LoveItIfWeBeatU

The Eintracht Frankfurt fans certainly created a good atmosphere. It's a shame our home fans don't anymore.

I hate Robbie Kean's but I also hate the smug "nothing" reaction to scoring goals that Henry and Gerrard have been known to do. There's a link on NUFC.com to Kazenga Lua Lua's goal celebration from the Exeter U18s game. Just like his cousin! I hope to see a lot more of Martins' celebration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/6207010.stm Football legend receives degree Football legend Alan Shearer has been awarded an honorary degree by Northumbria University. The former Newcastle United and England star received the Doctorate of Civil Law at a ceremony at Newcastle's City Hall on Monday. The 36-year-old first hit the headlines in April 1988 when he scored a hat-trick against Arsenal in his full debut for Southampton. He said receiving the degree was a "wonderful accolade." His career went from strength to strength with a record breaking transfer to Blackburn Rovers and he was instrumental in Rovers clinching the Premier League title in 1995. 'Lucky youngster' Shearer's skills were also sought after by clubs all over the world, but his final move was another record breaking £15m transfer to Newcastle United - the club he had supported when he was growing up in Gosforth. During his career, he was also the top Premier League scorer in three successive seasons and the only player in history to score more than 100 goals for two different clubs. Vice chancellor at the university, Professor Kel Fidler, said: "Throughout his career Alan Shearer has been hard-working, committed, disciplined and focused in his endeavours, fighting back from career-threatening injuries with great determination and courage." Shearer said: "This is a wonderful accolade and collecting the honorary degree was a proud moment for me and for my family. "I was lucky as a youngster to get a lot of great support and I understand how important it can be if you want to develop and excel in a sporting career." Comedy writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais creators of The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, also received honorary degrees at the same ceremony. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doctorate of Civil Law? They should have given him an honorary degree in something more relevant like Physics. At least you could say Shearer practiced Physics in his job - Apply force to the football at point X, the ball accelerates, etc.

If it's true I'd guess he was talking about the Souness days.

Interesting article on how the current average of 2.14 goals per game is by far the lowest in Premiership history: - Where have all the goals gone? Paul Wilson Sunday December 3, 2006 The Observer Now Sky's alluringly alliterative Super Sunday Summit is out of the way, and Chelsea's visit to Manchester United can be filed under the modest heading of Fairly Tame 1-1 Draw rather than the Clash of the Titans and Showdown of the Century stuff that went before, it is a good time to consider a Premiership perspective that your television will not be yelling at you quite so loudly. The bald fact of the matter is that the Premiership has become the lowest-scoring league in Europe. There are still grounds for regarding it as one of the most exciting - there was plenty of entertainment, and a few more goals than usual, on offer yesterday afternoon - but if goals are the currency of the game then statistics suggest England has gone into recession. Look no further than the Reebok for an illustration. Bolton's defeat at Reading yesterday was their sixteenth game of the Premiership season, and they have managed just 15 goals. That might not sound too bad, though check where they are in the table. Before yesterday's games they were in fourth place, and despite results going against them they are still in the top eight. Averaging less than a goal a game in the Premiership is currently enough to put you in contention for European football. There are other stats at the end of November that confirm the trend. Only three teams had scored 20 goals. Last season it was five at the same stage, and in every previous Premiership season the figure varied between seven and 13. The meagre current average of 2.14 goals per game is by far the lowest in Premiership history. Anyone betting £10 on every game to produce under three goals, on the Betfair betting exchange, would be more than £200 up by now. If the current ratio continues, the goals tally at the end of the season will be in the low 800s: every previous season has easily passed 900 and most have yielded more than 1,000. Yet the biggest eye-opener, apart from the fact that the thirtysomething Nwankwo Kanu went into the weekend as joint-top scorer despite playing for a team who fail to turn up for most away games, is the comparison with other European leagues. Remember Serie A? The stiflingly dull and utterly defence-dominated Italian league that has just disappeared from English screens because it looked so boring next to the poptastic Premiership? They score more goals than we do. Everyone does. The most prolific scorers in Europe are the Dutch, with more than three per game. The Bundesliga has managed 2.75, then the Scottish Premier and Serie A come in together at just over 2.5 goals per game. Everyone knows all the best defenders are in Italy, and the dodgiest goalkeepers are in Scotland; now there is a new stereotype to add to the list - the non-scoring striker in England. In one sense, this is not true. Thierry Henry is still here, the only man to have scored 20 or more in five successive seasons. Yet in another sense it is observable reality. Henry is on his own now. Michael Owen is injured, Alan Shearer retired, Ruud van Nistelrooy in Spain. Where are all the other 20-goals-a-season strikers? Six players managed the feat in 1994-95, and four as recently as 2002-03. Last season there were just two, and one of those now plays for Real Madrid. Is this the reason goal totals are down? Has a generation of expert goalscorers not been replaced? Or have goalscorers simply gone out of fashion, died out? More and more teams are setting themselves up 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, or 4-3-3 now, with a player at the sharp end whose job is not just to sniff out scoring opportunities but to hold up the ball and link play. Coupled with increased defensive efficiency and willingness to try to win games from single strikes at set pieces - Sam Allardyce, for instance, makes no bones about his delight in clean sheets and 1-0 victories - this could be a factor. Yet it is hardly a new phenomenon. George Graham was at it years ago. Arjan de Zeeuw, Wigan's Dutch centre-half who has been in and out of the Premiership for a decade, believes teams are deliberately sending out defensive formations. 'When I first came here everyone played 4-4-2 and you knew what you were going to get,' De Zeeuw explains. 'Now you see teams with one up front and five in the middle most weeks. And one of the five will usually be in the Claude Makelele position, providing an extra level of defence. 'I don't think games are necessarily any worse to watch, but everyone is more cautious now because there is such a big gap between the top three or four and the rest. Once you go behind against Chelsea they won't let you back into the game, so teams are thinking first and foremost about how not to concede. 'Johan Cruyff used to say all you had to do to win a game was score more goals than the opposition, but it's hard to find that attitude in the Premiership any more. Too much money at stake, too much pressure not to fail. Managers are not allowed to make mistakes. Look at Charlton. They weren't playing that badly, they played football and looked as if they could pull themselves round, but still the manager was sacked. That's pressure.' Arsenal's Gael Clichy agrees. 'Time was when you'd see 4-3 matches quite regularly in England, that's what people abroad liked about the game here,' the full back says. 'Now most teams come to our place with nine defenders and one guy up front. Villa, Everton, Middlesbrough, Newcastle - they all came to defend. The problem for us is that we let them all score a goal, so that meant they sat back even more afterwards. 'Everyone is afraid of the big teams. They go out thinking if they don't concede then they can't lose. It doesn't seem a very English trait to me, and the notion that football is a game about goals and entertainment has been forgotten.' Blame the managers, then? Guilty, plead Portsmouth's Harry Redknapp and Birmingham's Steve Bruce. 'I don't want to see the game go back to the dark ages of about 15 years ago, when everybody suddenly thought the game was about long balls, second balls, throw-ins, free-kicks and corners,' says Redknapp. 'I want to see flair players who can get you off your seat, but we played one up at Liverpool the other night and it worked for us. We made it difficult for them and got a point.' Bruce is first amazed, then unapologetically blunt. 'More goals in Serie A than the Premiership? I could never have imagined that,' he says. 'It's an amazing statistic. I wouldn't have thought it possible.' 'But it's a results business,' adds Bruce, who knows how it feels to fail, having taken Birmingham down last season. 'In the Premiership, my job was to stay in. I understand where cautious managers are coming from because I've done it myself. We all want to see entertainment but we can't all be Manchester United. The Championship is very entertaining at the moment because about 12 clubs think they can win it. In the Premiership you've got 12 clubs shit-scared of relegation, and that's the difference.' No wonder they are scared, given that they stand to lose the TV pay-out that is nudging £20 million. Ian Rush wonders if today's players enjoy the game, because he sees a parallel with his brief and unhappy sojourn in Italy. 'When I was at Juventus I didn't really enjoy the football,' he admits. 'If you went 1-0 up you'd just defend and that is happening here now. It's a pity, because in my view the best players in the world are in the Premiership and it would be easy to go out and entertain.' Gloomier still is Christophe Dugarry, a World Cup winner with France who played in Italy, Spain and France before sampling the Premiership with Birmingham. 'I think something bad is happening to English football,' he says. 'What people love about it is the pace, the rhythm, the commitment. It's a spectacle. But I think the foreign coaches are changing that with a more tactical approach, and as there are fewer and fewer English players in the teams their task is made easier. They are bringing in lots of negative aspects from European football. 'Look at Rafael Benitez at Liverpool. He shows no desire to go forward, he just wants not to concede. The way he treats Steven Gerrard says it all. Gerrard has to be running the game, but he would run it in an English style, looking to attack or shoot all the time, blood and thunder, what the English crowds enjoy. But Benitez just wants everything organised, to be tactically correct. Jose Mourinho is the same. Having too many foreigners in England is ruining your game, in a way - it's taking away the natural attributes that the English enjoy.' Yet some Europeans are prepared to greet fewer goals as positive rather than negative. Albert Ferrer, the former Chelsea and Barcelona full-back now working as a TV analyst in Spain, is impressed with the way the Premiership has tightened up at the back. 'When I played in England, the defenders were OK, but only OK,' Ferrer says. 'Now they are much better. There has definitely been an improvement and I think it is largely because they do more work on defence in training.' So goals are not necessarily everything, and, surprising though it is to find the harum-scarum comedy knockabout that is the Premiership languishing a few dozen goals behind Serie A, there could even be a silver lining to this passing cumulus. We might have the best league in the world after all. That's what everyone said about Italy, when goals in Serie A were as rare as rocking-horse droppings. Our defenders can hold their heads high. Donkeys no longer, they can start congratulating themselves on their miserliness and concentration. Just for a change, all the other leagues around Europe can have a turn at being mocked for being frivolously concerned with entertainment and incident rather than proper football. Italy? Too many easy goals. Germany? Just playing at it. Alan Hansen is going to have to come up with some new scripts. In the near future, when the average number of goals conceded in each game has slipped below two, stand by for Goal of the Month being superseded by Block of the Day, Tackle of the Year or Offside Trap of the Season. We are living in the age of the defender. Fabio Cannavaro has just been named European footballer of the year to prove it, and as he pointed out, great defenders such as Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Marcel Desailly and Lilian Thuram never managed that. Probably because they all stayed in Italy too long. Cannavaro made a smart move in relocating to Spain, although plainly he is yesterday's man. The next European footballer of the year is bound to be Gary Neville or Linvoy Primus. Best of all, and this should cheer up Sky, England are certain to win the next World Cup. Never mind the golden generation, get ready for the stingy set. We are England and we don't give away goals. It still sounds wrong but we have four years to get used to it. And it worked like a dream for Italy. Are goals all they're cracked up to be, or do better defences make a better Premiership?

I'm more worried about Dyer. Without him we are toothless in attack. "For with Kieron Dyer unlikely to figure on Wednesday night. The gash on Dyer's leg the little midfielder picked up when he crashed into the hoardings in the win against Portsmouth is so bad that he is unlikely to be risked on Wednesday night." ICNewcastle.

Doesn't Bent usually play up front on his own for Charlton? I would guess (as I don't watch Charlton very often) that he must be pretty good at holding the ball up. All this talk of selling Milner is really annoying. Who could we replace him with? Anyway, I doubt Milner would be happy with a transfer to Charlton when Aston Villa supposedly want him.

I love the fact that NUFC have annoyed Sir Alex Ferguson. Rossi came to us as "the best finisher at Man U". Let's see how many times Man U play him when he goes back (assuming they don't loan him out again). PS One thing that's always bugged me. Why do comentators call Ferguson "Alec"?

It is strange to read a 'secret' in a newspaper. I also found this strange in Alan Oliver's "Flight of fancy" article on ICNewcastle: - "While I was waiting at the luggage carousel at Heraklion Airport I picked up a text from Glenn Roeder saying that United had been drawn in the hardest group in the competition." Our manager text messages a journalist to let him know the UEFA draw? Surely not?

HOW QUALIFIED IS THE PREMIERSHIP? Arsene Wenger (ARS) - Pro Lic Martin O'Neill (AV) - FA Dip Mark Hughes (BLA) - Pro Lic Sam Allardyce (BOL) - Pro Lic Les Reed (CHA) - Pro Lic Jose Mourinho (CHE) - Pro Lic David Moyes (EVE) - Pro Lic Chris Coleman (FUL) - Pro Lic* Rafa Benitez (LIV) - Pro Lic Sir Alex Ferguson (MU) - FA Dip Stuart Pearce (MC) - Pro Lic Gareth Southgate (MID) - B Lic* Glenn Roeder (NEW) - Pro Lic* Harry Redknapp (POR) - FA Dip Steve Coppell (REA) - FA Dip Neil Warnock (SHU) - FA Dip Martin Jol (TOT) - Pro Lic Adrian Boothroyd (WAT) - Pro Lic Alan Pardew (WH) - Pro Lic Paul Jewell (WIG) - FA Dip# *denotes currently taking qualification; #denotes taken one-off course to pass diploma I see Chris Coleman is in the same situation as Roeder but I don't remember him getting a load of grief about it.

I agree. O'Neill hasn't got a pro licence either.

I'm sure playing for Liverpool means a lot more to Gerrard than it would for Ronaldinho so it could be argued that Gerrard would be the better player for Liverpool.

Yeah, saw that today. Some fancy footwork and tricks near the end. The crowd loved it.

He is much better on the left wing compared to his preferred position of in the middle. I wonder if Luque will get another chance on the left wing? His crosses weren't bad on Thursday.

As an update to this thread, Today's Journal (see ICNewcastle - Journal) seem to think that Solano has 18 months to go on his contract: - "With just 18 months left on his contract"

Harper signed a new contract taking him up to June 2009. For all the Players contract durations see: - http://www.nufc.com/2006-07html/squad.html

Nolberto Solano, Craig Moore, Titus Bramble and Antoine Sibierski all have contracts that end during summer 2007. They will all be free to talk to other clubs in the January transfer window. Which are worth keeping? Solano is not the player he once was. If nobody comes in for him the club would be in a strong negotiating position and would probably be able to reduce his weekly wages (assuming Nobby wanted to stay and the club wanted to keep him). The same applies to Bramble. Ipswich have made noises about wanting him but I'm sure he'd prefer to stay at Newcastle. Moore has said if the club don't offer him a new contract soon he will go home to Australia. Sibierski has been a reasonable emergency stop-gap. I know a lot of people will want rid of Bramble but if we can keep him as a squad player on a lot less money than he's on now then he may be worth keeping. We have a very small squad and don't have a lot of money at the moment. We need squad players.

Sir Bobby Robson doesn't seem to like them very much. After Bobby was sacked Sir John Hall came out and said that Bobby should have been sacked after we lost the Marseille UEFA Semi-final game. Bobby also seems to think that Dougie Hall was the one who got him sacked. Freddie following orders is how it comes across in Bobby's book.

Write a letter/email to Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson pointing out that fact. It will never sink in with them though.

He is only 20. Plenty of time for him to improve. Not every player is World class at 18. Most players only reach the top of their game by their mid to late twenties. Saha wasn't amazing when we had him on loan. Now most people would want him in our team. Anyway, who could we replace Milner with for the £4 million quoted who would actually want to come to NUFC in our present state?

By the way, anyone who thinks we should try and loan him, we can't outside of the transfer window. I think the rule is that you can't loan players to a team in the same division outside of the transfer window but to other divisions is ok i.e. Premiership club can loan to a chamionship club outside of the transfer window.

Words on the build up to the match from Matt Le Tissier on the skysports website: - "The Newcastle fans are clearly upset, but I get the feeling they are a little confused as well. At the end of last season there was a big campaign to get Glenn Roeder the manager's job and it worked, but now it's not going so well, they can't have a go at him because they pretty much put him there in the first place. That's why Freddy Shepherd is getting it in the neck." I think you'll find it is you who is the confused one Matt.

Macdonald just gets angry at any Newcastle fan that dares to ring up and not have the same opionion as him. He usually starts shouting then ends the call in the huff. He also always denies saying things that he has said in the past. I can't listen to it these days. It must be like listening in on calls to The Samaritans at the moment the way Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are performing.

One thing people shouldn't forget is that Milner is only 20. Most players aren't at their peak until their mid to late twenties. He's got plenty of time to improve. If NUFC sell him, especially for £4 million, it would be madness. He can play on the left or the right hand side. We need versatile players, especially when money is tight and other areas of the squad need improving. Solano is in the last year of his contract and most people agree that he hasn't been at his best this season. Milner is the present and future. Solano is the present and the past.

The chances of getting anything from this game are slim so I would pick 'fringe' players like Luque, Pattison, etc (as they have a point to prove) and rest a few first team players for the must win game at the weekend.