ohhh_yeah

Wonder why @@Monroe Transfer has not had a posting in this thread yet

If I am reading it correctly the penalty is not only 21 squad players but also 8 of those have to be homegrown players.

A club in Ligue 2, Clermont Foot 63, has announced the appointment of Helena Costa as their new manager. (Insert cliches from commentators here) In all seriousness though I see this as nothing but a positive for the game. Good luck to her.

Is it two years left on his contract?

His team will stay up after they managed a 94th minute equaliser. Chuffed for the bloke. Respect the fact he takes responsibility for his mistakes. He will get his shot a bigger club in the very near future. ‘It’s the most satisfying moment; keeping this club in the Championship is the biggest achievement I’ve done in football as a player, coach or manager because of the scenario around the club and the parameters I’ve had to work with,' he said. 'We need to use this as motivation and never let this happen again." ‘It’s an emotional game. I buy into the club and I felt for the supporters so much in the last few weeks. That was my sole objective; everything that went through my mind, day in day out, was to do it for the fans.' ‘I’d like to think...I’ve made some errors in the transfer market but I’ve shown I can spot a player. There’s been an accusation that the success I had at the other club was down to a very good chairman but I still attracted players and the club’s gone on to make healthy profits. I think we just needed a little bit of help."

@@The Fish

Broke his arm while playing as a guest in a "staff" match.

pic.twitter.com/WraY66EFsY

Do you teach all of your family to use a fork in each hand? The plate to fork ratio is off.

611. Sometimes it feels like Premier League management resembles a Chinese fingertrap – the harder you work to try to put it right, the tighter the vice around your neck becomes. Alan Pardew is working hard right now: desperately trying to convince anyone in sight that he deserves a chance to rehabilitate both his own and Newcastle United’s reputation next season. There is a lot of talk, plenty of theories and a lot of different systems and configurations as he tries to catch a break. Each one only seems to succeed in hammering another dent in the theory that he is the man to take the club forward. On Monday, despite evidence to the contrary, he insisted United had played well at Arsenal. All the while, Hatem Ben Arfa was killing him softly in a Quayside hotel in an interview that was set up by a PR agency who used to manage David Beckham’s brand. It was a cute move by Ben Arfa, who circumnavigated United’s self-imposed media blackout on their squad to return his name to the top of the black-and-white agenda. Try as he might, Pardew cannot lance the Ben Arfa-shaped boil that has grown since Yohan Cabaye left for Paris with the last vestiges of Newcastle’s creativity with him. Say what you will about the Frenchman, but he is acutely aware of our ongoing fascination with him. The Journal alone has published 611 articles that feature him prominently since he joined the club in 2010, which is some ratio for a midfielder who has started just 55 games for Newcastle and had a direct influence on even fewer. Having worked with him day-in and day-out, Pardew and his players probably wander what all the fuss is about. The last time he started, at Southampton, he was whipped off after 45 minutes and it felt as if Pardew was giving the midfielder the rope with which to hang himself. But it misses the point, doesn’t it? Ben Arfa’s name does not ring out from the away end at the Emirates because of any great contribution he has made in the last six months. It is what he represents they’re calling for: that dash of creativity, the frisson of excitement and electricity that has been singularly missing from Newcastle for most of the Pardew years. On his day Ben Arfa is a class act but there is no room for mavericks in Pardew’s set-up – and not really much hope these days either. The harder Pardew has tried to make his Newcastle side compact and resolute the worse it has become in recent weeks. Every week after each of the six defeats he has drawn up a new plan but they all seem to centre around stopping the opposition from running through his team so easily. Whatever happened to other teams worrying about Newcastle? I don’t doubt that Ben Arfa can be a nightmare. I’m sure he can be unmanageable, moody and impossible at times. He’s probably not that popular with some of his team-mates either. Joey Barton was too though, and Pardew managed to accommodate him – even when it became quite blindingly obvious that he had talked his way out of favour with Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias. “I want him to stay,” the manager said about Barton in the summer of 2011 – not words you’re likely to hear about Ben Arfa. Yet I know who the better, more imaginative player is. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Pardew arrived at Newcastle promising an attacking team to get supporters off their feet. These days managing Newcastle seems like a damage-limitation exercise from a manager working furiously to stem the avalanche that is heading his way.

lapping it up.

Beet juice dressing? See it on a mushroom, cucumber, and the side of the plate.

Simply the best? I enjoy hearing Terry and Mourinho whinging.

This interview will be detested by Ashley and Pardew. Reported that this was not sanctioned by the club. Depressing reading his version of the events. There is not a more popular player at Newcastle United than Hatem Ben Arfa, yet he has been frozen out of the first team squad by Alan Pardew, an unpopular manager who is fighting to save his job. In the story of an unravelling season at St James’ Park, this is a fascinating sub plot. Ben Arfa is the fans’ favourite who says he wants to help reverse a run of form that has seen Newcastle lose 14 out of their last 19 games, including the last six on the spin. Pardew is the beleaguered manager who has been abused by his own supporters, not just for his apparent inability to inspire the team, but also for the decision to ostracise Ben Arfa. Newcastle are a team desperate for creative inspiration like a fish gasping for air on a river bank and the fans know it. Rarely does a game go by when they do not chant Ben Arfa’s name, but it seems Pardew no longer shares their faith in the France international. Having tried to claim Ben Arfa was injured a few weeks ago, Pardew admitted after the drab 3-0 defeat at Arsenal, that he had not picked him because he did not think he merited a place in the squad.I just want to play,” said Ben Arfa, as he gazed out over the River Tyne through the window of a Quayside hotel. “I'm fit. I'm not injured. I feel sad and frustrated, but not angry. I want to help my team and I can’t. It hurts a lot. I think I can offer my flair, my creativity offensively. “I don’t know why I’m not playing. You have to ask the manager, it is not my decision. This has been the hardest season for me at Newcastle. “He [Pardew] told me I had to score more and get more assists for everybody's confidence, the supporters, the players and him. I said ‘okay, but I have to play.” Asked whether he feels he has been made a scapegoat for the team’s problems since Christmas, there is a lengthy pause before he replies: "I can't be the only reason for the problem. “I can only do so much and I am not on the pitch. Maybe if I I'm on the pitch and we lose five nil I get blamed and that is normal. I take a lot of responsibility. “Every player needs confidence. Every player in the world needs confidence to show their best. It is hard to come in [from the bench] during games and it is very hard for the player if you are substituted at half time, like I was against Southampton. It hurt me so bad. I had tried, it was very hard.” Ben Arfa is quick to add that he “respects” the manager’s decision and denied he has fallen out with Pardew, adding that he has “been good for Newcastle.” They still speak at the training ground, although he admitted they had argued in the dressing room earlier this month. “There is not a problem, just after the game against Manchester United,” he explained. “We had an exchange of words, but that is it. That happens in every team where the players and the manager want to win. At 27, Ben Arfa should be in his prime. He should be going to the World Cup with France, but he cannot even get on the bench for his club. He has spent the last two weeks “training with the reserves.” The former Marseille and Lyon star is a wonderful footballer, but there have been question marks surrounding his conditioning. There have also been whispers he no longer has many friends in the dressing room because of his attitude. That is also put to him. “If the manager doesn’t pick, he doesn’t pick me. I don’t know about any problems with teammates. I have a lot of good friends at the club. All I know is that I want to train and I want to play and that’s it.” Ben Arfa, a player once described as Pardew as his match winner, has started just 13 league games this season, a stat made all the more bewildering given he would appear to have been the perfect replacement in the “number 10” role after Yohan Cabaye was sold to Paris Saint Germain. “I would play as the number 10 or on the right if the manager wanted me,” Ben Arfa added. “The most important thing for me is, I have a responsibility to the team, but I also need confidence to build my best game and I don’t have that. "It would be better if I had five games to show what I can do. I think Pardew believes in me, but he doesn’t show. I don’t know why. “When I see we are losing games 3-0, 4-0, it is very hard for me. If I was involved [against Cardiff] on Saturday, I think I could make a difference. I would like to try. Ben Arfa could be demanding to leave in the summer, but he has made it clear he does not want to abandon the supporters who idolise him. “If the manager say to me he don't believe in me for next season, I still want to stay,” he explained. “But if the president wants to sell me, I have to go then. “The love of the fans is a big, big thing for me and that's why I want to stay here next season because I want to give back everything they gave me you know. They use big words like “legend” when they speak to me. They give me a lot of confidence, a lot of love and I want to give that love back. “My dream is to be in the top-four next season with Newcastle, to get into the Champions League or to win a cup.”

According to Wikipedia he has that number of wins. Do not think that is the reasoning behind the scheduled time.

Bitter that this will not be made into a major motion picture.