OTF

<_< Well said.

I'll have whatever the guy who wrote that article is having..

Yep. 8 million for him with such little experience is good business as he did have some big weaknesses. This season he hasn't really been needed at all and next season would have been the final year of his three year contract. At the end of that he could have left for nothing. Business wise it was defintely the right decision, and team wise it didn't work out too poorly. Plus, any financial gain has been swallowed up by the relegation. I suppose it made financial sense to sell him once we went down but he's different class to what we have going into next season. Money coming in is required to help financially when the income takes a big hit as it does with relegation. I agree though that he's a different type of player to what we have in that he's a big physical central defender who isn't slow. Hopefully they can get back scouting over in France as their league is in quite a strong position at the moment, so with a bit of luck, and a lot of optimism maybe they can find another Bassong or similar.

They got us back when they sold us Owen though. True.

In the premier league where the standard of opposition is on average better than the countries he's been scoring against (Belarus, Andorra, Trinidad & Tobago, Egypt in which 1 was clearly off-side) he has a return of 5 in 29. Granted he offers a different dimension to most of the other candidates. He could possibly be the only not passed it sort of 'post' player that England have as an option.

...Most of Crouch's goals have been easy goals against shit opposition. Fair play to him, he's half decent, but I think there's several better forwards in the picture. In the premier league where the standard of opposition is on average better than the countries he's been scoring against (Belarus, Andorra, Trinidad & Tobago, Egypt in which 1 was clearly off-side) he has a return of 5 in 29.

Good thing in the end that he didn't come back to us when he was deciding where to go. Would have slotted straight back into the Jonathan Woodgate ward of the Newcastle United medical facilities. Still amazes me how much Real Madrid shelled out to get him from us.

If Jagielka picks back up where he left off (prior to his injury) then he should definitely be the first reserve for centre back (and behind Terry and Ferdinand on reputation alone). The fact that Crouch is considered good enough to start by many is worrying. Probably down to most people thinking that Defoe and Rooney can't play well together.

Bringing Butt on was a horrendous decision. Committing fouls and lofting useless balls into the box - pathetic. Routledge and Enrique on the bench for precisely what reason? Pacrate was having a poor game with Routledge a perfect replacement and when Coloccini picked up a knock Kadar could have slotted into central defense with Enrique coming in on the left. If they're not ready to play why name them in the side? Amateur. Best coming on wasn't a great sub either even though he tried hard there was nothing for him.

Whilst I can normally at least understand the ideas behind your thoughts, this is just flat out ridiculous.

....and Thread Closed! PS - I really want to see the dog/frisbee/pony combination.

Some may call it tempting fate but assuming we're promoted at the end of this season I'd like to see what everyones hopes are for the off-season, and also what their actual expectations are. There will be one provision on the hopes front though - the club won't be sold. Other than that hopes can be whatever you believe will be the best actions that can be taken for the club. Expectations will be what you're expecting from our current owner/board. Feel free to go into as little, or as much detail as you like. I'll kick it off. Hopes - We see 4 or 5 new faces in or about our first team. Amongst them there should be a balance of youth, creativity, pace and experience and they should be aimed at filling the holes in our side. Namely then the number one priority is a central midfield player, with focus also on a right back, and up front. In total, expenditure wise I'd be happy with 20-25 million pounds being spent on transfer fees and moderate wages. I'm not interested in us having to pay ridiculous wages to get a player here. To this end the focus may have to be on players outside of England in smaller leagues. Nicky Butt should not have his contract renewed. Expectations - We'll see 2 or 3 new players come in but they won't necessarily be of the quality that we're hoping. All in all it will be an underwhelming offseason where Hughton and Llambias talk about the solid nucleus of players that earnt promotion that they'll be calling on to do a job in the premier league. Our total expenditure won't exceeed 10 million.

The idea behind getting the contracts down is good it will balance out the wage structure, so that there's not valuable new/newer players on much lower wages thean their less valuable older team mates. Good luck getting these greedy bastards to take a pay cut though!

It could well be, and no doubt he does look better than he will against vastly superior opposition. I do think though that his head dropped when he realised the sunny picture that had been painted for him of Newcastle was far from the truth. There was some comments from him last season to this effect also. He's not very good against a quick forward with the ball on the deck. Torres had a field day against him last season, though tankfully there's not too many Torres calibre players in the league.

Agree with all that. Leaves the fans in a right shit position.

Not in the Championship but last season in the Premier League the performances were woeful and the attendances barely noticed. This season coming will be a telling one to that effect. I hope the ST numbers dwindle and Ashley is forced to play his hand and buy an exciting player of note before the season kicks off to add some buzz and excitement. In the past they'd probably have tried to do it by leaking all sorts of ridiculous rumours to the press and getting the likes of Joe Kinnear to sprout some rubbish. With Hughton though I think he'll always be honest, so their latest turn has been to play the we're doing it tough card to gain sympathy and an understanding that there's not going ot be any big signings. I'd like to see what some people would like Ashley to do. I'd assume the answer will be to spend 30 or so million to turn the squad around, but if that ultimately means we finish in 10th instead of 15th financially we'll effectively be in a worse position having spent the money and that's not sustainable. I think this is more than a problem just for Newcastle BTW it's something that the League itself needs to look at.

I agree he certainly doesn't have the engine of Milner, but that's something that he can work on. It's been hard to tell what he's like over 90 minutes as whenever I've seen a full match this season he's been played out of position and plainly half the time he doesn't know what to do and keeps drifting in-field. That's why, in a moment of optimism, I turned to that moment to signify his commitment. You can't say that it's anything but a good sign that he made an effort to get back to scupper their chance on goal given the circumstances of the match. At any length I hope Hughton sticks with Guthrie in the centre till the end of the season. I honestly think that with a consistent run in the side in his preferred position he'll be capable of lifting his game to be relatively competitive in the Premier League. I have to hope that anyway as it's not like we'll be signing a better replacement.

It's true, we're not going to see any real glamour in our side for some time to come unless by some stroke of luck some of the young players develop into stars. That's one of the side affects of at least trying to be fiscally responsible, which is much easier to do when you've got no real attachment to the side and when the fans will seemingly turn up regardless of how poorly the team is performing.

It shouldn't be understated the value added and the work done by the Hall's and Shepherd's in developing our youth sides and training facilities. I shudder to think of the the great many injuries that we could have incurred if it weren't for our fantastic training ground and facilities. In addition when I look through our first team squad and see all the exceptional local talent I'm loathe to think of what it could have been like if we didn't have such a conveyor belt of talent coming through from our youth ranks thanks to the excellent vision and foresight of the Hall's and Shepherd's.

Phil is a funny name for joey's mum.

He was the one busting his arse trying to get back to cover for Simpson's crap backheader to Coloccini on the weekend. Pretty good if you ask me considering we were 6-0 up at the time and there was three defenders in a deeper position than him. He's not a top player because he lacks explosiveness and pace. In some ways I liken him to Milner in that if he puts in the effort he's talented enough to be a very effective player. Ranger has looked decent in the minimal run outs that he has got, but so far has lacked the finishing that will be required for a weak side in the Premiership (have to take advantage of as many of our chances as possible). Dr Gloom I hope your name is indicative of your outlook, because your suggestion that we're going to need more than three new first teamers to survive means that we'll be going down for sure next season. A good way to look at the value of our squad this season is to compare it to the likes of the mid-lower tabled side sin the league. Surprisingly there's quite a few that I think we could compete with currently, though I'm not up to date with many of the lesser known players in these sides.

Lovenkrands was actually ok for us in the Prem though he did look a bit of a soft touch. We know now that he was played out of position on the left most of the time. He's a forward pure and simple, anywhere else on the pitch and he doesn't have the physicality nor experience to compete. He'll do an ok job in the Premier League as a forward balanced off the physicality of Shola or Carroll. 1st team: Harper, S. Taylor, Coloccini, Enrique, Jonas. Maybe/Squad: Routledge, Guthrie, Lovenkrands, Nolan, Barton, Simpson, Carroll, Ameobi, Kadar, Williamson, R. Taylor. The key for me next season will be to have the depth in all positions to have a decently feasible replacement in the case of injury. Other than that we need to have a settled team, particularly in defense, as well as a team that's capable of creating goals (ie. not a wonder pairing of Smith and Butt in the middle - though thankfully Butt will be no more next season). With Enrique, Jonas, Routledge and Lovenkrands we have a decent amount of pace in our side but I'd still like to see some additional quick players added to the mix. Can't see Pancrate being re-signed, nor Fitz Hall. Butt will retire. Smith and Barton will remain as noone will be interested in buying them. Xisco may attract a buyer from Spain, though it will be at a large loss on that 'wise' investment, plus he'll have to take a hit on wages.

We're not going to be able to sell him anyway so I say all we can do is hope that by some small miracle he doesn't have any further injury problems and can get a little bit of time on the pitch between now and the end of the season as well as a full off-season to lead him into next season. It's been a long time since he has played decent football, so it's a big ask to expect anything from him but hopefully he still has some personal pride left as he has a hell of a lot to prove.

Wonder what the Liverpool owners will do if they fail to qualify for the Champions league... Hope I get to find out

I agree with the first part, but I honestly can't see any sort of large scale purchase happening before next season. No doubt there will be some movement on the market, as there should theoretically be a larger pool of players to pick from in the off-season. In particular I think Ashley will be directing Hughton to have a good look over the players in the Portsmouth, Burnley and Hull sides as they'll look to snap some of their more talented players up on the cheap as those clubs are forced to adjust their wage bill appropriately (though relative to us they've probably already got modest wage bills). The idea of buying promising young players and bringing them through the system is theoretically a good one where-by somehow hopefully the players will form an attachment to the club so they won't be forced to shell out the larger wages to attract out of towners. What it doesn't allow for is the current quality of the first team, which will need some reshaping. Nicky Butt's wages should cover a pretty decent player I would imagine for starters, depending how much the actual transfer costs (as I speak no doubt Ashley will have Hughton looking over players on the final years of their contracts). The other problem with bringing through youth players is that the club really does have a pretty horrible record of doing so. The best player to come out of the Newcastle area of late is Michael Carrick and he was nicked from under our noses by a London side. Seldom do we see the best performers in our youth/reserve sides given a reasonable chance to prove themselves in the top side - look at Kazenga Lualua, he's been showing promise for some time and it looked like he might crack it into the first team on occassion, now he's slipped back off the radar and has been loaned out.