OTF

It's all one person's fault, fuck that's a big call. He's painful in his ability not to play but to blame him on Leed's downfall is frankly laughable. Oh wait it's John Carew's fault Villa aren't going to win the champions league next season, isn't it? Then he went and redeemed himself by saying "Stick with Ameobi".

Hi Attain.

Good to see he (Xisco) still has a positive outlook. LIke Andy I still see him as having a future here. Obviously we need to see more from him to know what that future will be like, but he sounds like he'll have a better crack than Luque of getting back into the first team. I sense that unlike Luque, Xisco works hard in training. As for Colo, I think he has played in every game for us this season. He also played in every game for Depor last season. Having that sort of injury free consistency at the back is a good thing, and something we've not had much of in the past. He's made some mistakes this season, but on the whole it's been a reliatively decent transition.

I can't say I approve of that. Michael Jackson's penchant for back filling developing youngsters is what got him prosecuted in the United States. I'll set 'em up, and you knock 'em down.

Llambias and Ashley combined can only aspire to one day know as much as fuck all about football. But they have a five year plan to compensate, don't forget. Which I'm sure they drew up on a big sheet of butchers paper during arts and crafts time.

Llambias and Ashley combined can only aspire to one day know as much as fuck all about football.

A lot of the money that Ashley has 'put into' the club has been to seemingly improve the financial foundations of the club. Any significant outlay of transfer money was done in preparation for the shedding of players on high wages. Eg. Bring in a Xisco for 5 million, shed a Viduka who is costing you that much in wages. Xisco is young and promising, and so will seemingly become a saleable asset. He'll be on wages that are a fraction of the cost of Viduka, and in the design when purchasing I'm sure they foresaw a profit when he is sold. The fact that within their own company and structure they then proceeded to completely fuck up this 'initiative' by not only not playing Xisco in the first team, but also deriding his confidence by having the outspoken manager completely omit him from any of his media verbalised plans (despite having a significant crisis of injuries in that position) speaks volumes for the ineptitute of our Directors/Owner and Management. That's just an example, I personally could name more of their schemes, as could other members of this forum. What's hard for us to do is distance the Owner and his Merry Band of Miscreants from the history and tradition of Newcastle United.

Wise doesn't have the balls to face up to Newcastle supporters at all it seems. We've not heard a peep from him since the Keegan fiasco, and what he did say before that evidently came out to be a complete load of horse-shit. In fact so far removed from the proceedings is Wise, that despite performing in the figurative position of Executive Director (Football) he has seldom been seen overseeing any of the actual footballing matters at the club. This includes the Youth and Reserves matches where he is purported to be charged with identifying and more importantly developing young talent at the club. Anyone that makes a realistic suggestion that Wise would be a suitable candidate to manage the club is so far removed from the reality of the situation that they may as well for all intents and purposes propose that Michael Jackson be signed to back-fill Wise's current role of developing youngsters.

He was out with a serious cruciate ligament injury from Sep 2006 to Jan 2008. He went on to play most games for the rest of that season and then again played the most part of this season up until this latest setback for him. Another example of how stats can actually overlook the bigger picture. Even though Owen has had two bad injuries with us he has also like Viduka had far far more niggling little injuries. Don't exactly know why you're arguing so strongly for Bullard's reliability, but anyway - the bigger picture is how many games they are available to play for their club. End of story. But even if we were to entertain your inference, Michael Owen has like you say suffered two bad injuried with us. Like Bullard he took longer to recover than expected. As any good physio will tell you, when you are returning from a serious injury you are likely to reinjure that part if you don't adequately prepare it for the return to vigourous activity (ie. resting it until it is fully healed will result in the shedding of muscle, and hence when it is used again the potential for reinjury is high - so the muscle and movement needs to be built back gradually). By the same token the fact that all other muscles are not being used in the same manner as they would be during match play, renders them also more likely to be injured/strained etc. So I would argue that directly or indirectly the 'niggling' little injuries you talk about with Owen and Viduka are directly or indirectly related to their larger scale injuries. The same is likely to hold true for the ageing Bullard. By vurtue of his 'bulk' Viduka is likely to put his body under more considerable stress than Bullard or Owen, but by the same token Bullad and Owen will cop physical attention from opposing players.

39 appearances since 2006. Sicknote was probably not the best term. Crock then. Actually worse than Viduka. 08/09 Bullard - 19 games Owen - 19 games Viduka - 5 games 07/08 Bullard - 16 games Owen - 27 games Viduka - 21 games 06/07 Bullard - 4 games Owen - 3 games Viduka - 29 games Totals (since 06/07 season) Bullard - 39 games Owen - 49 games Viduka - 55 games

Bullard out for Hull, requiring knee surgery. So glad that we did not pony up for him. 30 year old sicknote on big wages. We've already got Viduka, at least he cost us nothing to buy. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...and&cc=3436 Likely to be out for the season.

Owen can still score his fair share of goals, however there's been several times where Michael Owen has missed goals that a striker the calibre of Michael Owen should have scored . Beye is definitely quality. Very good positionally and rarely goes to ground without making the tackle. We've really missed him this season with his injuries, he was clearly our best player last season. Jonas (Honas) is his first name, and that's the name he likes to be called by because he likes his first name: "I like my my name" . He's a good tricky player who works hard in getting up and down the pitch. He's started to develop a good relationship playing down the left with Jose Enrique, a young Spanish full-back who has threatened to be our best left back in years, but as yet hasn't fully delivered on his potential (he's quick, strong, and has a good left foot). A relatively unknown French defender Sebastian Bassong has been our best defender this season. He only got a run in the side when Steven Taylor was injured, but he has rightfully held onto the spot ever since (excluding when he picked up a Red card in an incident that is best left undiscussed).

According to Joe Kinnear he's lost more money than he was ever reported to have. Some say he never intended to put significant amounts of money into the club. Some say he did, but has lost interest and money as a result of the credit crisis. The figures we get about Ashley's spending differs vastly despending upon who is saying it and what their agenda is. Basically noone knows for certain how much Mike Ahsley has put into the club, how much he is 'worth' or how much he is planning in investing in the future. Clearly though they are attempting to clean out our higher-than-our-performances wage bill. I see this as a good thing, so long as it is done sensibly.

I agree with what you're saying. The A-League in Australia is better than any Football/Soccer league that we have had in the past, but is still basically shite. No comparison between it and the premierleague. Nonetheless I support my local team Sydney FC, despite them having several unlikeable players, and previously an even less likeable manager. My true passion though is for Newcastle United, even though I've never been to Newcastle (I will get to St James' one day). By virtue of the internet I'm able to communicate with Newcastle fans the world over, and truth be told I've probably seen more Newcastle games over the last 3 seasons than season ticket holders in Newcastle (have watched every game as we have an interactive option to watch all bar one match across the season - the others I have watched through internet streams). Whilst it's crucially important to maintain and grow the home base of support in Newcastle, progressing the profile of the club the world over will be key to growing NUFC in the future. Unfortunately investment in home talent is not sufficient at the moment in the premierleague, so the future will see many players come from the all around the world to play for NUFC. The bigger the international profile of the club, the more likely these players will be to come. It's great to see players like this Vuckic lad talk about the size of Newcastle United, as it bodes well for our international image (which frankly should probably be in tatters at the moment).

Get your arse over to Aussiemags.net Good forum there, and there is occassionally meet ups to watch matches as well.

You're right, it is a shame. Ashley is going nowhere in the immediate future. There's no market to sell the club, particularly when taking into account the price Ashley has put on it. We should still be an attractive prospect as we are still in the Top 20 Clubs in the World in terms of revenue generated (ticket sales, merchandise sales etc), so it's clear that there is a very good foundation of support to build upon. Unfortunately Ashley has proceeded to alienate and upset just about all of the supporters despite having them more or less fully behind him when he first took over. Can't help but admire the way that Villa have gone about things this season. Will be interesting to see whether they can hang onto a Top 4 spot (hopefully it doesn't hinge on the final match of the season), and even more interesting to see whether they can back this season up next season.

He was able to hold us to ransom because he left Boro on a free. Almost 4 million pounds over a season is ridiculous, but if we had bought a 4 million pound striker (eg. Harewood) then his wages go on top of the 4 million, and Viduka is miles better than Harewood. Having said that, he's only better if he's playing. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. A pay when you play, with some healthy goal/assist bonuses would be handy. He is keen to go to South Africa, so he'll want to be playing as much football as possible. If we don't resign him on that basis hopefully we can get some value out of him before the season is out. Australia still has a number of qualifiers that he may be keen to participate in, so he'll be working hard to get on the pitch as much as possible for NUFC.

Also reserving judgement on Nolan. Butt is well and truly on the decline, but we could do worse than to have his experience around the club. In all reality I would have him behind Nolan, Barton and Guthrie in the stakes for a centre mid-position if all are fit. The problem with these three players is that they are in many ways quite similar. None of them are particularly good on the ball, and none are particularly impressive passers of the ball. These are two things we've been lacking in our midfield: (i) Ability to hold onto the ball (ii) Ability to create goals through quality passing Hopefully this will improve once we're able to play two players together for a decent length of time. As it is they have not really had the chance to form any sort of partnership.

Correct.

Seems to me they lowered the weekly wage, and stuck the 1 million bonus on there to make up for it. Of course Joe will have done his best to keep us up at whatever length, but this way he would have agreed to a lower weekly wage. Therefore if we do actually go down they will have saved themselves some money, and if we stay up they will have spent slightly more than they would have if they kept him on his original weekly wage. Seems like perfectly acceptable business to me. The fact that Kinnear is our manager in the first place is what we should really be worried about. At any length Kinnear has seemingly slotted perfectly into the NUFC way of life - getting paid immense amounts of cash while sitting out injured/sick.

Broken toe is not the worst news. Should still be able to maintain fitness over this period. I'm hopeful that he sees some first team action for us before the end of the season, so that he can settle in some more. Then a good off-season, and with the strikers departing there should be an important role for him to play next season. The worst thing we can do for his development, and for our investmest would be to continue to let him rot away the way that we have been thus far.

Ask Chuck N'Zogbia about that Not that we can really believe either of them to be honest. As others have said, they're basically putting Joe out there as the 'figurehead' while the important decisions are made behind the scenes.

The fastest way to get rid of Wise would be to give him the managers job.

Apparently some encouraging news out of the Netherlands, Glenn and the scouting team are interested in a curly-haired Dutch Forward/Winger. The only concern at this stage is that he may not be able to adjust to the pace of the premiership. Roeder added "We're just about ready to consider the option of suggesting to the board that they think about maybe tabling an offer for the lad".

Here's the full list: Rank. Club, Revenue (£ million), Country 1. Real Madrid, 289.6, Spain 2. Manchester Utd, 257.1, England 3. Barcelona, 244.4, Spain 4. Bayern Munich, 233.8, Germany 5. Chelsea, 212.9, England 6. Arsenal, 209.3, England 7. Liverpool, 167.0, England 8. AC Milan, 165.8, Italy 9. Roma, 138.9, Italy 10. Inter, 136.9, Italy 11. Juventus, 132.6, Italy 12. Lyon, 123.3, France 13. Schalke 04, 117.5, Germany 14. Tottenham, 114.8, England 15. Hamburg, 101.3, Germany 16. Marseille, 100.4, France 17. Newcastle, 99.4, England 18. Stuttgart, 88.3, Germany 19. Fenerbahçe, 88.1, Turkey 20. Manchester City, 82.3, England England 7 Germany 4 Italy 4 France 2 Spain 2 Turkey 1