Happy Face

Obviously. Look at like this, forget about league position unless we finish 8th. As long as we come 7th or above and the Cup Final involves a combination of Tottenham, Chelsea or Liverpool we're in Europe. Looking at the FA Cup I'd say there's a 90% chance Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs will all get through, meaning in my opinion the only way we won't get in to Europe is cataclysmic league form meaning we come below 7th which is unlikely, or Sunderland or Everton beating one of the three teams I've mentioned in the Semi Final. I reckon we'll hold 7th. But Everton are 4th in the current form tables. Making a push. Could be tight.

When I'm looking for something new that's any good I tend to scan this top 100.... http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2012 This one (by score) http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/new-releases/metascore?view=condensed and these.... http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=37 Interested to be pointed to owt similar that others follow.

Still just the Menzingers and Django Django for me, and to a lesser extent Air. The new DJ Format album is available now but I've not had a proper listen. Think I'll do that now

All nicely lined up for the Madrid Barcelona final everyone wanted

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I thought it was immense. I was gripped from start to finish. Read some criticism afterwards that it skimmed over far too much of the depth of the book & series to make any sense whatsoever both in terms of language and story. I haven't read the book or seen the show, but I thought the spy speak was well used and understandable, while the storyline was simple enough to 'get' and complex enough that I want to go back and watch it again. Looking forward to reading the book and watching the series now too.

The scary question is will we'll be saying the same thing about the Man City deal in 8 years time?

That's why I put 'deal' in quotes, however.... The renegotiated deal with Etihad (link here) will earn City a little under £350m over the next decade – and covers stadium and campus naming rights and other elements as well as the shirt money. The deal has led to scepticism in some quarters, as discussed on sportintelligence.com, because of concerns it is just a tool to help City bypass Uefa’s new Financial Fair Play regulations. But independent experts among a range of industry insiders consulted by sportingintelligence believe a £20m-a-year deal for City’s shirt is easily defensible. Arsenal’s ongoing deal with Emirates is instructive. At the time it was announced in late 2004, the combined £90m net deal for stadium (15 years) and shirts (eight years) looked massive. Now Arsenal’s current £5.5m annually for their shirts looks paltry compared to their biggest rivals. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/08/23/premier-league-shirt-deals-surge-to-117-5m-on-back-of-citys-etihad-uplift/ as well as "Why Manchester City’s alleged Financial Fair Play ‘dodge’ is not actually dodgy at all – and might even be an undervaluation of their worth" There's many, many differences. City's £340m+ deal covers stadium name AND shirts AND the training complex, but on the other hand Etihad don't take ownership of the club and brand it as they see fit either. When you say he could sponsor Man U and Chelsea for that kind of money what do you mean? Neither club is selling their stadium rights. That's deemed priceless. Their shirt deals are currently £20m and £14m a year respectively, so it would have cost Ashley £340m to put Sports Direct on their chests for 10 years, £100m MORE than he's spent here at Newcastle. Shirt Sponsorship deals are worth much more than stadium sponsorship deals that have been done of course, mostly because the general consensus is that renaming a ground with a century of history is bad for a sponsor and the club rather than good. Ashley's challenging that consensus. Either no-one else is listening as he's failed to sell the naming rights, or he prefers to keep the branding for Sports Direct. He's certainly had much more news coverage out of it than Aon have had from being on Man U shirts.

For a so-called statistician, HF is the biggest exponent of biased facts on this forum. Filling in for Leazes?

show me where I have ever said "what if FF had stayed". Other people ask me that, you dope. And yes, I'm making a judgement on the future, just as I made one years ago that Mike Ashley would use NUFC as an advertisement vehicle for Sports Direct and would not attempt to challenge the heights seen before, settling for premiership survival to promote the company. He will sell a player to make a profit if this isn't done operationally, he will never attempt to match the clubs we used to compete with and finish above that are now attempting to match the sugar daddies. He is a retailer by instinct, he will buy and sell players like he does with his companies to try and do it, everything has a price, He will not back his managers fully as a manager of NUFC ought to be. We are competing with the 2nd rate selling clubs. As the financial whizz kids dismissed this as "nonsense", and still do, and continue to do so, you tell me what is nonsense about that. You couldn't make it up, indeed you couldn't. Then you can leave the intelligent debate to the people who know about the football club and aren't deluded fuckwits. "He bought us so he could promote Sports Direct" - What a crock of shite, he could have sponsored Man U AND fucking Chelsea for that kind of money you loooooooooonnn-atic! He's spent just over half what etihad did on the man city 'deal'.

Everyone seems very pleased he and his tiresome argument isn't the centre of attention anymore.....4 pages into the most popular thread of the day without a post from the man himself. Oh how he drags things down.

See the Taylor thread for confirmation of that. He's still headed more clearances and more succesful clearances than all our defenders, in just half of the games this season. Here's the assistas and goals conceded with Taylor playing... Much less assists from within the box

Absolurley, leazes only has himself to blame. Just find it disingenuous to see people celebrating they won't have to put up with him when half their posts on the board are directed at him.

Think that's been part of the problem too. A lot of the noobs/irregulars, people under 500 posts or so, have great fun poking Leazes with a stick which flames up the whole argument across 10 topics, the posters who are longer in the tooth had all that fun years ago and have realised the error of their ways and are getting more and more sick of it.

Shame to see you lord it over his corpse when you were one of the worst offenders for baiting him. RIP Leazes. You won't be forgotten. Your torch of truth shone too bright in many peoples eyes. Sleep well sweet prince.

Spot on. But I wasn't even making that point. In a comparison between Ba and carroll, what was cut and dry in December (Ba's an improvement) is looking less accurate every game he goes without scoring, while unable to hold up the ball as well. Those hat-tricks and braces early on might have flattered the fella. When Shola came on on Monday night he gave Ba a lesson in pressing play and holding onto the ball when isolated.

Sounds like it.... 39 mins Amid strong protests, City's Surman took a disputed corner and Andrew Crofts' header was eventually deflected into the net off Wes Hoolahan as Simpson attempted to clear. 0-1 http://nufc.com/2011...0norwich-a.html In fact, Probably half of those goals from the flanks came in that game.

Goals conceded..... Very few from outside the box. Assists..... Onl6 6 from the flanks...and just one goal conceded from a corner in 28 games. Solid.

The commentators were very polite about hiom missing an open goal in extra time. They made out he was on the byline. The keeper ran past him on the 18 yard line though. Desperate attempt from him.

Steven Taylor, despite missing half of the campaign thus far, has still made more total and successful headed clearances than anyone at Newcastle United in the Premier League this season.

He's not scored in 420 minutes. We've not won a game since he scored. This isn't negative, it's just the way it is.

I liked Carroll when he was here, I thought he was excellent at holding up the ball and seemed to link up well with Nolan. I would still like him here as he would give us something when Ba was out. I think AC could play alongside Cisse as well. If Ba goes another 4 games without scoring his goal rate for the season will drop below Carroll for 10/11 at Newcastle.

did they cut your brain out ? Are you 5 years old? I dunno his age but he's keeping quiet about his weight. Must be a proper podge.

Righting wronguns left right and centre.

It only brings back the calendar. Any way to make it so I can view posts in there?

I had one on Sunday. Caked with butter.