Kitman

God that's awful.

I couldn't agree more LM. To paint KK as a money grabbing cunt is absurd. Shit patter like Phil's is why I stopped going on N-O.

Damn right! Can't believe just how pissweak Chelsea were over the two games. Ancelotti for the choppi would be my guess. Roman can't be pleased with his investment in Torres at the minute.

How many goals did he score for Spain?

I don't entirely get this point of view. It was a financial disaster for the club; the manager who forged the squad was sacked; it must have impacted our ability to attract top talent; we were a laughing stock for many. I can understand that layabouts like Martins didn't want to stay, but couldn't they have been persuaded to move on with suitable incentives anyway, at much less cost to the club than a relegation? I assume the malcontents would have wanted to go anyway, with the encouragement of the senior squad members, and by the same token, maybe we could have afforded to hang onto some decent players.

I take your point. I've been away from the area a long time, and I've kept up my support for the club as much as possible, living in Scarborough wasn't too much of a problem. Before that though, I missed more home games than I wanted but made it up with the away games. There was a brief period when I missed quite a lot and couldn't do much about it but also I admit that during the years approx 1978-81 was a period where my enthusiasm drained, not really because it was a bad time, but circumstances and the way I led my life, it wasn't a deliberate boycott but emotionally I was detached because I was away and also the club had seriously pissed me off after losing Gordon Lee, and the fallout of it ie the McGarry years, and the subsequent realisation that the club was utterly shite from top to bottom. I'm back now though, at least for now, if I am back for the whole 3 years, then it is too good a reduction in the price to turn down, and I have a good seat I don't want to lose. Having said that, one of my mates says that there will be plenty of spare seats and so if I give it up and the team picks up or Ashley sells there will be plenty of other good seats, so that made that particular point of view irrelevant, because of course he is right. On the other hand, if I left the area again, I may not really be able to travel all the time, it depends, I would likely be too far away and I'm getting older, and I must admit the prospect of watching the team decline back to the on the field state it was in under the McKeags and Westwoods is something I don't know if I can stomach. So if this happens I will sell my ticket. So I'm buying it and playing everything by ear. If I stay back in the area I will see the 3 years through, whatever happens. Each to their own. Lots of people can't get to games for different genuine reasons, the only thing that pisses me off, is those who were attracted back to the club by the previous regime [there I've said it] who have now either pissed off now they have gone and are criticising them, or have pissed off and won't admit it. I also think those who are backing Mike Ashley quite fervently should be doing their best to back him or shut up. He will need it. I genuinely think the club is in decline, it can't be anything else when the expectations have been lowered, the revenues are diving, our best players see their careers elsewhere and they attempt to lie through their back teeth to us all the time about their intentions, and worst of all, piss off their managers. The one thing you must do is back your manager, he is your most senior employee !!!! Back him or sack him if you lose confidence in him, but you MUST back him as best you can. Not one of the managers appointed by Mike Ashley has been backed and given a fair crack of the whip in line with what should be the expectations of this football club. That's a great post

After the owner had climbed on the roof and daubed "Shop at Joe's" on it

A census doesn't confer religious status on any movement. It only recognises Jedi as an answer given by a significant percentage.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_p...gland_and_Wales I hate to mention the M word, but it's also quite funny there's only about 4 times as many muslims as there are Jedi's in the country. Puts the scare stories about muslims taking over into context tbh. Exactly! And how many of those are actually terrorists? Even if a massively ambitious guess of a quarter of them actually were extremists, that would mean there would be exactly the same amount of terrorists as Jedi's. Now in a one to one battle between Jedi's & Terrorists there's only going to be one winner. So everyone relax as we're in safe hands Hmmmm. The Force is strong in this one....

Is it true that following answers in the Census, the Jedi Knights were recognised as an official religion? Or is that an urban myth?

Wow that's some analogy Toonpack I don't think Ashley is as calculating as you infer. In fact I don't think he's known what he's doing half the time. He's more the sort of home owner who would torch the place if only he'd remembered to insure it More seriously I agree this summer is pivotal. But so was the January transfer window in the relegation season and he sat scatching his arse while the roof fell in. We'll see.

I agree, it'd have only been about £200-220 Mill ish I don't view the money he paid to purchase the club as "putting it into the club". I'm not going to thank him for buying it in the first place, that was his own decision. Anything he's paid over to fund the club's losses, that's what he's "put in" imo. Which I imagine is quite a lot of money, so well done him. However I don't know what he expected - I'd have thought most clubs lose money in an accounting sense. Which would have been obvious if he'd done his research or due diligence instead of buying the toon on a whim, as seems to be the case. I suppose it depends whether you view football clubs as business investments. I don't really, I think they're more like public institutions. The economics of football clubs seem to be completely fucked anyway. I don't give a shit about the balance sheet, I just want to see the team progress on the pitch and I don't understand why fans act like financial controllers at times. As long as we're not going into liquidation, I find debating what we can and can't afford to spend quite tedious actually. I can fully understand why Ashley won't put his hand in his pocket to fund losses and buy players, but then I wonder why he owns the club at all. If I bought a stately home, and let it fall into disrepair because I couldn't fund repairs from visitors receipts, would anyone be sympathetic to me? If Ashley doesn't like it, he should sell up for a realistic price and accept he made a bad investment. imo.

I think his point is they sold players like Berbatov for top dollar and bought players like Modric to usher in a new golden age in the CL. Or something like that. Ignores what they could have achieved with Llambias at the helm and Rapedoo in charge of the team.....

Am sure that is an issue but a much more simplistic view would say the reason he 'wants away' is because someone else 'wants him'. I really dont understand how anyone can say that Enrique has decided in the last 2 months to leave the club because of the shit owners What planet has he been living on for the last 2 years? Has he just realised they are wankers? Nah. The reason he wants away is because his performances have alerted other clubs to his quality and his agent is advising him not to re-sign with us. The idea that Enrique has just realised the extent of the ambition of the club doesnt make much sense to me. Perhaps Enrique might think twice about going somewhere like Liverpool if NUFC was going places. As it is it's a no-brainer to follow his agent's advice. He won't get the wages, international profile or prospect of playing with marquee players at NUFC, and there's not a lot of chance of that changing in the near future either. We're not going places and we havent been for a long time. Our ambition at the start of this season was survival, that hasnt changed, he knew that was the ambition and it remains that. Nothing has changed for us, the club or him. Exactly. That's why he'll piss off the minute he gets a better offer. If the owners had shown the ambition to improve the club he might have thought twice if he thought we might compete. As it is it's a no brainer to go somewhere like Liverpool, let alone a CL club.

Am sure that is an issue but a much more simplistic view would say the reason he 'wants away' is because someone else 'wants him'. I really dont understand how anyone can say that Enrique has decided in the last 2 months to leave the club because of the shit owners What planet has he been living on for the last 2 years? Has he just realised they are wankers? Nah. The reason he wants away is because his performances have alerted other clubs to his quality and his agent is advising him not to re-sign with us. The idea that Enrique has just realised the extent of the ambition of the club doesnt make much sense to me. Perhaps Enrique might think twice about going somewhere like Liverpool if NUFC was going places. As it is it's a no-brainer to follow his agent's advice. He won't get the wages, international profile or prospect of playing with marquee players at NUFC, and there's not a lot of chance of that changing in the near future either.

Yup. I think there's also the likelihood that Ben Arfa and Tiote will be sold to the highest bidder next season. In fact there must be a risk of Tiote being sold this summer based on what he's done this season, if a silly offer comes in. This on the basis that there's more quality players like them out there in Europe, so why not bank the profit.

Seding him on loan sounds sensible. As long as it's somewhere lacking in gangsta lifestyle options.

I'm not convinced we'll bring in more than a couple of players in the summer. That's not based on anything more than how they've operated in the past. As far as players like Barton and Nolan are concerned, it might take a bit more evidence of ambition to persuade them to sign up again. Selling Enrique's not going to help with that.

I don't blame him at all. Why would Enrique not want to play at a much higher level than us, when he can? Our owner's lack of ambition is the main reason he'll leave, if in fact this is true. Since Ashley's break even strategy is to buy players cheap and sell high, it won't surprise me one iota if he's sold in the summer (which I think he will be). 15 mill is a good price for a LB, as it happens. It's the signal it sends about our lack of ambition that depresses me. The best we can hope for is that the money for him and Carroll is reinvested in the squad on emerging/proven talent, instead of the likes of Sol and Shefki.

Nice to see he's taking the Gazza approach to nutrition.... The guy looks ripped to fuck tbh. So did Gazza, but maybe for different reasons

Nice to see he's taking the Gazza approach to nutrition....

I've no doubt dabo was a snidey twat and did provoke him. The thing is though, it sounds like Dabo probably just gave him a bit of a slap whereas Barton pummelled him to the point he was hospitalised. Whether or not he was retaliating, to my mind the response just wasn't proportional. I expect team-mates have fights all the time in training, but they don't end in GBH. Barton should let this go imo.

A sense of curiosity helps. Some people on here certainly seem curious.

I've loved the Stone Roses' music for years. It's a shame they lost their momentum with the lawsuit. However I saw Ian Brown live years ago (I think he was headlining at Reading, not sure) and he was absolutely fucking shit. His band was really good, it's just he couldn't sing in tune and lacked charisma. In addition he was acting the twat, so the whole thing was a massive disappointment.

Don't think he'll enhance his chances of getting back in the England side with that analysis. Dunno about Barry as I haven't watched England in ages....but wasn't he unfit at the last World Cup?

Aha, refused a visa due to his criminal record