quayside

That's out of our hands. Basically yeah, I'm not sure why people keep saying, that. That's nothing to do with is, answer wouldn't know even if there was a buyer. Are we some leper of a club? Are we f***, we are an attractive proposition We are only attractive as a vanity project not as a business. Very few owners ever make money out of football clubs and those that try to usually fail - and end up being loathed into the bargain, not that they tend to care too much about that mind.

Got to buy a striker in the January window - someone who leads the line and poses a threat in open play, a Lukaka or Benteke type. Cisse is a poacher and when his mojo is missing he gives us less than nothing. Is Gomis the answer?

City don't care about this competition one bit, but even their reserve side will be good enough to beat us comfortably. Especially as we will be defeated mentally before the whistle is even blown. All they have to do is put Edin Dzeko on the pitch and leave it to our defence to make him look unplayable. And Dzeko plays tonight

City don't care about this competition one bit, but even their reserve side will be good enough to beat us comfortably. Especially as we will be defeated mentally before the whistle is even blown. All they have to do is put Edin Dzeko on the pitch and leave it to our defence to make him look unplayable.

So Ashley would be upset to read praise about one of the club's employees? I assume it is someone who has since left. The TV guy, Rob Scanlon ?. Or it could be Llambias, given he and MA supposedly fell out, which would explain Ashley being "furious", especially if they parted on bad terms at the time. Aye but then what's this talk of Llambias taking over at Rangers. Unless they've made up since of course. Wasn't it not reported somewhere they had patched up whatever it was that caused them to fall out? Sure I read it somewhere as well. I assume the "falling out" was Ashley sticking Kinnear in as DOF.

It pains me to say it but Shola has looked more of a threat than Cisse recently. And I want to make it clear that is intended as a comment on Cisse's ineptness rather than any sort of praise for Shola.

Mine is a mixed connection. My father is a football lover from London who, through work, found himself in the North East. He met my mother whilst up there, she was Welsh born but had 2 brothers born in Newcastle. My parents got married in Newcastle and I was born a geordie. My dad used to watch NUFC every home match, but he also used to go and see the mackems when they were playing at home (and NUFC weren't) just to see a game. He's definitely more NUFC than mackem though! Finally my brother was born in North London (and lives there now) and is a season ticket holder at The Emirates, although he did go to Newcastle University and, if you really interrogate him, went to our games and will admit to having a "soft spot".

It'll be another quick fix appointment by ashley, most likely Kinnear and when Kinnear suffers another wobbler it will be down to the coaching staff like last time. Then he'll end up appointing someone and it will all be to late. The man is a grade a idiot. Come on gimp Ashley is not an idiot. Whatever anyone on here thinks about Pardew's abilty as a manager what he said today about Ashley is about as accurate a description of our predicament as it gets imo. Im just venting mate Fair enough

It'll be another quick fix appointment by ashley, most likely Kinnear and when Kinnear suffers another wobbler it will be down to the coaching staff like last time. Then he'll end up appointing someone and it will all be to late. The man is a grade a idiot. Come on gimp Ashley is not an idiot. Whatever anyone on here thinks about Pardew's abilty as a manager what he said today about Ashley is about as accurate a description of our predicament as it gets imo.

Let's see how many Premier league clubs come in for Holloway based on his success then. I doubt the queue will be that long. Of course Premiership clubs won't come in for him, but they aren't a Premiership club and don't have a Premiership squad. They won a jackpot they had no right to win and they owe Holloway for that.

If Holloway gets sacked Palace deserve to follow the same path as Wolves.

Happy Face - sense

Trouble is his confidence took a massive beating. A spell out of the limelight is not so bad for him right now imo.

I think if he has a good game people will say so and the same applies if he plays badly like he did for us when we needed him last season. He had a very good game today and was equally good when he came on against Everton.

Based on Cisse's current form I'm happy Jonas had a go at the harder chance tbh.

Mbwia was torn to shreds by the Morecambe front line earlier in the season. Shudder to think what will happen against those 2 on his current form. For balance he also had an excellent game against Benteke. He did. Mbiwa is a very good young player imo, he has had some shockers (notably against Everton) and was badly exposed. Tbf the rest of our back four has also been pretty shyte on a worringly frequent basis. But he's young (24) and most young players tend to have a more fragile confidence threshold than those who have been around for a while, especially when he's still relatively new to this country and this league. A spell out of the first team is no bad thing and Mbiwa will be back I think.

We should have won 6-3.

Was with you all the way and looking forward to May - but that last bit just killed my optimism tbh.

The reason Ben Arfa was switched to the opposite side to Baines wasn't because Baines is a better defender though, it was because Baines is a better attacker. You may well be right, I don't think any of us know for sure what the thinking was. But I still suggest that once Baines got the early yellow card there was an opportunity to put some additional pressure on him by sticking HBA on our right flank.

That first half yesterday......Jesus. Our defending was beyond contempt. Up front I can almost forgive AP for starting HBA on the left, it did put him up against their weaker full back (who played a blinder as it turned out). But when Baines picked up an early yellow card there was a god given opportunity for AP to at least try and swap HBA to our right and let him have a run at Baines, who had no lifelines left. But f*ck it he didn't...

This should not be seen as a trade-off, because the 'not taken a penny out' line wouldn't wash if SD was paying £10m a year and NUFC then paying Ashley £10m a interest. Ashley is somehow portrayed as a benefactor. I would far rather it were all done on arms-length commercial terms. I take your point but it is purely a PR issue. Although there is "some" transparency on club finances I think that however the overall structure between the club and Ashley is set up there will always be enough leeway for people to conclude what they want.

Whether SD pay for the advertising at the ground is irrelevant imo. As Colo said above there is a trade off between that and any interest Ashley could charge on his loan. I'm more concerned that the advertising looks sh1t and denigrates a great stadium, the excuse that it is available to other advertisers if they want to pay is utter toss. I suppose it emphasises the complete lack of class that is to be expected. As far as finances between the club and SD are concerned I would like to know more about the retailing arrangerments (shirt sales mainly) between SD and the club. I may have missed it but I don't think it got raised at the recent meeting between the fans and the directors. It should be.

Asking me? As a manager not really. Like the guy though, loved our Championship season but he had arguably the best squad that has ever played Championship football. Under him in the Premiership we relied a lot on long balls from the likes of Barton into Andy Carroll and then Nolan being in the right place. It was no better football than the stuff people have been unhappy with under Pardew. When Pardew came in he had no Carroll, and he got some results with people like Best and Lovenkrands in the side, I'm not at all sure Hughton would have done that tbh. Rightly or wrongly I feel Pardew is a better man manager as well. We don't know all that goes on behind the scenes so I freely admit that's speculation. Aye, the mackems and Villa games were f***ing rotten, scoring a goal then trying to score another, then another. Where do people get this absolute rubbish? As for Pardew coming in with no Carroll, I must have blanked out that Liverpool game. Dear me. Loved those games. But there were some shockers as well and there was plenty of grumbling on here after some rank performances under Hughton. And yes we've had shockers under Pardew but FFS it hasn't all been shyte. Was it just the one game Pardew had with Carroll? Poor performances were to be expected, we'd just been promoted and spent almost nothing! It's been largely s****. I haven't enjoyed three games in the last eighteen months, and even when we finished fifth, other than half a dozen games the football stank to high heaven. I hardly think you can class a 3-1 defeat to West Brom alongside 0-3 and 0-6. "Shockers" doesn't begin to cover what Pardew has put us through. I'd love to know what it is about the man that has so many defending him even now. He's utterly detestable as a man and as a manager. How is last season less worthy of the sack to you than Hughton's four months was? Fair enough - your enjoyment is beyond debate in that no one can tell you otherwise. You go to more games than I do but I've enjoyed more of the football I've seen than you have, I probably am more easily pleased. I don't think anyone on here is especially pro Pardew (Brett is close though), I think the most anyone would say is that he's a bang average manager. The argument centres on who would replace him if we did sack him, and would it be another bang average manager or a less than bang average manager. The Sunderland betting list is a decent starting point (although it contains a few non starters to be fair). Debates on the merits of the likes of MON, McLaren etc over Pardew are pointless imo. I would support sacking Pardew if I knew we would find an undisputable upgrade. I am not convinced our owner knows enough about the game or enough people in the game to do that.

Asking me? As a manager not really. Like the guy though, loved our Championship season but he had arguably the best squad that has ever played Championship football. Under him in the Premiership we relied a lot on long balls from the likes of Barton into Andy Carroll and then Nolan being in the right place. It was no better football than the stuff people have been unhappy with under Pardew. When Pardew came in he had no Carroll, and he got some results with people like Best and Lovenkrands in the side, I'm not at all sure Hughton would have done that tbh. Rightly or wrongly I feel Pardew is a better man manager as well. We don't know all that goes on behind the scenes so I freely admit that's speculation. Aye, the mackems and Villa games were f***ing rotten, scoring a goal then trying to score another, then another. Where do people get this absolute rubbish? As for Pardew coming in with no Carroll, I must have blanked out that Liverpool game. Dear me. Loved those games. But there were some shockers as well and there was plenty of grumbling on here after some rank performances under Hughton. And yes we've had shockers under Pardew but FFS it hasn't all been shyte. Was it just the one game Pardew had with Carroll?

Sorry can't see that at all. Hughton was backed in our championship season, look at the players we kept in that squad and look how much it cost Ashley to keep them. Of course Ashley had no choice in the circumstances. Genuine question as I haven't looked it up: who did Hughton lose? If there were bids for the good players that stayed they'd have gone too. We lost probably £25million worth of players and replaced them with about £4millions worth that season. The summer we came back up he was given Tiote, Gosling, Campbell, Perch and Ben Arfa (on loan) totalling about £4.5 million. Your first sentence is just an opinion and is not based on anything much. We kept a fantastic squad by Championship standards and added to it in the January so I think Hughton was backed. Have had a look, are we talking Owen, Duff, Beye, Bassong, Martins, Viduka leaving- anyone else? At that stage of their careers Owen, Viduka and Beye had little value and (much as I liked them all - at times) good riddance imo. We got good money for Martins and Bassong neither have proven to be worth it. Arguably Duff has actually proved to have some value as he's played Premiership football ever since. I don't think we lost anyone of any significance under Hughton. By the way I understand you like him, he's a decent professional and man. He was treated badly. But I don't think he's as good a manager as Pardew, and that's based on nothing other than it being my opinion. They've been banging on about the cost of relegation for years so getting another £200+k off the wage bill and another £15-20million in transfer fees would have delighted them. I don't see how that's an opinion knowing what we know. It's not who we lost, it's how many and how much of the money was reinvested. We're extremely lucky those cheap deals and loans paid off so well or we'd still be down there. Hughton finished 5 places higher than us last year with a far worse team. Not too shabby. I'm not a believer in lucky transfers tbh. You make your own luck by and large. We could have spent many millions more than we did on the players we have signed and no one would have thought we'd overpaid. Can't and won't argue much about last season. Pardew handled the Europa experience badly, the only mitigation I've got is that he had never managed in Europe before and it proved to be beyond him. I don't think he's any better than an average manager. btw.