ChrisJbarnes

fulham v blackburn tonight. a win for blackburn would put them above us. come on fulham!!!

DON'T PANIC!!!!! Hughton eyes Smith factor Newcastle United caretaker manager Chris Hughton hopes Alan Smith's return from injury can hand the club a timely boost in their bid to avoid the drop. Smith has made just two appearances for the Magpies - who currently lie a point above the relegation zone - this season after struggling with an Achilles problem. The 28-year-old impressed in Newcastle's 2-1 loss to Manchester United earlier this month, and Hughton is backing the versatile attacker to prove a valuable asset between now and the end of the term. He told the Evening Chronicle: "Coming into a game [against the Red Devils] of that magnitude speaks volumes for him. "Alan is a player who can play off the front - of course, originally he was a forward player - but we have used him as a midfielder. "He can give us a fit and enthusiastic body that's good around the place, and he also gives us valuable options. "And that's at a time when we're going to need as many players fit and available as possible."

It's law that was brought in to protect stadium attendences or something like that I think. I think the idea is, if they showed live TV on a Saturday at 3pm then people would stop going to matches because it'd be easier to watch on TV so they move it to 515 instead? what morons the FA are

anyone know why exactly it is illegal to broadcast 3pm games?

personally id be disgusted if we were renamed the northern rock or whatever. maybe a good compromise would be renaming it "Carling St James Park" or equivalent because then it will still be SJP but signs and stuff will be different. a bit like "The FA Cup sponsored by E-on" I dont have that much beef with, but the "E-on cup" would piss me off. on another note, i find it bizarre that a compnay caled kingston communications has sponsored hull city's stadium, yet everyone including the media calls it the "KC stadium"

Step forward Portsmouth Football Club I reckon West Brom will stay up with us. Going down will be stoke hull and middlesbrough. at least thats what im hoping for!!

i think after the man united game is the first time that i say yes to the question

Lose to Hull and you're fifty/fifty as to whether we go down? Christ, i admire your optimism. Lose to Hull and i'm done tbh, given the coming fixtures. Three points at Hull will give us a vital bit of a ledge to cling on to, as we inevitably fall away given the rotten upcoming fixtures. Miss out on that and it's goodnight Vienna imo. if we lose to hull, we may well be in the relegation zone, but theres 9 more games afterwards and a massive 7 points between botlon in 11th and boro in 19th. just because stoke and hull won on the same day we lost narrowly to man united, im not sure how anyone can give up on us staying up altogether. indeed, i will be very nervous if we do lose to hull though. Aye i certainly haven't given up hope yet mate. But i mean... lose to Hull and i'm a bit more tetchy then 50/50, that's what i was getting at. yeah its getting to us all now mate! but seriously though, there are stoke, hull, pompey and blackburn who are in my opinion equally likely to go as us.

not really, they still have a 3 point cushion on arsenal.

Lose to Hull and you're fifty/fifty as to whether we go down? Christ, i admire your optimism. Lose to Hull and i'm done tbh, given the coming fixtures. Three points at Hull will give us a vital bit of a ledge to cling on to, as we inevitably fall away given the rotten upcoming fixtures. Miss out on that and it's goodnight Vienna imo. if we lose to hull, we may well be in the relegation zone, but theres 9 more games afterwards and a massive 7 points between botlon in 11th and boro in 19th. just because stoke and hull won on the same day we lost narrowly to man united, im not sure how anyone can give up on us staying up altogether. indeed, i will be very nervous if we do lose to hull though.

if we lose at hull, ill go up to a 5. i still think thats realistic given that there are other wank teams around us, and when push comes to shove we do have a better squad than all of them.

Funny you mention Gillingham, mate because I grew up near there in Tonbridge, Kent. When I first started following football I was about 5 or 6 and that was around 1996. The first player I ever saw play on the tele was Alan Shearer. I dont know why, but when I saw him in that black and white strip I was hooked on Newcastle United from then on. Nuts about them. Shearer was my idol and still is, really. You could say he was the reason I started supporting the Toon but I wouldnt classify that as 'gloryhunting'. I'd never heard of Gillingham before then so it was too late for my to start getting into them. My parents never influenced me to support any team so it was down to me (and look what I do...), I guess. Most of my mates in school supported Man Utd, Arsenal, West Ham or Millwall. I think there were a handful of Liverpool fans as well. But I've never met a Gills fan around Tonbridge.... I do feel a bit guilty from time to time about not supporting them, as I dont have any right to support Newcastle and should be supporting my local side.

check out the group "newcastle united supporters club london" on facebook. tells you all you need to know

best hope theres at least one more mate!

haha meant barnsley actually mate, but to be honest could be any team. basically meant im not going to begrudge someone from the south supporting somewhere miles away as long as its not man united liverpool chelsea arsenal etc.

when i was on holiday last year i saw an irish guy in a man united shirt, a newcastle shirt and a sunderland shirt on 3 different days. on the note of supporting man united, i live in the south, and admit that i supported newcastle in the souness era because i liked the fact we had lots of english players and liked the stadium. i know a lot more about football now than then but thats not the point. down here, the teams with a substantial following are as follows: chelsea (1st), liverpool and man united (equal second) and west ham from the chavs. (3rd). there are arsenal fans who keep very quiet. the local team is gillingham ive never met a gills fan in my life. millwall palace and charlton are the only other teams who could be classified as local. im not going to begrudge anyone supporting someone like fulham barsnely or watford from down here. however most chelsea fans have popped up recently, know next to nothing about the team, attended 1 or 2 games a season under mourinho and have now got bored, watch the game at the pub and wear their shirt a lot. the reason is what? well its a middle class area and a lot of parents have very little interest in football, and wouldnt take kids to a game. kids influences are the TV and their friends and siblings. therefore when deciding on what team to support, very few are just going to decide on gillingham. most wouldnt have even heard of them! the rest are bandwagon fans. myself, if i want to go see a neutral game ill either go to craven cottage or gillingham.

you honestly believe we wont beat either of fulham, pompey and boro at home and stoke or hull away? you believe that the maximum we will pick up is 5 points from all those fixtures?

for fucks sake. we lost 1-0 to bolton, thats a very narrow margin. people as usual are saying "no help for us now, we are down" just because boro and blackburn both won? rubbish. we have 11 games left this season, and boro and blackburn have 12. yes we have to play man united and arsenal and chelsea at home, and liverpool away but other teams will also have hard fixtures. we have hull and stoke away and boro and pompey at home which are undoubtedly releagtion 6 pointers, and villa spurs and fulham which will be hard fixtures. the way i see it, there are more than 3 worse teams than us, and we will grab points somewhere. doubtful we will go down. come on can anyone really see us losing to boro and pompey at home?

No offence, but that's nonsense. Oh, hang on, you mean Arsenal who routinely put out their kids if it suits them? We're in with a good chance of CL football, which we didn't expect, but we've a small squad, and we've been playing matches since last July. Arsenal play their kids when they feel they need to rest first teamers. We've done that, but not having their squad depth, we've had to do it in the UEFA cup rather than the Carling Cup. He's had to make a pretty difficult decision today, but he made the right one. We just do not have the squad depth, something had to give. If we were 8th or 9th now, it would have been different, but we're not, we're 6 points ahead of Arsenal in fourth and staying there is the most important thing. Incidentally, I've been to all the home UEFA matches this season, and all the Intertoto games before that, so I've probably got reason to moan (thought not as much as if i had gone to Moscow), but in the long run, it is the right thing to do. i agree with this, to an extent. on another note, hull are through to the fa cup quarters after getting past millwall and sheff united. massive opprtuity lost, this makes me angry.

dull

anyone else hear them talking about this on the chris moyles show on R1 this morning?

Aye, terrible team these days. Not sure they'll go down, but it wouldn't be a massive surprise the way they're going. It would be hilarious to boot. got no time for teams that just dont offer anything to the premierleague myself There are about a dozen teams you could include in that this year. Us included. true, but we have potential to compete. hull, stoke, bolton, middlesbrough never have provided anything to the premiership iyam.

Aye, terrible team these days. Not sure they'll go down, but it wouldn't be a massive surprise the way they're going. It would be hilarious to boot. got no time for teams that just dont offer anything to the premierleague myself

you never know, this could be the resurrection of his career! he wants to show he can do this at the highest level

still 6 points clear. meanwhile, sunderland are 10th!!!