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Bowyer and Barton on the same team! What do the odds look like for one of them knifing the other before year's end?

Agreed, Ireland would be f***** for one. Not fair if a team has no worthwhile national league that they should be forced to bring lesser players. This would all just play into the hands of the big nations, which goes against what you're saying about trying to stop the superpowers always winning. Short-term yes, but long-term it may actually force nations to start developing their own game from the bottom up, their leagues and for homegrown players to play their football "at home". The globalisation of the sport is ruining the game for smaller nations whose best players as soon as they show even a modicum of talent are leaving to play in other countries which has a massive and underestimated negative effect on their own footballing culture. The world game is very much like our own Premiership, dominated by the big leagues with all the talent floating at the top, the rest becoming bottom feeders fighting over the scraps. As a result competition is almost non existent. The biggest example of this is Scotland, for years their best players have played in England which helped their national team no end, true, however every fabric of Scottish football with every departure slowly but surely loosened, thus wrecking their own competitions to such an extent it has affected player development to the point where the national team manager is checking out the family tree of players like Nigel Quashie whose roots are Ghanaian, just to put a competitive team together. Competitions like the World Cup were designed so players could represent their country and the game in their country, to promote the game in their own country, over the years that has changed however. Most of the French football team are not representing their own game, but ones in England, Spain, Italy etc. for example. Perhaps forcing such a policy would be the wrong way to go... OK, make it a voluntary option then and reward those that sign up with funding to help the game in THEIR OWN country, to improve facilities and such. The game is in danger of falling in on itself as the foundations are very weak and the global sport has a duty to first protect the interests of every nation and not itself, or rather the bigger nations, and that isn't happening. The result. Go to any country outside of the big leagues and the standard of football is appalling. The Dutch who produce fantastic players are going to become the next Scotland, mark my words. Years of losing their better players will catch up with them and bite them on the arse big time, regardless of how successful they are at producing players. Ironically all this will impact nations most at international level, as Scotland have found out. In short in order to protect international interests, you have to first protect domestic ones as the two go hand in hand, if one suffers, so will the other. Nations like Africa will never fulfil their potential because all their best players will leave to play outside of Africa. Short term their national teams will do well because their players are learning a new game and using that experience to good effect, but they aren't taking it back home with them for the next generation so ultimately their national teams will suffer. Cameroon showed the way in 90 with their team of unknowns - but have taken a turn for the worse since as all their best players were snapped up by clubs from the big nations. It has happened to Nigeria too and will happen to the likes of Ghana, Ivory Coast et al. Think the problem with Scotland has been the fact of too many poor Bosmans stifling home grown talent which has led to the inability to develop players who are good enough these days to compete in the premiership and at international level. May be an idea that for european competitions, league games etc to have a squad of players has to be registered similar to the 22 players per squad at international competitions but must include a proportion of players who are home grown ie developed in the country to which the club belongs. HTT, I think your heart is in the right place but ultimately you just don't understand the realities of football outside of the European "core." Fact: Asian and African leagues will not start to experience some sort of miraculous growth because FIFA compels local federations to develop their domestic competitons. How long did it take for England to develop its current set of institutions? A hundred years? More? Football in these regions has only really been taken seriously for a couple of decades now, and as a result many of these leagues don't even have the most basic things an English fan would take for granted. The Korean league (K-League) still does not have a working promotion/relegation system, or even a second division comprised of full-time players. Youth academies are nearly non-existant. Many first division clubs lack a consistent supporter base and have to be propped up by large corporations. Last season, the reigning champions averaged less than 5,000 in attendence, and a second division club refused promotion to the top flight because they didn't think it would be woth the expenses. All this from a country that sells out it's 65,000 seat ground for every single international friendly. All of these problems exist not for lack of trying, but because setting up a functioning professional sports league takes time. A lot of time. It takes decades for fans to form strong bonds with their local club, possibly more for things like multi-tiered leagues to be agreed upon. Forcing countries to rely on domestic players would not magically solve all of these problems, it would simply make teams from the "periphery" unable to compete at all on the international level, thus killing a large amount of the interest for football in these countries. There is no snap solution for development of football in Asian and Africa. It's going to take a lot of time and money, and even then, these leagues will probably never be on level with European ones, just like we can't realisitically expect Honduras or Botswana to ever be as prosperous as the US or the UK. Radical strategies run the risk of severe backlash and/or just killing any interest in football as a whole. Granted, I think the idea might work out for places like Holland or Scotland, where already strong leagues are on the decline. As for Germany 06... Whatever happened to Maxi Rodriguez? I thought he'd be the next big thing after seeing him against Mexico.

I watched Korea v. Holland. It made me think that we should sign Mario Melchiot. I'm not even kidding. He started the game and he was actually that good. (runs for cover)

Might as well keep him. He seems to have something resembling potential, and it's not like he costs us 50,000 a week or something...

THIS. Somebody once mentioned to me that Gooch was amazing if you converted him to a striker in FM 2007. ...food for thought.

Do you think he'd get much of a look in though, or just be wheeled out to play against Brighton in the Carling Cup? Considering how Manure has s*** for strikers at the moment, he'd probably get quite a few games if not start regularly. If the season had gone 10 games longer, they'd probably have been forced to play Dong Fang Zhou for pete's sake. I was sort of working on the assumption they'd get more people in during the close season to solve their striker crisis than just said FAB, tho. True, but they'll probably need at least two in with the talk that they're flogging Saha or Smith... Or both. One big-name that'll cost 'bout a billion pounds + Viduka for nowt seems a smart move.

How's it bollocks, Grosvenor and Stanley won't let you in if you look like a bamp, simple as that. No dappers allowed neither. Stanley made me take off my hat before I went in. Felt that it was pretty odd. They need to get some proper card tables in there btw, left after about half an hour because there wasn't anything worth playing. Just a bunch of Chinese blokes playing blackjack.

Do you think he'd get much of a look in though, or just be wheeled out to play against Brighton in the Carling Cup? Considering how Manure has shit for strikers at the moment, he'd probably get quite a few games if not start regularly. If the season had gone 10 games longer, they'd probably have been forced to play Dong Fang Zhou for pete's sake.

You think? The word "great" is overused these days. Diouf could be Ronaldinho in disguise for all I care, I could never, ever support him. Same deal with Barton.

oh God, I'm so positive these days that I can't even be bothered to hate Fat Fred when he says something like that.

you've left South Korea off the list mate. Think we've got more people reading this board than China or Japan, at least

I don't know about Dyer. During our all-too-brief mid season resurgence, he was our best player by far. You can't really blame him for going completely anonymous after Alkmar, as everyone else on the squad not named Milner has managed to do the same as well. Yes, I do think he's a weak-willed, selfish, petulant kid, but he's also bloody talented when he cares and he's not getting mopey. No one's going to buy him anyway, so might as well give him another shot next season. If the rest of the team is playing good, he'll be a class player. If not... Wooosh

****, I hope the ITK bollocks about Nobby isn't true at least. He's one of the few players I really look up to. Always came off as an intelligent, respectful professional. Would have me shedding a tear if it turns out he's actually a wanker and hangs out with Luque.

We already have a track record of spectacular "bad-boy" explosions. Why tempt fate? I think it's far-too optimistic to think that Big Sam has the magic touch with these kinds of players just because he's been able to deal with Diouf for a few years. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Barton is basically Scott Parker, but with personality issues. He's certainly not the kind of player that could dramatically turn our club around. Should focus on making good with our salvagable assets rather than taking a big gamble on a human time bomb. Barton to be doing Prison time by 2009 at the latest, tbh.

Just a friendly warning, but you might want to pick up your tin hat...

pity mate, not the best first game. better luck next time. What killed me wasn't that we lost, it was that the players had already completely lost the fans. The small Man City away section completely out-cheered the entirety of SJP for the whole game. You could hear a pin drop where me and my mate were sitting. Just a horrible, horrible year for the club, I suppose.

What he said. Agreed. Don't ever recall a week where the Fat one has seemed more competent. Spot on manager appointment, good media comments, and a bit of humanity show in the Youtube clip. Of course, you just know that he'll turn around next week and appoint Terry Mac as assistant manager for life or something.

One home game this season, which was Man City. Not really worth the trans-Atlantic flight, but your first time is always special I guess. I hope to get at least 2~3 in next season, as my school schedule will hopefully be less hectic.

Aye. What a let down he was. Only 17 goals - in his first ever season in the Premiership, in a s*** team under a s*** manager - effectively saving us from relegation. Infact, i believe that Oba is the sole reason for why we have had such a s*** season. Also - it was the signing of Oba that meant that we haven't won the Premier League this season, and the season of 95/96 aswell. He's just so, so, s***. What an unbelievable disappointment the guy has been. Even the biggest Oba supporter can't deny that in the last 10 games or so he's been a passenger. who hasn't? To be fair, everybody was a passenger for the past ten games. They're all sitting in the back seat, wondering while the car isn't moving. That's mostly why we've been going nowhere.

True, but also he has been taken for a ride this year, pathetic. Typical of this club. Can't blame Zoggy. I think you can actually. A few good games last season doesn't give you a God-given right to be on the first team, and based on this season's form Duff might actually be better than the Zog. Yes, Roeder and Pearson have been freezing him out of the team lately, but that's probably because he's been displaying attitude issues in training. He got some chances in the early season, and when he did he was s***.

Dyer making it while Milner missing out and Dawson making it while Taylor missing out is just insulting tbh. Is the U21 Championships this year? Perhaps Taylor and Milner ae being kept in the U21 squad for that?

A team of Spider-men ? I WANT IT NOW. I can be wearing a sports top AND be spiderman. I think I could die after wearing that. NAY! while wearing that. Woah... Is that really...real?

I just remebered, wasn't Sven a huge fan of Ameobi? Odds on he'll sell Martins and start Wor Shola every game!

So, what's it like in Newcastle right now? People dancing in the streets yet?

please please please I swear, this is just about as exciting as NUFC reaching a cup final. Maybe more.