BigWalrus

The disparity in the league is shocking. All we can hope for, if we want to sustain a higher position, is someone as rich as the Man City owners to buy Ashley out. Still seems to be rumours that Pardew is off to West Ham once Allardyce gets the boot, so we could end up with Joe Kinnear taking on extra responsibilities.

My favourite bit of that image is the fact he has his own name written on a card, so he doesn't forget it.

That's what they did with me last season anyway. I only cancelled because I knew I'd miss enough games to make it uneconomical.

Shola has the element of unpredictability. The defenders know they can't stop him, as he's likely to scuff his shot into someone nowhere near the goal, and the deflection could go anywhere.

Remy's been struggling for goals anyway...

No harm in being optimistic, regardless of the shit window.

Oh yes it does. Shola's swansong , this.

They'll be back in offering to cancel your cancellation and reinstate the rolling deal. End of the season ish.

I think they gave a shit in the last two games to be fair. We were the better side until they scored at SJP last season, then pressurised them almost to breaking point (including scoring a perfectly good goal that was incorrectly ruled offside). They scored their second on the break and our heads sank, but I'd hardly say we didn't give a shit. Similarly in the game at their place, we responded really well to going 1-0 down and could quite easily have won it. Their first was a clear foul and their second came after the linesman and referee came to two different decisions and confused the f*ck out of everyone. Look at the stats for the two games: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22056537 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24599741 More shots, more possession, more shots on target. It's easy to judge a performance based on the result alone and our defending left a lot to be desired, but we definitely gave a shit in both games.

Maybe he means, "with the salary I'd get in Turkey, I could buy less footballs per week than I can get here"

Would it not have been simpler to say that in the first place? Amazing how he's gone from shit-hot to just shit.

Football reasons. What the fuck are football reasons?

http://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/4-black-lads-in-a-range-rover-sport-on-the-a19.871311/

Out, according to NUFC.com

We're pretty much locked into a finish somewhere between 8th - 10th. The remainder of our season is almost like a series of friendlies.

It is? Have you seen him play? I have to say I'd never heard of him before we were linked.

We've got 37 points with 15 games to play man, we're not going down!

I've got another, from someone who works in the finance department at NUFC. It was the first Christmas party since Ashley took over, and he was making his way into one of the SJP suites with the other staff to get in to one of the SJP suites. After a bit of chat, it became apparent that the staff were expected to pay for their drinks (as they had done for every previous NUFC Christmas party). Ashley immediately knocked this on the head and announced that it would be a free bar for the whole night. This was in stark contrast to the S&H regime, where Douglas Hall never showed his face and Freddy Shepherd sat silenty at a table at one end, flanked by a couple of security staff. Ashley on the other hand mixed in with his staff and engaged with them. He's a bit of a recluse when it comes to public relations, but behind the scenes the staff seem to love him. None of this makes any difference as to whether you buy a season ticket or not, mind.

Yep, football is shit.

Interesting way to look at it. A lot of clubs do seem to be quite reluctant to do too much transfer business in January. I got the impression that Sissoko et al were planned to come in the summer, but we brought them forward to stave off the threat of relegation.

Has their even been a chairman / owner that was liked?

Yeah, I would argue that. Also agent's fees and other transfer charges. Let's say we sell a player for £10m. By the time you take out the farcical player loyalty bonus and agent fee, we receive an overall amount quite a bit less. And then the wages - if we sell one player for £35m but bring in 4 or 5, the wage cost is considerably more than we started with. However, even taking these into account, we have a canny bit of spare wedge after selling Cabaye. If we don't sign anyone in this window I fully expect us to splash out in the summer.

Don't go then! Honestly man, if it's really getting you down so much, just pack it in.

Although, 18 months ago we did sign 5 players within a couple of weeks. If you said we've only signed 5 permanent players in 18.5 months, it doesn't sound quite as impressive.

I'd take that like. I'm actually looking forward to this one, for the first time in years. I usually hate derby days - I can't stand the faux-aggression and the hordes of fans that emerge from the woodwork for their one game of the season. I reckon we'll probably play out a 1-1 and both sides would probably take it.