David Kelly

Apparently he's been training with Stoke this morning. This makes no sense to me at all. He was our best centreback last season by a country mile and and regardless of what you think Taylor can become Faye is best we have now. He's no world beater but he is a solid player who seems to help steady us when he's playing, I will be really upset if this happens.

Already posted that in todays paper thread, I got it from a coment on nufcblog with I think we can all agree confirms the source as bollocks.

I'd take £9m in a heartbeat. We could comfortably find better than him for that.

I know Mr A. But If the club had signed the curly one surely they would have said so, in any media. If there was no problems with the pony tailed one surely they would have refuted the stories. Surely with the preperation and Keegan's confirmation that Oba was indeed away, we cannot expect any kind of performance from the lad. How can we expect Owen to even play never mind contribute against man u with no match practice, after several illnisses and injuries. The club have confirmed his problems. There is no disputing that Barton has pleaded guilty to his charge, at best he has missed pre season training at worst he faces a lentghy ban. This information is not a figmant of the Chronicles imagination. Officially we have signed one Liverpool reserve, one illeligible player, one french youngen of little experience. The tickets are not out yet, jesus it is 2 days from the season start. As far as I'm aware that's not official either yet.

There's absolutely no way that was made up in order to generate hits. Be nice if it was true like I have only read it quoted on here and 365 but what worries me is some people actually pay it some credence The site itself is fine, as far as I can see it's just a fan who writes about what's going on and gives some oppinions on what he would like to see happen. The only problem with it is as you say people seem to give it some credence. The guy has no more clue about what's going on than any of us, it's just his own personal message board.

What are you on about, it's comedy gold. And tbf that is just a comment someone added and most of it has been thoroughly discussed on more reputable message boards at length over the past few days.

i have no idea whose fault it is. it's a fucking shambles though. what looks like our only quality new signing isn't going to be availble for the first game of the season. our squad is threadbare and no new signings look iminent. this is a large crisis. in fact, if you've got a minute, it's a 12 storey crisis, with a magnificent entrance hall, gilding througout, and a sign on the roof saying "This is a large crisis." Don't worry I just read this on NUFCblog. See everythings good

Well tbf it is right, we can't keep pulling the makems out of the shit

Alternatively, if the deal is virtually completed with us why risk it by possibly injuring him when he's not part of their plans for the season anyway.

I'm sure I could think of players I would rather have but whether or not we could get them would be another question. Would be an improvement over what we have and loan would be a great bit of business.

I'm not sure there's much left you haven't said before now so I think you're safe. Have we ever had a banning on here?

He did. Did Anal write this story then

Well I think that by spending £10 on Colloccini we havn't exactly left the defence but for me the main reason we have been so poor at the back is to do with the lack of protection in front of them. If we had a midfield who could retain posession and keep the other team on the back foot we wouldn't put so much pressure on our own defenders. As it is we too often hand the initiative to the opposition. The reason why our defence was mocked in Keegans first time in charge was because they kept making mistakes which costs us goals in important games (such as the Liverpool 4-3 and Fenton's goal for Blackburn), but the statistics showed that our defence was one of the best in the league. The reason for that was we were able to go at teams (home and away) and keep them away from our defence. A strong attack can paper over the cracks in a poor defence and a great defence do the same for a weaker attack. Unfortunately for the last few years we have had a defense that was probably not as bad as it was made to look but not good enough to cover the fact that our attack wasn't up to much either. If Colloccini can transfer his La Liga form to the premiership and we can get a really domiant midfielder to supply our (really quite good) strikers then I think we would be on our way. I think in Keegans first time here he brought in defenders that were comfortable on the ball that could take it forward and pick out a pass. It's something we've not had at Newcastle for years and the constant stream of balls we've hoofed forward over the top is what Keegan should sort out. We have a midfield good enough to hold the ball and move forward, we just don't have a defence good enough to find them in space. Beye is a good start. I agree with the main gist of what you're saying (our back four missing out the midfield has been annoying me for some time) but I think you're over estimating the abilityof our midfielders.

Didn't Cobi Jones play for Coventry for a bit?

Well I think that by spending £10 on Colloccini we havn't exactly left the defence but for me the main reason we have been so poor at the back is to do with the lack of protection in front of them. If we had a midfield who could retain posession and keep the other team on the back foot we wouldn't put so much pressure on our own defenders. As it is we too often hand the initiative to the opposition. The reason why our defence was mocked in Keegans first time in charge was because they kept making mistakes which costs us goals in important games (such as the Liverpool 4-3 and Fenton's goal for Blackburn), but the statistics showed that our defence was one of the best in the league. The reason for that was we were able to go at teams (home and away) and keep them away from our defence. A strong attack can paper over the cracks in a poor defence and a great defence do the same for a weaker attack. Unfortunately for the last few years we have had a defense that was probably not as bad as it was made to look but not good enough to cover the fact that our attack wasn't up to much either. If Colloccini can transfer his La Liga form to the premiership and we can get a really domiant midfielder to supply our (really quite good) strikers then I think we would be on our way. Agree 95% Its not a dominant midfielder we need its a midfielder with creativity and craft....guthrie/barton can be the box to box men until janurary alongside the creative addition and if that dont work, then go for a tough tackling CM in january... I agree about the creativity but I am hoping that a creative midfielder will be able to really run the game for us and that is really where I am coming from when I say dominant midfielder. I wasn't really talking about a Roy Keane or Patrick Viera type (although they would also be good).

I suppose this could hold it up a bit but surely we could just apply for a work permit and he should be able to get it without any bother at all being a regular for the Argies.

Well I think that by spending £10 on Colloccini we havn't exactly left the defence but for me the main reason we have been so poor at the back is to do with the lack of protection in front of them. If we had a midfield who could retain posession and keep the other team on the back foot we wouldn't put so much pressure on our own defenders. As it is we too often hand the initiative to the opposition. The reason why our defence was mocked in Keegans first time in charge was because they kept making mistakes which costs us goals in important games (such as the Liverpool 4-3 and Fenton's goal for Blackburn), but the statistics showed that our defence was one of the best in the league. The reason for that was we were able to go at teams (home and away) and keep them away from our defence. A strong attack can paper over the cracks in a poor defence and a great defence do the same for a weaker attack. Unfortunately for the last few years we have had a defense that was probably not as bad as it was made to look but not good enough to cover the fact that our attack wasn't up to much either. If Colloccini can transfer his La Liga form to the premiership and we can get a really domiant midfielder to supply our (really quite good) strikers then I think we would be on our way.

That list of midfielders looks weak down the middle whichever way you look at it. Butt - Does a job in front of the back four but adds nothing to our attacks. We need a Carrick type who can knock the ball about. Gutherie - Looks promissing but seems to go missing from games as they go on. Doesn't look like an ideal partner for Butt at all. Geremi - I like him a lot more than most and possibly would prefer him to Butt as he can pick out a better pass imo but his legs are gone. Milner - Unproven in the middle. N'Zogbia - Unsuccessfull in the middle so far. Duff - Could see him as a winger or off a front man but I can't see him being strong enough to make his mark in the centre of the pitch. Barton - Not fit, likely to be suspended for a canny stretch and wasn't any great shakes last season anyway. Guttierez - Winger as far as I can see. So yes we have potentially 8 players would could play in two positions but for me the reality is that none of them are the sort of players you really want in there to move us up the league.

Ashley's never said Keegan has to get into Europe with this squad. Take up the striker question with Keegan, he's the one who said he had enough cover there. What name does he go under on here? Actually you probably have a point about Ashley. I admit I'm doing a bit of a Parky here in that I didn't actually read the article

Not wishing to defend LM here but I agree if Ashley thinks we should be getting into Europe with this squad then he is deluded (and so is Keegan if he thinks it's possible too, which I don't think he does). And of those four full international strikers, one is less likely to score than Given and two of the other three are regularly on the treatment table. If they were fit all season they would look like a top notch strike force which would require no additions. They will not be fit all season though as we all know (hell two of them aren't already and the third isn't fully prepared for the start of the season).

Ordinary People. Not really my kind of film but well made and very mooving.

While I think we've played quiet well the last two games, I think we'd be crazy to think a first choice midfield made up of any combination of the players we have is going to be strong enough to get us into the top half let alone any further than that. So I'm hoping that we will be able to pick up a midfielder and on top of that I would like to see another striker to fill in for the inevitable absenses of Owen and (in particular) Viduka. If we complete the signing of Bassong then I would feel that a combination of him and N'Zogbia would be enough to cover Enrique for the short term. I have to admit though that I am not confident of this happening and I worry that we might not be bringining in anyone other than backup. So I'll say two but I think we could be very underwhelmed by them.

The Dodos - Visiter

I thought we played quite well last night. We were obviously still missing any strikers yet we still managed to create a fair few chances with Duff and Geremi (in particular) missing very good chances. Guttierez looks quite an exciting player and Gutherie is looking much better than I expected (although he does seem to fade out of games at the moment). Duff is looking better than he ever has for us but I'm still not convinced. Beye looked like he was lacking a little sharpness but hopefully he will have that bu the opening day. Add strikers, Faye, Colloccini, Barton and N'Zogbia and we aren't looking in too bad shape. We still badly need someone to link midfield and attack and could really do with another striker as we all know Viduka and Owen will most likely miss canny chunks of the season.

Thank fuck this is finally done. One to a midfielder now.