PRL

Window doesn't shut until 2nd of Feb, but wouldn't actually surprise me if those in charge of our transfer policy even knew that.

Not sure if it's posted elsewhere, but get the feeling we could be one of the teams the agent is talking about here re Inler: http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_4796835,00.html

I may be wrong, but going into things half hearted always seems to be a far easier way of getting an injury than going in 100%. Owen wouldn't have scored the opener against Portsmouth had he been shirking 50/50s, if a decision has been made for him to now stop going for them, then we just should not be playing him. The whole idea of being a goal poacher, which is in my view what he now is, is to stick your head / boot into places to try and nick a goal, if he is taking this away from his game, there ain't too much left? That said, i'm going on what has been said on this thread and what was said on the radio last night, i couldn't bring myself to watch the highlights. Also, in some ways, if he gets injured then we may be the only team willing to offer him anything like what he wants and this might lead to us standing more chance of keeping him long term. I certainly don't think Kinnear would have told him to avoid 50/50s though.

Grab as many as you can... http://www.kodak.com/US/images/en/corp/1000words/jennyc/joelStraws.jpg

FYP

Good news and all, but not sure of impact on Owen's contract? well surely if Owen's watching it'll put things into perspective. He'll think, ah bollocks to it, what's an extra 20k. Not sure whether "bollocks to it" would be quite the correct sentiment

Good news and all, but not sure of impact on Owen's contract?

Was in a pub full of mackems in Durham for this game... Remember as the winner went in i went mental, sadly didn't realise the pub also had rather low ceilings so as i jumped skywards i smashed back to the floor with a massive cut in my head. Safe to say i soldiered on into the earlier hours, the one time in my life i can say i was literally soaked in blood, sweat and tears. Up there with the best nights i've had as a toon fan but probably don't top Grimsby away...

Answer is, err, yes!

Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but amusing read. Why i love f365 http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8751_4582643,00.html

Enrique 4 Milner 7 Fucking ridiculous... They gave colo 5 and taylor 6 as well, giving milner and young 7, remind me how many goals they scored / assisted in scoring against two players they supposedly outplayed?!

Almost every time we mercilessly boo someone they score against us. At best it's tempting fate, at worst it's offering an unneccessary incentive to a player to rub it in our faces. I don't see what's wrong with just a bit of polite applause and then get on with the game. Booing is never 'good natured' and will just end up looking like fuckwits when he pings one in from 30 yards. But then, what's new?

Brilliant. Must echo the surprise though. FA in getting something right shocker

You don't buy into that surely do you? It reads to me that you're trying to convince yourself of this in order to convince yourself that the set-up/system/structure Ashley put in place is the right thing for the club and if that really is the case you've lost it mate. Seriously. that is the case with a lot of people. Keegan walked out in 1997 because he couldn't work under a new structure...a structure which you keep defending to the hilt non-stop under Shepherd which did bring a relative amount of success. you won't find a post by me defending the club going PLC Apology accepted. But you do defend Shepherd, and Keegan walked out first time not long after he took over as Chairman iirc, because of what was happening with the club. After a pretty average first few seasons, Shepherd started to get it right and we had a bit of success. Who's to say if Keegan hadn't stuck it out for a bit back then, that he couldn't have got us back to where we were when Hall was in sole charge? Same criteria applies for today. Who's idea was it to go PLC ? Who had the power to make such a decision ? I don't think it was Shepherd, but in the context of it being a board thing [which is what I've always said] then you would have to say they all did it, but such a decision isn't a footballing one so it was even more unlikely to be a minor shareholder all on his own. The wheels to go PLC were in motion before Shepherd became chairman, but I'm not arguing about the merits of whoever was chairman and I never have. One thing you need to be successful, more than anything else, is to back your manager, and this is why I've stuck with the old board, whoever the chairman is. Do you mean 'back the manager financially' , 'back the manager's judgement' or both? and when happens when the boards judgement is seen to be crap ? so how many clubs can appoint winning managers ? Surely a "big club" with big ambitions who are always competing to get the best players out there should have no problems appointing a competent manager at worst? you can go back decades naming big clubs who appointed managers that didn't win things, even when they acted big, which NUFC have done for only 15 years out of 44 years I've supported them. You can also go back decades and find clubs who have appoitned good managers and not backed them - sound familiar? How come ones accpetable yet the other isnt? Also noticed how you phrased is "managers that didnt win things" - how about appointing a competenet manager. Anyway i think we're digressing and i dont want to turn it into one of "those" threads. you can indeed. Joe Harvey, Gordon Lee and Arthur Cox would without a shadow of doubt done better at Newcastle with the Halls and Shepherd running the club than the people who were doing it at the time. Lee and Cox buggered off to clubs that would back him ie Everton, and Cox to Derby....then in the 3rd division but thats where he went, such was the depth of his justified anger and disappointment at his employers. This is the pattern you see through the game. Good managers move to clubs that back them, and leave ones that don't. I can name you examples stretching back decades, but shouldn't really have to mate. all 100% true and theres no denying it. but apppointing a poor manager,you're right lots of clubs have done it,but appointing another bad one as his successor shows poor judgement,to appoint a third off the spin is crap in the extreme and you would say it was the actions of a crap board if anywhere else. there is no doubt that Souness was a disastrous and poor choice, but Roeder had some merit - other clubs have promoted people from within - and Allardyce certainly had merit. The club had appointed - and attracted - trophy winners before, which is something they completely failed to do pre-1992. Whatever the ins and outs of all this - who is going to have a guess at how long it will take for this club to match the league positions and european qualifications achieved under the Halls and Shepherd ? And THAT is the 64 dollar question, and the only one that counts that we are interested in. Its what I've pointed out for ages, which was never acknowledged by other so called long term supporters who only bleated on about how "embarrassed" the poor little dears had been. 64 dollar? That's not that much...

Despite what has happened over the last few months we are still going to move into a commodity boom once the global situation is sorted, oil and energy will be up again in the medium term

My thoughts precisely. I'd think the opposite - if we were close to a sale he'd have hung around for the pay off... With no sale on the horizon he's stuck at a club where he feels unwanted (by the fans) and where any work he does over the season would probably be a waste of time when a new manager eventually gets appointed, so he's fucked off.

Good article gone up on there now, from the New Statesman - i think i'm beginning to warm to him a bit as well - would actually be nice for him to hang about in a coaching / assistant role as and when the inevitable KK return occurs - couldn't do any worse then old Terry Mac...

Strange how even Joe Kinnear knows about due diligence...

Has Kingdawson also disappeared?

Think the soap opera here would be right up his street...

We'll win tomo

I think the new spelling is probably more appropriate in the current climate!

Yep, made a remark along similar lines in another thread yesterday. We will be bought by someone looking to either run us as a business or use us as a status symbol. Very very probably someone not even UK based and with what is likely to be a fleeting interest in football. I can't turn off my passion for the game, i've tried not to think about it and during my teen years i veered away a bit, replacing fanatical support with something a little less intense, but as i've gone through my twenties my passion has got stronger as we've got worse and football has gone down the pan. I just can't help myself and i don't know why, it is a total addiction and sometimes I wonder if it is unhealthy. But what scares me is what the game is going to be to my children (if and when i have any). How do you explain what it used to be like? Why you fell in love with it? If all that remains is a bunch of assholes kicking a ball around answering to their offshore owner who uses the club as a plaything and a manager who is just part of a 'system' of faceless executives / scouts. There are so few characters left in the game, so few genuinely likeable people compared to even 10-15 years ago. The further you go back, the closer the players were to the fans, as we go forward you feel half the time the crowd is actually a distraction to them and they feel nothing but contempt. All that remains is the fans. They are what keeps my addiction alive and without fellow fans i think my love for the game would die. It's the banter, the tribalism and the common cause. Nothing else matters so much. I hope in time disillusionment grows into anger and anger into a movement that sees fans follow AFC Wimbledon and FC United into the realms of the lower league and supporter-started clubs. At least at that point we can start afresh, knowing that one day it'll develop into the same again most likely, but safe in the knowledge that if it gets too big it's the fans right to knock it down and start again, rather than our passion being dictated to us by Rupert Murdoch and cohorts. Live the dream!

I just laughed out loud and had to explain to my boss what i found so funny there... You cannot be serious dude? Forum browsing and 'pro gaming' is your interest in football?! hahahaha

That's HTT for you. Indeed Maybe it's just a case of wanting him to sell through the normal channels. Thaksin Sinawatra, despite being a lunatic fugative, managed to sell Man City, who were in as bad a state as us almost, with minimum fuss and no publicity... Not saying it's always that easy but we seem to be going to a ridiculous extreme the other way, if just a few of the press reports are to be believed.