Jackie Broon

Me too, much better than City winning it. Not that them falling apart isn't slightly amusing mind. If we're ever going to win the league, it'll be the City way. What Liverpool & Ath Madrid have done this season is monumental, but they're exceptions rather than the rule. I relate to City fans pre 2010 far more than Liverpool fans so I'm happy with the (likely) outcome. Can't compare Atletico to Liverpool. History is very different. Squad built for FAR FAR less. No investment in the last few years. The entire Atleti starting XI away at Chelsea cost the same as Sakho & Sturridge. Plus they've had the distraction of competing in Europe. Liverpool have had a head start of 6-10 'European hangover' points on the teams around them this season. If they'd qualified for the Europa last season they'd probably be fighting for fourth right now rather than the title.

I thought that, but, there's a VAT exemption available for goods and services transferred between companies in the same group which he's probably taking advantage of.

f*** that s***! Seeing the Liverpool tv pundit mafia having the smug smiles wiped off their faces has been f***ing priceless! Man City are very much the lesser of the evils in the title chase. Couldn't agree more, its ridiculous the number of ex players they have in the media and they all spout the same nonsense. It's always a penalty for them and the ref got it wrong. Redknapp epitomises that, he is just such a bias tvvat it's untrue Abso-fuckin-lutely! I also can't stand the sense of entitlement of their supporters. They have had far more than their fair share of success over the past 40 years for what is fundamentally a club with no greater potential than the likes of ourselves, Spurs, Aston Villa etc. They just had thing fall into place at the right time (i.e. in the 70s and 80s when the rest of football was in a shambles) and huge slices of luck (that champions league final!). There's no reason why they have any more right to success than any other club, quite the opposite really. I'd love it if we manage to scrape a draw and scupper any remaining hope for them on Sunday!

Fuck that shit! Seeing the Liverpool tv pundit mafia having the smug smiles wiped off their faces has been fucking priceless! Man City are very much the lesser of the evils in the title chase.

More to do with a casino tab, allegedly. Surely that must've been paid off long ago!

Advertising revenue is VATable, if the club are allowing SD to advertise for 'free' as some sort of unofficial deferred interest on Ashley's 'interest free' loan, surely there should be be VAT due on that somewhere along the line?

Fair play. Just look forward to many years of humiliation at the hands of the mackems. ... who are in the relegation zone following a disastrous managerial appointment. I'm far from happy with Pardew and I'm not making excuses for him (he's more than capable of doing that for himself), I just can't see Ashley making anything other than a disastrous appointment to replace him.

This thread is getting f***ing ridiculous. I'm not Pardew's biggest fan but I remember willing us to lose to get rid of Allardyce, Souness and even Sir Bobby, as much as it shames me to admit it! It does no good, if Pardew goes we'll be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire just like we have time and time again in the past. The problems at Newcastle run much deeper than Pardew, if people think we're going to get in a replacement who'll do a much better job of coping with those deep-rooted problems they're f***ing deluded!

We got Cabaye for a bargain price and we were always going to be a stepping stone if he shone. He’s at the absolute peak of his form and value right now, but his form hasn’t been particularly consistent in the past. It makes sense to sell him now, even if he would be happy to stay.

They're the obvious ones, but they were all tough fixtures, fixtures that could go either way. It was the winnable games we didn't win in the run-up to the Man United home game that lost us the title. The signs were there at Middlesbrough when we got a fortunate win after Tino came off the bench and created a goal with a piece of absolute magic, then we lost away at West Ham and drew at Man City. They were the key matches. After the Man United home game we absolutely annihilated West Ham at home, it was 3-0 but it really could've been double figures, it was the most one-sided match I have ever seen! We should’ve easily beaten them at their place less than a month earlier, and Man City who were a relegation team. It was that blip that really lost us the league.

DAV-I-DAAAAAY!!!!

I'm sure this has been covered already, but it's about 'kin time commentators started to pronounce his name properly. It's Dav-i-day!

Carroll tends to do well in big games for Liverpool; games that he's fired up for. I think the fundamental issue with Carroll's Liverpool career has been that he doesn't really give a shit about the club and so can't get fired up for anything bit the big games. At Newcastle he was up for every match and he was fucking unplayable most of the time. A lot of people here clearly have short memories... they need to watch back the Villa, Sunderland, Liverpool matches, even that opening match of the season against Man U! I'd love to see him back and playing for a club he loves with fire in his belly!

Me too. As much as I love Cheik his passing is a bit wayward at times and he has a tendency to get caught dallying on the ball a bit too often to be a top, top level defensive midfielder... not too mention his habit of picking up daft cards. But, for whatever reason the press seem to over-hype our better players (Carroll being the prime example). Which is a blessing in terms of the massively over inflated transfer fees we can demand off clubs that are obviously too lazy/dumb to see the flaws that divide a £10m player from a true £20m+ player... but I'd rather see them realistically valued and stay.

It's been coming for a while. A couple of years ago someone I know who got to look at their books at the time of the Kirby stadium proposal told me they were absolutely fucked financially.

Probably being offered no more by QPR than we offered him back in January too.

Despite he's inadequacies as an all round player, what he does What Nolan did clearly bring (other than the ability to score important goals) is a galvanizing force in the dressing room that for the past two seasons has helped the team to, on the whole, perform at a level greater than the sum of its parts. Without that we wouldn't be playing in the premier league next season, we wouldn't have been playing it this last season for that matter. In getting rid of the players that clearly hold the dressing room together Ashley is taking a massive risk. We're not good enough to get away with having a squad that's collection of individuals with a poor spirit in this league.

There are no easy games in this league and the team spirit that has papered over the cracks for the past two seasons is clearly fucked. We're in deep trouble.

Probably not. But, who gives a fuck?! a) Only a small proportion of it will be reinvested in the squad (just like the Milner money) b) What is reinvested will be spent on either mediocre or unproven players who are at least as likely to flop as succeed, because we can not attract the top players. c) A proper Geordie No.9 fell in our lap. That will probably never happen again in our lifetimes. No amount of money is enough to compensate for that loss.

If we go down now, we've given away a player that could've been our No.9 for the next decade for nothing. We've gone full circle now, back to 1988. I just feel empty.

If he does well there, he'll fuck off somewhere better for champions league football within a couple of years. They may be one step ahead of us, but they're still just a fucking stepping stone like the rest of us outside of the big four.

He's just swapping one has been on the road to nowhere club for a marginally better has been on the road to nowhere club.

Spot on. The point a lot of people seem to be missing.

What would you spend it on? It might as well be fucking monopoly money. No player worth buying would sign for us!

No player shouldn't be kept here against their will! It's a huge fee indeed and it's way much more than any player is really worth in our current squad £35m may seem a lot. But... Likelihood is we'll be panicked into shelling out 6-7m on someone like Carlton Cole (which in reality will be more like 10m when you add in singing on and agent's fees). So that's the extra £10m or so we get for selling him now rather than in the summer down the shitter straight away, on a player who has every chance of ending up a surplus to requirements drain on the wage bill. Then we've got £25m to spend. On what? Proven, top quality players and the best youngsters (like Carroll) just wouldn't sign for us due to our lack of ambition, status our wage structure and geographical location. So we're left with either second rate or unproven players, most of who have every chance of ending up a surplus to requirements drain on the wage bill. So we'll have swapped Carroll for maybe the equivalent of Carlton Cole, Gutiérrez, Xisco and, if we get lucky, maybe a Tioté and a significantly higher wage bill. Does that represent good economic sense? That's not even factoring in what happens if we get relegated! If a player like Carroll falls into the lap of a club like Newcastle we must do everything we can to keep him and build a team around him, because there is no way we can replace him, his equivalent just wouldn't come here. I don't believe we have. Transfer request or not, he's a Geordie, he's not going to go on strike if we say 'you're not going anywhere' or even wait until the summer.