fredbob

In that case why make such a song and dance for months about making signings in the Jan window? I am taking Joe at his word, I'm assuming he's got some idea that Ashley will back him and bring in faces. Although I am having a job keeping a straight face even as I type this. To be fair, the odds are with me on this one, Ashley and Co only have to spend £11m to beat the most ever spent in a January period window my NUFC. Not a great deal really is it. If that happens will the boo boys shut up then, i doubt it but I'm not complaining.

I'm sure you'll find some, you were saying that last year. Why do you think I'd want to find excuses? I must of imagined the whole Keegan debacle then. Silly me.

Don't be silly, the uncertainty over Kinnear's contract will be the excuse that time. Or the attempts to sell the club. We'll wait and see. Not sure why you think i hold a candle to Ashley, or am looking to make excuses for him, i'm not, i just see a set of circumstances which have worked against him. If i hadnt seen the arrival of Colo, or the arrival of Enriique, or the bid for Woodgate or the bids for Modric or the bid for Aimar and alledged bid for Schweinsteiger, hell even the appointment of Keegan, Im 99.9% certain id be on your cynical side, but these little things are keeping my faith alive. Sorry for being an optimist.

I'll reserve my judgemnt for sept 2nd if im honest. Its the only window that the club has no excuses to suceed.

This post pretty much highlights my post perfectly. This massive misconception about Martins and his lack of technical ability not making him a great striker. If Martins scrapes to 15 goals as you say, i can almost guarantee you he'd contribute another 5 goals in assist. At the end of the day, team goals a the only goals that count and if Martins has directly contributed to 20 goals in a season. in automatically puts him into the group of top strikers. He'll of effectively of contributed exactly the same amount of goals as Michael Owen will have. The only difference is becasue Owen has such a good record and seems technically sound he can get away with it more than some likes Martins who infuritaing game play often overshadows his overall contribution. He may be one of the worst of the bunch, but he'd definitely be up there. For me, when it comes to those 90 minutes over the course of a season, Martins is equal to Owen in terms of contibutions to the team. I could name so many strikers over the years who are technically proficaient but when it comes to contribution to the team have little input. Forlan, Milosevic, Heskey (at times), Marcus Bent, Sutton etc etc. (maybe some ropey examples at the moment but the list could go on and on) all you could say are technically better than martins, they have the touch, they have the passiing ablity, the hold up play and link up play, but when it comes to putting the ball in the back of the net, or making a noticebal contribution to the team, none have been as consitenly as good as Martins has been so far. Well, no i cant tell you the last 5 assists he made directly - that isnt just what an assisst is, Im not saying he's a creative player, or has craft, but he'll get into positions positions which leads to goals, he's already responsilbe for something like 48 goals in 101 odd appearence - inclding assissts. The point is, would someone like Alan Smith get in those positions, its a subjective question, but a question that doesnt need answering becasue we already have a striker who does get in those positions, Martins. And yes, you're right about some of the examples being ropey - i told you they were in the first place but still, you're right never the less. Would you like me to give to a list of technically sound players who would struggleto put the ball in the net or be directly involved in a team goal? I have to say though, Im pretty confident. Two things about this, one is that we have only seen him play consistenly in one full seaosn, under a terrible team with Roeder at the helm, he still managed 17, last season was a wqrite off with Allardyce who didnt rate him and he was incredibly important in our run at the end of last season where he put away a few. This season has been his first season of pretty much uniteruppted first team play, he;s played consitenly and is currently ona 1 in 2 ratio, with Kinnear at the helm... The second point is that his contribution shouldnt be just limited to goals scored, some one pointed out that Rooney was a 1 in 3 striker but when you count his contributions in terms of assists it effectively makes him a 1 in 2 striker, maybe even better. As ive already pointed out, Martins has contributed something like 48 goals in 101 games including assists. The place i get my stats from is in german. This is the link to his set of stats. http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/spieler/5794/obafemi-martins/default/2008/leistungsdaten.html

What would you like "us" to comment about?

This post pretty much highlights my post perfectly. This massive misconception about Martins and his lack of technical ability not making him a great striker. If Martins scrapes to 15 goals as you say, i can almost guarantee you he'd contribute another 5 goals in assist. At the end of the day, team goals a the only goals that count and if Martins has directly contributed to 20 goals in a season. in automatically puts him into the group of top strikers. He'll of effectively of contributed exactly the same amount of goals as Michael Owen will have. The only difference is becasue Owen has such a good record and seems technically sound he can get away with it more than some likes Martins who infuritaing game play often overshadows his overall contribution. He may be one of the worst of the bunch, but he'd definitely be up there. For me, when it comes to those 90 minutes over the course of a season, Martins is equal to Owen in terms of contibutions to the team. I could name so many strikers over the years who are technically proficaient but when it comes to contribution to the team have little input. Forlan, Milosevic, Heskey (at times), Marcus Bent, Sutton etc etc. (maybe some ropey examples at the moment but the list could go on and on) all you could say are technically better than martins, they have the touch, they have the passiing ablity, the hold up play and link up play, but when it comes to putting the ball in the back of the net, or making a noticebal contribution to the team, none have been as consitenly as good as Martins has been so far.

Kluivert mark II, but id still have him here - absolute dream signing for me personally.

I said this a while back - Martins is far from being aesthetically pleasing, but he;s fucking effective. He'll never be classed as a "great" player no matter how many goals or assists he gets bcasue quite frankly he doesnt have the formiddible techinique that alot of class strikers posses. If i remeber correctly, his contributions of goals in terms of assists and goals are very very close to Owens. I.e. 1 in 2. Id rather have the most technically deficient striker in the world who contributes 20 goals a season than a technically sound one who doesnt contirbute half as much.

Only relevant if Ashley sells at a loss imo. Cant see him selling at a profit at the minute. Not a fair comparison anyway as Ashley's only been around 18 months. Its funny like but Ashley gave 80% of Newcastle fans exactly what they wanted, 1. He got rid of Shepherd 2. He (apparently) introduced some sense into the business operations that people complained about under Shepherd and 3. He brought King Kev back and gave SJP the opportunity to sing EIEIEIO one more time (which most would never have expected). We dont know why things fucked up over the summer but if it turns out Kev was playing silly buggers i'll feel sorry for him in a lot of ways. If you took a wishlist from 2005/6, am sure a lot of what went on up till sept 2nd was in line with what people wanted, apart from a missing 20m worth of investment and again we dont know why that didnt happen either. Maybe i'm being too circumspect. Maybe they only thought thats what they wanted ie anybody but the fat bastard and all of that ? Some should have known better though. The fan's expectations were developed over the 90s and they expected it to be the norm to be competing at the top and in Europe every year. When we were subsequently in mid table the frustrations of the fans were taken out on the board, a position i never agreed with as i could see it was them that had given them the expectations in the first place!! I think that those frustrations are still there and people want to take them out on someone else now. We need to step back and think about where we've been as a club, the state of the current financial world and maybe hold back from anymore discontent for now. These banners are getting us nowhere at the minute. exactly right. I agree the whole thing is now just so frustrating but there is nothing anybody can do but protest. Do you not think that the fans understood this and gave them a hell of a lot more slack than other boards would get when they did mess up? I havent seen anything happen now which hasnt happned under the old board, yet they were given many chances to redeem themselves, unlike what is happening now, its a true mark of respect for what the old board achieved. Its only you who doesnt see this and believe everyone hated the old board.

I don't believe in pissing contest in general but when it comes to football, people who put time, effort and money into actually supporting the team deserve credit for that - I have no problem with anyone anywhere calling themselves a fan and supporting the team in spirit but to pretend they are the same level of fan as those who go to games is ridiculous imo. Nowhere near as ridiculous as calling someone an "enemy of the club" because they disagree with you. It wasn't primarily because you disagreed with me - it was because you implied that the banner could be used by "enemies" which I think is bollocks and leading on from that I think people who support Ashley as fully as I get the impression you do are in my opinion just as much enemies of the club as nebulous media or fans of other clubs. How anyone can be labeled an enemy of the club because they support the present owner is strange to say the least. He may have upset Keegan he may have appointed Wise but he also probably saved the club from the financial Armageddon it was heading towards. Ashley may not be right for Newcastle (personally I think he could be given a chance) But if he is not who is ? While everyone carps on about how bad Ashley is, no one comes up with any tangible, realistic or specific alternative, just the usual abstract slavver - "someone who'll spend big" - "someone who'll back the manager" - "someone who we'll all love" etc etc. Who is this person ? Do we want Freddy and Doug back ? Can we name the Russian oligarch, Saudi prince or Texan oil man who we want to head up NUFC ? Or do we just continue to harp on about what went before and pile abuse on the only person who right now can ACTUALLY do something about NUFC. I'm actually fairly sceptical of Ashley, but I'm still in wait-and-see mode, and I definitely think the way everyone decided Ashley was the devil incarnate five minutes after Keegan walked (or in NE5's case, five minutes after he bought the club) is pretty... hysterical. unfortunately I was also right. You should learn to look at things and judge them, instead of "waiting to see" Then again, I wouldn't expect someone who wasn't interested in the club when they had a shite board to know one when they saw one in the first place Sometime, NE5, you dont half come out with some shit. Do you think about what you write or do you just go blind and let god do his thing?

If Zoggy wasnt so one footed id have no problem stickin him on the right, would like to see him try it though. His crossing is poor so Id like to see him cross from the right so that they're always going into the goal area.

They might be in a relegation battle now - but not for long. They have titl challengers written all over them in a couple of years.

I think we could have finished top 8, although that would have been only if we had been extremely lucky with injuries. Although as the season started we had injuries to both full-backs despite Keegan saying we needed a left and a right-back. Now I know people will reply with well if you felt we could finish that high, then the recruitment team had done a good job and you felt we had an adequate enough squad. But this isn't the case at all, I put that down to Keegan's ability to get the most out of each and every player in the squad, much like he did towards the end of last season when things picked up. So your sayingwe have a squad capable of fininshing in the top 8, just not the manager? I would agree we have a top 8 TEAM but not a SQUAD Which means we arent capable of fininshing in the top 8?

I think we could have finished top 8, although that would have been only if we had been extremely lucky with injuries. Although as the season started we had injuries to both full-backs despite Keegan saying we needed a left and a right-back. Now I know people will reply with well if you felt we could finish that high, then the recruitment team had done a good job and you felt we had an adequate enough squad. But this isn't the case at all, I put that down to Keegan's ability to get the most out of each and every player in the squad, much like he did towards the end of last season when things picked up. So your sayingwe have a squad capable of fininshing in the top 8, just not the manager?

Zigic? Not supposed to be dramatic there. Just throwing a name out. Always liked the look of him. Think he could be a decent player, he's not all aerial ability as well. Yeh id take him.

Personally think we need another target man type player, somene who can link midfield and stikers.

What a dick you are. Truth hurts eh! If the squad isn't strengthened sufficiently by Feb 2nd then there can be no more excuses or defence of Ashley and co, from anyone. And it is sadly looking that way even early doors. Of course I'll hold my hands up should we strengthen the squad sufficiently enough and bring a cockney mafia in banner to the game. If its all the same, I'll wait to Sept the 1st. Ive said in the past that it'll be 2nd Feb, but i have always hated the Jan window, as has every single club in the league. Either way though, the target is a modest £11m to spend this Jan and we'll of spent the most ever in January transfer window, which will be another transfer record that the club have broken. However i wont be expecting any U turns from anyone if we do spend more than £11m...becasue I'm not a cunt.

Very uninspiring stuff. Just praying that Kinnear is bluffing, actually do hope that Kinnear doesnt get free reign, if Kinnear does then its a good linclination that he's staying more permenantly and that they arent overly interested in resale value as they dont envisage having to get a new squad for a knew managers. Having said this, the pool of talent that is availabe in January is generally shit, we wont get too many players that will imporve us as a team drastically.

What a dick you are.

Or a Keegan Ashley lover heart.

I'm sick of HTT. Seriously. I nearly changed his avatar last night. To what? Just do it now. http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/2000869536009464266_rs.jpg

He's average man. Offers nowt. Arent you a Taylor apologist? This may seem like Im changning the argument, but Guthrie offers a lot more for his pstion than what Taylor offers for his, and if Taylor is a good prospect who can learn with a better player by his side, then Guthrie can do much much more. (Keegan signing bytheway)

I'd say he's bluffing. Really looking forward to 2nd Feb, really will be make or break for my faith in the current board.

You mean he looks like a hard bloke in a suit? I don't see him or his achievements as much different to those of Mark Hughes. Given the players he has at his disposal he really hasn't done as brilliant a job as people want to believe. This bit is ignored quite abit. This is the most gifted group of Croats since 98.