OTF

I for one don't care where people see Bolton and I think you'll struggle to find anyone else here who does, but that's well besides the point. Don't take what Leazes says as being pro you, it's simply anti-Ashley (and it is a justified position). If we're talking Everton vs Newcastle alone then spending £35m wisely (No Dennis) would put our squad above your current team. Now, if you were to spend 15 million then we'd be on a relatively level footing. The problem for you is that you don't have £15m to spend, do you? The only way to have that would be to take that value out of the side (ie. selling Rodwell and/or Fellaini). We've already done that with Carroll, so to include the £15m spend you're not competing on a level playing field. One positive for us is that Ben Arfa effectively will be a new player for us this season (how many times have we heard this sort of thing before). On the contrary it's extremely likely that Enrique will leave which will be a huge loss. In the end it will all come down to league position next season when comparing*. What happens between now and then will be interesting and will set the tone. It could go in so many ways that's it's really not that useful to discuss. It is fun though, so let the good chatter roll... * No doubt though the lower positioned side will have plenty of excuses to fall back on - injuries, manager, owner etc.

Sad but true. I think the last two seasons have shown that good comradery and team spirit makes a massive difference to performance across a season. It doesn't all just come down to the quality of the players, though obviously it all contributes.

We have guarantees that it will be spent. Well yeah, there is that possibility. You've pretty much admitted that we're already not far behind you on the field if £35m makes us obviously better. Not bad for a newly promoted side eh? ...When you've had to bust your guts for years to earn the right for people to consider you relatively likely to finish in the region of 5-8 in the league. Must upset you when you've granted Bolton the same status when their league position in the last 3 seasons was 16th, 13th, 14th.

Everton are seemingly floundering, and as always financially skint. They've got about as many strikers as us, and about as much quality in the bunch. Yet ours have scored more goals this season - Everton Beckford 7 Anichebe 0 Saha 7 Total: 14 Newcastle Ameobi 5 Best 6 Lovenkrands 4 Total: 15 That's obviously not including the 11 from Carroll before he left. Nolan too has Cahill beaten 12 goals to 9. Everton do have some good players; Jagielka, Arteta before this season, Baines good in attack, Coleman also handy getting forward, Rodwell promising, Cahill instinctive match winner. Fellaini deviates from shite to quality, but all the while he's a foul committing machine that can't spell run let alone do it. With 35m properly spent next season we'd have a better side than them. That would complete the hat-trick - better side, better stadium, higher turnover. But I suppose Everton are nice and established as a top 5-8 team in their falling down stadium with their manager that half the fans want to see the back of. They've been bouncing off the ceiling of their potential for a few years now with no signs of doing anything to further themselves. 8th last season and likely to finish 7th this year. Not horrible, but always failing to live up to their own expectation. There's virtually no difference between finishing 7th and 17th in the league this season with 7th getting no European football a few extra pounds which the oweners are absolutely desparate for. Just my thoughts, don't care if I'm wrong.

QPR will already be paying his wages. Maybe this is a way for Ashley to hide the transfer fee and wage reduction so that he doesn't have to include it in the summer spendings.

Lovenkrands was a penalty every day of the week. Hernandez on the other hand was tenuous. You see some given, but more often than no it isn't. It was a silly leg from Simpson though.

Think they were just both to bring on a pair of fresh legs. as we thought. We had no other striker other than Ranger. I thought Ameobi looked like he was going to wrap his hand in with Vidic mind, he'd had enough. Totally outplayed. Lovenkrands was typically anonymous too. He's not good enough. Tbh Lovenkrands had a pretty good game. Covered a lot of ground in the first half, getting into good positions and closing down very well. Earned what should have been a penalty in the second half. In the second half for the most part our midfield was very poor, Barton in particular and Guthrie to a lesser extent were spraying loads of long balls (mostly errantly) that turned possession straight back over to them. Wouldn't really have mattered who we had up front. We should though have a vastly superior first set of strikers. Lovenkrands and Shola are good enough to come off the bench but not to start - can't rely on Ameobi to be available and match fit anyway. In theory there is sufficient cash available to move our team into the next bracket in terms of quality. Depth is another thing, but if Ben Arfa and Gosling are available all season then there's better depth than we've had for a while - making the huge and foolish assumption that we bring in at least three players of sufficient quality (two strikers and a winger). That's also suggesting we keep all of out current players including Enrique (ha!)

In the end that's a good point. We should have had a penalty though, both of their shouts were nonsense. I didn't like the way we played like school-boys in the second half, sending the ball forwards whenever we got it. Just meant that they had a mountain of possession.

Jonas doing the Nani. Incredibly lucky there. Horrible miss from Giggs who has had a poor game. Ireland finally on the pitch for us, replacing Lovelyhands.

Ameobi has to come off, he's spent.

FFS nailed on penalty that was.

Good for them to pick up a yellow (Carrick) before the half. Nani should have one also. Great block Enrique. Half time 0-0. Entertaining match, if we had their potency around goal we'd have scored by now.

Lovenkrands shocked that the ball got through to him there. Shame because he's been good so far. Enrique's range of passing in tight spaces and angles has been excellent.

Simpson not having a good game unfortunately. Too much enthusiasm perhaps.

Nani, diving cheat. Should have a yellow for sure by now.

He's (Jonas) the puppet master - pulling their strings nicely.

Lovely from Jonas and Enrique. Positive start after the early scare. Krul did very well, hopefully that will settle him. Lovenkrands movement has been excellent.

1st and 100th both against Mancheter United. Hopefully an equally impressive performance from him in this game.

Hope we don't go out there to kick them. Obviously don't take a step backwards, but no intentional fouls. Could easily make us pay from set pieces for one. On our pitch no reason we can't take our game to them a bit without overcommitting forward and giving them space. They'll win this game 6 times out of 10, we'd nab one and the others would be draws. Here's hoping for a one in ten performance. I always look forward to us playing them despite our poor results against them of late. You know Ferguson takes us seriously and that means that any result that we do get is that much more meaningful. Rooney normally plays well against us, odious troll faced ginger that he is. Coloccini and Willo have got a job between them to look after him. Putting Enrique on the Wayne might be an option, though with Nani and Giggs they have some more than decent widemen as well.

There's no reason there shouldn't be speculation. They've had a reasonable squad for a few years now and have routinely had horrible runs that see them slide down the table from promising positions. Often that's a result of lack of motivation in the players. A large part of the onus for that would have to lay with the manager. I'm guessing that a problem at Sunderland is that the owners aren't seeing a good return and so don't want to outlay any extra cash to shift Bruce.

Arsenal failing to win certainly won't hurt our chances here. Tiote and Shola back into the side will also be good. Guthrie might be a little more effective alongside Tiote in the middle.

I'll admit that I've seen all of Desperate Housewives. Watch with the other half. Far from my favourite show, but enough about it to keep me watching. Not ashamed to admit it because you can't lose respect when you don't have any to begin with.

Worrying having such bad knee injuries early on. Hopefully like Ben Arfa he can get on the pitch for a few games by the end of the season so we can at least get a little bit of a look at what he's capable of.

I'd prefer that we keep him. At 1.5M there's every chance that you get someone worse. We need another right winger anyway on top of a backup, the more we spend on one the better our first 11 becomes. Keeping Routledge as the backup makes sense. Some pace off the bench is always good to have and he's shown he's not adverse to the odd goal.

Honestly, the worst part about this, and it's something that Leazes has been noting for some time now, is that this is yet another sign that the owner and board at NUFC are not at all behind Alan Pardew. I have no doubt that Pardew has believed everything that he's said (about Carroll in the past and now about Enrique) but he has to be learning quickly that the owner and board only tell him what's actually going on at the club when it suits their agenda. In this case I have a feeling that there is in fact no deal done between Enrique and Liverpool - as they're not going to have been silly enough to risk punitive damage by tapping up the Spaniard. Nonetheless though this kind of derisory contribution to any semi-realistic attempt by Newcastle United to actually legitimately resign Enrique will have an impact. Already there is a suggestion from some that he's lost his enthusiasm and determination on the field, certainly he's not been at the standard he was earlier in the season. At this stage there is a legitimate reason for this - a niggling injury. If it continues through to the end of the season when his full match conditioning has returned then perhaps there is more to it. He has to be completely aware now that clubs with far more ambition are interested in signing him, and now would be the time to do so. The only reason he has to be loyal to Newcastle United are the supporters and some of his team mates. In the context of modern football that doesn't count for much. Whatever the case I cannot see the club offering him a suitably improved contract, which there is obviously money there to do. Some of the money from the Carroll sale would be well spent in improving Enrique's deal. Let's not forget that we had a much higher wage spend (with numerous players signed under Ashley) in our last Premier league season so there's no reason that there shouldn't be enough room to make a legitimate improved offer to Enrique without even looking at the money from Carroll's sale. The nail in the coffin will be if there is any sort of negative reaction from the supporters towards Enrique at the next home game. Like I mentioned earlier the support are one of the only two reasons that could potentially keep him here so if they go any miniscule chance of him re-signing will also. The most frustrating aspect of this all for me, is that even will Carroll gone, we're not that far off having a very competitive side. Retain Enrique, Barton and Nolan and we need only to get a couple of strikers and a couple of wingers in, something entirely possible within the constraints of a 35M budget. I'd even have Routledge back as one of the wingers, costing us nothing and freeing up more of the 35m to improve our front line. Don't know how I can retain any sort of optimism given what we've witnessed over the last few seasons.