LoveItIfWeBeatU

Please explain why you think that. Mike Ashley considers his 'lucky' number to be 17 (as revealed in an article about him winning £1m in a casino on the roulette wheel). That is probably why he had the '17 Smith' shirt. In the case of Smith, 17 is an unlucky number for Mike Ashley/NUFC.

Were making a space for them by selling the likes of Shola..now if only we can get rid of Duff and Smith while were at it.. Selling Smith would be like a new signing. The depressing thing is that Ameobi is a much better striker than Alan Smith.

good players win you nowt, only class ones do that. I'm advocating a general proven principle here, not individuals, because I too would be concerned about Ronaldhino's motivation. However, it seems that our owner is maybe not going to go down the route of taking on the top clubs for the best players, so thats that then. Cutting Micheal Owen's pay packet will probably lose him by the way. Depends on your definition of "Good". I would say Newcastle only have a couple of good players. We have a lot of average players. World class players are the names everyone knows e.g. Ronaldo, Kaka, Messi, etc. Even the top Champions League teams only usually have one player of that quality. As for people thinking shirt sales would pay Ronaldinho's weekly wage, if his wage was £200K and a shirt cost £45 they'd have to sell 4444 shirts every week to cover his wages.

We've put all our eggs in one basket before and it doesn't work. What happens if he gets injured? All that money a week for someone not playing. Spread the risk and wages across 3 or 4 good players rather than one world class one. The fact that the Barcelona fans don't seem bothered about losing Ronaldinho speaks volumes. I remember they were happy to get rid of Kluivert and we found out why. As for signing Ronaldinho helping attracting other good players to a club, isn't Michael Owen supposed to do that for us?

The media say that Ronaldinho would be paid £200K a week! Man City would have to sell a hell of a lot of shirts each week to cover that. Ronaldinho's stock has fallen but I'm amazed he'd even consider going to Man City (or any other club not in the Champions League).

Newcastle fan's opinions of Smith were perfectly illustrated when he replaced Viduka in the NUFC V Chelsea game. Everyone gave up hope of a good result when they saw him waiting to come on. He must leave. Hopefully NUFC have told his agent to find him a new club. I'd swap Smith for Sibierski any day. At least Sibierski can score goals.

Gudjohnsen has barely played for the last two years. I very much doubt we'd want him as he doesn't fit our transfer criteria. He's 29 and on massive wages. Let him rot. No more buying players who are taking a step down to come to us.

Proud to check that other thread to see I voted "At that price? Fuck off!". Hopefully Allardyce will get the Blackburn job and then come and buy Smith.

I think if Milner found out that Liverpool were after him he'd be pretty happy to go.

After reading that I came to the conclusion that it was all based on rumours the writer had read from other media sources. There is nothing new said. I heard Man U were supposedly interested in Ashton weeks ago. Same for Newcastle. I think the press just hope you've forgotten about a story then print it again. There was a 'What Owen thinks of Keegan' last week which I had major deja vu reading. I'm sure it contained Owen quotes from months ago.

Are you hoping that Dean Ashton would have his injury spells when Viduka was fit and vice versa? I'd rather we took the chance on a cheaper (initial fee and wages) foreign or lower league player than risk a big money transfer on a player with a poor injury record.

I've seen Shearer a few times. I would agree that he is probably less than 6ft tall. During the Robson era I saw the majority of the team in 'Chase' on the quayside. Solano and Robert are tiny! The majority of footballers are small which is why Alan Shearer gets called 'Big Al' when he isn't that tall.

"There are teams in Spain that are also interested, but one must be slightly patient." What's that supposed to mean? One team in Spain or 'One' in reference to himself?

Who took 'their' Champions League place? That's right, it was us! I remember watching that daft twat David O'Leary on TV the following season. He mentioned Leeds had finished 4th the previous season when they'd really finished 5th. You'd think he'd remember that (and no one in the TV studio corrected him either).

Crouch is 27 and probably on very high wages. Would that stop Newcastle buying him?

i reckon the duke would have to go if crouch comes in, balance the wages and that...crouch won't be coming for peanuts like I doubt we could find anyone to take Viduka off our hands with his recent injury record and massive wages. Possibly get rid of him in the Winter transfer window?

I think you'll find £5 million is a perfectly fair amount for Duff......you're back in the room. http://www.wisebread.com/files/fruganomics/imagecache/blog_image_full/files/fruganomics/blog-images/captions_13_0.gif

It was mentioned that he had bought land to build a house on which is why his house was for sale. If he went to Sunderland he could still live near Newcastle. Quite a few Sunderland players live in or around Newcastle.

I agree with what you're saying. I'm all for getting rid of the likes of Smith, Duff, Emre, etc. but I'd like to have seen the replacements come in first. Let's just hope the club has their replacements lined up. Having said that I don't think the squad would be weakened by selling Smith. Anyone could replace him and do a better job. Getting rid of Duff would be great. He is no threat to the opposition on the pitch. I think Kazenga LuaLua would do a better job. N'Zogbia may be happier to stay if Duff goes. If we sell Duff to Sunderland for £5 million it would confirm my belief that we have Derren Brown doing our fee negotiating with the other clubs (£8m for Emre). It should speak volumes of what Newcastle think of Duff if they are willing to sell him to Sunderland.

I'm beginning to think I'm asleep and this is all a dream. If NUFC have managed to sell Emre for 8 million (Euros or £) I expect them to follow it up with: - "The next miracle we will perform will be to sell Alan Smith for a minimum of £6 million!" Maybe NUFC have employed Derren Brown to negotiate transfer fees with other clubs?

So Emre doesn't have a choice?

The only slightly annoying thing about selling Emre is if we were willing to sell him why didn't we announce that we are putting him on the transfer list to try to generate a bidding war between interested clubs? Do clubs not announce players they are willing to sell anymore?

Sky have reported the story: - http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_3632408,00.html

if we offered smith & duff to clubs for free i'd be surprised if we got takers to be honest...wages alone will prevent most of the league touching them smith is the more likely of the two to be picked up as he's "versatile" but duff? jesus, stevie wonder knows he's finished in any position, probably ray charles too Let's hope the rumour of Roy Keane wanting Duff is true. Also, his international manager keeps hyping him which can only help!

I'm not bothered about Emre going as he was always injured but I hope to hell we have a replacement lined up. I prefer the 'buy a replacement before selling the player you're replacing' transfer method.