Optimistic Nut

One little question. IF this comes off (and it's still a bloody big if mind), would people's opinions of Shepherd & Souness change?

And why the hell would Real Madrid accept a Loan deal when they can have £18m there and then?! As Phil Thompson said, he may come here and enjoy it so much that he wants to stay.

The thing is that if he had been our first target and we had made a bid for him a couple of weeks ago we probably wouldn't have got him. There were other clubs interested and I think he only turned his sight on playing for Newcastle because the transfer window is closing and the likes of Real Madrid chose other targets. Anyway knowing the Deportivo chairman I don't think we have heard the last word in this case. 16360[/snapback] I agree Isegrim. It's an almost identical situation to the Pandiani to Birmingham transfer. One day, Bruce is on SSN saying he'll be a Brum player within the next 48 hours, a couple of days later, Karren Brady was saying they wouldn't meet Depor's "valuation" of the player...a few days later he signed for Birmingham for the original fee they offered. I think this might just be a case that their chairman/President is an even bigger tit than Freddie.

Exactly Leazes. Replace Milner, Shearer & N'Zogbia with Bellamy, Kluivert & Robert in that game on Saturday, and we'd have won easily.

And here are those stats. Newcastle's results when two of Bellamy, Robert & Kluivert played P 29, W 17, D 6, L 6. Newcastle's results with one or none of Bellamy, Robert & Kluivert P 28, W 8, D 10, L 10. Baring in mind two of those 8 wins came against Coventry & Southampton, the Heerenveen away one coincided with Robert coming on, and in 3 of the other 5 wins either Robert or Kluivert scored, then it doesn't justify their sales IMO.

I'd love to know the stats for our record when two of those three were in the side compared to when they weren't...give me 30 mins on www.nufc.com and I'll come back with the answer.

Good week there, with Given, Boumsong, Terry, A. Ferdinand, Lampard & Defoe scoring good points for me.

How we could have done with that in our last 4 competitive matches though.

Game Over

It could be the start of the Taylor legend if he can snuff out Rooney.

Probably Luque coming on as a sub making his debut with 20 minutes to go after we're already 3-0 down.

Yep, I remember that. The start of the 2000-1 season when Robson said he'd do the England job part-time meaning he'd be away from the Newcastle squad at times, and Freddy had to tell him to naff off. Yet Lua-Lua, Solano & even Acuna got punished for wanting the same thing.

(Thinks of Brent & Dawn in The Office) GS - "Alan, do you think I'm a good manager?" AS - "Whoa, yes, definitely" GS - "Well I wish you'd tell that lot. Do you think I'm better than Bobby?" AS - "Yes" GS - "What stuff do you like?" AS - "Oh, um, there's so much...um, what is there again?" GS - "Do you like the 4-5-1 impersonation I do" AS - "Yes, definitely"

Roeder??? Oh for f*ck sake.

Were Arsenal much better against us last week? I don't think so. Just they got the lucky break with the penalty, we didn't.

One person who I'm really worried about who may regret joining us is Boumsong, particularly if he has a good World Cup next summer.

Bollocks. Forgot about this.

Babayaro Taylor Parker

Perhaps my radar was a little off in August. My wires crossed and actually it was Luque to sign for us not score against us.

Given 6 - F**k all to do Babayaro 8 - IMO, best game in a NUFC shirt, looked decent going forward and knocked one off the line Carr 6 - Average Boumsong 7 - Solid Taylor 7 - Solid at the back, but looked lost in the WHU area Bowyer 6 - Okay Parker 7 - Did his job, but offered nothing going forward N'Zogbia 5 - Poor (Clark 6 - Had best chance) Milner 5 - Poor Jenas 6 - Not bad Shearer 4 - Couldn't have held up a post office full of grannies with a machine gun. Made Gabbidon look like Nesta. The man is FINISHED.

He also says that he doesn't understand the fact that we offered 15m Euros and Depor haven't allowed him to leave yet.

Luque himself has said the move is imminent, and is pissed off with Depor that he wasn't here today.

http://www.marca.es/edicion/noticia/0,2458,665386,00.html Says there's only "one or two minor details" to finish off his transfer to Newcastle.

Agree with SSR. Even for the England Under 21s, he was the one who stood out amongst the likes of Defoe, Crouch, Johnson, Bent, Cole, etc. which I put down to his style of football being suited to the Continental style.

Viana alone is worth more than £2m, but if it means sacrificing a couple of million to get Luque, it'd be worth it.