Happy Face

Thought the aliens had landed when I was driving home through Shiremoor on Tuesday night and there was a huge rainbow beam in the sky coming from the sea. Googled it when i got in and it turns out it's not ET. Went back down last night and took a few phone photos, sorry they're blurry.

By way of comparison, I've also looked at who we signed in the 5 years prior to Ashley arriving.... Viana £8,500,000 Bramble £4,500,000 Woodgate £9,000,000 Ambrose £2,500,000 Milner £5,000,000 Butt £2,000,000 Nzogbia £250,000 Carr £2,000,000 Faye £2,000,000 Babayaro £1,000,000 Boumsong £8,000,000 Parker £6,500,000 Emre £3,800,000 Luque £9,500,000 Owen £17,000,000 Solano £1,500,000 Duff £5,000,000 Martins £10,140,000 Total - £98.15million Which is an average of £19.63m a year. Amazing that we have such entrenched views of which owner wasted so much money opposed to which one is so wise and thrifty, or which one had ambition and was willing to back the manager as opposed to which one is filling his pockets. All on the back of £2m a year.

Was interested to see what Ashley has actually spent on players since he got here, totting up gross spend.... Summer 2007 Joey Barton £5,800,000 Abdoulaye Faye £2,000,000 Alan Smith £6,000,000 Habib Beye £2,000,000 Jose Enrique £6,000,000 David Rozenhal £3,100,000 Total = £24.9m January 2008 Fabio Zamblera £300,000 Total = £300K Summer 2008 Danny Guthrie £2,500,000 Jonas Gutierrez £5,200,000 Fabricio Coloccini £9,100,000 Francisco Jiminez Tejada "Xisco" £5,000,000 Total = £21.8m January 2009 Kevin Nolan £4,000,000 Total = £4m Summer 2009 None Total = £0 January 2010 Danny Simpson £1,000,000 Wayne Routledge £1,000,000 Mike Williamson £1,000,000 Leon Best £1,000,000 Total = £4m Summer 2010 James Perch £1,000,000 Cheick Tiote £3,500,000 Total = £4.5 Million Spend January 2011 Hatem Ben Arfa £5,750,000 Total = £5.75m Summer 2011 Yohan Cabaye £4,300,000 Gabriel Obertan £3,250,000 Rob Elliot £100,000 Davide Santon £5,300,000 Total = £12.95m January 2012 Papiss Demba Cissé £10,000,000 Total = £10m GRAND TOTAL = £88.2m An average re-investment onto the pitch of £17.6m a year over 5 years.

. Matching stoke by spending £10m on a striker. Surely that should be the minimum we do. Not if you're spending money for the sake of it. I'd love to see 11 free transfers do the job. But that's just not going to get you the quality in depth required to compete with the top 6 regularly if you have that ambition. It's not spending for the sake of spending, it's for the sake of competing. He's reinvested over £23million in the last 2 windows, and though I will always want more (specifically wish we'd pushed on to bring in that additional top quality centre back in January) I do think that's quite a reasonable spend, enough to get you into the lower end of the top half. I just wanted to put some context on what the signing of Cisse represents in comparison to the "ambition" of other clubs around us. It's certainly an improvement on what anyone has come to expect of Ashley, but he's still being comparatively cautious (rather than bold or positive) in his level of investment during this window of opportunity when we could push on.

You may well be right, but why put so much faith in presumptions? Who knows what the future may bring. Basically giving Ashley stick based on future events that may or or may not happen. For one I didn't see us spending £10m on a player during January. That's certainly a bold, positive move. Of course it's all about building on what you've got though, but I'll worry about that when the season is over. . Matching stoke by spending £10m on a striker. Surely that should be the minimum we do.

I do. I don't think Liverpools terrible performance up to this point in the season for what they've spent says anything about us though. The initial point about Liverpool was that Leazes claimed that they were progressing simply because they spent a shitload of money, my point was that we have progressed further than they have. We've progressed and they've regressed. So we've progressed better than them. Whether we progressed 'further' than them remains to be seen. I don't think we will manage it. I was more being a Dick about what liverpools position proves though. Whether we finish above or below them, we've improved on ourselves. They can't say the same. But they are in the position where improving is much harder. Improving on 12th isn't as difficult.

Course not, there's much more to it than that, but it's interesting, in a discussion on what spending power can do for you to look at the short term results. Of the ten biggest spending clubs, only 3 remain in the bottom half, Fulham can probably get out of that so only QPR and Villa are bucking the "money makes all the difference" trend. Conversely, from the bottom ten spenders, only Everton, Spurs and Norwich are in the top half. The first 2 had top class squads to start with, so the only one club making a go of it for spending nowt, are Norwich.

I do. I don't think Liverpools terrible performance up to this point in the season for what they've spent says anything about us though.

Just looking at who spent what over the summer. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8691420/Premier-League-ins-and-outs-summer-transfers-2011.html We come in 9th on there with £13.3m. Teams that spent more than us who we're currently outperforming? Liverpool £58.1m Mackems £26.35m Fulham £16.7m QPR £13.45m I think it's likely that Liverpool will finish above us. If that happens, the brilliant business we've done, creating a whole new model for transfer dealings, will be predicated on outperforming 3 clubs, only one of which actually spent over £3m more than us.

So being above Liverpool is proof that we're moving in the right direction and you don't have to spend much money to succeed. If we finish below them will it conversely prove that reinvestment pays dividends?

His 5 goals in 30 games is a better return than Torres with 3 in 35. Don't think 1 bad year is the end of either.

Suppose that's why I don't mind Man U at the moment. You can get away with being Billy Big Bollocks when your picking up every trophy going and have done for over a decade, you have to respect it and their proper fans appreciate being in that position. The inferiority complex that hangs around Liverpool fans now, clinging to the odd trophy as evidence of their ongoing might, like a Mackem clinging onto 9-1, is pathetic to see.

Think I've mentioned on here how I "supported" Liverpool in the 86 cup final, and subsequently got bought a scarf. My dad comes from the Isle of Man though so i wasn't brought up proper. Even though at that point I was a fully paid up Newcastle fan, I wanted Liverpool to win. I'm 34 and I've only really hated Liverpool fof 25 years. When they signed Beardsley tipped it for me. "only"

Think I've mentioned on here how I "supported" Liverpool in the 86 cup final, and subsequently got bought a scarf. My dad comes from the Isle of Man though so i wasn't brought up proper.

Arsenal and Manchester City will play a match in Beijing's 'Bird's Nest' Olympic Stadium on the day that London welcomes the world for this year's summer Games. The Premier League rivals said their first teams would play a one-off match for the inaugural 'China Cup' on July 27 with a local kick-off time of 2000 (1200 GMT), six-and-a-half hours before the London opening ceremony begins. Wonder what that's going to pay.

Samuel Ameobi As if I had to pay 30p to use a public toilet...London will do anything to suck money out of you!

I'll follow Krul for now, but he needs to up his game from such trite footballerisms if Ihe's going to keep my interest. Needs to take some lessons from Sammy, post some pictures of Tesco bitter and that. No better footballer tweeterer at the moment.

Yabooo Capello! He was shite. The players thought he was a nasty pasty.

As if 'Arry would get unwavering support through thick and thin. They'd be on his back as soon as he drew a group game.

Ameobi to score any time 21/10 Free money.

Click on the specials http://www.paddypower.com/football/football-matches/premier-league-matches/Newcastle-v-Sunderland-3496095.html 5/1 to win by 2 Penalty scored 11/4 Penalty Awarded 2/1 NUFC score a penalty 11/2 NUFC miss a penalty 14/1

I'm inclined to agree more with The Fly after listening to it. Moved on to The Tindersticks one 'the something rain' First track is a ten minute spoken word story of loveliness. Much more promising.