Novocastrian

The fact is, putting players on stupid contracts in the past is what contributed massively to our financial problems.  No player is bigger than club, and we've had much bigger players than Carroll far bigger.

We've also had many worse players on much bigger contracts, players much worse than Carroll on huge deals.

Yes that was part of a different regime and the size of the remuneration package those poor players were on almost brought the club down. However, there is nothing wrong with tying your very best players down on attractive contracts. Every other 'big' club does it.

Problem is Ashley tries to do everything on the cheap, Carroll should have been offered 80 grand a week to stay. Yes he is young and inexperienced but that is the going rate for a player of his potential. Putting him on 30 grand a week when other clubs were sniffing round is tantamount to putting a 'come and get me' sign on the back of his shirt. Which is perhaps what Ashley wanted.

I have no problem with rewarding the very best players. It's the dross on 40-50 grand a week that should have their contracts looked at.

We have been screwed ovet by ashley, imo. Should tell the doubters all you need to know about the man running our club. The bid for n'zogbia is the icing on the cake. We may well be in the PL but this club will eventually die under ashley. He is sucking the lifeblood out of it.

 

Don't be silly, the club is debt-free all thanks to Big Ash. His careful husbanding of resources and cool hand have steadied the ship.

It's only a matter of time before he gives Pardew a 'war chest' that will make the Torres bid look like loose change.

Right, fuck Carroll, we need a replacement in the next hour.

I can believe the sum of our transfer business is the permanent purchase of HBA who is still injured.

Why do we constantly weaken ourselves in promising positions.

Are we really going to finish the season with Best/Ameobi/Lovenkrands/Ranger???

Tell me this isn't a fucking joke.

Who fucking cares about the smallprint:

Carroll has put in a transfer request; he evidently wants to leave NUFC and join Liverpool.

Ashley has accepted a bid from Liverpool; he evidently is happy to accept the money and sell Carroll to Liverpool.

They are both cunts. The rest is semantics, hearsay and obfuscation.

Chelsea get Torres, Liverpool get Suarez and Carroll and we are left holding the baby.

Massive risk for Liverpool, much better players have gone to much better clubs and still failed. Liverpool are some way off being a Champions League team again, some investment in their defence might have been a better idea.

Shame we weren't able to build the team around him but money talks.

I'm gutted but we knew all along that a huge bid would prove too much for Ashley.

f*** me with a feather, the club dont do business through the media, calm down.

 

I dont understand why people are going on like its done coz a few bell ends are bigging up a few rumours.

It's hardly a few 'bell ends', it all over the national press and on national radio and new sites. It still might not happen and I admire your optimism but this has been building all day and looks to have more than a kernel of truth in it, unfortunatley

A hell of a lot of money is being bandied around and, objectively, Carrol is not worth that amount at this stage of his development.

However, Carroll is too important to this club to sell for even £40-50m. I know we have sold homegrown players before

Gazza, Beardsley, Waddle (and look where we ended up after that) but Carroll can be become a symbol of this club like Shearer.

If he continues to develop he could be a superstar and he will have a shirt hanging off the Angel of the North with his name on the back.

If he goes we will get maybe £20m to bring in a couple of replacement which may or may not fit into the side, the PL etc. We have had plenty of

big money disasters, enough to know that money alone does not guarantee an effective player.

If we take the cash, things will irrevocably change and although, evidently, every player has their price, we wil have lost something that money can't buy.

Sounds a bit dramatic but I will be crushed if we lose him now.

Lescott cost £8m more than Shearer.

Shearer cost £8m more than Maradona.

Good deal for Sunderland, the days of average to good players of Bent's standard going for 20 million are drawing to a close.

As stated, it's difficult to fit him into a system with another striker. His goal ratio is good but this looks like a panic buy by Villa, crazy price.

Who we got on the bench??

The FA cup is a waste of time, who gives a flying f***? When the teams around us are preparing for the next round at the end of the month we'll have a weekend off. I'm happier about that to be honest!

So the six cups we've won in the past mean nothing??

Get a grip, we should be hammering these and I'll be disappointed if we don't bust a bollock to get through this round.

I saw the Best sub as a 'Look he is still alive come and buy him' move

Me too, but if might have backfired with his Geremi like grandad run with the ball near the end.

Lots of perspiration, very little inspiration.

His workrate suggests he will be a danger but he continues to be ineffectual.

Links up well with Enrique but as a potent attacking force he's a major letdown.

s*** marking from Evans.

 

I blame Paul Scholes

I blame Alan Smith.

Every time I see the score, I can't help but laugh

 

6-0 man. 6 f***ing 0 against a very good Villa side. f***ing hell man, I love this team.

Just because they were in the chasing pack last year doesn't automatically make them a good team. They were fairly risible today, the result of MON's team building.

I laughed when they brought Heskey on. Apart from Young, who was trying to break Shola's world record for being offside, they look very average.

The fact every bastard thing from clothes pegs to pent houses uses football's popularity to try sell it. This phenomenon is always heightened during World Cup months.

The worst offenders are the 'Gran picks up the remote control, goes round the coffee table, in between two chairs lays it off to the dog' type adverts and the

'I'm going for a solid 4-4-2: two pieces of bacon, with two commanding sausages in the middle, two defensive boiled eggs in midfield with a couple of tricky slices of toast on each wing etc'.

Just fuck off.

Also, Hughton knew the situation before he took the job, so there's no reason for him to walk out or to try to force Ashley's hand.

True, I don't think Hughton is being 'strung along', he knows the situation and is seemingly happy to work under these conditions.

Hughton is Ashley's ideal 'manager' (read 'coach').

He's obviously an intelligent man and can see the glaring gaps in the squad. However, despite the kudos of leading the club back up to the PL at the first attempt, he doesn't have the gravitas to force Ashley's hand on transfers and considering that even Keegan couldn't do this I doubt anyone will.

He can't do a 'Keegan' and walk out, Ashley will just replace him with another, probably cheaper, coach who he can feed scraps to.

There is no 'transfer policy', if there was we would be taking more of a gamble on promising players knowing we could recoup the money in the future.

Unfortunately, it appears we will continue to stumble along in the current fashion until:

A) The club is sold.

B) We are relegated.

I can't see us re-establishing in the PL until we invest, sensibly, in new players. Maybe Ashley has something up his sleeve and three or four proven performers will come in before the window closes but I can't see it.

Dont think Carroll is suited to playing up front on his own though, he needs support.

The players who thrive up front by themselves are the all singing all dancing types who can make their own chances, score headers, outside the box etc.

That's why the likes of Drogba are indespensible.

Would much rather see AC with a strike partner.

So much going on in the background with the Milner sale and uncertainty surrounding Young.

Looks like O'Neill was after McGeady but coudn't match Spartak's offer.............

I've just got in from work expecting to be trying on the new home shirt. The wife was meant to be buying it for me today.

 

But she reckons it was that bad she wouldn't spend the cash on it. What gives like, is it really that crap?

Mine turned up this morning. I have been trying to wean myself off football shirts for years but it has become a bit of a ritual so I allow myself the current England and Newcastle home kits.

Shocked by the poor quality to be honest. I've had better quality fake shirts from dodgy markets in Morrocco.

Dyer was the kind of player who tended to visually stand out and make an 'impact'.

The type fans love to see: pick up a loose ball drive at the opposition with pace going past two or three, usually stationary, defenders.

That's largely where the story ended. His energy and dynamism was never really translated into goals or solid match winning performances on any consistent level.

Although he did have attributes his personal and physical failings consigned him to being a 'nearly man' in my opinion.

If he had of possessed a football 'brain', or even a brain of any sort really, it could have been different. I don't really think he was ever committed to the footballing side of being a footballer. A case of 'too much too young' maybe.

If anyone was labouring under the notion that the next generation of English players will usher in a new era of thoughtful, intelligent football that match would bring them down to earth with a bump.

Spain were light years ahead in every area, technical skills, organisation, invention they were a joy to watch.

Spain's breathtaking second goal came from a hopefull England punt up field, the next time an England player touched the ball it was to retrieve it from the net after 25/26 Spanish passes, poetry in motion.

It's obvious that English football is still relying on the big, powerful type player to the detriment of touch and vision. I'm pretty sure most of those England players would win a 100m sprint against their Spanish counterparts but in terms of speed of thought there was no contest.

Spain were not scared to pass the ball to a man under pressure the little lay offs and 1-2s the Spanish were executing cut through England. In contrast England were pedestrian and plodding, playing in static lines even when we were in possession. The Spanish were always hungry for the ball and as a result the player in possession had numerous options.

I know England were missing a few of the better players but, frankly, I don't think they would have made much of a difference.

Scary stuff.

NEWCASTLE have introduced a new long-term transfer strategy aimed at bringing extra youth – and value – to their squad.

 

The Sunday Sun understands that United applied strict fresh criteria to their transfer business in January, vetoing any full-time signings over the age of 26.

 

Coupled with a new wage ceiling imposed by owner Mike Ashley, the change in policy confirms the end of trophy signings at St James’ Park.

 

All of the Magpies’ four buys last month were in their early or mid-20s, with 29-year-old Fitz Hall only arriving on loan.

 

And Newcastle turned down the chance to buy Birmingham City’s Geordie centre-half Martin Taylor because he is 30.

 

Agents and clubs were told at the start of the transfer window that United would no longer pay wages of more than £15,000 a week and were only interested in permanent deals for players with their best years ahead of them.

 

This represents a sea change in attitude from the days when Newcastle would routinely outbid rival clubs – and outdo their wage offers – to land established, high-profile players, some of whom remain at St James’ Park on big money.

 

One agent said: “Newcastle say they are fed up with paying big money to players at or around the 30 mark, and are cutting their cloth accordingly.

 

“It’s all change from the days when clubs and players could rely on getting big money if Newcastle came in for them.”

 

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thoughts?

And are all Championship level players...

Exactly, no evidence of a 'long term strategy' there at all. Taking a gamble on up and coming players (Beckford, Moses etc) is one thing but we aren't even doing that. Just scouring the league for cheap buys and squad fillers on loan.

The biggest problem for Guthrie is that he's too slow. And he can't get the sight off the ball when he moves with it, so he's missing allot of passing-chances. And he also holding the ball too long sometimes.

Typical academy type product; Neat and tidy on the ball, good touch but lacks a real spark and invention. Too many one paced, pedestrian automatons in today's game.

Bring back the mavericks who took a chance and played without fear.