thewellander

Time to take Smith off, I think. Protect him from another yellow. We should be able to hold a 2 goal lead with him.

Breathtaking stuff, tbh.

I've actually enjoyed watching the last game and this one. Far cry from last year.

He was a disappointment and I won't be too sad to see him go if we bring in some younger, hungrier, quality players to replace all these exiting players. All the best to him, I guess.

I actually think this sounds like a reasonable prediction. I hadn't thought of it, but I can see it happening now that you mention it.

Two games into the season. Has to be a record. Incidentally, I'm really into genealogy, and my family are principally from three different cities / areas in the UK: Newcastle, Norwich and Inverness. So, it wasn't good to be me last year. And add to that the fact that my local team is Toronto FC...

Another one of our sh*te players going from getting us relegated to playing in Europe.

At this point, if it means we will bring in players, it's getting so that I couldn't care less who owns the club or who the manager is. We won't win promotion with our thin squad and we need to have some direction now.

I imagine that it will, but who knows. The kit is listed as only 2009/10.

I've lost all hope. Ashley is staying. He's not going to appoint Shearer. He's not going to invest in quality players. He's going to continue to offload our best players to save money. By the time the transfer window closes, we'll be the smallest squad in the Fizzy Pop, being led out by Butt, Nolan, Raylor, Ameobi and the likes. But I'll continue to love NUFC.

I think we'll see the same team go out next week, with the exception of Barton coming on for Nolan. Provided we don't sell any more players this week. 2-1 for us, I think.

When the official site announced that he was captain for today's game, they said that Butt was the team captain and Smith was deputizing.

He hasn't seemed to improve any of his obvious weaknesses since last season. Disappointing, really.

Good game. Smith looked surprisingly good today and we'll need him to be for the rest of the season. Ryan Taylor wasn't bad at RB either. Collo has to go, and we need a new striker.

Krul just made the case for all the young, hungry players to step in for the unmotivated, uncaring lot.

Not sure if anyone would be interested but Toronto FC is streaming their friendly against Real Madrid on their official site: www.torontofc.ca. Starts at 7:30pm EST.

I really liked Sibs. He seemed like a decent guy. Wasn't a great player, but could help us out in the Championship. I would love to see him back.

Louise Taylor wrote a rather flattering article about NUFC today as well. I had to look twice to see if my eyes were deceiving me. Here it is (sorry if it's been posted): http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/aug/06/newcastle-united-mike-ashley-joe-kinnear

We'll only get loans if we have a proper manager in and show some stability, though. Who would want to loan out a player to us right now? Typically you loan out players because you want them to develop. I think sending anyone to us would be a risk.

How does everybody think he'll do at Spurs, btw? On the one hand he was our best defender. But on the other hand he was the best defender on a team with a defense that conceded 59 goals and got relegated. I definitely rate him, but I wonder whether or he might be a little overrated at this point, especially if he went for £12 million.

Surely we can't sell Enrique now. We only have him for LB and Raylor for RB now, correct? Other then the untested kids (LB - Lough, Dummet - RB, Taylor, Tavenier, etc) Losing Enrique would be a scary prospect then.

I hope you're right. I honestly don't have any particular insight on financial matters regarding the club, except that Ashley is a scumbag.

Surely we can't sell Enrique now. We only have him for LB and Raylor for RB now, correct?

I have an irrational hatred of Spurs, but this move actually makes sense for him. He's likely to get an automatic start due to their injuries, so he's going to have an immediate chance to cement his place with them. It's likely they'll do well in the league this year too, since they don't have the distraction of European tournaments.

He's getting £100m if/when, this is not going in his back pocket cos it doesnt change that figure Except that the club is in debt to him, so it's just as likely that he'll use this incoming money to pay down his loan.