SteV

Benzema 5/6 with SkyBet to have a shot on target tonight.

He really has become a physical beast in the last three months or so. So weird that he never really demonstrated that in the previous 18 months, albeit mostly platoon a position that didn’t require it.

The first guy replying trying to justify it

It does seem bizarre that it's taking so long. As .com point out it has to be some point between Tue 1st May and Thur 10th May. Not that that really helps anyone trying to plan.

Whilst all of that is true - Ashley wont see past the fact that we’ve survived relegation. In his eyes, it will have been an overwhelming success and further evidence that he doesn’t need to spend millions of pounds on players whilst we have Rafa. Infuriating but most definitely true. Suppose it hinges on the potential of a takeover. This is it for me, 7th or 17th there's not a huge difference in what it means financially to Ashley. Controversial, but if there was a greater divide in prize money as the top 6 wanted then maybe teams would try harder to break into that? I see the logic, but by increasing the prize money for the top 6 places, you automatically strengthen those teams already in it, thus making it harder for those outside of it to break in.

Of those already mentioned: Kelly v Portsmouth - as a youngster in the family enclosure I used to sit on top of one of the concrete barriers. It was always a test to see if you could hold on and keep your balance when we scored, but I always seemed to manage it. Not for this goal tho. Got launched about 10 yards forward and couldn't see any of the last 10 mins or so. Great stuff. Albert v Man Utd - can't elaborate on everything that's already been said. Majestic. Some others: Shearer v Arsenal - free-kick at home in the last game of the season (99-00). From miles out. Outrageous power. Shearer v Man Utd - free- kick at Old Trafford. Got humped as usual but again outrageous power. Particularly liked the way Barthez in goal seemed helpless even though it was from so far out. Ben Arfa v Villa - i'd say the one against Blackburn is the best goal I've ever seen live, but I loved this one. Absolute arrow. Then of course his description of it in his interview after. Gazza v Palace(?) - may have the opponent wrong but it's the one with the bit of skill where he shifts the ball between feet to zig-zag past two players and then smashes it into top corner. Probably forgot numerous Beardsley ones too.

And Lewis Ritson really making waves in the boxing. Looks like he’ll be fighting at the arena on a big show in June. Would love to think one day he could get a world title fight at SJP. Probably getting well ahead of myself there but he’s had a hell of a rise in the last year.

11/1 is surprisingly short odds really for a team coming down to be relegated again. I bet West Brom are nowhere near that short next season. Just shows what a shambles they had become long before this season started.

This, all the rugby stuff has been great for the city......went to a couple of the World Cup games a few years back and they were excellent. Newcastle was also voted the best venue in the competition by the visiting fans, that's why the RFU are so keen to use it for events. Also, the Falcons have done incredibly well this season, particualrly with their limited resources compared to other teams. Sound familiar.....

Probably just seems that way cause we all follow our fixtures only. Stoke going to Brighton being moved to a Monday springs to mind That's only a three and half hour drive though. Similar to us going to Stoke or Leicester. Where we've been really disadvantaged this year (as away fans) is that the there's literally no 'close' matches, think Burnley's the closest. Also Sky/BT have shown a disproportionate amount of our away matches compared to our home matches. 6 home and 11 away I think it is with the last couple of matches still to be decided.

Think we'll slot in nicely between Man City and Man Utd.

This quote combined with your avatar amuses me.

That's wildly optimistic i'm afraid. If we got relegated, Rafa walked, we sold off the majority of decent players, and Ashley turned round and said 'sorry, no money for transfers', our attendances would crash as well. Often the perception of whether the right things are being done at a club, are as important to fans as anything else. Look at Arsenal. 6th in league, latter stages of a european competition, but the fans are unhappy because (perhaps rightly) they feel that they could and should be doing better. We're in a pretty good place at the moment. OK, we want to see the back of Ashley, but as long as we have Rafa and he gets even moderately close to being funded correctly, we feel as if we're going the right direction. However, it really wouldn't take much for that to come crashing down.

Yep. If they’re right up the top attendances will be good (might even have to open the top tier!). Around the playoffs and they’ll probably be not too bad. Anything less than that and they’ll be woeful.

Obviously their season ticket sales will fall off a cliff next season, but whether attendances go drastically down (15k) will probably depend on whether they can cobble together a half decent side that might actually win a few matches. It doesn’t really matter what league you’re in, if you can get a winning side together, you’ll attract people. However, whether they can even manage to do that in League One seems questionable at the minute.

Wouldn't say destined for 5th if they beat spurs in their next match they will be only be 2 points behind 4th with 7 games left Well yes, they could well still get top 4, but at the minute it’s looking more likely they won’t. Hopefully it’s decided one way or the other before the last day.

With Chelsea now likely to be in the Cup final and seemingly destined for 5th, I wonder if there’s any chance of them turning half a team out against us last day of the season? Hopefully the result won’t be critical to us by then, but you never know.

By “doctor” I assume you mean report the number of tickets sold* rather than actual attendees. Much like us and the vast majority of teams. *or given away for free

How much truth is there in this? Appears to be quite a sore point.. the Keegan side. Comes up a lot. (Not from the North East. ) But they didn’t ‘lose’ any fans did they? Their numbers didn’t go down. Ours went up but that was more in line with the general increase across the country following the increase in exposure/popularity due to the formation of the PL.

You can, it's just 'frowned upon' by UEFA. But yes, April 17th/18th looks favourite I would say.

Hopefully they get past Milan in the Europa cos the QF 2nd leg is the Thursday before this so if they could be away in Kiev or somewhere similar, that would be marvellous . Away to Moscow will do nicely.

There is no foreseeable prospect of their finances improving, the club is running at a huge loss and there's no realistic prospect of being able to refinance the debt at the end of the loan term. There are no assets or income of equal value to secure it against once the parachute payments end and there almost certainly won't be enough not enough income to cover repayments. For both Short and the loan company cutting their losses at this point makes sense because the longer they leave it the larger their losses are likely to be. I'm not sure they are running at a "huge loss" anymore, at least nothing in comparison to what they have been in previous seasons. That's why the spending has completely dried up, because Short has decided they need to get their house in order or at least stop the hemorrhaging of money that has been happening over the past few years. Obviously they've had to this because their income has fallen off a cliff, but business-wise they've acted sensibly this season. However that's had a disastrous knock-on to the football side. I would also disagree that there's "no realistic prospect of being able to refinance the debt". They'll get it refinanced, but at a worse rate, allowing them to survive, but making it even harder to get out of their current malaise.

Doesn't seem like someone planning to leave soon. You're right it doesn't, but he's so meticulous you get the feeling that he's the kind of bloke that would still try and make sure everything was in place for the future even if he was leaving next week. Still positive tho.

They're not going into administration this season like. Would make absolutely no financial sense whatsoever.

I think it's probably questionable that he's losing as much as £2M a month, that would seem very excessive given all the players (bar Rodwell) seemingly had a 40% pay cut and they've spent virtually nothing. Even if he was losing £2M a month, I still don't think he'd sack off the £69M owed and walk away, maybe a portion of it, but he isn't just going to walk away for nothing. But essentially, without substantial new investment, it's a long road back, administration or no administration.