ohhh_yeah

Simply the best? I enjoy hearing Terry and Mourinho whinging.

This interview will be detested by Ashley and Pardew. Reported that this was not sanctioned by the club. Depressing reading his version of the events. There is not a more popular player at Newcastle United than Hatem Ben Arfa, yet he has been frozen out of the first team squad by Alan Pardew, an unpopular manager who is fighting to save his job. In the story of an unravelling season at St James’ Park, this is a fascinating sub plot. Ben Arfa is the fans’ favourite who says he wants to help reverse a run of form that has seen Newcastle lose 14 out of their last 19 games, including the last six on the spin. Pardew is the beleaguered manager who has been abused by his own supporters, not just for his apparent inability to inspire the team, but also for the decision to ostracise Ben Arfa. Newcastle are a team desperate for creative inspiration like a fish gasping for air on a river bank and the fans know it. Rarely does a game go by when they do not chant Ben Arfa’s name, but it seems Pardew no longer shares their faith in the France international. Having tried to claim Ben Arfa was injured a few weeks ago, Pardew admitted after the drab 3-0 defeat at Arsenal, that he had not picked him because he did not think he merited a place in the squad.I just want to play,” said Ben Arfa, as he gazed out over the River Tyne through the window of a Quayside hotel. “I'm fit. I'm not injured. I feel sad and frustrated, but not angry. I want to help my team and I can’t. It hurts a lot. I think I can offer my flair, my creativity offensively. “I don’t know why I’m not playing. You have to ask the manager, it is not my decision. This has been the hardest season for me at Newcastle. “He [Pardew] told me I had to score more and get more assists for everybody's confidence, the supporters, the players and him. I said ‘okay, but I have to play.” Asked whether he feels he has been made a scapegoat for the team’s problems since Christmas, there is a lengthy pause before he replies: "I can't be the only reason for the problem. “I can only do so much and I am not on the pitch. Maybe if I I'm on the pitch and we lose five nil I get blamed and that is normal. I take a lot of responsibility. “Every player needs confidence. Every player in the world needs confidence to show their best. It is hard to come in [from the bench] during games and it is very hard for the player if you are substituted at half time, like I was against Southampton. It hurt me so bad. I had tried, it was very hard.” Ben Arfa is quick to add that he “respects” the manager’s decision and denied he has fallen out with Pardew, adding that he has “been good for Newcastle.” They still speak at the training ground, although he admitted they had argued in the dressing room earlier this month. “There is not a problem, just after the game against Manchester United,” he explained. “We had an exchange of words, but that is it. That happens in every team where the players and the manager want to win. At 27, Ben Arfa should be in his prime. He should be going to the World Cup with France, but he cannot even get on the bench for his club. He has spent the last two weeks “training with the reserves.” The former Marseille and Lyon star is a wonderful footballer, but there have been question marks surrounding his conditioning. There have also been whispers he no longer has many friends in the dressing room because of his attitude. That is also put to him. “If the manager doesn’t pick, he doesn’t pick me. I don’t know about any problems with teammates. I have a lot of good friends at the club. All I know is that I want to train and I want to play and that’s it.” Ben Arfa, a player once described as Pardew as his match winner, has started just 13 league games this season, a stat made all the more bewildering given he would appear to have been the perfect replacement in the “number 10” role after Yohan Cabaye was sold to Paris Saint Germain. “I would play as the number 10 or on the right if the manager wanted me,” Ben Arfa added. “The most important thing for me is, I have a responsibility to the team, but I also need confidence to build my best game and I don’t have that. "It would be better if I had five games to show what I can do. I think Pardew believes in me, but he doesn’t show. I don’t know why. “When I see we are losing games 3-0, 4-0, it is very hard for me. If I was involved [against Cardiff] on Saturday, I think I could make a difference. I would like to try. Ben Arfa could be demanding to leave in the summer, but he has made it clear he does not want to abandon the supporters who idolise him. “If the manager say to me he don't believe in me for next season, I still want to stay,” he explained. “But if the president wants to sell me, I have to go then. “The love of the fans is a big, big thing for me and that's why I want to stay here next season because I want to give back everything they gave me you know. They use big words like “legend” when they speak to me. They give me a lot of confidence, a lot of love and I want to give that love back. “My dream is to be in the top-four next season with Newcastle, to get into the Champions League or to win a cup.”

According to Wikipedia he has that number of wins. Do not think that is the reasoning behind the scheduled time.

Bitter that this will not be made into a major motion picture.

After reading this quote I believe he would be a perfect match for the squad. Salivating at the thought of Williamson or Dummett hoofing the ball up field in the general direction of him. After six seasons of Pardew instructing the team to employ these tactics maybe we can witness a Championship trophy hoisted. “Take a ball, stand in the garden, kick it as high as you can and try and control it without letting it bounce. That always helped me. I’d play out the front of the house, kicking the ball against the wall, left foot, right foot, over and over again. If you keep working on it, working on it, working on it, eventually it will come.”

I despise the mornings I go out onto to my patio and I have a neighbor's chicken waltz up to me to sniff my leg.

Newcastle slipped to a sixth consecutive defeat on Monday night, losing 3-0 at Arsenal, and it is clear for all to see that they are team with absolutely no creative spark. The statistics are damning: The Magpies have scored only once in this dreadful run of defeats and they haven't found the net away from St James' Park in six hours of football. They've failed to score in 13 of their last 16 games. These numbers make the absence of Hatem Ben Arfa ever since match-day 18 look absolutely ridiculous. "With the ball at his feet, he's magic. As magic as Suarez or Messi at times. We had to work with him to understand exactly what he's about. He has got a special talent, we know he's special." The words of Alan Pardew talking about Ben Arfa two years ago after the Frenchman's brilliant display in a 2-0 win over Liverpool. Yet now it is unlikely Ben Arfa will ever play for Newcastle again, and although he has to take his fair share of responsibility for that, the way he has been handled by Pardew has been very poor. The relationship has broken down to such an extent that Ben Arfa's agent recently suggested he will invoke FIFA's 'Article 17' clause to escape from the club in the summer. This clause would allow Ben Arfa to buy himself out of the final year of his contract and leave with Newcastle receiving no transfer fee. So where did it all go wrong for Ben Arfa? His manager's inability to deal with "flair" footballers is the biggest part of the problem. Pardew is an old fashioned manager whose setup of a football team requires 'grafters' and little else. Players like Yoan Gouffran, huge heart but little creative ability, are a dream for the Newcastle manager. Pardew can barely mention Ben Arfa's name without referring to "work rate" and while it is true that all players must play their part, work rate should not be the be all and end all of every player’s selection -- if it is, you find yourself scoring only once in nine hours of football. When Ben Arfa has struck form at Newcastle, he has been a real joy to watch. Top class goals against Fulham, Bolton and Blackburn have won his side matches and Pardew was the first to take the plaudits for how he "handled" the player at those times. The flip side is the manager must also take the flack now that Ben Arfa doesn't even make the bench. Newcastle fans describe Ben Arfa as having been "Pardew'd" -- a term used to describe good players whose form and ability look to have receded badly under Pardew's management. See Moussa Sissoko for instance: When he arrived at Newcastle and played as an all-action central midfielder, he looked like he would be an immense player. A year of playing out of position as a winger and he now looks like a League Two plodder. Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa came in with a huge reputation as a world class centre-half of the future -- Pardew has turned him into a reserve right back. Davide Santon is another. You can go back to West Ham and the eight-game losing streak they endured under Pardew -- Javier Mascherano (now of Barcelona fame) couldn't get a game and the Argentinian was highly critical of Pardew for playing Carlos Tevez as a left winger! Pardew has also been guilty of scape-goating Ben Arfa. He singled him out for criticism after Newcastle were thrashed 0-4 at home by Spurs, even though the Frenchman didn't take the field of play until Newcastle were already two goals behind! Rumours have been rife that Ben Arfa has become unpopular with other players because of his attitude and perhaps this is true. We can't forget that Ben Arfa went on strike from his previous club, Marseille, in order to push through his move to Newcastle and controversy has followed him throughout his career, but I firmly believe that his attitude and off-field habits would have been better if he'd been handled in the way that a player of his obvious ability should have been. I expect Ben Arfa to move on to a new club and excel, leaving Geordie fans wishing that their team was managed by someone more capable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhT6d5fMhzI

Floodgates have been opened.

"Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we'd baptize terrorists."

Wojciech Szczęsny, Bacary Sagna, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, Mikel Arteta, Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Özil, Santi Cazorla, Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud Substitutes: Łukasz Fabiański, Carl Jenkinson, Thomas Vermaelen, Kim Källström, Mathieu Flamini, Tomáš Rosický, Yaya Sanogo Tim Krul; Mathieu Debuchy, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Paul Dummett; Dan Gosling, Vernon Anita, Cheick Tioté, Yoan Gouffran; Moussa Sissoko; Loïc Rémy Substitutes: Rob Elliot, Massadio Haïdara, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, Steven Taylor, Gabriel Obertan, Adam Armstrong, Shola Ameobi

Keith Gillespie has revealed how Sir Alex Ferguson tricked Kevin Keegan when selling him to Newcastle. The former Northern Ireland winger joined the Magpies in 1995 as part of the £7m deal which saw Andy Cole move the other way. But not before Ferguson had intervened a little to ensure his man earned himself a bumper pay day. "After an FA Cup game, we thrashed out terms at midnight in a hotel in Sheffield. Back then I was a £250-a-week player," he told the Sunday Telegraph. "I remember Alex sitting there with a pen and paper, adding up figures and scribbling away. He told a bit of a white lie to Kevin Keegan: 'Keith’s on £600 a week at the moment so he’ll be looking for an increase on that.' "He didn’t tell me this would happen so I sat there with a poker face, giving nothing away. Newcastle were happy to double my wage and an hour later I shook hands on a deal worth £1,200 a week."

Answers! I found answers. October 1, 2010. The television announcer reads in a sombre tone over a montage of clips from my career. “The news that football star Keith Gillespie had been declared bankrupt came in the High Court today. “An order was made against the former Manchester United and Newcastle United winger following a petition by HM Revenue and Customs Commissioners over a £137,000 tax bill. “The 35-year-old spent much of his career in England, having played for Manchester United, Newcastle, Blackburn Rovers, Leicester City and Sheffield United. He also won 86 caps for Northern Ireland...” “Where did it all go wrong? Isn’t that what a hotel porter once said to George Best? I’ve been asked the same question more than once but, unlike George, I don’t have Miss World and stacks of cash lying next to me. It’s usually posed by a drunken stranger in far less glamorous surroundings. At Blackburn, the dressing room comedians christened me “Bestie” alright, but that was more a reference to my roguish tendencies than the playing ability. The name stuck with me, up to and beyond George’s death in 2005. I’ve led a colourful life. I doubt that anyone who crossed my path would describe me as a clean living, model pro. I liked a drink, learned to smoke, and swear by an unhealthy diet. I’ve read what alcoholism did to footballers such as George and Paul McGrath, and I’m grateful to have avoided the affliction of that terrible disease. This man was susceptible to other urges. They didn’t cost me my health, but they almost cost me everything else. How much money did I blow? One afternoon, I figured it out. It’s the closest I’ve come to therapy... until I realised that I actually needed therapy. Working out the bonuses was the hard part - the signing-on fees, the appearance money, the inducements. At Newcastle, we received £50,000 a head for coming second in the league, which was huge money in 1996. By the time I moved onto Blackburn, the globalisation of the Premier League had inflated the wages and the incentives. We earned £1,500 per league point, so two wins on the trot could be worth an extra £9,000. And if you scored a few goals along the way, it helped. So, the calculations took a while. Eventually, we reached a club by club consensus. It went like this... Manchester United £60,000 Newcastle £1,102,000 (plus £250,000 in bonuses) Blackburn £3,510,000 (plus £400,000 in bonuses) Leicester £1,050,000 (plus £40,000 in bonuses) Sheffield United £670,000 (plus £75,000 in bonuses) Bradford £15,000 Glentoran £43,875 Total £7,215,875 A substantial amount of cash, eh? And that’s only a conservative sketch of the incomings. It doesn’t include boot deals, promotional appearances, Northern Ireland match fees, libel settlements and all the other elements that come with the territory. Gambling emptied my pockets. Yet gambling meant nothing to me until I moved to Manchester as an apprentice. My addiction started innocently. It was another lazy afternoon in the apprentice digs and Colin McKee announced that he was going to the bookies - a Ladbrokes at the end of our road. With nothing better to do, I tagged along. What harm? I follow Colin’s lead and start small; we are apprentice footballers earning just £46 a week. I take the slip of paper, scribble down a £1 win bet and walk to the counter. I join the group of eyes trained on the screen, and mutter under my breath a horse other than mine is called the winner. I lose money, but don’t care. The thrill is worth it. I bet on the next race - £2 win this time. I feel a rush of adrenaline when it comes into shot, but another horse is going better. Foiled again, but it doesn’t matter. I want that rush of excitement again. The next day, I returned to the bookies on my own. And the day after, and the day after that... until the days that stand out are the ones where I didn’t go. On Sunday, October 29, 1995, I should have been the happiest man in the world. I was on top of my game, top of the league with Newcastle, and received the ultimate compliment from two of the people I respected most in football, Kevin Keegan and Peter Beardsley. “That lad there could just be the best player in the country at this time, Keegan said. “I wouldn’t disagree,” Pedro replied. I had produced a man of the match display at White Hart Lane... after a destructive 48 hours of gambling that had plunged me into serious debt. I had blown £62,000 - a year’s wages. The majority of the losses had been incurred on Friday, October 27, 1995. My Black Friday. I completely lost the plot. I had grown into one of bookmaker Mickey Arnott’s most prized customers. My favourite bet was a £500 punt on four horses. I’d split them up into four £100 trebles and a £100 accumulator. If one of those came off, Mickey might have £6,000 or £7,000 for me. They were the rare good days. Generally, though, I was the one paying up. Before Black Friday, I’d never lost more than £10,000 in one day. There was moderate flat card at Newmarket, and jumps racing at Bangor and Wetherby. The 2.05 at Newmarket - £1,000 on a horse called Quandary from the all-conquering Henry Cecil stable. He won, but there was no time to dwell on it. I picked up the phone to Mickey’s office and had a punt on the 2.10 at Wetherby. No joy. The 2.20 at Bangor. Loser. Then it was time for Newmarket again, and the sequence continued. I suffered a bout of seconditis. I appreciated a good each-way bet. But on this afternoon, I was betting on the nose, and chasing losses. I upped the stakes to £4,000 a race and got one up. Then stuck another £4,000 on the next and lost it. From then, it was £4,000 on everything. I wasn’t keeping record of how I was doing - that was the danger of betting with invisible money - but I knew I was having a nightmare. The last race of the day, the 4.40 at Bangor, was a National Hunt flat race for horses with little or no racecourse experience - a shot in the dark unless you were in the know. Just two and a half hours after a relatively sensible bet on a good thing at Newmarket, I was sticking £4,000 on a 12/1 shot called Dream Ride. He finished 10th, some 40 lengths behind. I had a few blind stabs on the greyhounds until there was nothing left to bet on. I called Mickey. “What’s the damage?” “You lost £47,000 today.” I lay in bed that night restless, thinking about how to win some of my money back the next day. In the morning, I laid down a variety of bets on the horses and football. There was no mention of the day before. My bets were accepted, no questions asked. I lost another £15,000. Eventually, the story of my Black Friday got out. At first I denied it to Terry McDermott. I sorted Mickey out with a few thousand over the winter. But then it broke in the press. I told my mum. “How much? Thousands? £10,000? More?” “£47,000”. “Aack, son.” I rang the gaffer, Kevin Keegan. I’ll never forget how understanding he was. He let me stay and have some food while he rang Mickey and got it sorted. My saving grace was that I was due a new contract because of my form, a £5,500 a week deal that would rise by £500 every season. The five-fold pay increase eased the burden. Keegan spoke to the club’s hierarchy and organised an advance on the signing-on fee. It was that straightforward. The one thing the gaffer was really annoyed about was that I hadn’t owned up to Terry. When I showed my face at training, the welcome was less sympathetic. The lads were pissing themselves. There was no arm around the shoulder; the unforgiving rules of the dressing room applied and, to be absolutely honest, I was glad of the banter. They seemed to be more amused by the fact that I’d backed a horse called Dream Ride. Two days before Black Friday, I nearly won over £40,000 on betting on a football match - our League Cup tie away to Stoke. A regular at the bookies pointed out that, under Keegan, we commonly won games 2-0, 2-1, 3-0 or 3-1. Pedro hadn’t scored for a few games, so I stuck £500 on him to score first at 6/1. I then placed four £500 doubles, with Pedro to score first paired with final scorelines of 2-0, 2-1, 3-0, and 3-1. We took an early lead, courtesy of none other than Peter Beardsley, who must have wondered why I was so excited. We were cruising, and I was running around the pitch calculating my winnings. When our defence switched off, and their main striker, Paul Peschisolido, raced through on goal, I quickly calculated that the odds for 3-1 were better, and willed him to score but he tried a lob and failed miserably. Still, I was well on course for a win of around £50,000 as the game entered the final five minutes. Then, a remarkable thing happened. Darren Peacock ventured forward. Darren averaged a goal a season in his four years at Newcastle. When a loose ball fell in Darren’s direction, I reckoned it was a good thing. Wrong. 4-0. The other lads raced to celebrate a collector’s item. I couldn’t bring myself to join in. I was up £3,000 from the first scorer bet, but it was scant consolation for what could have been. Keith Gillespie didn’t blow all his money on gambling. There were also misguided investments which racked up huge tax bills just as his income was falling in his mid-30s. Ultimately, it was the tax liabilities on these deals which forced his bankruptcy. He explains: “There was always enough money pouring into my account to deal with the bills that came my way. “That changed in 2007, with a letter from chartered accountants Hanna Thompson, which laid out the tax implications of the film syndicate I’d signed up to back in 2001. “Five full years had passed, and now the little details which I had previously ignored were suddenly very relevant. “My understanding was basic. I was still paying off the £1.3million loan registered in my name with an income stream that showed up in my tax forms every year. “By the declaration of that loan as a trading loss, I’d pocketed the £500,000 tax relief, and blown the majority of it. “The missive from Hanna Thompson detailed that the tax liability due on the Film Partnership Profits was £436,000 spread out over 10 years. “The sums increased until 2016, the final year of the arrangement, the tax due was £70,618. It brought home the insanity of the scheme which I’d signed up to. “Hundreds of footballers also signed up. Sir Alex Ferguson had invested into one called Eclipse 35. “What about the films our syndicate had financed? Our partnership was called Castle Media Film Partnership and there was a rumour that the investment had played a significant part in the creation of (award-winning war drama) Band Of Brothers. But that belonged to Castle Media Partnership II - the sequel to our scheme. “We discovered our three productions: (they were called) The Glass, Starhunter and Bride Of The Wind. “No, I’ve never heard of them either. “Their legacy is the tax bills that drove me into bankruptcy."

“Alan Pardew and his management team had a lot of soul searching to do before they made the decision to send Ben Arfa back to France. “But it was a decision they felt they had to make for the good of the whole football club and the rest of the first team squad “Everybody knows what a good player Ben Arfa is on his day – but this season he has been so negative, both on and off the field, and it has had an effect on the rest of the squad. Indeed, since he has been back in France things among the squad have improved considerably. “Don’t forget It was Pardew who signed Ben Arfa on a permanent basis for Newcastle. And didn’t he describe Ben Arfa’s goal against Bolton Wanderers a couple of years ago as the best he had ever seen? “Pardew has tried everything to get Ben Arfa into the right frame of mind. He has given him time off to go home whenever he wanted and even given him his own physiotherapist, all to no avail. “Not only does Pardew know Ben Arfa is a massive fans’ favourite but also that Mike Ashley is his No.1 fan. “This has made the decision to send him back to France all the more difficult, but it was a decision Pardew and his management team felt they had no choice but to make.”

Not very DIY, CT.

Hope Tito can defeat this cancer and wish him a speedy recovery. Never like to hear about a member of the football community in the hospital labeled as in critical condition.

Babelfish translator tells me agent Oliver Cabrera went to London to discuss the transfer of midfielder Filip Djuricic. Linked to him last window. Would MA sanction meeting his release clause? Can not see that happening myself.

I call bullshit on those being homemade onion rings. The tomato slice on top of the pile looks like you sliced it with a spoon. Bury that on the bottom if you want your meal to appeal to us. Will not even mention those tasty looking branches you included. Oh wait...

We had a contraption like that "hell slide" that us neighbor kids loved to spend our time on. Except our apparatus was called a bridge. We would hurl ourselves off of it and know the only dangers were if we did not stay in the tucked position, hold our breath, or hit the bottom of the ocean and then had to pick broken shells out of the bottom of our feet. For added enjoyment we got to play hide and seek every once and while since the bobbies were searching for us.

but that is not controversial CT, you should be focusing your energy towards great grandma's cooking and her buttered rolls.

The epitome of cringe.

Pro Press them through a sieve and then make your own hot dogs.

Get yourself a butane torch. No need to take time out of your busy schedule mashing away at the three, zero, and start buttons.

Do not think his injury is too serious but expect him to pack it in for the remainder of the season.