Craig

Reina is shit. Organised defense, and posession controlling midfield in fornt of him, before you start quoting clean sheets. Ordinary as in terms of controlling his box. You're kidding me right? Cech aside, there isn't a better keeper in the Premiership to deal with crosses (and I include Van Der Sar in that too). Awesome shot stopper, never stops conversing with his players and a brave old sod to boot - his double-save in the first half of extra time last was superb. Reina, Cech and Given are head and shoulders above the rest IMO.

Did you see the choice quote lifted from the 606 forum that the BBC decided to highlight on their site? Fantastic example of the garbage that gets posted on there - never mind censoring out half of what people say for fear it'll cause recriminations, they should be censoring out complete bollocks like that!

36 in a 30 zone is speeding ticket material and if that takes you to 12 points then a ban it is. Nowt wrong with it - the way his head was at the time, he should have had someone driving him tbh.

I'm predicting the south east will officially implode tomorrow... Lucky old me works in the area to the north west of London so no doubt I'll have fun driving around those idiots who still insist on driving as though it's perfect conditions. Had a butchers at the snowfall map on the BBC as well - bet all the teachers are already resetting their alarms for a lie in!

Lets not split hairs but Van Der Sar cost Fulham £5m not 8 and at the time Man U signed Barthez, he was first choice keeper for the reigning World and newly crowned European champions so it isn't surprising they paid £7.8m for his service. Cech and Reina weren't sold close to contract run-out and both were purchased in a far better economy than we're in at present. Both are on a level par with Given IMO. I reiterate the point, Given was worth more to the fans in terms of what he did on the pitch than he was to the club in terms of financial value. Parky is right in saying that his true value was probably between £8-£10m but certainly not as high as £12-15m. I don't know for certain (but then neither do you) but to me, the motive behind his comment about being 'grateful' was more about him trying to find a crumb of comfort for the fans he evidently respects rather than a gloat and telling us to stop whinging. I suspect that he's held a lot back about what really happened as well.

Bit out of date seeing as 2 of them have left "One down, four to go!" underneath Shame KINNEAR doesn't fit in where JIMENEZ was....

If they can pay £15m for a nearly 30 year old Craig Bellamy, I don't see why the figures suggested for Given's value are cloud cuckoo land, after all Keepers mature far later than strikers for example, you could argue that Given at 32 is coming into his prime, just look at the other top keepers in the Premier League, Freidel, James, Van Der Sar all pushing 40 ffs. Cleary Given got in a strop then the club weren't doing business, just like when he snapped his crayons in 2000 when Sir Bobby had the audacity to play an in form Harper ahead of him, then then slaps in a transfer request which is a statement of intent to leave the club ASAP regardless of whether the club are willing to sell, as it has been stated before, if Given had any regard to the fans he'd have fought relegation with us and left in the summer. Right, this one needs breaking down. Comparing the cost of a striker with that of a goalkeeper is sadly, by large a non-starter. Yes Buffon cost £32.6m but that was back in 2001 when the worldwide economy was thriving and Juve paid through the odds for players. You're right about the other top keepers in the league but how much did they move on for to their current clubs? Friedel - £2m James - 1.2m Van Der Saar - FREE On top of that we have the other first choice keepers in the league: Almunia - FREE Robinson - £3.5m Jaaskelainen - £100k Cech - £7m Howard - £3m Schwarzer - FREE Myhill - £50k Reina - £6m Turnbull - FREE Simonsen - FREE Gordon - £9m Gomez - £7.8m Kiely - FREE Green - £2m Kirkland - FREE IMO you can discount Gordon and Gomez as both Spurs and the Mackems paid way over the top for them - Spurs are now using Cudicini who cost them nowt. Taking them out of it, Given is comparable in cost to Cech & Reina and IMO comparable in terms of ability. In terms of his true value, I'd probably have put him at £8m - anything higher and I think we'd have been taking the piss. I don't see what relevance bringing up a transfer request from nine years ago has - we'd all conveniently forgotten about it when it suited us (i.e. when he was saving our skin time and time again). I don't agree with the comment about having regard for the fans - I don't think he felt valued and as the opportunity to move to a club who were more organised and showing far more ambition presented itself, he rightly snapped their hands off. The club could have insisted he stayed to keep us out of the shit, but they didn't. Like I've intimated before, Ashley was keen to balance up his books (they'll come in handy when he has to disclose the next set of figures ) FWIW I don't offer Given a pat on the back and hope he wins 'all he deserves' at Citeh - I hope it all blows up spectacularly. He is no longer our player, he's made that choice. But I don't think he's a cock for leaving. I think we need to look closer to SJP for the dickheads I'm afraid (or should that be Lahndan??)

He could have stayed too...he wanted to go. Look, I'm not arguing that he wasn't fed up, I'm just saying that if he hadn't have wanted to leave, he would have stayed. All I ask is that he doesn't make out that there was nothing he could do about it. Depends if he felt valued at the club - he evidently didn't. In his position (and me as a Newcastle fan myself) I'd most probably have done the same thing.

He can still decide not to go. Jesus christ, you really like hanging by the threads don't you? Keegan could have decided not to go in September but he did!

well said that man...

tbf Jimbo, £12-15m for a 32 year old goalkeeper is cloud-cuckoo land. He was worth more to the fans (in terms of what he could do on the pitch) than the club (financial value). Where does it suggest he threw a hissy fit at the club about accepting Citeh's offer? All he's said is that the club didn't approach him until January 26th - utter lunacy. The reason he's gone for £5m is because the club sold him for that value. He was under contract and we could quite easily have said thanks Citeh but no thanks - come back in the summer.... but we didn't did we?

tbf I think he's trying to find some positives for the NUFC fans in this episode and, the money aside, there is none. I think his feelings for us as supporters are heartfelt, I don't think he fell out of love with NUFC just the people who bought it. Admittedly, we should have had more for him but then he's not in control of the transfer fee is he?

I'm gobsmacked that a bloke so thick can become so rich tbh

"Made me do things I didn't want to do at the end..." That'll be the mysterious knee injury then.

Less than £6m then.. no wonder we've kept it as 'undisclosed'!

Who said anything about sacking him? When a player learns that his club are finding out how much people are willing to pay for his services, then are you not surprised he released the statement he did? (disillusioned with the people running the club etc..)

I love the way Wacky seems genuinely wary of him like. Anyone else called him a twat on here I doubt he'd reply with a simple "food hall I think" Or is Wacky bothered about his stepmother learning about his dealings on here?

Indeed there is a threashold... 500 posts.

The job at first break time was to prepare the slide. So long as you gave it enough runs during that time, and the temp was low enough, it was fucking deadly by lunchtime... What a load of shit though not letting them out - she reckons she was off to tell them that Dad was allowed to play in the snow at school and so should she. What's more, I agree with her! You'd be the first to complain if she broke her leg though. At the school? No I wouldn't. She could break her leg out in the back garden. They wrap them up in cotton wool these days, they won't have a fucking clue when they become adults.

God I hate JFK but is he taking the piss? 3 days a week?? Committed?? Given the shitty mess we're in, if he had any desire to get us out of it surely he'd be here a damned sight more than 3 days a week!!! I don't know about being committed, but he fucking wants committing...

Digressing... I'm pretty certain the only reason Michael Owen is still on the payroll is because picked up an injury.

Hardly secret - I largely divulged what I knew in the thread about him being sold. If what I've heard is true (and it came from 3 independant sources), Shay was sold rather than him asking to move on... Nothing has changed since the summer - Ashley's doing what he can to recoup his cash.

At least we'll able to finally say he's been to a game like...

what did he say He didn't actually say anything.. wykiki was a bit over-zealous and said he hoped Steve Gerrard would catch aids. I told him to mind what he was saying and this pillock comes by suggesting I'm being hard for pulling him up!