NG32

Jesus christ someone must have been to that match!

http://www.nufc.com/ That our current Academy coach really got under the skin of Steve Foster and his Luton Town chums see here <not here, there > It's all there: the benches, the fences, standing terraces, Michael O'Neill's skinny legs, Gazza in happier times, ballboys in Co-op trackies, Willie McFaul wearing his wife's dressing gown, executive portakabins and changing rooms behind the Leazes End. On the soundtrack commentator Charles Harrison burbles "perhaps that's a bit unnecessary...." Au contraire Charlie, it was essential - never was there a more rotten away venue than Kenilworth Road, with its plastic pitch, ID cards and Thatcher-loving Chairman David Evans. They took the mickey out of us in a 4-0 loss there in November 1987 - and it was fitting that we took revenge and rubbed it in at the next meeting with the Hatters. Prissy Steve Foster with his daft perm and headband had led the p*ss-taking in Bedfordshire six months before, but couldn't stick it when the tables were turned on Tyneside

Owen

An early goal would set the game up nicely, from us of coruse.

We can say to Spurs, have Nz'ogbia but stay the fuck away from Bentley other wise go fuck yourself Ramos.

The KK bandwagon is about to start rolling. Woodgate missed out and paid for his rash decision on Sunday when he was taken apart. If we look like a team on the up again players like Bentley will be tripping over their feet to get here imo. You tell'em Big TRon! If ew have a decent finish to the season, playing decent footy i think KK could use his powers on potential players.

KK will get him here.

KK might be able to talk him round.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/blackburn_rovers/7324224.stm Bentley hints at Blackburn exit Bentley wants a regular England starting place David Bentley says he has not ruled out leaving Blackburn to further his goal of becoming an England regular. The 23-year-old is in talks with Rovers over a new contract but admits he wants to play regular European football in order to gain England recognition. Rovers are still in the hunt for a Uefa Cup spot, but Bentley said: "Time will tell over the next few months what will happen. It's a big decision in my life. "You never know in football. Sometimes you have to make strong decisions." Bentley has shown in the past he is willing to take difficult decisions, handing in a transfer request at Arsenal in 2005 in pursuit of first-team football. He also caused controversy by making himself unavailable for England Under-21s last year, citing tiredness and his desire to extend his international career in the long term. I want to go to the World Cup in two years and I want to be starting Blackburn's David Bentley Blackburn are seven points behind fifth-placed Everton in the race for a guaranteed Uefa Cup spot. Asked if Blackburn missing out on Europe would precipitate a move, Bentley - who has been linked with Liverpool - added: "I won't answer that. I'll leave it up to you to decide. "I want to play European football, I want to play at the top of my game. I want to go to the World Cup in two years and I want to be starting." Bentley must force his way ahead of David Beckham, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Aaron Lennon if he is to become a regular on England's right flank. But he said: "I'm in the early stages of my England career. I'm going to have to work hard, it's up to me to take the position. 606: DEBATE When was the last time Rovers sold a player for him to go on and be truly successful with another club? jeremy_fitch "There's a lot of good players in this country, but if I perform then I believe I can take it, so we'll have to see." Bentley came off the bench to replace David Beckham for the last half-hour of a drab 1-0 defeat in Paris but said he did not particularly enjoy the experience. "It was a strange game. It wasn't very enjoyable. It wasn't the best of games watching from the bench," he said. "It's the stage of the season we're at. I don't think there should be a game like that anyway. "I think it was a difficult situation. A lot of the lads are preparing themselves for the Premier League and the Champions League so it can be difficult to play a game like that for both sides. "It was a half-hearted, 50% effort. Everyone wants to play well for England but sometimes it just happens like that. "It wasn't enjoyable for me but you try to have an effect on the game, you go out there and try to have an effect but it is difficult to get into a game like that."

That's frightening. She looks well demented in that pic, is that from the interview on GMTV?

I wish is was saturday now, sitting in the pre match bar drinking a beer.

I'm a bit nervous, i think we'll win but Reading aren't going to lay down and let us do'em. An early goal from us could be a spring board for a good old lashing tho. I'll say toon win.

Maybe all the players/talent in our squad just needed a bit of love.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7315069.stm Tommy Smith's reply was telling. Asked how he would go about subduing Manchester United's mercurial winger Cristiano Ronaldo, the legendary Liverpool hardman was unequivocal: "Don't go for the player, go for the ball." I had half expected him to say he would give the tricky Portuguese star a sly dig in the ribs when the referee wasn't looking, maybe even threaten him with a trip to row Z if he dared make him look silly with one of his trademark stepovers. Not a bit of it. "He's a crafty player and looks like he's dancing around the ball at times," Smith told BBC Sport. "The only thing to do is keep your eye on the ball and not let him con you. You have got to be as crafty as he is." Smith, who turns 63 on 5 April, insists he was hard but fair as a player, although I am sure there are a few ex-footballers out there who would testify otherwise. I have never started a fight in my life but I have finished a few... sometimes I shudder when I think about what I have done Tommy Smith Smith was, after all, an uncompromising figure on and off the football pitch, a player who opposition forwards tended to avoid like the plague - and for good reason. "I did warn players," said Smith. "When Tottenham striker Jimmy Greaves came out at Anfield one time I handed him a piece of paper. He said: 'What's this?' I said: 'Just open it.' It was the menu from the Liverpool Infirmary." But Smith's bark was often far worse than his bite. For all the stories and hyperbole associated with the so-called Anfield Iron, he amassed only one red and three yellow cards in a career that resulted in him playing more than 600 times for Liverpool - and that sending off was for dissent. That certainly does not sound like a player who went around kicking anything and everything that moved. "I've only been involved in one bad tackle," he assured me. "I was a marauding inside-left playing in the Liverpool reserves at the age of 15 when I went into a tackle with a lad from Nottingham Forest and he came out of it with a broken leg. Smith won every major club honour during his 18 years with Liverpool "I sent him a letter apologising but it was just an ordinary tackle, just one of those things. It wasn't over the top or a case of jumping in with two feet." In fact, Smith, who won every major club honour going with Liverpool, including four First Division championship medals, two FA Cups, one European Cup, two Uefa Cups and one European Super Cup, claims he was more sinned against than sinner during his 19-year professional career. "Someone took the side of my knee off once, while another fella scraped his foot down my right shin," he said. "There was no blood or anything. I rolled down my sock and I was looking at my shinbone. That is when the fun started." Smith revealed he was also a target off the pitch, his image ensuring every wannabe tough guy sought him out in an attempt to enhance his own reputation. "A few times people asked me if I was Tommy Smith and wanted to step outside," he remembered. "Sometimes I said 'yes' but I'm not someone who went around beating people up. "If somebody has a go at me I can take care of myself. I don't think tackling is at all acceptable these days... there are a lot of cheats in the game, too Tommy Smith "I have never started a fight in my life but I have finished a few. Sometimes I shudder when I think about what I have done." There are few players of Smith's ilk around these days. That is not a lament, just a fact. Certainly, the monikers like those from the Sixties and Seventies, when Smith and fellow hardmen Ron 'Chopper' Harris and Norman 'Bite Yer Legs' Hunter were in their element, are no more. Unsurprisingly, Smith suggests football has gone a bit soft. "The game is a farce now and I don't think tackling is at all acceptable these days," he stated. "There are a lot of cheats in the game, too, with people throwing themselves around and rolling over and over." Maybe so but Smith, a clever and canny player, would no doubt have adapted to the modern game. He demonstrated several times during his Liverpool career that he was capable of re-inventing himself. Smith had a heart attack last year and needed a six-way heart bypass He started off as an inside-left under Bill Shankly, quickly demonstrating an eye for goal before cementing himself at the heart of a formidable Reds defence. Then when Emlyn Hughes, a person he disliked intensely, arrived at Anfield, he turned himself into a right-back of considerable prowess. Naturally, Smith was fond of managers Shankly and Bob Paisley. I say 'naturally' because it seems few people had a bad word to say about either man. And it was Shankly who summed up Smith best: "Tommy Smith wasn't born, he was quarried." Smith's body may now boast two plastic knees, a replacement hip and a new elbow but it's a fitting epitaph.

To many home draws would skittle you, not away ones.

Nah, he'll know what he wants to do. I dont think he would be swayed by some of the loons that follow NUFC.

I agree that we should look to replace them both but would retain their skills for another season or two for the sake of the sqaud. But look at Everton, doing fine with Carsley in midfield. Both Geremi and Butt are better players than that cunt.

So does Motson, especially when Rooney is playing. Only Motson isn't faking. He really jizzes in Lawros face?

Four in four for him now! Is it? wow, keep em coming Marty

Martins has had a couple of decent games against this lot now.

I would give him his chance in a team that is functioning correctly.

Not quite true.

So does Motson, especially when Rooney is playing.

I thought at the time KK would get the skillfull payers playing again, just took a little longer then i hoped for. I think we'll be ok now, confidence is back and you can see it running through the team. I think we'll be a different team next season. Players look happier which is always a massive plus.