BigWalrus

Long term I fully agree, but I don't think tonight's game was the right one to throw him in.

That he is...but he hasn't played a single minute with Coloccini before. His time will come very soon, I'm sure.

Pardew picked his back four sensibly. I wouldn't have thrown Mbiwa in for this one, especially when you know Villa were going to play direct football.

Yep, Taylor wasn't up to much, although he too has been out for ages.

Cabaye was knackered after the first half and we fell apart as a result. However, he needs game time to get properly up to speed, so I'm relieved / glad that we managed to scrape through. That said, if Villa played like they did in the second half from the first minute, they'd have had 2 or 3 players sent off by the time the full time whistle was blown. The result is the main thing. Onwards and upwards.

Is Debuchy fit? I heard he was injured for this. Also heard Cabaye is touch and go.

Xisco was never going to play another game for us anyway, so it's irrelevant.

This board absolutely reeks of spunk at the minute.

It'd be interesting if there was some analysis that also included the wages of those players leaving and the wages of the incoming players. I still think, overall, that we'd be showing a net inflow, but it would probably be tight.

Oh, if it's on N-O it must be true then...

Has he released his starting line up yet?

Who are you talking to?

Would you prefer to see us throw the lot of them in and hope for the best? It's an incredibly risky strategy. At least Williamson and Coloccini have played together and have an understanding. Once Sissoko's got himself settled in midfield, we can introduce Mwiba. Gouffran would probably need less time and could potentially start tonight.

That's not what I said - it's just an example of how you can't use turnover alone to compare the two periods. It's a flawed measure. It's easy to generate a big turnover figure but it means bugger all if it gets pissed out the other end in paying out dividends and paying out huge costs that have resulted from poor internal control. For instance Ashley could take a decision to sell cut price Premiership replica shirts (from all 20 clubs), direct from the NUFC.co.uk website. This could add £30m to the turnover, but it wouldn't mean anything if we weren't covering the costs of buying the stock in the first place.

His wife was seen taking his kids to school on Friday last week, so it must be a recent development.

I see it as a nailed on draw. It's a big risk throwing in all of the new lads at once. Sissoko would be the logical starter as that central midfield area is where we're probably weakest. The last time we dropped Williamson, we conceded 7. Although I'm sure some of you will find a way to blame him for that too.

The matchday food and drink side was not profitable. Rather than do all of that inhouse, we've outsourced it to a catering company. Result - decent sized drop in turnover but no real effect on the bottom line. Like I've said, it's dangerous looking at turnover as a true measure.

Shepherd gets a plus point for the sense that he is a fan, despite investing not a single penny of his own money in the club. He may not be rich by Ashley's standards but he was far from a pauper. Ashley on the other hand gets it in the neck because he has only pumped in £50m of his own cash (about 8% of his entire net worth at the time). For the Ashley stadium naming rights fiasco you have the Shepherd and Hall NOTW expose. Nobody ever likes their owners. They're all pathological cunts. Under Shepherd it felt like going on a 5 star holiday paid for on credit card, knowing at some point you were going to have to pay the bills and have a shit life for a few years. That realisation came when we signed Lee Bowyer.

That's where your football socks come in handy. Stuff it down there then spring it out. The danger comes if the defender gets wise to the approach and you end up with a bit of a sword fight of players all trying to bat the ball with their cocks out

Again, the point is being missed that turnover just isn't important. We weren't cash rich. We had player contracts in place that committed us to paying out the vast majority of that turnover in wages. We were spending way beyond our means, and continued losses for a conmpany with no cash spells disaster. The Hall I'm referring to is Douglas Hall, not SJH. SJH had a very limited role in the period you're on about. SJH had some huge flaws, but that's for another time.

1. At the end of the day, all the average Newcastle fan wants is an ambitious group of people backing them behind the scenes. Shepherd and Hall contributed £0 to NUFC. That's no backing at all. 2. Newcastle could've won the league in 2002, and in 2003. We had Champions League football, and 20 odd million quid is neither hear nor there for a big football club. £20m is a hell of a lot when you're haemorrhaging cash and surviving on borrowing even more from the bank to get by. 3. The fact is FFS was wise enough to get good sponsorship deals for the time, commercially we were in another world to where we are now, we were told as supporters that we'd be challenging for CL spaces, not only that but they delivered their promises. And where did this extra sponsorship money go? Into the pockets of Sherpherd and Hall. It had no benefit to the club whatsoever. 4. There was a great mood about the club, Shepherd told the world we were Newcastle United, we're a big club and everybody else can fuck off! I loved it. We were a big club. Commercially we are 1/3rd the club we were then. Your opinion, but can't be proven. 5. We have an owner who gets his puppet Llambias and his other fucking puppet Pardew to tell everybody concerned, we're basically just a nobody club in North East England who have no right to even be competing with Tottenham let alone Manchester United. Show me the quotes. You asked for figures and they were delivered. Show me the quotes.

I suppose you could hold it down with your hand, then unspring it once the ball is played.

From Tim Krul? Whilst wearing a keeper glove?

Oh that's alright then. The net outflow of £28m over the three years is acceptable as we broke even in 2003 and 2004. Shepherd calls himself a fan. In reality, his tenure was akin to going round to his mam's house with a box of chocolates for her birthday, only to eat all the chocolates himself and take all the cash out of her piggy bank.