Alex

Killer Muslim robot vacuums with road rage.

Lived up to his name by giving 'Big Sam' an 'Eric Bristow' I reckon.

If you discount the added revenue (why you would do that I don't know) it would also require the assumption the like of Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea have no interest in winning the CL. Which is obviously not the case. Other than that though....

In no way would I advocate his getting the job full-time but a fair few seemed to be predicting a relegation battle at the very least. He's gotten us practically safe with a third of the season still to go so he's done his job barring an unprecedented run of results. It was a 'good solid point' if you like. Think they'd won all their home games since Pardew went back there.

I went to 100% of home games that season.

I think, whether it was engineered or not, he probably thought he'd have a few decent offers from clubs of a comparable stature once it was apparent he was effectively available on a free. Of course one thing we've all neglected to mention in all this is that his agent is Willie McKay. He's reputed to have made £2.5m from the QPR move alone so you can guess at what his 'advice' was to his client during all of this.

I probably should've added a wink to the end of that previous post. I take on board your points. Barton's popularity at the time was understandable when I think about it. I also think, looking at it retrospectively, he's probably afforded far too much esteem for his time here too. Re: the bit in bold though - his comments were in the summer (end of July/beginning of August I think) and he went to QPR that summer (end of August) so that's not the timescale you're suggesting. And the smaller club bit is neither here nor there given they were the only ones who offered him a contract in the end.

Haven't really got the time but may well give it a shot at some point. Probably in about 10 years time

It's 80 snots second-hand on Amazon like. Hayzeus Christos!

I said I found it odd. In retrospect people being easily taken in shouldn't come as a surprise, so I'll concede to you that it isn't really.

Cheers, Boo-Boo.

Top De Jong?

See the edit above. I agree he spoke out saying a lot of what the fans wanted to hear. Again, I'm a bit cynical about all that and if he is half as clever as he likes to think he is he would've known the outcome there. Which either makes him incredibly naive or someone engineering a move. Also, if he was at his peak and that is indisputable - what's he done since? In fact, he's done very little to back up his own image of himself over his whole career. If you think he isn't a bit deluded about his own ability then perhaps you missed the Clive Woodward interview (which was entertaining tbf) in which he claimed meeting Stevie Black earlier in his career would've resulted in his becoming England captain.

Or he started performing when his contract was coming to an end*. Equally possible explanation (all rely on conjecture given nobody knows outside the contract negotiations what they actually were). Excuse me for being cynical and not lapping up a few tweets. Edit: *Or about to be renegotiated (to be more precise).

Out of interest, do you go to classes or is this a DVD or something similar?

I think it was quite a while before that because the offer was subsequently withdrawn. What was the timescale exactly? I honestly can't remember. His rejecting a new contract several months before would allow plenty of time for his relationship with the hierarchy to breakdown. As I say though, I'm not putting too much stock into the media patter. If, as you seem to be suggesting, the press were contradicting themselves then that only serves to make me more sceptical about both the positive and negative spin they put on the various stages of his career. Either way, as I said earlier, what matters is on the pitch and, as such, I think it's fair enough to question the worth of a player who gave us one good season out of four and a bit years on £60k per week.

Very plausible. The same bloke sat in limbo for weeks because he wouldn't move here until he got his loyalty bonus () from Man City. The net result being NUFC paying the difference (half a million quid iirc).

What I meant was the papers had it that Barton had become a 'poisonous' influence in the dressing room before twitter outbursts and had already made his position at the club untenable. I wouldn't put too much stock in that but you have to apply the same logic when assessing the same media (particularly the Chronic / Journal) bigging up the influence of the senior players in the promotion season. I would suggest in both cases the local papers (where most of the stories emanated) were toeing the party line (because they can't afford to be banned from the ground, amongst other reasons).

Canny article on the daft format by the veteran cricket writer Scyld Berry: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/cricket-world-cup/11381617/The-2015-Cricket-World-Cup-is-a-woefully-organised-missed-opportunity.html Pretty much nails it.

Fair assessment I reckon.

Not according to the papers. You can't have it both ways.

I don't really have a problem with him, beyond his seeming to think he's more down to earth than other footballers when he's pretty much the same as most iyam. He can be very funny though. He only thinks he's clever because he picked up a couple of books (much like Tony Adams did) when he stopped spending most of his spare time getting pissed. Fair play but he's hardly Jacques Derrida (although he seems to think repeating famous quotes makes him so). As for his influence in the dressing room, if you're going to take the media reports about that at their word then you also have to accept its true he was allowed to tear up his contract for being a bad influence at the start of 2011-12 (and the months preceding that), since the same papers were reporting as much then too. As I alluded to before, one good season (which was a long way from paying back the faith the club had shown in him) and he seemed to think he was untouchable. I do take the point about him hanging around but so did plenty other senior pros who gave more before then and have done since.

Get yourself to Paxos instead.

I seem to remember it being Butt, Nolan and Smith tbh. I think too much was made of it anyway and it fit the media narrative of Chris Hughton being the quiet type who let his players manage themselves. Either way the only true measure of an influential player is what they do on the pitch.