an emotional investment into the team, nobody is prepared to go the extra yard when things become difficult. And even when their commitment appears to have expired, as in the case of Fabricio Coloccini, Cheick Tiote and Papiss Cisse, they remain because they are assets that cannot be knowingly undersold. Charnley must see that, yet his failure to stand up to Ashley and challenge the failing methodology is preventing any opportunity of change. Only answerable to the person who parachuted him into his lofty position, perhaps the managing director feels he would be demoted if he was to confront his boss? If that is the case, you would imagine he will be going anyway if Newcastle are relegated. Unwilling to listen to the concerns of his head coach, but unwavering in his loyalty to Ashley, Charnley appears to be blinkered to what is going on around him. And the same is clearly true of Carr, a figure whose reputation far exceeds what he has actually achieved during his time on Tyneside. If Carr really is the scouting guru he is purported to be, he must surely watch the current Newcastle team in action and see the folly of his ways. Is he really so blinded by his perceived ability to unearth continental gems that he is unable to see that he has assembled a team of footballing mercenaries who do not knit together in anything even approximating a functioning whole? Admittedly, even as a de facto director of football, you can only work within the parameters that are available, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest Carr has on occasion delivered a list of targets that have not arrived. Yet by making the same mistakes time after time, Carr is making an already perilous situation worse. Having been left red-faced by the antics of Hatem Ben Arfa and Remy Cabella, did he really think a £12m investment in Thauvin was wise? And having watched Mitrovic in action repeatedly, could he not foresee the character flaws that have made the striker such a liability so far? McClaren will sit down with both Carr and Charnley to discuss this summer’s transfer window in the next couple of weeks, and for once, the pair would be advised to listen to the view from inside the dressing room. Newcastle’s current modus operandi might make money, but it is incompatible with the task of moulding a successful team.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/newcastle-youngster-rolando-aarons-available-6509296?

A bugbear of mine but something that seems to matter to a lot of fans is players applauding the supporters after a game. McClaren is making a big issue of this. I want it to be a spontaneous gesture - it is meaningless when they are told to get back on the pitch to do it. And surely it is the most hollowest of gestures when they have put in such an inept and disinterested performance. If they cared, they would do it on the pitch and would then not have to be persuaded to acknowledge the fans. Doing it after a performance like last night is inviting the hostility they received. When Carver did this at the Cup game at Leicester, it almost seemed provocative with the way it riled up the fans.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3247571/Newcastle-t-defend-t-attack-Magpies-absolute-free-fall.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 Decent summary of our problems.

He doesn't seem to be getting that much support in the national media. Guess a failed England manager is never forgiven.

Mick Lowes will know far more about what is going on at the club than we do so for him to be so outspoken, things must be really bad. I agree with the contempt though. Mike Ashley is responsible for the character of the club and he shows nothing but contempt in his SD business and similarly with NUFC to the authorities and staff. You can't run a football club like that. Players as well as fans need to buy into something. What is there to love about NUFC these days? The club needs to be cleansed from to to bottom - it needs a personality change but I can't see that happening with Ashley there. If he gets rid of Charnley, which one of his mates is he going to call up next? Another one who is anxious to keep Ashley happy and grateful for a job and likely to have no experience of football.

And if that is true then it makes absolutely no sense to keep him at the club. No other club will meet their valuation of him so ship him out to the Middle East ASAP if any club there is interested in him.

We had leaders at the club when Nolan, Barton etc were here and the player's committee at that time. The club didn't like it and moved them on. They don't like being challenged or questioned and that comes from the man at the top. Everyone said how they needed leaders in that team but they chose not address it. And yet again, despite claims from the club that they have learnt the lessons from last season, it is apparent that they have not. Their intransigence to diverting away from their "blueprint" will cost them eventually.

Some of those reports are quite worrying. Heard a journalist on the radio earlier expressing concern about McClaren's post-match interview and that it was quite clear, he is in a mess and at a loss about what to do.

A good coach does not necessarily make a good manager. Also, I think McClaren doesn't deal well with pressure and he is already showing signs of that. You don't get the same level of pressure at a Championship club nor the media scrutiny. No manager gets time in the Premier League because clubs can't afford relegation hence his negative approach to games - concentrate too much not losing so they forget how to win. Anyway he has got all the excuses lined up already: - Short Summer break - Too much travel in pre-season - Poor pre-season opposition - Not been here long enough to get to know the players - New players need time to adjust And so on. Most of those are the same for all clubs and they seem to cope. I think he could walk if it gets very bad - he has been careful to rebuild his image since the England job and has not hung around at clubs when things have started to go pear-shaped.

Good practice for next season.

On the Chronicle Podcast, Douglas pronounces it Woff and checks with the guy to see if he said it correctly and Waugh confirms that he did.

Yes you are right - it is calculated over a rolling period. Another bad season for the English clubs this year and a good one for Italian clubs will likely mean that Italy will get that 4th spot in the 2016/2017 season

Napoli went to the semi's in EL which got them decent amount of points. Forgot about that. Apparently England is OK for 4 Champions League places next season but they could lose the 4th spot the following season. Italy are catching England up and have gained a lot of co-efficient points through their success in the Europa League which most of our clubs discount as a waste of time. It would be rather amusing if our attitude to the Europa League led to us losing that 4th spot.

Traffic around West Ham is horrendous on a matchday - must be even worse on a weekday. I recall one trip when it took about 2 hours to go a couple of miles down that Barking Road and we ended up getting in just as the match was kicking off.

He didn't turn us - wanted to come to us but we wouldn't pay the extra half a million or so that Palace wanted.