Happy Face

Excellent. Congratulations. Looks like she's gonna be a boxer, totally ready to pop that left jab

I like the Black Keys. Didn't really give the first few albums a go, but the last album was superb, and went back to all the old stuff. Always seen them as a quality little band the rock crowd and the hipster crowd could like, unllike Kings of Leon who got too MOR & popular and alienated those who are too cool for school. Surprised to see how many of their songs are amongst the most popular on Grooveshark though, rubbing shoulders with Rihanna, Lady Gaga and LMFAO. Have you heard the Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears album? Fucking champion too.

Again too simplistic, making the situation fit your argument. You have your two first choice CB's and your first reserve who would fill in for either in the case of injury, then if your unlucky enough to lose all 3 you are into 4th and 5th choice, they are NOT going to be as good as your 1-3. Simple common sense would see that. PLUS how do you balance your squad. Yeah let's have 5 good CB's, then what happens if your midfield gets wiped out, you play a CB in midfield and the cry goes up "our squad is paper thin" we should have more midfielders. It's nonsense. As for the "not particularly bad luck with injuries" haven't looked at the stats anywhere but if you are right, I would suggest even if we have not had a significant number of injuries in the squad (compared to others) we have had an very unusual concentration of injuries in a particularly key area of the squad. If you don't see that, and I am completely wrong, what's the answer then ?? you are completely wrong and the answer is more strength in depth. It's not a case of having internationals on the bench, but Taylor should be the back up for an international in our team. You can't go on like this is unprecedented bad luck in one position when many have feared exactly this and warned about it. One in 3 of Stevies posts since the season began have been about Perch being league 1 quality and that inevitably fucking us up. So now you're saying Taylor and Colo aren't good enough, the same Taylor and Colo who proved one of the best Cb partnerships we've had in yonks should be broken up to for some pursuit of "strength in depth". Hilarious. The concern previosuly expressed was if Colo get's injured we're fucked, not if Colo, Taylor and Willaimson are fucked. Perch did not cost us the game yesterday. Never said a word about Colo. Our best player. ALWAYS said Taylor ain't good enough. There's no 'now' about it. The fear has always been Perch getting a game. Under any circumstances....or Williamson tbh...though less so. Based upon this seasons performances you've been proven wrong then. The notion that Taylor would be happy being relegated to the bench (due to buying someone else) is crazy. He was all but off to Everton, couple of summers ago, he'd be offski even more so now given his form up until the injury. Bottom line for me is IF we buy a CB it will likely be a young-ish up and coming type who will fight it out with Williamson to partner Colo, It won't be a direct Taylor replacement/equivalent, (although it'd be good if he turned out as viable competition) because Taylor'll be back and it'd also be good to add a kid or two as it would appear we don't have any kid at CB worth shit. No I haven't. He's personally looked no better. He's not improved anything about his game, he just had better protection from the players in front of him this year. he'd like to have had other teams interested.....but they weren't, not even Everton. But you think those not good enough for Everton should be our first choice?

They get 10m cause they are in London and recently of the CL and seen as regular qualifiers for Europe now. They also have a very good reputation as a brand across Europe. Aye.

Aye, point was however much Ashley has had to pour into ownership due to his fuckups, it's still not cost as much as the daftest deal currently out there. At the time he bought it was "only" £134m though. Spurs get £10m a year just for shirt sponsorship alone, rather than spend £10m a year on a high profile shirt sponsorship deal for Sports Direct, much better to own a club for 10 years at a cost of £13.4m a year, and then sell it and get your money back.

Sochaux striker Modibo Maiga is due to travel to Newcastle on Tuesday to undergo a medical test ahead of a move to the Sports Direct Arena next month, according to reports from France. The Magpies were linked with a move in August for Maiga, something that resulted in an internal suspension for the striker. Newcastle were then reported to Fifa by Sochaux over their alleged approaches. The 25-year-old is expected to move to the Premier League in a deal said to be worth between 7 and 8 million euro (£6-7million) and the Mali international will sign a four-and-a-half year deal with the club. Maiga has scored four goals in 10 games for Sochaux this season after 15 goals in 36 appearances for the side last season. Sochaux are now expected to begin their search for a successor to Maiga. http://www.footballgossip.org.uk/index.php/2011/12/12/newcastle-united-news-maiga-set-for-tuesday-medical/ Nailed on

Except that when John Hall sold him his stake he was quoted as saying the new fella wants to use the club to gain international recognition for his brand. Sounds like a plan from day 1. Yeah, well it would have pretty much happened from day 1 if that was the real motivating factor tbh. An element of it would have occured to him (he'd be unlikely to miss the trick tbh) but it wasn't his reason for buying a football club for hundreds of millions of quid. While it's a slightly different way of looking at it, if he was considering buying it now, do you think he would? Would he shite. Plus he's tried to flog us in the interim. It may well be the case now but you'd have to suspend all your critical faculties trying to reverse engineer it into some sort of overall 'plan' from day 1. He says he's tried to sell us. But what he did was go out on the piss and say "£400m or fuck off!". Not exactly Glengarry Glen Ross hunger for the leads. I think he had ideas of doing a great job and renaming things at the height of our success. It would have done him no favours to come in and cut the ribbon on the Donnay stand on day 1. If he goes ahead and sells the naming rights to anyone else, I might think different, as it is though, I think the only thing that slowed his branding push was his own fuck up and subsequent relegation. Well put it this way, I suppose what I have trouble with with the 'SD from day 1' branding theory is the way it's somehow implicit that acquiring NUFC for the price he did was worth hundreds of millions of quid to him simply in branding alone. Because it wasn't. Given the sort of person he is I'd be astonished if he didnt have half a mind on some SD promotional schemes when buying the club, but in terms of being his plan for buying....I don't think so. It's now become this unified theory though and one which is supposed to underpin everything he does from hereon in and everything he has ever done. It's cobblers. As you say yourself it'd have been better if he'd done it for a 'successful' team, which is probably true, but that being so, that remains the case now. So it equally supports the theory he should push us forward on the pitch. Only people don't accept that side of the logic. I don't think he will either necessarily, but not because of the branding theory, just because I think he runs the club on a whim. He'll make money off it because he can make money off it but it's worth little more as an indicator of his plans for NUFC than that. He's still spent less buying the club, paying off all the debt and financing relegation/promotion than Etihad have at Man City for their sponsorship deal....and he has full control of the club, and a permanant deal rather than 10 year, he doesn't just have to sit back and rely on anyone else who might fuck up his advertising budget. Think that sort of control was worth £134m to him, rather than spending, even half that on a Stadium naming sponsorship deal anywhere else. You see it as a football investment which he gets the added bonus of branding from. I see it as a branding move where he enjoys the benefit of running a club on the side. Either way though, one side of both views went sour pretty quickly and only the other side remains as a priority.

19 pages in I can't comprehend the thought that we haven't seen his FIFA/PES numbers yet? NO need. Parky has ratifyied him. Right or wrong, you'll just throw a strop when he does nowt for 11 games and gets dropped to the bench

19 pages in I can't comprehend the thought that we haven't seen his FIFA/PES numbers yet?

Except that when John Hall sold him his stake he was quoted as saying the new fella wants to use the club to gain international recognition for his brand. Sounds like a plan from day 1. Yeah, well it would have pretty much happened from day 1 if that was the real motivating factor tbh. An element of it would have occured to him (he'd be unlikely to miss the trick tbh) but it wasn't his reason for buying a football club for hundreds of millions of quid. While it's a slightly different way of looking at it, if he was considering buying it now, do you think he would? Would he shite. Plus he's tried to flog us in the interim. It may well be the case now but you'd have to suspend all your critical faculties trying to reverse engineer it into some sort of overall 'plan' from day 1. He says he's tried to sell us. But what he did was go out on the piss and say "£400m or fuck off!". Not exactly Glengarry Glen Ross hunger for the leads. I think he had ideas of doing a great job and renaming things at the height of our success. It would have done him no favours to come in and cut the ribbon on the Donnay stand on day 1. If he goes ahead and sells the naming rights to anyone else, I might think different, as it is though, I think the only thing that slowed his branding push was his own fuck up and subsequent relegation.

Except that when John Hall sold him his stake he was quoted as saying the new fella wants to use the club to gain international recognition for his brand. Sounds like a plan from day 1.

Can't see it myself. If true, why alienate paying fans for no reason whatsoever as much as he's been keen to? They aren't alienated enough not to go. It was a sell out against Chelsea. I'm not saying he isn't using the club to push the brand, I'm saying it's not the main priority. Difficult to judge him as whatever his aim is for the club moves all the time on past evidence. Quarter of the crowds were lost until ticket prices were slashed though. Either way, whether he wants to recoup cash, or get Sports Direct in the news....it better suits his goal to finish 17th and sell Tiote for £20m, than to finish 7th and keep hold of him.

Can't see it myself. If true, why alienate paying fans for no reason whatsoever as much as he's been keen to?

On top of the equal share... 7th place gets £10.6m 17th place gets £3m So that's a Mauro Boselli worth of difference worth playing for. You can see why there's little insentive to do much more than survive.

How much? £4m or £5m difference in prize money? Compared to £20m+ transfer fee?

Think we'll have it spot on if you work out the averages and present it in a bar chart.

Nah, his goal is to push his brand globally. Top half of the table allows him to do that, he'll see that we won't get as huge a fee from selling Tiote as we did Carroll. As much because he's not English as because of his position. Ashley must know that with Krul, Colo and Tiote as the core surrounded by a mix of promise and average, can finish top half. Not saying I'm happy with such mediocre ambitions, but that's the reality as I see it. I think we'll see a couple players come in (more than Ashley would have wanted, but Taylor's injury must force him to change tactic) and none of the core* leave. *Krul, Colo, Taylor, Tiote, Cabaye, Jonas, Demba We're on TV loads anyway. It's not as though coming 11th makes much difference to coming 8th as far as pushing the brand is concerned. Not sure that is his major concern like (i.e. as far as NUFC is concerned). I don't think Ashley restricts pushing the brand to advert visibility in our televised games. He wants us in the news headlines too, for better or worse. I truly believe this is why there was a two pronged name change 1) @St.James' 2)Arena...because it got the Twittersphere and everyone else up in arms over the same thing twice for the price of one. Replacing a mediocre manager like Hughton who had done nowt wrong and was exceeding expectations with another mediocre manager like Pardoo had a similar news generating effect for the 'Sports Direct tycoon'. We've always been a bit of a media circus, i think it was one of the main attractions for fatty.....If he had bought a Stoke type club it would have been much cheaper but it was never going to generate the same headlines was it? He could as easily have kept them mid-table and renamed their stadium.

Needs ordered by score really... Yohan Cabaye - 80 Demba Ba - 79 Hatem Ben Arfa - 79 Fabricio Coloccini - 79 Jonás Gutiérrez - 79 Cheick Tioté - 78 Steven Taylor - 76 Steve Harper - 75 Sylvain Marveaux - 75 Davide Santon - 75 Danny Simpson - 75 Mike Williamson - 75 Tim Krul - 74 Dan Gosling - 73 Ryan Taylor - 73 Leon Best - 72 Danny Guthrie - 72 Peter Løvenkrands - 71 Gabriel Obertan - 71 Alan Smith - 70 James Perch - 69 Nile Ranger - 67 Rob Elliot - 65 Tamás Kádár - 65 Haris Vuckic - 61 Ryan Donaldson - 60 Ole Söderberg - 60 Bradden Inman - 57 Shane Ferguson - 56 Jóan Símun Edmundsson - 52

If the gear is worth £18m and Buffon was £32m (and Gordon is worth £9m) Krul must be on the £28m mark.

What's a mask? Like a gimp thing?

James "The Ruminator" Perch Hope he doesn't head the ball when he's concentrating that hard.

Houston, we have a flouncer!

Is Arseis his alter ego? I can only assume. Seems to be some overlap. Whoever it is like, can't be real.