oldtype

When he signed it was said he was two weeks away from fitness. Not long after I'm sure 5 weeks away from fitness was then mentioned. Based on that I guess he's 3 weeks away from fitness. Ireland seems like the most pointless signing ever. By the time he's fit and at 100% efficiency we'll probably be all but mathematically safe. Do we just stop playing games then? We're paying his wages for four months to play him in maybe three or four games after we've already secured survival? (Assuming he gets into the squad at all)

Benzema is blatantly on his way out but he'll have a billion more attractive options than Newcastle. I think he'll go to Spurs just to spite us.

When he signed it was said he was two weeks away from fitness. Not long after I'm sure 5 weeks away from fitness was then mentioned. Based on that I guess he's 3 weeks away from fitness. Ireland seems like the most pointless signing ever. By the time he's fit and at 100% efficiency we'll probably be all but mathematically safe.

It's a huge myth that we "deserve" to be one of the top clubs in Europe. We're slightly underachieving relative to our stadium capacity, yes, but even if we fluke ourselves into the Champions league a couple times we are never, ever going to be on par with Man United, Barcelona, or even Liverpool for that matter. Disagree. The way the football economy is now, with clubs spending like idiots, the s*** will hit the fan. And that includes Man U and Liverpool. Castle have a 52 000 seater capacity, and during the Bobby days, we could easily have filled 60 000, and that's for a club that has not won anything major since the 60s. Look at Liverpool in their down period under benitez, they had a 10 000 seats vacant. And Man U will soon be without Alex, and what will happen then. Do you actually think those asians are interested to fill the stadium up if the going gets tough? Without a silverware each season, their stadium would still have been a mediocre one.. Of course status has something to do with silverware, but the fans ability to stick with the club during tough time could be an indicator of its size when it achieves success. Good fanbase, an even bigger stadium (which we can fix if we stabilize) draws players, simple as that. Stop looking down on yourself... I don't have the knowledge to accurately predict what a complete apocalypse of the football economy will look like, but if anything it will just benefit the bigger clubs because the smaller clubs won't be able to use cash to shore up their disadvantages in reputation. It should also severely punish clubs that have been badly run and suffer from large debts. That would be us. Besides, if the only way for us to be one of the elite is for the market to implode completely, I'd say that's pretty unlikely in itself.

It's a huge myth that we "deserve" to be one of the top clubs in Europe. We're slightly underachieving relative to our stadium capacity, yes, but even if we fluke ourselves into the Champions league a couple times we are never, ever going to be on par with Man United, Barcelona, or even Liverpool for that matter.

We'll reside in a safe, mediocre league position after a boring last dozen games that certainly won't be interesting enough to deserve a megapost like this.

I've heard of lies, damned lies and statistics, but this is ridiculous - how many decent chances have been created an MISSED ? Also, 2 pens in the Arsenal game, so only 10 on 6 games from open play. Also, how many did we concede playing in those games v Bolton and WBA ? 8, I believe it was..... You can extract anything you like from any period to prove your point but we are living with reality here.. Tiote scored HOW many before last week ? Its not even his job and he won't get many more...how many will Coloccini get and it was his goal that won us a point against Spurs...? We have, as the expert alpal has pointed out, now lost Carroll and he has been replaced by a 34 yr old has been....we are looking at where the goals will come from in the NEXT 6 games, not the past. You had better hope that Best keeps doing it because Ranger and Lovenkrands won't....see yesterday. Statistics and examples are always useful when they agree with your opinion and meaningless if they don't, of course.

For once, I agree - but why aren't we part of the 'dozen or so'..? Man United Arsenal Chelsea Man City Barcelona Real Madrid Inter AC Milan Bayern Munich Liverpool? Juventus? Is it realistic for us to aim to break into this group of clubs? Not unless we get bought by Shiekh Moneybags or Bill Gates. At no point in our history were we ever part of Europe's top elite, and that includes under Keegan and Robson.

I had to Wiki it just to find out if it was a country or a city

Aye, we obviously can't score. It's not as if we've put in 12 in our last six league matches or anything.

If we're a "feeder club," so is every single club in Europe bar about a dozen or so.

I'm embarrassed that NUFC have been forced to stoop this low. I agree, I'm particularly livid since we've never, ever made emergency signings of this nature before.

Oh please, Man United are already annoying enough without infinite money.

Why do I have the bad feeling that he's going to take the "out injured for so long you forget you even have him until he makes a comeback and then immediately reinjures himself" course. AKA, the Dan Gosling track.

Why is this embarassing? It's like signing Lamine Diatta. He probably costs next to nothing and will play only when absolutely necessary. A couple of years down the road most of us won' t even remember that this happened.

This is a striker that generally scores about three goals a season we're talking about here. Eh, you remember Leon Best against West Ham? As a goalscorer, Kuqi makes Best look like Inzhagi

This is a striker that generally scores about three goals a season we're talking about here.

I love Sabri Sarioglu. Great player.

Korea's first international without Park and Lee just kicked off, up against Turkey (coached by the God of Football) I made out the name "Emre" in the middle of all the Arabic

Might as well bring Ollie Bernard out of his Crepe shop to play backup to Enrique while we're at it

I always thought he was Egyptian, by the way

This is a signing that is so blatantly bad that it's difficult to hate. He probably costs us close to nothing and... How cool would it be if he actually defied all odds and played decently?

He's better than nobody I guess and he's probably signing for two pence and a bag of crisps a week. Find it difficult to dislike him. Maybe he can be the new Sibierski

The Lamine Diatta of 2011

Huh? What? Why?