ChrisMcQuillan

Me too mate I'll only settle for 5. Anything else and I'll be fucking disappointed.

There is that argument. But then people argue that the Championship is a more physical league where you get knocked around more. I think the truth is, none of us have a clue.

Guthrie's the best we can bring in when Gosling's injured, Ireland's injured, HBA being injured forces us to play Barton out right. He's still better than Smith. We do have a weak squad, CM is not where its weakest by a long stretch.

Disagree. CH had the benefit of being in charge in the early days of the season, before the tough match program started to take its toll. Under CH everybody was fresh and ready to go. He had plenty of players to choose from. As the season develops, injuries and fatigue increased. Accordingly, Pardew doesn't have the same luxury as CH did. He got plenty of injuries, and unlike CH he has just s*** replacements. And that also puts and extra pressure on the the remaining quality players. In other words, our current injury situation got nothing to do with CH og Pardew, but more with our squad lacking depth. We're not able to rotate, and that hurts. We played 46+ games in the Championship, all under Hughton. And our squad was still looking alright come the end of the season.

Not saying that. I'm just saying that it looks like Hughton's training methods, whatever they were, worked well with our squad and stopped people breaking down in training quite as much as they do now and were doing before. Pardew's methods seem to be moving us back to the Roeder, Allardyce eras of injury tragedy. Could be a blip, of course.

Hughton sorted out injuries, pretty much. Certainly in comparison to other managers. I thought we were just having a bad streak of luck, but its starting to look like Hughton's training and management certainly helped abate our various injury crises. And I'm not saying this to be all OMGZPARDEW=SATAN but yeah, I agree with Yorkie. There's more to it than bad luck. Ben Arfa and Smith have been taken out by bad tackles this season. Everything else has been people just breaking down, which is unacceptable.

This is true. Was just playing Devil's advocate by showing how many of the teams below us were miles above us on the form table.

http://www.premierleague.com/page/FormGuide

If we played Shola and Ranger we'd probably just about be okay. But knowing Pardew it'll be Lovenkrands and Kuqi or something.

Tbf, it's a complete re-hash of the Express article.

Tbh, as someone pointed out, the article says he broke down in training on duty with Ireland. And he trained with us yesterday. So maybe not a big problem after all.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/237987/Leon-Best-blow-turns-heat-on-Alan-Pardew-s-Newcastle Out for the season?

Well, as you say. Would be chickens coming home to roost wouldn't it? Why, however, would the official site say "Injury doubts Leon Best and Jose Enrique were able to take part, which suggests both players have a chance of playing on Saturday" if Best broke down in the training session that was being photographed?

The Puma logo would look infinitely better than Sports Direct.com.

Chris, I really like you dude, but these kinds of statements to back up your facts are very far off-base. You can't claim something and then say "well if you can't prove otherwise then it's fact" - that's not how the world works. We're working with these figures because they've been suggested in a wide array of newspapers for years. As much as we hate the press they do have sources. If they really were that wrong, surely the club would dispute them. If someone murders someone in the street, and the jury finds him guilty, they do so because there's evidence. There's never proof unless a member of the jury saw the incident themselves. But if twelve people give evidence saying they saw it, the jury weighs that it is beyond reasonable doubt that the person committed murder. So, if we're being pedantic, it may not be proof that Smith is on high wages, but everything we have suggests that it is beyond reasonable doubt that he is on high wages. Therefore I don't really see anything wrong with the calculations. I'll take the point that I threw the word 'fact' around a little too loosely, but it's pretty damned close, I'd argue.

Missing Routledge out.

"All loans from Mike Ashley, which totalled £139.8 million at the year-end, have been and remain interest free. In addition, the owner advanced a further £13 million to the club to finance the amounts due from other football clubs in respect of the transfer of players' registrations." Does that sound to anyone else like the further £13m doesn't need to be paid back?

Sorry, I assumed that you putting my figures in bold coupled with the word 'fact' implied that you were disagreeing with the figures I'd quoted? I was. I'm perplexed but the last sentence. I wasn't commenting on 'doom mongering' at all, I was simply pointing out yet again someone on this forum plucking a random figure out of the air and pretending they know the ins and outs of our wage structure. The wage for Smith for the past four years has been constantly quoted at around £60k. The club have never refuted that at any point, as far as I am aware. It was been alluded to by other players that in the era Smith was signed, people were signed on extremely high wages. Smith, a former Manchester United and England player, was likely to have been signed on something around that figure. To be fair, and to make my estimate more conservative, I cut his wages by £10k a week. I don't think he's likely to be on £40k or less, because it wouldn't fit with we do know from player interviews and manager interviews about the previous wage structure of the club. I don't know how I can be fairer than that other than simply ignoring his wages as being ill-evidenced. Which I personally don't believe they are. But feel free to disagree entirely. Thanks for proving my point It remains a fact he's cost us around £15m, whether or not the figures were to the penny accurate. If you can find evidence to the contrary, which suggests my figures are incorrect, then please do so.

Sorry, I assumed that you putting my figures in bold coupled with the word 'fact' implied that you were disagreeing with the figures I'd quoted? I was. I'm perplexed but the last sentence. I wasn't commenting on 'doom mongering' at all, I was simply pointing out yet again someone on this forum plucking a random figure out of the air and pretending they know the ins and outs of our wage structure. The wage for Smith for the past four years has been constantly quoted at around £60k. The club have never refuted that at any point, as far as I am aware. It was been alluded to by other players that in the era Smith was signed, people were signed on extremely high wages. Smith, a former Manchester United and England player, was likely to have been signed on something around that figure. To be fair, and to make my estimate more conservative, I cut his wages by £10k a week. I don't think he's likely to be on £40k or less, because it wouldn't fit with we do know from player interviews and manager interviews about the previous wage structure of the club. I don't know how I can be fairer than that other than simply ignoring his wages as being ill-evidenced. Which I personally don't believe they are. But feel free to disagree entirely.

Sorry, I assumed that you putting my figures in bold coupled with the word 'fact' implied that you were disagreeing with the figures I'd quoted?

4 years on what, £50,000 a week? That's £10.4m. Transfer fee of £6m. That's a total of £16.4m on wages and transfer alone, leaving aside any bonuses etc. So, unless I'm missing something, that's not really an opinion, but that's fact. And perhaps the despair is overrated, but the lad's been a disappointment on the whole. Hmm. I've been generous with the £50k a week wages. They're rumoured to be more. Transfer fee is a fact. It was disclosed at the time. If we're taking these widely-distributed figures as nothing more than 'doom mongering', then Michael Owen joined us for a packet of hobnobs and played for a free horse every week.

4 years on what, £50,000 a week? That's £10.4m. Transfer fee of £6m. That's a total of £16.4m on wages and transfer alone, leaving aside any bonuses etc. So, unless I'm missing something, that's not really an opinion, but that's fact. And perhaps the despair is overrated, but the lad's been a disappointment on the whole.

It's a statement of fact. Doom and gloom would be saying that Smith is the AntiChrist. If stating a fact like, Alan Smith signed for us, is doom mongering then it's clearly a reflection on just how depressing a character you feel he's been for us. Which means, subconsciously, you must share Colocho's opinion.

:lol: