LucaAltieri

I know nothing of the legalities of third party ownership or the workarounds but from the videos I've seen it doesn't look like Fat Sam has helped them break any rules and the one time they suggested something he knew was illegal he shut them down pretty harshly. I think he'll scrape by.

Fair enough.

dislike Fat Sam but can't say I disagree with his assessment or that calling him "Woy" is particularly harsh "mocking."

That would make sense.

Why has Chimbonda been able to play for both Guadeloupe and France?

I've been here for ages man. We've only won about 20% of our games since I joined up Yeah you've had a decent run here tbf, but what's your username on Readytogroom? Ronaldo

I've only seen him for Juve. He's half the player Dybala is. Not sure about the comparison there. For me Pogba is the best CM in the world and has absolutely everything. Not many of those kind of players around with the potential he has. I can go along with that. His size and technique combined give him fantastic potential. He's got great confidence and reads the game well. There's just something about his attitude that doesn't sit right. Doesn't perform at the level he's capable of anywhere near often enough. Right now, I'd much rather have Dybala. Maybe Pogba can be developed into a fantastic player, but he's not there yet for me. I made the comparison with Balotelli and I can absolutely see his career going the same way. Too soon to call time on this one, but he hasn't had the best of starts. Hopefully he picks it up a little. The Premier League is far more interesting if Pogba is quality.

Pure speculation... but with the increased money in the Premier League, should we bounce back I think there will be plenty of people looking at us as an option now. Assuming Ashley's valuation of the club doesn't increase too wildly, I can imagine us being sold.

I don't hate him now. I think he's made some bad decisions... many, many bad decisions. But I don't think he's intentionally doing stuff to piss us off, nor do I think he doesn't care about success. I think he had a vision of how to achieve it but lacked the football knowledge to make it work, didn't surround himself with the right people, and didn't have the humility to fix the situation quickly enough. Trying to turn a profit by selling our best players every season and either not replacing them, or replacing them with cheap French imports, wasn't done because he wants us to fail. He just had an idea of how he wanted the business side to run and under-estimated the difficulty in recruiting the right players. I think bouncing back from the first relegation and then the 5th place finish might have made him think he was on the right track, that he could always find a Demba Ba to buy or an Andy Carroll to promote and keep us ticking over, but the unmistakable downward trend and the risk of us becoming a yo-yo club (particularly at a time of increased TV revenues) has finally over-shadowed the minor successes and forced him to change his game plan. He's not a vindictive cunt in my view. I feel like I can see what he was trying to do. He's just not a football man in any shape or form... and he certainly isn't like us as fans.

Started life as a forward/winger at the club where I coach. Got moved into right-back while at the Sounders mainly as an exercise in risk aversion. He's been getting incrementally better at the position but still has some deficiencies. I saw a few pages back someone bemoaning his lack of end product. That's really not an issue. When attacking he gets behind defenders and can pick out a player in the box. He's much less wasteful than any wide player I've seen in a Newcastle shirt for a number of years. Obviously he's fast as fuck, which is a blessing and curse. He likes to get forward and 4 times out of 5 he has the pace to get back into position. However, that 1 in 5 where he can't get back into position can fuck you. Positioning in general has been his one major flaw. It's understandable because he's been learning a position that perhaps isn't natural to him... but he's getting better at it. Hopefully he gets it nailed down soon because I worry that relying so much on his pace will cause him problems if/when he picks up his first major injury. If he slows down he's not got much to fall back on at this point. Potentially a good signing long-term. Definitely capable of being a starter in the Championship. He's going to look like Daniel Alves. He tore up MLS, which is very similar to the Championship in many ways.

Aye, shame it's not in Newcastle eh? Not really. We don't have to pay for it's upkeep but the myriad of bars and restaurants in Newcastle reap the rewards... just across the Tyne via the award-winning bridge (also Gateshead's, also free to NCC tax-payers) Chuck the Sage in and there's a pretty happy bunch of beneficiaries North of the water. A bit like sunderland and it's....erm. Glass thing? Is that still open? Don't forget the polytechnic. I hear they offer a blinding NVQ in spray tanning.

QUIZ: Can you name the 20 players with most Premier League appearances? http://www.thesportbible.com/theoddsbible/community-quiz-can-you-name-the-20-players-with-most-premier-league-apps-20160722 Personally managed a shit 13/20. Saw the names I missed and they were fucking obvious. Including one player a Newcastle fan should have gotten.

I've only seen him for Juve. He's half the player Dybala is. Not sure about the comparison there. For me Pogba is the best CM in the world and has absolutely everything. Not many of those kind of players around with the potential he has. I can go along with that. His size and technique combined give him fantastic potential. He's got great confidence and reads the game well. There's just something about his attitude that doesn't sit right. Doesn't perform at the level he's capable of anywhere near often enough. Right now, I'd much rather have Dybala. Maybe Pogba can be developed into a fantastic player, but he's not there yet for me. I made the comparison with Balotelli and I can absolutely see his career going the same way. If you said that before last season i'd agree with you, wasn't the case this season though. I was critical of him myself, but his decision making, passing and practically everything came on leaps and bounds. Not sure the comparison with Dybala though, i agree he's class but he's a second striker so it's a bit of a weird comparison. The reason he's hyped so much apart from his performances in the CL and Serie A is because his skillset is absolutely unique, there is absolutely nothing like him in the world right now. Also Balotelli comparison makes no sense to me, even when i was critical of him before this season his consistency and performances was miles above anything that fraud ever produced. The only comparisons those two have is they both have shit haircuts. Fair enough.

I've only seen him for Juve. He's half the player Dybala is. Not sure about the comparison there. For me Pogba is the best CM in the world and has absolutely everything. Not many of those kind of players around with the potential he has. I can go along with that. His size and technique combined give him fantastic potential. He's got great confidence and reads the game well. There's just something about his attitude that doesn't sit right. Doesn't perform at the level he's capable of anywhere near often enough. Right now, I'd much rather have Dybala. Maybe Pogba can be developed into a fantastic player, but he's not there yet for me. I made the comparison with Balotelli and I can absolutely see his career going the same way. i'm not going to say i've watched lots of pogba but when i've seen him he's never dominated or controlled a game as you'll expect from someone who might soon be the most expensive player on the planet I make no claims of being an expert on Pogba, either. I fully accept that the handful of Juve games I saw last season could have been uncharacteristic. But I can only form an opinion based on what I've seen.

I've only seen him for Juve. He's half the player Dybala is. Not sure about the comparison there. For me Pogba is the best CM in the world and has absolutely everything. Not many of those kind of players around with the potential he has. I can go along with that. His size and technique combined give him fantastic potential. He's got great confidence and reads the game well. There's just something about his attitude that doesn't sit right. Doesn't perform at the level he's capable of anywhere near often enough. Right now, I'd much rather have Dybala. Maybe Pogba can be developed into a fantastic player, but he's not there yet for me. I made the comparison with Balotelli and I can absolutely see his career going the same way.

I've only seen him for Juve. He's half the player Dybala is.

Is what Pogba does actually that valuable? The 1 minute of genius doesn't seem worth the 89 minutes of pure laziness and sloppiness. Reminds me very much of Balotelli... moments of genius that aren't quite enough justify his inclusion if there are other options.

Apparently Pogba to United is costing them 100m quid. I don't get it.

Coaching role? Starting 11.

FA board meeting.

finally got around to finishing this one a couple of weeks back. Worth a read if you're interested in the changing landscape of player development and recruitment. It could have gone a little more in-depth on how some scouts, sensing the future, are scouting for agents rather than clubs now. 3/5. Also read one called Il Re Calcio (football is king). It's really short, and focuses on a few hand-picked stories from Italian football (mostly 80s and 90s). I think it's Kindle-only. Interesting nonetheless. Tales of a few colourful characters more than the football specifically. Also a 3/5, for me.

Ordered. Due out in August. Same guy that wrote Coaching the Tiki Taka Style of Play. Mine is on its way because I supported the Kickstarter to get it printed. You can order it on Amazon from August 20th. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophy-Football-Shadows-Marcelo-Bielsa/dp/B01HUNCDGI/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468624343&sr=1-2

Allardyce isn't a quality manager, we all know that. But he's even more not suited to being a national team manager. He did well at Bolton by turning them into a professional setup, had them paying attention to diet and more forward-thinking training methods. If he's anything, he's fitness oriented in his style of coaching. That doesn't translate to a national team setup. His one (questionable) strength is one that doesn't apply when you have such little contact time with the players. The biggest factor in managing an England team is the ability to manage the egos. How do you think he's going to do with that? What about his reputation makes anyone at the FA think that a player is going to come from training with one of the best managers in the world with his club team, then start taking orders from Fat Sam? This will be a disaster.

Shame, I thought a season in the Championship might have helped get his confidence back. When he was in form he was fantastic.