Jackie Broon

No it isn't. If you have become chemically dependent on alcohol and quit cold turkey your brain goes into overdrive which can cause seizures, your blood pressure also increases which can cause heart attacks or strokes. People can and do die from alcohol withdrawal.

You need all of it in todays game. Fergy and Wenger are massive examples. Fergy on the one hand uses a combination of huge potential signings and a pretty simple but massively effective 442 system. His main priority is having quality players that are highley motivated and this shows on the pitch. Wenger is different. He motivates players, sure but there motivation comes from the fact that most of their players know they are playing for an experianced manager who has won almost everything in a beautiful way. Mainly uses tactics and style of player, i.e signing players that can pass and run and then incoporates that into his football. Both can be very successful but a lack of either will get most managers caught out. On the one hand you can have an Allardyce on the other dare i say you could have a Keegan. Man U haven't regularly played 4-4-2 since they had Cole and Yorke up front. They play a sort of 4-3-3 which allows the front three lots of freedom to roam. Which I agree only works because of the quality of players he has.

Under Keegan we tended to play a 4-4-1-1 with two wingers and two fairly solid central midfielders. Not exactly an all out attacking system! He clearly understood that a team needs a solid base to attack from, he didn't just pack our team with attacking players, there were the likes of Batty and Bracewell there to do the dirty work and allow the attacking players to attack. And for a team that supposedly couldn't defend we didn't conceded that many goals: 93/94 - 41 (only 3 more than Man U, 5 more than Blackburn) 94/95 - 47 95/96 - 37 (only 2 more than Man U) All of those seasons were played over 42 games. When we finished 3rd under Robson we conceded 48 in a 38 game season.

Aye, I had a lump in my throat when said he was "happy to be home"

wasnt it keegan that picked him for england when he was a lad? Nope, that was Hoddle in 98. By the time Kev was England manager Owen was an England regular and apparently had quite a difficult relationship with Keegan.

So is Kev going to fly into the ground at half time in a helicopter?

I welled up when I heard the news. My head says it might go horribly wrong but I'm over the f*****g moon There's been a feeling of unfinished business hanging over the club since he walked. For what he's done for this club in his two previous spells, he deserves another go at it.

How anyone can say the sacking of a manager who persuaded his chairman to part with 6 million for a player with an upcoming criminal trial, who is then s**t on the pitch and gets himself arrested again is 'a bit unfair' is beyond me. Sam took a massive risk with Barton and it predictably backfired. That alone should've been good enough reason to dismiss him.

Well that's not saying much! He's far from good enough to be the creative player in a top half central midfield.

Barton has a good footballing brain and a knack for being in the right place at the right time (on the pitch anyway ) but his passing has always been a bit wayward.

Our playing staff is severely lacking in some vital areas IMO Sam was desperate for us to play a 4-3-3 with a lone striker and two wingers-come-forwards supporting him. But the players he inherited weren’t suited to that, you need an Anelka/Drogba/Carew type striker who is both big/strong and mobile. He didn’t manage to bring that sort of player in, yet still insisted on playing 4-3-3 in many matches. But fundamentally I think our problems boil down to just having too many central midfielders who can’t pass. This has been an issue for years, maybe even since Lee left, but has been exacerbated by Sam’s signings. Butt’s passing is dreadful, as is Barton’s, Geremi’s and Smith’s when played there. Our one central midfielder with some level of technical ability, Emre, was clearly seen as too lightweight by Sam. His demise was down to his signings and selection rather than his sports science approach.

Mark Hughes has done a fantastic job turning Blackburn around from the mess Souness left them in. He'd do well here as well but he'd be off to Man U as soon as Ferguson retires. Out of the above options Hitzfeld is too negative and Houllier wasted too much money on shockingly bad players while at Liverpool. I'd love to see van Gaal here but would he leave AZ mid season?

Pros: He could turn out to be a great manager and that's the only way we're going to get a great manager. No proven top class manger would be temped by us, the only way we will get one is by taking a chance on someone unproven. In terms of the football played and results we had our best period since the departure of Robson while Shearer was Roeder's 'assistant'. How much of that was Shearer's influence? I don't know, but it disappeared when Shearer left. He may have the same effect as he had then. Cons: It's a big risk. But, we're not going to get back up in the top six by playing it safe.

That was Allardyce's team and I don't believe the result would've been any different if he'd been still in charge.

The more we train ourselves to accept sh*te as "acceptable" the more we get. But we haven't been sh*te.

We've generally played pretty well. We've just come up agaist a much better side on a ground we havent won at for 36 years. What did you expect?

If he had curled it over the wall with them planted on the ground you'd be whinging about that as well.

Nicky Butt thinks he is f*****g David Beckham. Every time he gets the ball he tries a 50 yard cross-field ball, which inevitably ends up flying out of play. KEEP IT SIMPLE YOU DAFT GINGER T**T!!! Let the players who have some level of footballing ability attempt the Hollywood stuff!

Aye, there's nowt wrong with proper east end cockneys. Most of the cockneys I've met have been friendly, down to earth, good people. It's the rest of the c***s that live in and arround that there London that give the place an 'every man for himself' attitude.

I think Hughes is potentially a great manager. But, if he were successful with us he would be off to Man U as soon as Ferguson retires, which can't be that far away.

No he didn't! He took over Walter Smith's side that looked in danger of relegation and guided them to safety. Then in his first full season, with virtually the same squad of players, they finished 7th. I was happy when Sam was appointed, I believed he was a good manager that had adopted the tactics he did at Bolton out of necessity and would be able to adapt. I was wrong! Our football under BSA has been dreadful, and ineffective! I could not see even the slightest signs of it becoming effective and even if in time it would, it is not the sort of football Newcastle United should be playing.

Aye. Any time Bramble, Elliott or O'Brien got the ball... Hoof!

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Or the accused have the fnacial muscle to sweep it under the carpet. Or being accused because they've got financial resources. There is no doubt some of these cases get paid off, but i bet more innocent than guilty have paid of for the sake of their reputation being dragged through the mud. Most rapes go unreported and of the ones that are reported only 6% end in a criminal conviction, so it's not surprising most of these cases never go to court. That doesn't mean there is no truth behind any of them. Professional sportsmen live in a world where they've been the centre of attention their whole lives, it's a breading ground for narcissism and they're not used to women saying no. I think it's fairly likely that there are fare few professional sportsmen in Britain that have been involved in rape and got away with it either because the woman doesn't want her reputation dragging through the mud or because there's not much chance of gaining a conviction against top barristers. And 'paying off' would be classed as perverting the course of justice. It would be much easier to prove than a rape and it could land the payer in jail, just ask Amy Winehouse and her hubby.

Aye, and with the credit crunch hitting lenders they're having trouble getting the finance they need to build the new stadium