mrmojorisin75

one thing i noticed from the "boro game last weekend was how idolated charlie looked left wing compared to milner on the right it seemed to me that the whole team was looking to move the ball right simply 'cause solano is comfortable in possession and taylor is not in the FB role....also taylor was reluctant to make overlapping forward runs so charlie was up against 2 men the whole time, noone making runs and moving people out of position for him DD must be a victim of this to a degree...if we had a competent, fit, left-footed left-back who was looking to take the ball then it would open up space and opportunity for out left winger this lack of FB's just can not be allowed to continue

it's always a funny one that isn't it? people harp on about players having to win this and win that but the truly great players don't need it behind them, in my opinion history remembers jimmy greaves but he won a lot less than many of his generation....history will remember alan shearer rather than andy cole with all his judas tin pots and pieces of silver (i know there are plenty of counters to this example but winning trophy's has never MADE a player i can remember) suppose it comes down to the character of the man in the end and hopefully martins will be a shearer and not an andy cole

anyway i suppose there's an argument that for the amount of mistakes he actually makes we could do with keeping him and spend money concentrating on getting good full backs, which is causing us (as a team) more problems than titus bramble himself ever did a non-mistake making CB alone does not make a defence if he's utterly hamstrung by the lack of a specialist FB on both sides...

was gonna bring the contract thing up as another reason for his performances - he'll know that NO-ONE else will pay him the proposterous wages he's been on at NUFC (when you consider the performance levels we've received in return) so doesn't anyone think he's being spurred on by a lack of comfort zone, i.e. the uncertaintly of a new contract? thus if we're gonna extend his contract (and roeder has said/intimated it's on the cards) then surely offering him one year deals might bring the best out in him?

we dodged a bullett with kuyt i think....in our side he'd have been little more than average, if that...martins is outscoring him in an average team (one that was relegation threatened at one point) and he's made a lot of his own goals, he ain't just tapping 'em in the boys magic and i'm happy to see he seems (currently) to appreciate where he is and who he's playing for - was reading something recently (ah the sibierski article i think) where they told how martins is driven by never forgetting where he came from, the poverty he grew up with now that can obviously go two ways; one he'll be off at the first sign of interest from anyone who'll pay him more money than us, or two he'll realise he's being paid very well and stick with the club that took the chance on him and become a hero i hope to f*ck it's the latter

and that's all that really matters isn't it? put him in a team with a poacher alongside or a consistent big man (we already have the poacher), plus 8 other outfield players with commitment and some quality making up a balanced team and we won't go far from wrong leave the hod-carrying and simple stuff to the others (if we ever get a balanced squad capable of it) and let martins explode into life without the pressure of being the only goalscorer at the club we'll be beating other clubs off with sh!tty sticks trying to him

I can't be bothered to sort your quotes out, but : Newcastle United has ALWAYS had the potential to generate more money than the vast majority of clubs, so perhaps you could tell us why we have only attempted to do this since 1992 ? If you fail to grasp the significance of buying quality, England players, as against not, which most clubs don't and we ourselves used to sell them instead, then there is nothing else to say I'm afraid. Football is littered with successful businessmen who have failed in football through thinking they can run it like a high street store. This club is one of the top "businesses" in its field, I presume this escapes you, in fact it is obvious that it does. If you want to compare it to the high street, then do so, but you can't take the bits that suit you and ignore the rest, because the simple fact is if you ran one of the biggest "businesses" in your field in the country, you would not be harping on about "failure" and all this other indecipherable and unrealistic nonsense. We all want to be number 1. What is your criteria for finding and appointing the new Alex Ferguson, which is the only way we can do it ? Finally, if you think the football is "boring", then I think you need to accept that very few teams play "entertaining football" week in week out, and it doesn't guarantee success either. Believe me, losing every week, seeing your team get nowhere near qualifying for europe, selling your best players and knowing you will not replace them with anything other than rubbish from the lower leagues, and knowing you have no chance of winning anything, is far more boring. BA HA HA you're a quaint little man aren't you? sort my quotes out - you mean that ONE quote i made in my last post? must've been an absolute nightmare for you to sort out eh? as it happens i've actually taken on board some of what you said during this and other posts - you're right when you say that a sense of perspective can give you a different outlook and it obviously does for you; when you compare our history like you do to the present then we should be praising the gods at the situation we find ourselves in, but life just isn't like that is it? as time has gone by expectations have been raised and now when we fail to meet them we feel it all the more the song used to be "the kids are united" but you're slating people here who maybe weren't old enough to see the sh!te you happened see - well that's great isn't it? you and your dancing clown HTL can call them ALL bandwagon jumpers and send them off to support other clubs then...what sort of a message that is? we should have an age limit on the season tickets perhaps? (i'll resist the urge to crack the 'X' rated football gag here, ahem) if we did that pal we'd see how well the club is being run without all the "bandwagon jumpers" cash week in week out when we were bouncing around divisions and fighting relegations as you say there was no concept of having a keegan-esque team as we know it today (before you tell me about a better football playing NUFC team in the 1930's not all of us are privileged to be old enough to have seen football since time began, so point accepted don't bother) and playing in the champions league...as you say, directly attributed to whoever was in charge of the club also, i never mentioned a high street at all so during the course of your "sorting out" my quotes you must have found a couple of bits and pieces to throw in there for me, thanks for the help there....and yes football IS littered with successful businessman who've failed at football and it's usually for 2 reasons: (1) they make an ar*e of the finances and/or (2) they get involved in football matters depending on who you believe our chairman is guilty of #1 and if your bandwagon jumpers leave you'll soon see he'll be the new peter ridsdale for #2 THE POINT I WAS MAKING IS THAT IN MY OPINION SHEPHERD IS NOT QUALIFIED TO RUN A BUSINESS THE SIZE AND MORE IMPORTANTLY STATURE THAT NUFC IS - NEITHER WERE THE PEOPLE YOU KEEP REFERRING TO IN OUR PREVIOUS BOARDS SO WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? sorry for the capitals but hopefully you'll read it....i refer you to my many previous points about changes in the games finances as a whole for the reason shepherd is getting by without being found out again i take your point about not all teams playing entertaining football (see what i'm doing here? directly addressing you point by point!!) but then why should it not be something we aspire to? reading have just been promoted and play far, far, far more attractive football than us for what it probably cost to buy luque....villa are no better than us points wise but whenever i see them they can string two passes together and seem to have a gameplan and a way they want to play....against 'boro last weekend it looked like it was the first time some of our players had even SEEN a football so bad was the quality of play by the way do you play rugby? 'cause the sidestep you made in dodging my direct question about YOUR opinion of how boring or not boring the football is these days was worthy of the six nations (you'd know it as the five nations still obviously) as countless other people have pointed out you are living in the past and fail to accept that football has changed beyond recognition from the days of mckeag etc... that your expections remain mired down with them tells it's own story my friend If you think it is impossible for NUFC to appoint directors who lack ambition and don't have the courage to tap the fanbase and qualify for europe, you are living in a dreamworld. If you do not see that regardless of how football has changed - if it has, because however it has changed, it has changed in the same way for everybody - thus we have qualified for europe regularly on merit and similarly in the past other teams have qualified on merit when we were nowhere - then nothing has changed in that respect. You get what you earn in football, or otherwise. Like anything. I have absolutely zero interest in rugby and have zero idea why you are even mentioning it. If you think our performance against Villa was bad - and I admit it wasn't good - again, you wouldn't know a really bad performance if it hit you on the head with a rusty hammer. You're a bit of an idealist aren't you ie unrealistic ? wow! you continue to excel yourself 1, i have never once said it was impossible for NUFC to appoint worse directors and staff than what we already have - because it's a possibilty doesn't mean we should keep the ones we have if they're not good enough, which we disagree about so let's move on 2, it's a very good point about football changing for everyone and that you get what you earn....using us as a reference we earned our place(s) in europe and status as one of the bigger and richer clubs in the country - can't you see that everyone is concerned that we're gonna lose it through exactly the same criteria by which we earned it? that's the point you're missing...no-one wants rid of a chairman or a board for the sake of it (well perhaps some do) they want it 'cause they feel change is necessary for my part on your beloved board i was an adamant hater of FS and wanted him gine without delay...i now, however, believe that he might actually have learned from some of his mistakes over the last decade and thus might not make them again, there are positive signs of that...what concerns me about the man is that assuming we have a period of stability (financial and football) and then need to take "the next step" i just don't feel he has the ability in him to make the correct choice of manager/staff to do it.... 3, the rugby reference is called having a sense of humour, i wouldn't expect you to understand 4, i didn't actually refer to NUFC vs Villa, i said whenever i see them play meaning more than once and not on a single occasion...therefore who are you talking about the performance against villa, 'cause it isn't me is it? obviously....

what tables are they mate ? The tables posted by macbeth (based on official club financial statements) that he commented on, duly dismissed by HTL. Eh? The facts posted by NE5 tell the story that previous boards were inferior to the current one, these facts ignored by many. Based on these facts an opinion has consequently been formed that it is possible for us to once again have a board like previous boards should the present one go. However, this is deemed to be impossible by the some, who dismiss events of the past as of no consequence. The facts posted by macbeth do not tell the story he portrays, what they tell is the story of his envy of Fred agend and they tell the story of one poor managerial appointment made not by Fred, but by the entire board. He continually ignores this, which I why I dismmissed his charts as nonsense. They do not say what he has in the past claimed they say. Understand? a good argument HTL, particularly the first part about what NE5's statistics prove and i'd tend to agree (in fact you can't disagree) that statistics show positionally club has improved during the current/recent boards in comparison to previous ones however none of what NE5 posted, nor indeed much of the macbeth stuff, takes into account context - comparing the last 10 years to periods from the '60's/'70's and '80's ignores the dramatic shift in the game and it's finances in the whole country, this is fact... it's not enough to simply say our league finishes are higher therefore the board is better, nor is it enough to say the club is losing money here and there whilst ignoring that in the context of our history we are doing pretty well, you'd have to say Please explain how we did not fill the ground and capitalise on being one of the biggest financial players in the country prior to 1992 ? Or do you think that during the 1960's, 1970;s and 1980's, clubs such as Luton, Derby, Oxford, Crystal Palace, smoggies, Stoke, Ipswich, Norwich, Watford, Swindon, Brighton, Notts County, Preston, QPR, Bristol City, Grimsby, Swansea, Rotherham, Southampton, Portsmouth, Wimbledon, Burnley.....and more, all finished above us in the league for prolonged periods in some instances, and sometimes bought our better players, and some of who have won a domestic trophy since we did, because they had bigger crowd potential before the "dramatic shift in the game and its finances" BTW, this post in the context of the clubs I have mentioned, is all factual information. I am pleased you appear to think the dismal 30+ years we experienced is down to the fact that you think we did not have the same potential as we have nowadays, thanks to Sky and the "dramatic shift in the game and its finances". Which, of course, proves one thing and one thing only. You know and understand absolutely nowt about Newcastle United. OK, 1, i never mentioned mentioned SJP and 50,000+ plus crowds as being the driver behind the "dramatic shift", you did as it happens, in the above post...that you ASSUME it was what i was referring to shows you're not alwats dealing in fact 2, i never made any link to your dismal 30 years and lack of potential at the club pre-1992 (which i also didn't mention as it happens) so please don't link me and my supposed lack of knowledge to stuff you're inventing 3, i've never disagreed with you about the clubs you refer to in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's and how we did in comparison to them, i agree with you, i have no idea why you're trying to create an argument about it... 4, i'm actually pleased you think i know nothing about NUFC baecause in all the games i've been to over the last 16-17 years (yes, my crime was not being born in 1945 and for that i offer my apologies), all of the away games and friendlies i've been to and european games i've travelled to see i've never ONCE met another fan with such a twisted, bitter & immovable opinion as you... in fact i'll tell you who you remind me of - there were a couple of people used to be behind me in the east stand, a couple of old farts never been south of the tyne but had the same spot in the ground forever and they were the only ones who knew anything, if anyone else around offered an opinion they were shot down 'cause these old knakcers knew more....start talking to them about having been to see the anderlecht friendly in belgium 3 days after the charity shield fiasco and they'll tell you about a home game in 1952 that was better 'cause of this and that...you're the chat room equivalent of them so if you're the font of knowledge, the bastion of truth about NUFC then i'll stay in my state of ignorance with all my mates, they say it's bliss don't you know?

what tables are they mate ? The tables posted by macbeth (based on official club financial statements) that he commented on, duly dismissed by HTL. Eh? The facts posted by NE5 tell the story that previous boards were inferior to the current one, these facts ignored by many. Based on these facts an opinion has consequently been formed that it is possible for us to once again have a board like previous boards should the present one go. However, this is deemed to be impossible by the some, who dismiss events of the past as of no consequence. The facts posted by macbeth do not tell the story he portrays, what they tell is the story of his envy of Fred agend and they tell the story of one poor managerial appointment made not by Fred, but by the entire board. He continually ignores this, which I why I dismmissed his charts as nonsense. They do not say what he has in the past claimed they say. Understand? a good argument HTL, particularly the first part about what NE5's statistics prove and i'd tend to agree (in fact you can't disagree) that statistics show positionally club has improved during the current/recent boards in comparison to previous ones however none of what NE5 posted, nor indeed much of the macbeth stuff, takes into account context - comparing the last 10 years to periods from the '60's/'70's and '80's ignores the dramatic shift in the game and it's finances in the whole country, this is fact... it's not enough to simply say our league finishes are higher therefore the board is better, nor is it enough to say the club is losing money here and there whilst ignoring that in the context of our history we are doing pretty well, you'd have to say

I can't be bothered to sort your quotes out, but : Newcastle United has ALWAYS had the potential to generate more money than the vast majority of clubs, so perhaps you could tell us why we have only attempted to do this since 1992 ? If you fail to grasp the significance of buying quality, England players, as against not, which most clubs don't and we ourselves used to sell them instead, then there is nothing else to say I'm afraid. Football is littered with successful businessmen who have failed in football through thinking they can run it like a high street store. This club is one of the top "businesses" in its field, I presume this escapes you, in fact it is obvious that it does. If you want to compare it to the high street, then do so, but you can't take the bits that suit you and ignore the rest, because the simple fact is if you ran one of the biggest "businesses" in your field in the country, you would not be harping on about "failure" and all this other indecipherable and unrealistic nonsense. We all want to be number 1. What is your criteria for finding and appointing the new Alex Ferguson, which is the only way we can do it ? Finally, if you think the football is "boring", then I think you need to accept that very few teams play "entertaining football" week in week out, and it doesn't guarantee success either. Believe me, losing every week, seeing your team get nowhere near qualifying for europe, selling your best players and knowing you will not replace them with anything other than rubbish from the lower leagues, and knowing you have no chance of winning anything, is far more boring. BA HA HA you're a quaint little man aren't you? sort my quotes out - you mean that ONE quote i made in my last post? must've been an absolute nightmare for you to sort out eh? as it happens i've actually taken on board some of what you said during this and other posts - you're right when you say that a sense of perspective can give you a different outlook and it obviously does for you; when you compare our history like you do to the present then we should be praising the gods at the situation we find ourselves in, but life just isn't like that is it? as time has gone by expectations have been raised and now when we fail to meet them we feel it all the more the song used to be "the kids are united" but you're slating people here who maybe weren't old enough to see the sh!te you happened see - well that's great isn't it? you and your dancing clown HTL can call them ALL bandwagon jumpers and send them off to support other clubs then...what sort of a message that is? we should have an age limit on the season tickets perhaps? (i'll resist the urge to crack the 'X' rated football gag here, ahem) if we did that pal we'd see how well the club is being run without all the "bandwagon jumpers" cash week in week out when we were bouncing around divisions and fighting relegations as you say there was no concept of having a keegan-esque team as we know it today (before you tell me about a better football playing NUFC team in the 1930's not all of us are privileged to be old enough to have seen football since time began, so point accepted don't bother) and playing in the champions league...as you say, directly attributed to whoever was in charge of the club also, i never mentioned a high street at all so during the course of your "sorting out" my quotes you must have found a couple of bits and pieces to throw in there for me, thanks for the help there....and yes football IS littered with successful businessman who've failed at football and it's usually for 2 reasons: (1) they make an ar*e of the finances and/or (2) they get involved in football matters depending on who you believe our chairman is guilty of #1 and if your bandwagon jumpers leave you'll soon see he'll be the new peter ridsdale for #2 THE POINT I WAS MAKING IS THAT IN MY OPINION SHEPHERD IS NOT QUALIFIED TO RUN A BUSINESS THE SIZE AND MORE IMPORTANTLY STATURE THAT NUFC IS - NEITHER WERE THE PEOPLE YOU KEEP REFERRING TO IN OUR PREVIOUS BOARDS SO WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? sorry for the capitals but hopefully you'll read it....i refer you to my many previous points about changes in the games finances as a whole for the reason shepherd is getting by without being found out again i take your point about not all teams playing entertaining football (see what i'm doing here? directly addressing you point by point!!) but then why should it not be something we aspire to? reading have just been promoted and play far, far, far more attractive football than us for what it probably cost to buy luque....villa are no better than us points wise but whenever i see them they can string two passes together and seem to have a gameplan and a way they want to play....against 'boro last weekend it looked like it was the first time some of our players had even SEEN a football so bad was the quality of play by the way do you play rugby? 'cause the sidestep you made in dodging my direct question about YOUR opinion of how boring or not boring the football is these days was worthy of the six nations (you'd know it as the five nations still obviously) as countless other people have pointed out you are living in the past and fail to accept that football has changed beyond recognition from the days of mckeag etc... that your expections remain mired down with them tells it's own story my friend

Romania is even more surprising in that case then, I'd say as a gut feeling Czech and Bulgarian teams have qualified for Europe and played in the CL more often than Romanian teams But then it's unlikely the league lies!!

by the way, is that list of countries right? scotland are 10th? SCOTLAND? 10TH i mean, it's scotland....how on gods green earth are there not more than 10 better teams in europe than scotland? maybe puts our standing in the club rankings in a little perspective

backs up that lad NE5 quite nicely with his "repeatedly qualifying for european competition" chelp....

totally disagree with the post - if you hate another team in domestic competitions then it's the height of hypocracy to support them in europe indeed some would argue the same for individual players and the england team, and while although i don't go that far myself i find myself in the minority during a lot of england games when i call sh!te sh!te, people won't/can't see it when man utd won the CL in 1999 i was the only person in the pub (i was in durham or somewhere at the time) who wasn't jumping about and who did say "bayern were fucken robbed, plain and simple, the best team lost" - i was nearly strung up.... when NUFC aren't involved i want to see the best, most adventurous attacking team win no matter who they are

unreadable huh? move along son.... what's this login and copy and paste bullsh!t? i'm the same person, always have been always will be

"not just our old boards were worse, but unless you haven't bothered to wake up in the real world, the vast majority of present day ones in the country are too. Unless we haven't actually qualified for europe more than everyone else bar 4 clubs. Oh, I must have made that up. Wait a moment, I haven't. Who exactly do you see that has came forward and shown the desire and ability to do better ? As for England. If you do not see the worth of a club buying current big England players, and think a club that buys such players is s****, then - as I said - you would not understand REAL apathy and mediocrity, if it hit you on the head with a rusty hammer. " woah, seems like we're getting somewhere, so: i take your point about ALL boards actually and it's an interesting one - i'd counter it, however, like i did the last time and say that football has never been so money oriented and a shift in the type of board you'll get in that case is inevitable...i'm not necessarily convinced that current boards are better, just that the amount of finances within the game mask their deficiencies much better than in the past you're right about no-one appearing to come along that's looks a strong candidate in the terms we want - but we're currently run by an ex-scrap merchant or whatever it was he did (whether or not he's a geordie is irrelevant) and for me if an outside company with a proven history of finacial success wanted to come in and take the club over then i'd argue things would likely get better more than they'd get worse....they'd realise that success on the field and stability in the club is the main driver to them making money in a correct fashion rather than increasing the clubs debt through a series of poor decisions and appointments i take it by current big england players you mean scott parker and kieron dyer - neither is a regular england starter and kieron dyer, frankly, is an utter travesty of a man and a footballer; a cancer that needs to be cut from the club....and by the way i'd never say NUFC was sh!t, thanks do me a favour and answer the original question 'cause it wasn't about the board as such - do you accept that watching NUFC currently is beyond boring? the football is terrible and through a variety of other factors (primarily the top four being so far in advance of everyone else, ill feeling toward the current board RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY) all we have to look forward to each season is a possible 6th place finish for the forseeable future....all of these things combined, some might suggest, could create feelings of apathy and despondancy for the supporters regardless of how apathetic and despondant they were 20 years ago?

if you think playing regularly in europe and buying England players is apathy, you wouldn't know real despondency and apathy if it hit you on the head with a rusty hammer mate. who are you? who are you ? To repeat. If you think playing in europe regularly is unattractive and failure - or whatever else you describe - you wouldn't know apathy, failure and "lack of spark" if it hit you on the head with a rusty hammer. You have no idea of the difference between signing international footballers, and selling them because they want to leave and seeing them signing for anyone but you. If you did, you wouldn't come out with such bollocks. Lastly, I read your idealistic rubbish about buying a barrowload of young players, Bobby Robson you ain't. My point - is that - if we had such a s*** board as you think we have, they WOULD be a lot worse ....... who am i? i'm someone who realises the point of discussion/argument is to see what the other person says in order to progress matters, you appear not to understand that concept as all you've done is repeat what you said in the first place and largely ignored what i responded with, exactly what you did on the last post i put up funnily enough of course i undertand the difference between the type of international player you talk about but you didn't make any reference to that in your previous post, nor does it bear a great deal of relevance to my question in the first place - unless you haven't noticed the england team is FULL of england internationals and they play football that can make a grown man weep, so what's your point? don't try to hang me with the "idealistic rubbish" either 'cause i acknowledged that that's exactly what it is at the time - doesn't mean i don't want to see it; what is this George Orwells 1984 or summat, so you must be the thought police?....also if you notice when i was answering my own question i didn't actually mention getting shot of the board just that i think it's the way to go (regardless of who is in the boardroom) so come on then, fabricate something else i'm supposed to have said and tell me that our old boards were worse and if they were in charge now then blah blah blah....zzzzzzzzzzzz sorry i was watching a repeat of the last england game there

bollocks, realised i just repeated part of that times article link at the top of the page!

been a lot written about this lad recently, for obvious reasons, my personal favourite being when he was manager of rayo vallecano his team had stormed to a 2-0 lead over somebody (in a league or cup game) and started to coast thinking they'd already won the game as the opposition looked beaten he responded by reducing his own team to ten men so that they'd have to work harder and try to make sure they won it!! now that's what i call music - contrasts with our own manager who's so paralysed by fear that he can't make a substitution that's keeps us at eleven men!! apparently his footballing philosophy (imagine that!) is to attack, at all times regardless of score or importance of the game - didn't see the match but against barcelona last week at 2-1 up and down to ten men their RIGHT BACK (Alves obviously) almost scored 2 goals in the last few minutes and hit the bar in the 95th apparently!! if there was EVER a manager that was made for the toon this is him - but i'm realistic enough to know that 'cause he's foreign his CV would be shredded before it even got past security at SJP

agreed - has lots of similarities with woodgate in style of play; classy and comfortable on the ball, reads the game very well had a bad knee injury i believe after 2002 world cup but has recovered fully, to my knowledge there should be an NUFC representative on a plane to germany as we speak, but there won't be

if you think playing regularly in europe and buying England players is apathy, you wouldn't know real despondency and apathy if it hit you on the head with a rusty hammer mate. who are you? i mean you can obviously read words but do you ever undertand what they mean? if you find watching NUFC these days fills you with anticipation for the feast of football you're about to see then i'd argue you're in the minority, the football is beyond dull and EVERYONE knows it is furthermore since when does playing in europe guarantee excitement either on the pitch or within the supporters? what was the crowd in the last match against those belgians and how was the performance? if the team could play anything approaching attractive/attacking football there might have been more there (don't bother telling me about ticket prices, i already know) as for england players carlton palmer was an england player, so was michael ricketts...should i have been excited by signing either of them if we'd done so? albert luque is a spain international and boumsong plays for france....ooooooh how exciting 'cause them playing for us must guarantee free flowing football and unquestioning acceptance that all is well in the club, mustn't it? once again you're trying to turn this into something you want to talk about (how much better it is these days and how you remember when this was all fields or some shit) all the while ignoring what i was asking, and indeed reality - can't you see that it doesn't matter how bad things were 20 years ago? it doesn't make them NOT bad now....

If you do no.1, then no.2 I have a nasty hunch we'd be very worried about no.3...... true enough, but you never know!

my two penneth on my own question goes as follows - i don't believe this chairman will walk, there won't be much money and the manager will stay until shearer decides he fancies it (or we get relegated) therefore what i'd love more than anything to see (but i realise it'd NEVER happen) would be to sell/ship the following players: carr, bramble, moore, babayaro, butt, luque, duff, sibierski, ameobi, emre, pattison, ramage....owen/parker are possibles but we'd need a nucleus of experienced players i'd replace them with a mixture of what we have at reserve/youth level presently and i'd use all of the transfer fees plus our usual summer budget to fill the squad with talented youngsters with potential from britain/holland/germany/scandinavia primarily (players from these foreign countries would more than likely settle in the north east better than a spaniard or a italian for example) and not one of them would be older than 22... then i'd set off on a death or glory season with the bairns i just don't want to see another 5-10m signing from chel$ki reserves on 50,000 a week....i don't want another luque walking through the door...i don't want another 10m striker on a 5 year contract nothing would excite me more and get me behind the team than something like that - i feel SJP would get together and shout and sing for a load of kids playing their heart out.... it's pie in the sky bollocks i know but it would be fantastic to see, even if not on such a sweeping scale as i say here...sadly the alternative is almost certainly to be more "safe" signings from glenn in the window who'll cost so much we won't be able to fully address the gaping holes in our squad and will continue to play with no fire, heart or imagination 'cause they'll all be driving home in ferrari's (i know money and performances aren't directly linked but where is the hunger in our players; martins, milner, charlie, taylor, given and the bairns excepted?)

the thing is we can and Shepherd knows it.. yup, the only thing that would shock him into any sort of action was if season ticket sales dropped 10-15,000 (and they won't)

Living out of Toon now this is a big assumption but from what I do see of NUFC these days, what I hear from mates still there and what I read here it seems that despondancy & apathy reign at SJP; indeed hope has largely passed us by going in the other direction. Watching games has become a drain, almost a chore at times, due to a number of factors so my question is this - what would it take to get the life back into supporting NUFC? (By the way I hate Spurs but I watched them play yesterday and couldn't help but notice that for two "similar" clubs the gulf in style of play and flair was frightening when contrasted to our game vs "Boro) Some options we hear repeatedly, none of which are impossible, are: Sacking the board? A takeover? A good run at the start of next season? A spending spree bringing in flair players to add to the squad we already have? A spending spree on defenders and midfielders? A new manager? Getting shot of Luque Alan Shearer? A cup run? Relegation? I have my own thoughts but I just wondered what the consensus was? Or if there is one...