PaddockLad

yeah but you're implying that he's physically not up to what in all likelyhood will be a one off appearance in the first team. I don't know how your judgement of him at your work can compare to my having seen him put a decent shift in at Stoke last season in similar circumstances. Unless you're secretly a squad member at NUFC yourself and you've seen Demba and Colo have been kicking the shit out of him in training. I happen to agree with you btw, he's not outstandingly gifted so will struggle with his size long term at the top level. But theres no point in condenming him and not suggesting we could have a better squad with more experianced back up.If we're all on Mike's happy bus and are all supposed to be singing from the same hymnsheet then I'd suggest he's the sort of backup we can expect of where we are in Ashley's "project"...young and relatively untried.

So we're having a dig at a young lad who may be getting his big premier league chance tomorrow and not criticisng the club itself for not having a left footed left back at the club. Strange way of seeing the game iyam. Of course if we had a lflb at the club, he could be injured too but this is a squad game. Shane Ferguson is a squad player and did ok in an awful performance at Stoke last season.Plainly Stoke are a big physical side but he wasnt overawed and he didnt look out of place. He's not going to be the next Ryan Giggs or Stuart Pearce but he's part of the squad and should get the same support as anyone else.

Evidence for that?....

We could have a "Toon Idol" type poll.....vote for your favourite poster on here to go on...Howman did a poll earlier, he's an obvious candidate...to set the poll up...I wouldnt let him near a mic in a studio, he's not called "Smirnoff Dave" for nothing If you ask me, you want a fellah called Leazes Mag on there. Am sure this board would unite in support for him as the best poster to represent the general concensus of opinion on here. No need to thank me.

Classic Fergie geeing Man City up....from the beeb... Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has dismissed criticism from Manchester City over his decision to bring Paul Scholes out of retirement. Ex-City midfielder Patrick Vieira said the move showed "weakness". But Ferguson warned he "had plenty of ammunition" if United's title rivals wanted to engage in mind games. "If it's desperation bringing back the best midfielder in Britain for the last 20 years then I think we can accept that," said Ferguson. Vieira, City's football development executive, told the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday: "For him [scholes] to come back just shows a little bit of weakness in United, because they had to bring a player back who was 37." Title run-in Man Utd Man City Fulham (h) 26/24 Mar Stoke (a) Blackburn (a) 2 Apr/31 Mar Sunderland (h) QPR (h) 8 Apr Arsenal (a) Wigan (a) 11 Apr West Brom (h) Aston Villa (h) 15/14 Apr Norwich (a) Everton (h) 22 Apr Wolves (a) Man City (a) 30 Apr Man Utd (h) Swansea (h) 6 May Newcastle (a) Sun'land (a) 13 May QPR (h) United have won nine Premier League games and drawn one with Scholes in the team, and Ferguson responded in the week when City boss Roberto Mancini controversially recalled striker Carlos Tevez. "I think he [Vieira] was programmed for that," said Ferguson. "Roberto had a wee dig a couple of weeks back. We're all going to play our hand that way. There will be plenty of ammunition for that. "If you talk about desperation, they played a player the other night who refused to go on the pitch. The manager said he'd never play again and he takes a five-month holiday in Argentina. What is that? Could that come under the description of desperation?" Tevez denied that he refused to come on as a substitute in a Champions League game against Bayern Munich in September, blaming "confusion on the bench" for the "misunderstanding" which led to a major falling-out with Mancini. The Argentine returned for the first time in six months in Wednesday's 2-1 victory over Chelsea which leaves City one point behind leaders United with nine games of the season remaining. Ferguson also rejected Vieira's assertion that a further sign of United struggling was their inability to keep Ravel Morrison, who joined West Ham during the January transfer window, and their ongoing fight to retain fellow midfielder Paul Pogba. "The point he made about Ravel Morrison and losing our young players - we wanted to sell him (Morrison) let's be clear about that, for obvious reasons," said Ferguson. "But we want Pogba to stay because we think he's going to be a fantastic Manchester United player and hopefully that's the case." Since moving to London, Morrison has been fined £7,000 by the FA and warned about his future conduct after a homophobic post on social networking site Twitter. Ferguson's comments come after United defender Rio Ferdinand suggested City fans are only more visible now the club is tasting success. "Walking around in town, you see more and more blue shirts than you probably ever would have seen over the last 10 years," the defender told BBC Sport. "Success sometimes brings people out of the woodwork."

Not as shit as Dunga.... I'll get me coat I think Hulk is worse iyam though

wait till sloopjohn reads that....reckon he's a bit of a "trendy vicar"....like the bloke from Rev, or Simon Mayo etc etc...

Jose Luis Brown was a teamate in 86. I couldnt get my head around how someone from Argentina could be called Brown....not to mention being a classy Libero Valdano scored 4 goals in that tournament including one in the final.....class horse... Napoli I'm less sure on, but this is interesting: While Maradona single-handedly lifted Argentina to the title - with five goals and five assists, while also propelling himself into the annals of history with his two-goal performance in the quarter-finals against England; one goal viewed as "Goal of the Century", the other 'Hand of God' surely the most controversial of all-time - Napoli were working on a plan to challenge for the Scudetto and brought in defender Tebaldo Bigliardi, alongside attacking trio Fernando de Napoli, Francesco Romano and Andrea Carnevale. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story/_/id/1033038/rewind-to-1987:-maradona-brings-success-to-napoli?cc=5739 de Napoli and Carnevale were Italian internationals, di Napoli in particular was brilliant at the euros in 88.

Tyne and Wear County Councll was abolished in 1986, and so its districts (the metropolitan boroughs) are now effectively unitary authorities. However, the metropolitan county continues to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference.[1][2][3] So the good news is it has been abloished, the bad news is it hasn't

Which in effect means to continue with the policy of selling our best players and replacing them with lower cost alternatives Who turn out to be better players Fuck me you can see the future mate

Lampards past his best at this level. Always tries to do everything and is now average at all of it.

Campbell was antagonising the crowd too and he wasn't even playing. On O'Neils instructions...when they scored all the subs were told by him to get off the bench and act like cunts/ celebrate the goal.

I don't think he's shite, but he is vastly overrated. His big chance was Villa, given a huge wedge and couldnt get them above 5th. Should make him a shoe-in for next Liverpool boss though. He got Celtic to a UEFA cup final....McLaren's was a bigger acheivement at Boro when he did it a couple of years later but I don't see any journo's wanking themselves off at his acheivements. It's because O'Neil is a part-qualified lawyer, football journo's think thats great and want to bask in his reflected fabbiness, the fuckin bell ends.

Has he scored a better goal than Ben Arfa's v Blackburn?......

Blacburn 2 up.......wonder if Billy will come back if they stay up?.....

obviously agood judge of character, I am an anti crriyste! I do agree with what he said about our dear shirt sponsor mind, "never trust a hippy"

Whatever you say maaaan another cult btw Well given it's a conclusion I've reached on my own and I'm not currently recruiting young fitties I think I'm safe from the tanks shooting fire for now. I'd revise my statement to 'find your own path' for risk of being labelled a hippy again. Sorry, couldnt resist, good photo though Tbh mate, I hate putting people into boxes, most normal folks take stuff from different ways of thinking and as you say reach their own conclusions. Any militiant yes/no'ists who are on any given side of a debate about this are just fuckin nuts. Your "find your own way" (direct quote from Life of Brian iinm?) stuff is spot on, but some people take the militant atheism stuff far too seriously.

All true, but that ignores the "Real Madrid" model that Abramovich is (probably unintentionally) following...."heres the players, you're the coach, champions league minimum and you might keep your job for next season, but likely not" Theres huge uncertainty among the established media nominated "big 4/5/6 etc....Fergies off soon, Redknapp as well likely, Abramovich making a complete cunt of himself and his club, Wenger too stubborn to change too much and has probably lost too much ground anyway...we can sneak in there, if we get it right...I just think we'll make a cunt of it..again...

Whatever you say maaaan another cult btw

Sounds like another cult tbh....Dawkinism is the same....the only thing I've ever followed is NUFC

Suppose Tiote is off, have we been linked to anyone who could conceiveably be his replacement?...

Labour giving it one last try to get it stopped...from the beeb.. Labour have forced a Commons debate on whether MPs can consider planned NHS changes for a final time before an assessment of the potential risks to the health service is published. It will take place on Tuesday after being granted by Speaker John Bercow.

Straight up racist that sucker was Simple and plain Motherfucker him and John Wayne

Do you still get into heaven when its a fear based, self serving epiphany rather than actual faith? yeah, but you dont get to meet St Peter at the gates, you get Princess Di instead. And a free introductory offer of a gold plated "loaves and fishes" snowdome. I do think there are thousands of people who are comforted by religion at times of bereavement or when loved ones are gravely ill who would normally rather stick a fork in their own eyes rather than go to church even once a month. Fact of life I think. Bit hyporcritical, but there you go. People are inconsistent.

Old Hospital Chaplains' saying: "there aren't many atheists on a cancer ward"