oldtype

That said, we cannot afford to turn our noses up on good Championship players just because they won't make it in the Prem. Bouncing back up within our parachute payment period will be extremely difficult and we need every little bit of help we can get. Getting ahead of ourselves and planning for the Prem before we're actually there again is the surest possible plan for failure. Do everything we can to get out of the Championship first. We'll think about the Premier League if and when we get there.

Goes without saying that we should be going for 1. Best players from lower-table Championship sides 2. Random foreign imports 3. Top-four youngsters on loan Going after the best of the best in the Championship is going to be a. impossible, as the clubs would refuse to sell to their rivals, and b. unwise, as we'll have ended up spending mountains of cash on Championship quality players if we get back to the PL.

Chopra. Him missing that chance at St. James' this season was surely an omen? Stephen Cranie from Blackpool? Hates Dennis Wise so he should fit right in

Unfortunately, it seems likely that it's those high-earning wasters who will be staying on our books (sans Owen.) It will be the young, promising, and cheap players who will be leaving for greener pastures.

There's been a few clubs sniffing around for him like Arsenal so it might turn his head if they make a clear bid for him, especially as he's on peanuts for wages here. If he hadn't established himself so early on and well for us this season things might be different in my opinion.....I reckon he'll go unfortunately which is a shame as he's one of the few good defenders we've had over the years..... He'll be a big player in a few years time..... hope we do stand our ground as you said, but he said he'd wait till the summer regarding the new contracts so we'll see what happens.......like i said earlier if he does leave, I would hope it would be a loan deal for season till we get back up (touch wood) Stand our ground? Hah, the minute a bid for 8m or so comes in Ashley will trot out the good 'ol "financial crisis" line and bite their hands off. And he'll probably let them pay in 8,000 weekly installments of a thousand quid too.

first time in a while that Martins actually looked bothered. Too little, too late.

I don't care. Laugh all you want, pull up the good 'ol "foreigners don't understand' shtick, whatever. If I met him on the street I would punch him.

Fucking Kevin Keegan. Just thinking about him makes me angry, especially today. I hate him. I absolutely hate him and hopes he never comes anywhere near football again. And I won't be bothered trying to argue why it's right or not that I feel that way. I just do.

Harper Taylor Taylor New Guy New Guy New Guy Guthrie New Guy Duff Carroll Lovenkrands

Properly sums up the way I feel about Jonas, that. I reckon he'd have been ace in Robson's midfield for example. So Gutierrez is neither the disease nor the remedy really. I even reckon that extends to Collocini too - I think they'd both complement good players but we haven't really got any good players. Yep. I definitely think Coloccini will be an awesome player in a team where he's not being forced to make last-ditch tackles again and again. If he could just be himself, be someone who anticipates what's coming and doesn't have to face a healthy dose of quick strikers running at him, then he'll be good. It's not a perfect comparison but I see a lot of Vidic in him. Of course, Vidic is strong and gets his head to the ball but he's not the paciest defender nor is he the best tackler. He's good at anticipating the game and being in the position to deny the attacker a clear shot or run at goal, thus slowing down the attack. If you have players running at Vidic (like Torres did, like Gerrard did, like Martins did) then he'll struggle too. That's how I feel about Colo. Well, at least we don't have to talk about them anymore aside from wondering where they'll move to in the summer and how much we'll get.

It'd feel weird but I suppose I'd have him back. He's got a vendetta against Sunderland now and all is forgiven really after he earned us a point at St James' this year.

are there any other kinds?

Idiot friend of mine left some jokey comments on my Facebook about us. Just deleted them and I don't think I'll be talking to him for a while now. Why is it so hard for friends/coworkers/etc. to understand that this is not a fucking joke. I honestly haven't felt as worse as I have today in several years yet instead of offering comfort a lot of people think it's funny to rib me about how "shit the barcodes are" or how "we'll be sipping Coca Cola next year." It's particularly frustrating since most of my friends are Man United fans. Times like this wish I was living in the city or at least back home where I know other people who support the club. I don't mind being miserable but I could damn well use someone to be miserable WITH. I suppose that's what this forum is for

Alright, it's officially time to have this conversation now. GK: Harper. Next. ....alright, not quite. There's obviously the issue of what we do with Krul. Hopefully we can get him to agree to being a number two and competing for the shirt, put him in cup games to prove his ability. By all indications he's a real prospect and it would be a shame to lose him. Forster should go out on loan to league 1 or 2. Backline: Ryan Taylor, Steven Taylor, David Edgar, Tamas Kadar Coloccini will get the move he's been wanting since Christmas. Bassong will be sold on first offer. As much as Beye loves the club, he's only got a couple more years of top-class football left in him and will surely want to move. Enrique I think will be in very high demand, and while he's a decent bloke, he's got no reason to stay. Hopefully Taylor wasn't talking out of his arse when he said he wants to stay, somehow I think a year in the Championship might do him a world of good. Ryan Taylor is allegedly a great Championship player. He'll get to prove that. Edgar has shown flashes of decency over the years and there's no reason for us to let him go now that we're playing in what's probably his level. Hopefully he'll rise to the occasion and prove himself, although it would probably be a good idea to find a more experienced head to occupy this position. Ditto for Kadar. I think he just might cut it at Championship level but there would be no harm done in buying some more experienced competition for him. Overall we'll be in need of some bodies to make up the numbers, but there's at least the skeleton of a workable backline here. The biggest mistake we could make is to not buy sufficient cover and force ourselves into rotating in the likes of Tozer/Tavenier/Grieve when the inevitable injury crisis come. midfield: go buy a f***ing new one Seriously. We might be able to keep Nolan or Guthrie but just because we're going down a division doesn't mean that the fundamental problems in our midfield cease to exist. The players we have simply do not work with each other. We'll need a new DM to finally replace Butt and also a more mobile creative player to play with said new DM. Perhaps that's a part that Guthrie will be able to play but I'm still not sold on him. Nolan, as far as I can tell, is simply incapable of being effective in a standard 4-4-2. I don't mind Guthrie continuing to be deployed at right wing in the (very, very) poor man's "Beckham" role, but still, we need more wingers. Jonas is gone and Lovenkrands should not be played in this position under any circumstance. I envision Duff being semi-effective in the Championship and LuaLua being a useful squad player, but we'll still need two more wingers just to have a viable squad size going. So two wingers and two CMs, there's an entire new midfield we need to buy. Good luck with that. PS: Barton and Butt can go die in a fire Forwards: Carrol, Lovenkrands Those two and Shola is realistically who we're left with. It's simply delusional to assume we'll keep any of the others and the likes of Ranger should be at least a couple of years away from being effective even at Championship level. Hopefully we'll tie Lovenkrands down to an extended contract because his pace and finishing could make him one of the deadliest strikers in the Championship. If he agrees to stay I can see him banging in 20 goals next season. Carroll's improved in leaps and bounds this year and hopefully he'll do better than he did the last time he was in the division. While I highly doubt he'll be dominant, his physicality will be an extremely useful tool to have in the squad at least. As for Shola, fair enough he could prove me wrong and turn out to be an awesome Championship player, but I simply don't think he has the fitness or attitude to succeed at any level of professional football. He's nailed on to be injured for at least half the season already. To round out our strikeforce we could probably use a honest, hard-working Championship goalscorer in the mold of Michael Chopra (but hopefully not the man himself!) So overall we're looking at about 6~7 new signings, which isn't bad at all considering the amount of playing staff we have leaving. Of course, it's our ability to identify players who aren't s***/past it/injured/c***s and buy them which will inevitably fail us.

FUCKING HELL. That's possibly the most cringeworthy thing I've seen in my lifetime. I can't believe this cunt gets to stay in the Premiership while we go down. Absolutely cannot fucking believe it.

at some point, he just realized that this club had no future and quite simply stopped giving a f*** because he knew he wouldn't be sticking around for the long term. As people have said, there is a good player in there somewhere. He just needed to adapt to the English game and that wasn't going to happen while he was counting down the days till he returned to the land of calamari sandwiches. Should have a fine, long career back in Spain. f***ing asshole.

He's been playing top-flight football since age 18 and has a high opinion of his own abilities. Under no condition will he ever play for a side in the second division.

It's four PM and I can barely see in front of me.

I think Lovenkrands would be one of the best strikers in the Championship and I'd love for us to hand him a new contract, despite how s*** he's bene today. To be frank, Shearer should have played him up front or not at all.

I'll be taking up that offer in August. 99%.

honestly out of the three relegated teams we're the least well equipped for promotion. It all depends on how well we are able to leverage our position as the biggest club in the league in the summer. Given who our owner is, I'm not holding out much hope.

No games on TV anymore. Ever. ...yeah, not at all pleased.

When I think about it, I really don't care if there are gloryseekers who support us. I don't care when and why people start supporting us. They're supporters, so we've all got that in common. Who cares if they started supporting us when we were good? However, on another level, I'll be glad that those people who support us and watch football because all their mates do, will stop. I'm sure this forum will lose a few members and it might be for the better. St James' will lose a few people but I bet those who go are those who care. Who knows, with the prices bound to drop, we might get some real fans in. We might get some noise. It won't be fashionable to watch and support us anymore. Anyone who does it from today will do it because they care. yes, it'll be great when our commercial income plummets. it is not just about fans deserting, you have to think about fans as a fluid entity, some leaving for various reasons (losing interest, dying, moving away, not having access to the club on the telly etc) and others being added for various reasons. next season because we're not in the premiership we will add close to zero new fans and lose a huge amount. It's really quite simple, in the eyes of foreigners, Newcastle was a big club until 30 minutes ago. Now it's on par with the Sunderlands, West Broms, and Wolves. Of course there are people like those who post on these forums, who will follow the club no matter what despite their geographical displacement. But for a lot of people relegation to the Championship means they'll simply lose interest in the club, and while you may deride them as fair-weather supporters, they make a valuable contribution to the club's commercial income, as well as raising the club's global profile. Unless the club acts quickly to keep overseas supporters on board, I expect that there will be a huge dropoff. I'm one of the administrators on the Korean Newcastle Supporters Club and I wouldn't be surprised if we lose half our membership within the next year. If we stay in the Championship for more than a year, our site might just cease to exist.

Now that this is all done, I've just realized that I'm stone drunk at 1pm int he afternoon. Ah, whatever... Life goes on.

I don't think I'll be capable of watching football for another several months.