geordiesteve710

Kane Englands best player, i assume you were just going all Adrian Durham here to provoke an argument. I find it hard to pick one standout player, but why not, he's got 6 goals and I thought he was good against colombia winning freekicks when we needed to relieve pressure. For the record I was far too pissed last saturday to remember it so if anyone particularly stood out against sweden it will have passed me by. Who do you think England's best player has been like?

Just had a conversation with a mate of mine of the red and white persuasion. We were talking about today's game and the world cup and he opined that the best two players were Pickford and Henderson. I said that I thought Kane was England's best player overall but it was a great team effort. Which is when he said that he didn't mean England, he meant the best two players in the whole competition. Thought he was joking or something but actually got quite angry when I wouldn't agree. Are they all being like this??

:lol: The whole reason this fixture was even a possibility was because of their demise. Prevented them the chance of what would doubtless be their biggest crowd and highest gate receipts of the season. I'd be furious if I was the "don"

Would go down well with the locals on a number of levels that one!!

You jest but I wouldn't put it past our sponsors who are always on the lookout for some top corporate banter.

Is he discussing transfer business on Twitter??? Worse- he seems to be openly inviting twitter to contribute to the club's transfer policy.

Asoro? If Asoro is off for £2m, we should bid £3m. Bags of potential and a snip at that price. We could even offer to send him back on loan for a season for the bantz. That would cause riots among their fanbase ??

I know I'm just being silly here but being really greedy, get shot of Atsu and keep Ritchie and Murphy as back up for the wings. Could even end up with something crazy like genuine competition for a place in the starting line up. Or better yet, the ability to rotate the squad without risking completely knacking up the game plan. That would cost more money and we know the fat man will never agree to that. Also requires Ritchie being satisfied with warming the bench for large chunks of the season, which I doubt he'd go along with. You both make good points, which sum up the uphill battle of trying to improve this football club. The prevailing culture at NUFC is such that watching the pennies is seen as a priority and the idea of having three players of genuine first team quality (Murphy being the odd one out) to rotate between / fight for two positions is seen as something of a luxury or something players won't agree to. At other clubs, who do daft things like try to progress in the cups, it's seen as the bare minimum.

I know I'm just being silly here but being really greedy, get shot of Atsu and keep Ritchie and Murphy as back up for the wings. Could even end up with something crazy like genuine competition for a place in the starting line up. Or better yet, the ability to rotate the squad without risking completely knacking up the game plan.

To be fair if your mind set as a Footballer is to put a low release clause in every contract. So you can make a easy escape if things don't work out, then you've got the wrong mentality to succeed. At the end of the day I trust the manager. To be fair, he signed for us because he didn't want to be on Dortmund's bench any more, and was wary of not starting for us. And sure enough, that's how it turned out. So it turns out he's more a player who chucks his toys out of the pram when he's not starting. The problem is, he's not a "starting in the PL under Benitez" level player yet, so if he wants to start, then he can start for someone else. Of course, a sneaky future fee clause would be a good idea, because if he does get a starting position, and blossoms like many think he might, then he'll be worth a canny wedge in the future... A future fee clause would be good for us but assuming the buying club have even a small level of competence it's a non-starter due to the low release clause. In an ideal world we'd maybe persuade him to go on loan for a season and get some game time under his belt. Unfortunately we seem to be fumbling down the back of the sofa for transfer funds again and every penny counts.

Translation of the bit in bold: "it's a bit of a one-off for supporters of clubs at this level to get up for an overnight stay and night out in Newcastle."

Good korea move no?

The FA/ organising committee properly ballsed up the ticketing for euro 96 mind. Unrealistic prices and iirc swathes of tickets were allocated to travel agents to force foreign fans to buy as part of a (even more unrealistically priced) package if they wanted to guarantee a match ticket. I was at Romania-Bulgaria and there seemed less than 15k there. Crowd included sunderland and boro fans wearing colours but very few fans of either of the teams playing. I think the France games were better attended and had a better atmosphere as at least some came over. You'd get a lot more attending if the same fixture took place at SJP this summer with more enlightened ticketing policies, budget airlines, romania/bulgaria having freedom of movement and being economically stronger than they were then etc.

Typically the kit manufacturer takes about 90% of the revenue from shirt sales. Bloody hell, I didn't know that. I'm surprised Mike hasn't set up some NUFC sweatshop in Thailand to produce kits in-house.

not sure what happened to the other 9 paragraphs of this post but it's absolutely spot on!! In 3 years time the 10-year deal runs out. I'm assuming there will be further increases in the meantime too, meaning it will be a sharp increase. I would be gobsmacked if Rafa is still here by then and if he goes the ambition goes too. I can tell you now I'm not fucking paying what's likely to be £700+ to sit in the Gallowgate and watch Ashleys version of NUFC fight for 15th and financial respectability every year. For a team with a good manager continuously improving the playing staff towards ultimately competing at the top end I'd pretty much consider it a bargain.

to me that just shows how soft football has got as a sport. There's only one remotely "dirty" player in that whole team, Shawcross, and even he kept his nose relatively clean last season!!

One golden cup, one furry. Or not, as the case may have been.

Off the top of my head they used to hire the Olympic stadium for big European games? A bit like Dynamo Kiev do/did.

Given that it's the 1st of the month presumably they've had to fund payments for wages, including Rodwells from somewhere over the last few days. "Debt-free" no longer me thinks!!

I reckon watford is a good shout tbf. They ended last year in freefall and their business model of picking managers at random is bound to throw up a duckegg at some point.

Both good chances he missed yesterday he took two touches whereas the level of striker we should* be looking at would be taking those chances on first time. I like Mitro and wish him well for the future but if Rafa doesn't want him I haven't seen enough glowing potential to get too upset about it. In all likelihood we'll probably pocket £20m from Fulham then p*ss about all summer not getting a striker "over the line." Or he'll get injured in Russia, we won't be able to shift him and that'll be the excuse for not buying a new striker. * when I say "should", clearly I'm talking about a hypothetical parallel universe in which Newcastle United proactively try to better themselves as a club and improve the playing squad accordingly.

That's so transparent it's almost like a parody. You'd think they'd be seeing straight through that but nope, blinded by someone telling them everything they want to hear. Also, might as well rename the club "We hate Newcastle United FC"

Brilliant read. Just saw on twitter. First letter of each paragraph spells out Mike Ashley is a fat cockney w*****

Ritchie vs Man Utd - most important win of the season and really turned the tide. Perez vs Arsenal. Quality finish and the ball from Shelvey to set the attack up was absolutely world class. Doesn't really come across on tv where it looks like he's just hoofed it, but was right behind it in the strawberry corner and the swerve and dip to pick his man (gayle??) out behind the arsenal defence was just arousing. Lascelles at Swansea. IIRC it was first win or first away win of the season or something. But more importantly it won me a shitload of cash on a 175/1 scorecast.

I liked this, anyway