Gottlob

I know UEFA supposedly have their own interpretation of the rules, but they're not entitled to it: handball has to be deliberate, with the position of the arms merely a guide towards determining intent, and there's no way in the world especially given the context that anyone can conclude Sissoko handled the ball deliberately. Perhaps the lack of quality isn't a surprise. I understand the Premier League was the first of the major leagues to finish, but three weeks later, this feels like a hangover more than a climax.

If you don't have £350 million or whatever the supposed price is now, isn't it better if people think you might possibly have £350 million than if they don't think about you at all?

Time to start putting pressure on the Bin Zayed Group to come clean about their role in all of this. I won't be investing in any of their real estate, luxury boat, or distance learning products until I know just where we're at. I don't demand that they buy the club, I just demand a Bin Zayed Group that tries.

There seems to be a few Sheikh Khalid bin Zayed Al Nahyan's banging about, but this guy's a Khaled and a Nehayan. Is it possible that it's just Lee Charnley in disguise?

I don't think national holiday applies to international sheikh businessmen, or to the 80% indentured servants who make up the UAE's workforce.

If he flogs the gays, I'm on the pitch.

Cousins, Ian. Tom Cruise is rich and famous and good looking, whereas William Mapother needs some serious work done. And have you heard of the third Roosevelt president?

Compared to Sheikh Mansour, this Sheikh Khaled is the Jason Schwartzman to his Sofia Coppola, the William Mapother to his Tom Cruise, he's Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's forgotten seventh cousin, I read that he's 61 but that his father's 62!

This man shits in the mouth of Hugh Manrights and doesn't punish himself for the lewdness of it.

I'd rather sell Longstaff for £25 million without McTominay than for £30 million with.

Yeah but he's better than Vasco Regini ffs!

Out: Hayden - £12m - Crystal Palace Gayle - Minus £5m plus Rondon - West Brom Muto - £750k - Nagoya Grampus Shelvey - £10m - Burnley Joselu - £250k - Melbourne Victory In: Cristian Pavon - £35m - Boca Juniors Rondon - £5m plus Gayle - West Brom Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting - £6m - Paris Saint-Germain Vasco Regini - loan deal - Sampdoria Sebastian Rode - £5.5m - Borussia Dortmund

This is why it's important to have diverse interests, so we can forget about the football now at least until next season, and move onto something enjoyable instead. I'm more aggrieved with tonight's result because it would have been nice for Ajax's youngsters and for a relatively unfancied league and club to reach the final, while beyond Moura and one or two other players, I have no fondness for Spurs. They also didn't play with the intensity of Liverpool last night: it felt like Moura conjured their goals and that Ajax had the chances to kill off the tie, though it's obviously a great comeback especially given Tottenham's injuries.

To be honest I've never entirely bought the idea that Speed was sold behind Robson's back, because my memory is that we were showing interest in Butt well before Speed was sold to Bolton. I wouldn't doubt that Robson wanted Carrick as well, but Shepherd rarely looked beyond the big names when he did take an active interest in our transfer business. More broadly my sense of that time was of Robson hanging Robert and Viana out to dry after some poor performances, repeatedly moaning about Solano's commitments with Peru and of course eventually selling him, marginalising Lua Lua after he opted to play for DR Congo, and in their stead we got Ambrose, Bowyer, and Milner, who was never a good Premier League player as a right winger, while with Bellamy frequently injured, we were left with a Shearer/Ameobi partnership which never worked because their games were too similar. We didn't capitalise on our third-placed finish with Bowyer the only addition that summer, but we had spent considerably in the six months prior on Woodgate and Ambrose.

Players like Gavilan and Papavasiliou and even Maric never really got going, and I remember Gavilan and Maric at least showing glimpses of talent. Fumaca and his stepovers are infamous, but I only remember him making a handful of appearances, mostly off the bench. Maybe it was just the idea of Amdy Faye, who was alright at Portsmouth, but I also thought he started okay before rapidly deteriorating. I don't think it's fair to include youngsters who get given a chance - often because of a lack of squad depth - but fail to make the grade. The first names that spring to mind are those established players who really had no excuse for being awful, and yet they were worse than that. Top of the list are Butt and Smith. I thought Smith in particular never had a good spell for us, even in the Championship, when he simply sat in front of the defence heading balls back to the opposition before Danny Guthrie took his place. I hated Butt more though, and never liked nor rated him whether playing for us, England, or Manchester United. His standard forward pass was either a chipped ball to the opposition defence, or a blasted ball which would hit our forwards somewhere about the knees. I know it's grossly unfair to target Robson in any list of 'worst' Newcastle anything, but in the last year under him we went from a midfield of Robert, Speed, Dyer, and Solano, with Jenas and Viana in reserve, to a marginalised Robert barely hanging on to his place on the left, while the rest of the midfield was made up of Dyer, Jenas, and then Butt, Bowyer, Milner, and Darren Ambrose. After a few years back in England, he went native.

On a moral level or cosmically or whatever nobody deserves a beating for celebrating in the opposition end, but practically in our world they should at least have the decency to know what to expect. Football is a quarter the potential beauty of the sport, a quarter the ease and affordability of playing, and half tribalism and sheer unadulterated hatred. A day's worth of alcohol removes the first two quarters.

I thought that I had a memory of Andersson scoring a goal where he fell over and in the process knocked the ball over the keeper with his knee. I can't find it though, and the Liverpool 4-2 from December 1998 only has him scoring a decent goal after rounding the keeper.

Does anyone think that Rafa's affinity for Liverpool might affect how we line up and perform in this match? He won't want us to get thumped, but I don't think he'll be salivating at the prospect of a tactical masterclass which kills Liverpool's title hopes, and at this stage of the season there's plenty of reason to rotate. Why not give Perez a rest anyway, and it also seems like the sort of match which would allow Shelvey to sink or swim, if Rafa cares about that going forward.

The Leeds player slowed because two or three of the Villa players near the touchline were waving their arms and demanding he kick the ball out of play. He hesitated and rightly kept on playing. It wasn't some big masquerade to cheat Villa out of a goal.

Pathetic from Villa. They had no right to demand that Leeds stop playing for what looked like a fairly innocuous tumble in the middle of the pitch, and a handful of their players could have been sent off for their reaction to both goals.

I think I've posted this before, but for me - discounting those who barely played for us like Rush and Guivarc'h, and even Luuk de Jong who was only on loan for a handful of games, as well as youngsters like Robinson and Dalglish who for various reasons barely played and probably shouldn't have been given the opportunity - it comes down to Jon Dahl Tomasson, Andreas Andersson, Riviere, and Joselu. Of those four, my memories are that Andersson and Riviere at least ran about a bit, they were just absurdly incompetent in front of goal. Tomasson was played out of position owing to Shearer's injury and our lack of cover, and obviously he went on to have a stellar career, but what he did offer as a striker for us at that time was very much in the De Jong/Joselu mould: ineffective hold up play, ambling about to no particular purpose, and a shot that seemed wafted by the air it was so weak. I suppose given his age and experience and the number of games he's played for us, it's tempting to give Joselu the nod.

Great defending for the goal from Luke 'Mourinho's fat whore' Shaw.

My TV shows the contrast much more clearly than that.

Barton versus Guthrie makes some sense because they overlapped and ostensibly carried out the same sort of role as playmaking midfielders. Gosling barely featured for us and my impression is that he's only effective in sides that get numbers forward and keep the ball in the final third: he occasionally gets on the end of chances and gets involved around the box, but otherwise he doesn't seem to me to have much to offer besides decent work rate. If you want a real triumvirate, who was best out of Stephen Glass, Daniel Cordone, and Darren Ambrose?

Barton had two decent spells for us, the first towards the end of the 2007-08 season when he played as part of a midfield three under Keegan, the second for the first half of the 2010-11 season when he could rely on Carroll getting on the end of his lofted crosses. He could weight a pass that was already in front of him, but otherwise he was slow, too ponderous and undisciplined for the centre of midfield, and masked some dubious effort levels with the odd fiery tackle. He also caused us problems with his indiscipline on and off the pitch, and stalled his move to us in the first place over a ludicrous 'loyalty' payment. Danny Guthrie, albeit playing more of a bit role, showed in 2011-12 that he was a more talented player, capable of creating passes and building play through the centre of the pitch. Filling in and occasionally alternating with Tiote and Cabaye, that was the last time I was happy with our options in the centre of midfield. We got rid of him because we didn't care for having a squad, and his off-field and fitness issues seemed to increase.