Mistle17

You can see he's getting more and more frustrated with the absolute bullshit he's having to tolerate, but in fairness its what the man signed up for- many before him had tried to work with this regime but simply found their position untenable. Imo, should Pardew go then it would be an absolute disaster for the club- we'd end up with Steve Stone as manager... The thing that really kills me is that ownership isn't like a manager; you can't just sack them when you've had enough, they'll always be there until a suitable offer comes along....and at the moment that just doesn't look realistic. The club will languish in the doldrums as long as Ashley and Llambias run the club. Very depressing.

Once again we persist to neglect another LB signing. This signing reminds me a bit of the Duff signing- not as bad, of course, but once again one that could have been put to much better use in another position ie left back or a striker. For the moment I'm sceptical but it could prove a good signing should we bring in the right personnel in other positions. However, if this is our 'striker' signing then it sums it the Ashley regime down to a tee, imo.

Dreamt that Ryan Taylor and Guthrie were due to start against the mackems on the 20th. I'm just glad I woke up.

I had a dream last night I was at the Darlington match and Sammy was just playing in baggy trousers and a hoody

Yeah, doesn't effect you but it'll have a impact on all of our London fans who will probably stop going to London away games now. Also more and more games are going on general sale each season as more fans are starting to pack it on for good. Don't blame them as well. It's only £20 for crying out loud, if you are going to let that stop you from doing something you love to do then more fool you. So why should someone going to 1 game pay another £20 just for the privilege to attend a football game. Talking like a complete bigot. Exactly. I have a friend in Sweden who makes one or two matches a season... Now he's going to have to be a member. It's the principle that is utterly wrong. Football fans pay enough to get to games especially away games and having an add cost like this is a utter disgrace, especially at a time when people are struggling financially with high inflation at the moment. It's just a long line of things which the club is doing to extact more money from fans. Have to agree with that. Shelling out up to £48 or so for a single match ticket is disgraceful enough without ridiculous add-on's like that.

Exactly the same for me.

As I read in true faith last month- our club 'memberships' are absolutely pathetic. All you get is cringe keyrings, stickers, pens etc with the only decent advantage being ticket priorities. Clubs like Sporting Lisbon, Barca etc would laugh their tits off at how amateur that sort of thing is. It's a complete money-making scam. That's the way English clubs operate though, give fans absolutely zero say in how the club is run. Best commercial league in the world.

Not the greatest song, but maybe singing the tune of it would sound good?

Really like that.

Can you though? Who? And what don't you see in Long? Not saying he's world class, but he has the attributes and the potential to do very well for us. Whether £7m is fair or not is a bit hard to say. I haven't seen a huge number of games in the championship but when I watched Reading last season he's never stood out. If you look at the caliber of players we've got in for less, 7 million seems like a huge amount. I'd rather have DJ Campbell here for example. He's proved himself to be a decent option at this level and would complement Ba well as a poacher. Not a bad shout

There's no reason to be frustrated though, that's the thing I don't understand. We've made some good moves and are obviously working on others. There's no way our squad could be described as threadbare at the moment IMO. We obviously lack quality up front, but not numbers. I don't know what kind of summer people were expecting, if what has happened so far seems negative to them. It just baffles me. Perhaps 'threadbare' was a bit of an exaggeration, but we should be making the most of this £35m in the coffers of NUFC. Forget the bullshit we're being told about it going towards wages, agent fees and new facilities- we have enough income from obscene TV income, season tickets, sponsors and merchandise etc. This is our first chance in a long time to really excel in adding to our squad. We can't have any excuses. Of course everyone's opinion is different, fair enough, but I just don't see a team with only two proven full backs and and three 'proven' strikers as good enough to match these supposed ambitions the club are coming out with ie top 8 finish.

Thinking about it, it's very obvious that Ashley is incredibly reluctant to pay a penny over the odds for players. But he must know that in modern times sometimes the only way to get good players in is to pay over the odds- you've got to pay to get the best. However, this isn't easy to tell someone who's desperate to sell the club and is trying to run it on a shoestring until such an opportunity arises.

I have a feeling this could be yet another very frustrating summer for us. I don't think frustration is starting to find its way to us because we're not signing players every second day, but moreso because our squad- especially up front, as well all know- is so threadbare and desperately needs investment if we are to progress and not have a dismal season. In saying that, signings such as Cabaye we're done under wraps and we're hardly picked up on until late on, so you never know. But still, I am getting concerned such is our desperation to add to our squad and until we do that it won't get any better.

Get two more players in (mainly a proven striker), hold on to Enrique, Coloccini and Barton and it's job done for the summer as far as I'm concerned.

Does the signing of Marveaux rule of any chance of signing N'Zogbia? That's Jonas, Marveaux and Ben Arfa who can play on the left- and of course Fergie. Unless he would be seen as a RAM in a potential 4-2-3-1 formation?

An American firm sponsoring the FA Cup. There is no hope.

As barmy a time as it may seem to be applying for one, does anyone else have trouble getting through to the box office? Does anyone work there?

Free delivery as well. Very tempting.

Probably not the best place to ask but seeing as the box office is closed, does any one know if the club will let you use Direct Debit with a foreign account ie an Irish account?

Not for £5m. A midfield trio of Barton, Tiote and Cabaye would be much more to my liking. He'd be a good squad player but £5m seems a bit excessive.

Spain are just lightyears ahead of England in all departments. Frightening stuff.

Surely Berbatov would be worth more than £6-8m? That's a ridiculously cheap price, despite his age. Would absolutely love him here but for some reason still feel another, more powerful direct striker would be needed. Berbatov and Ba would be a huge improvement on our squad, however. We'd be doing very very well to get those two.

If Henderson is worth £20m then what does that make Ander Herrera worth? Best player on the pitch, imo.

Apparently we're looking at Madjid Bougherra from Rangers as well as Vladmir Weiss (again). This comes from a chap I know who apparently knows some 'ITK's' at Ibrox. He said their fairly reliable.