LoveItIfWeBeatU

He may be back in the Summer. He's not been starting games for Lazio. According to Sky's statistics he has only played 3 times for Lazio and two of them appearances are from the bench. http://www.skysports.com/football/player/0,19754,11862_222175,00.html

It hinted in The Chronicle that it would be Owen and Viduka up front with Martins in the hole behind them. I hope that's true as Martins is much better through the middle compared to on the wing.

Bollocks. Had 12 injuries in November and December for a start. really? like who? i remember having 15 players out all at once at one point under roeder Without thinking too hard about it, Owen, Duff, Given and Ameobi were all injured a lot during Alladyce's time.

A great piss take of how Sky advertise football from Mitchell and Webb: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJxkdEcWm9E "The Giants of Charlton play host to the Titans of Ipswich making them both seem normal sized!"

Are they on glue? A little pot shot aimed at the man who's father compares him to John Terry when banging on about a new contract to Alan Oliver in The Chronicle.

Has Keegan got a track record of buying cast-off's from the 'big' four during his time at Newcastle, Man City and Fulham? I think he'd be more likely to go and find players from the lower leagues or abroad (assuming the new scout network doesn't do all the work) than buying has-beens.

Relegation might be a good thing? By that logic being dead might be a good thing. At least we wouldn't have to go to work then.

Which is more damaging, the wrath of Alan Smith and his agent for not playing him or NUFC being relegated because we keep playing Alan Smith? I think the club would choose to drop Smith. Unfortunately it would seem to be Keegan's fault that Smith keeps playing. Man U record is 10 goals in 2004-05 (31 appearances), 1 goal in 2005-06 (21 appearances) and 1 goal in 2006-07 (9 appearances). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smith

Aye, I was thinking about that earlier. Please save us Obafemi! Help me Obafemi Martins, you're my only hope! lol... great star wars link. R2-D2: "(Beeping and whistling)" C-3PO: "He says that he is the property of Obafemi Martins, a resident of these parts and it's a private message for him. Quite frankly, sir, I don't know what he's talking about. Our last master was Captain Antilles. But with all we've been through, this little R2 unit has become a bit eccentric." R2-D2: "(Blips)" Luke: "Obafemi Martins, I wonder if he means Old Bafemi Martins." C-3PO: "I beg your pardon, sir. But do you know what he's talking about?" Luke: "Well, I don't know anyone named Obafemi, but Old Bafemi lives out beyond the Dune sea. He's kind of a strange old hermit."

The problem is our rivals keep pulling off shock results (e.g. Fulham beating Everton today, Wigan getting a draw from Arsenal). It's impossible to make a prediction on Newcastle until after the Birmingham and Fulham games. If we lose them games it's hard to see who we'd win any points off.

If the club were offered £9m for Owen I'm sure they'd rip their arm off they'd take it so fast. If we sold Owen for £9m it wouldn't mean his replacement would have to cost £9m maximum. Mike Ashley is loaded! Having said that, we'd possibly use the scouting network to identify up and coming strikers in Europe rather than blow fortunes on already established 'super stars'. Without wanting to sound like a well known poster - the evidence thus far indicates that transfers are to be self-financing. Ashley has given no indication he intends to spend bucket-loads of cash... Or maybe the current predicament has me so down that I'm simply worst-casing everything... If we stay up there is no way transfers could be self financing. How could we improve the team without spending more on it? Sell Owen for £9M then buy a replacement for a maximum of £9M even though we bought Owen for £17m? Mike Ashley told Keegan that money would be made available in the Summer (assuming we are still in the Premiership).

If the club were offered £9m for Owen I'm sure they'd rip their arm off they'd take it so fast. If we sold Owen for £9m it wouldn't mean his replacement would have to cost £9m maximum. Mike Ashley is loaded! Having said that, we'd possibly use the scouting network to identify up and coming strikers in Europe rather than blow fortunes on already established 'super stars'.

What Allardyce should be saying is "£6 million for 6 months work. Not bad at all!" I hate these useless journalists. They conveniently forget that before Allardyce was booted out we were also on a terrible run. We were scraping last minute undeserved wins against the likes of Fulham and losing to the likes of Wigan and Derby. Confidence was very low long before Keegan got here. As others have said, what about his buys? He spent £6 million on Alan Smith and £5.8 million on Joey Barton. It's a sad fact that Antoine Siberski was a lot better for us than Alan Smith has been. The football was also God awful under Allardyce. One shot a game if we were lucky! Begone Evil one!

Playing on a Monday means the players can't ruin our weekend.

Newcastle love looking gift horses in the mouth unfortunately.

Chelsea, save some goals for Sunderland on Saturday!

I know it seems a long way comming but bad result after result has had to make some impact of the team it will be interesting to see what a win will do for the side more than anything else that is what we need even if it takes a dubious pen or a tap in from close range or an own goal. Getting through this season even 4th from bottom is good enough then let the summer fun begin. I'd happily take 4th bottom at the end of the season now. I couldn't care less about finishing above Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Survival is all that matters! If we stay up we can look forward to a bit of a revolution in the Summer. If we go down......

It's hard to see us not going down until we turn around these terrible results we've been getting all 2008. What we do in the Birmingham and Fulham games will be a massive indicator as to what our fate will be.

We will quite simply have to win our games against Fulham, Sunderland and Reading at least. A lot of the teams we expect to beat our relegation rivals just aren't doing it (Tottenham, Arsenal and Man City have done us no favours in the last week or two). It's up to our team of miss-firing bottlers to save our club.

Duff's shooting is piss weak too.

Allardyce wouldn't have bought in the Winter transfer window because Mort and Ashley didn't trust him with the money any more after he wasted millions on crap like Smith and the loose cannon Barton. Imagine who we could have bought for that £12M! Allardyce sending out the team to defend against the likes of Derby and Wigan is why we are neck deep in the shite.

Even if we came straight back up we'd probably struggle to get decent players to keep us up. For example, Sunderland had a lot of money to spend this season but they ended up blowing it all on shite because decent players didn't want to join them. If only Alan Smith had chosen them over us! For the first time in ages we are actually in reasonable shape off the field. Mike Ashley has cleared all the debt, we are putting a proper scouting network in place, the youth team is having money spent on it, etc. Relegation puts a dent in a lot of that. All the scouting that has been done won't have been with the Championship in mind! If we don't get relegated Mike Ashley has indicated that big money will be available and with the scouting network there's a half decent chance that the money wouldn't be pissed away like it has in the past. If we get relegated that goes out the window.

Why are people arguing? The question asked was more or less, do you want Martins to start before Smith? If we go down you won't need to worry about what you may see as Martins' minus points, he'll be gone and we'll have Championship quality strikers up front. Who gives you more hope of scoring the goals that may keep us in the premiership? Martins or Smith?

See the bit in bold. The answer to your question is definitely not: - Smith’s goal pledge for United Mar 8 2008 by Alan Oliver, Evening Chronicle ENGLAND international Alan Smith is confident he will soon hit the goal-den trail for Newcastle United. The former Leeds United and Manchester United man went into this afternoon’s game with Liverpool at Anfield looking for his first goal in a black-and-white shirt. The goal he scored for England in a friendly against Portugal in 2002 means that he has notched more goals for his country than he has for his club. Anfield, of course, was the scene of Smith’s horrific injury exactly two years ago when he broke his leg and dislocated his ankle, resulting in a long absence from the game. As a result, while he scored for Manchester United in the Champions League against Roma last season, you have to go back to November 2005 to find the 27-year-old Yorkshireman’s last goal in the Premier League, when he found the net against Charlton Athletic. However, while Sam Allardyce mainly used Smith in midfield, Kevin Keegan has usually given Smith a striking role – and he is hoping this is going to give him the impetus to add to his 45 goals in the Premier League. That’s a tally topped by only Michael Owen (129) and Mark Viduka (90) as far as his Newcastle colleagues are concerned. Before today’s game, Smith told me: “I am more critical than anyone – I don’t need anyone to tell me I need to score goals. “I’m the most critical person. Whatever anybody else says I take with a pinch of salt and get on with it. “The gaffer says to me ‘you do too much’, and against Blackburn I was trying to help and win every challenge and every ball, instead of getting in the box and scoring. “But the chances fell to the right people. I had a couple, and Michael Owen had three or four. “Had those gone in, we would have walked away having won 3-0 with everyone singing and dancing. “I am so grateful to be playing football for a club like this, especially after my injury. If someone said go and play in goal, I would. “I know what I give to the team. All the lads see that and I think the fans see it as well. “It has been difficult for me, as I didn’t play for 18 months because of my leg. “The season before I was playing as a defensive midfielder, and when Sam was here I was playing as a central midfield player and in other areas. “But I’m sure the goals will come.”

The management should forget about training field performances and look at match day performances. For example: - Alan Smith. Works hard in training, fucking shite in matches.