McFaul

I think we'll win 0-3 tonight, these are woeful, their confidence is completely shot, an early goal will see us wipe the floor with them. These new signings are the intravenous injection we needed as a club. Hopefully there's no come down. Villa's side are so young, and their criminal misuse of Bent isn't helping matters, I think we're certainties tonight and the beauty about it is, it will put them even deeper in the "mire".

Even if that's true, and I'd like to see a link if possible, the fact our commercial side (and lets be honest Freddie Fletcher made us the second richest club in Britain for a while with his commercial acumen) is 38% of what it was 10 years ago. Man Utd's for example (without checking) will be 200% without a doubt. The Commercial side of the business should be dealt with by Llambias, but it's been neglected big time. It's an actual scandal when you look at it.

Utter pish. Chelsea were still a very good side, Liverpool won the Champions League ffs, granted they weren't great but to dismiss our team then as inferior to the side we had last season shows you either didn't go to games, or you read the letters page in fourfourtwo and agree with someone elses ridiculous notion. I've seen it before. We were fast as fuck, we had as much pace as any team in Europe other than Arsenal, and ME personally of the keeper (Given) the midfield and strikers (Bellamy and Shearer) I'd have swapped none of them for anyone we had last season. Ben Arfa looks better than Robert, but does he give as many assists? Does he score as many goals? No where near. We were a great side 2001-2004, a really great side, far better than last seasons 1-0 2-1 merchants and we should've kicked on but didn't.

What about from 2008 to now? £15m my arse.

Looks as dopey as Rocky Balboa.

Down to 15st 3lbs, been doing lots of training and the weights too since New Year. 6 more pounds and that'll dee. Seem to have gained muscle especially on me back and shoulders, hardly any fat on me now. I'm not going to go mental with the weights though, because I've got these two half marathons this year as well. I don't want to end up like Hulk Hogan like. Like I say 14st7 would dee me, I think that would put me on 25 on that BMI chart as well, which is the aim. I don't like seeing BMI 27.3. 21-25 ideal. 25-30 is overweight. 30+ is obese. Being taller helps like, if you're 5ft8 and over 14st you're obese. Fuck it though I'm getting there, I'll be like a young Brendan Foster by the time of the runs. If anyone wants to sponsor me I'm starting a just giving account, all going to cancer research, got a variety of friends and family with cancer now, and you all know someone who has it, so it's not like it's going to my beer fund.

Someone who knew he was crocked?

Hoddle was a playmaker, he didn't go back and that's why he was seen as a bit of a luxury. Bracewell being the completely different player he was sat more and was more defensively minded.

He snubbed him because he let him down against Italy. He was furious that his brother told the papers that he'd be playing in what was supposed to be a huge tactical surprise for them pre-kick off.

1 goal in 30 over a 20 year period tells you what he was. He got 3 England caps. He was a good passer of the ball, but he always sat and had no where near the vision of Hoddle or a Gascoigne, and he wasn't a box to box type like Bryan Robson.

He should've had 100 caps + but he was totally unappreciated by Bobby Robson and Ron Greenwood too. He was as good as Gazza. I can't think of many British players who had a bigger impact abroad too. John Charles being an exception.

Shepherd and Hall contributed £0 to NUFC. That's no backing at all. I'm sure you're aware that if Hall hadn't have invested in the club in the first place, we'd have more likely went in to Division 3 and went bankrupt in the process. Hall deserved whatever he got out of the club, even though I never personally liked him. £20m is a hell of a lot when you're haemorrhaging cash and surviving on borrowing even more from the bank to get by. For an £100m annual turnover business over 5 years it's not that as bad as you're making out. Your opinion, but can't be proven. How can it not be proven? I repeat (forget about expenditure) our income was higher 10-12 years ago than it is now. The TV deal then was worth £20m, it's worth nearly £60m now, yet we make less money today. Show me the quotes. You asked for figures and they were delivered. Show me the quotes You must be winding me up? There must be 100 quotes from all concerned about how we must understand what our station is. They even used it as part of their sales pitch in calling it the SDA ffs.

Similar goalscoring records at all parts of their careers. Daftest comparison toontastic has seen people saying Bracewell and Hoddle were "similar".

Where did I say it wasn't, refer to my sentence, my defence of Shepherd ends chronologically with the appointment of Souness.

I'd be staggered if a football manager turned round and said, no I don't want England's golden boy, top goalscorer, who's just had a reasonably successful season with Real Madrid. Shepherd was stupid regarding Luque though, it was idiotic in the extreme to pay the extra £4m. If only we had Graham Carr then.

At the end of the day, all the average Newcastle fan wants is an ambitious group of people backing them behind the scenes. Newcastle could've won the league in 2002, and in 2003. We had Champions League football, and 20 odd million quid is neither hear nor there for a big football club. The fact is FFS was wise enough to get good sponsorship deals for the time, commercially we were in another world to where we are now, we were told as supporters that we'd be challenging for CL spaces, not only that but they delivered their promises. There was a great mood about the club, Shepherd told the world we were Newcastle United, we're a big club and everybody else can fuck off! I loved it. We were a big club. Commercially we are 1/3rd the club we were then. We have an owner who gets his puppet Llambias and his other fucking puppet Pardew to tell everybody concerned, we're basically just a nobody club in North East England who have no right to even be competing with Tottenham let alone Manchester United. If you can't see which approach was better that's up to you. I know who I'd prefer.

The question of financial meltdown only ever rose after Souness spunked £50m in 16 months. My defence of FFS and his policies ends with the sacking of SBR.

So if those figures are correct, in 5 of those 8 years we broke even, while coming 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Put the figures up.

I don't know much about Lord Westwood, but you hear OC's refer to him as the pirate. This bloke is worse than a pirate. He's like one of those leaches on Stand By Me, his crack when he bought the club was he bought it to "have some fun". Have some fun being £45m in the transfer black over 5 and a half years.

Leazes would love this thread.

Of course it doesn't but we WERE making a profit up to 2004. What would you rather have a club making a profit of £5m a season with a turnover of £80m, or a club breaking even with a turnover of £150m? I'm sure there are idiots out there who would like to see a profit.

Someone from admin put a poll at the top, with who you would prefer as the leader of our club. Freddy Shepherd or Mike Ashley, and leave the results open to see who's voted for who.

Shepherd the cunt for employing Gullit and Dalglish and trying to bring world class players to the club. Yet it was all SBR who got us in the Champions League and got the likes of Solano, Dyer, Bellamy here....

Are you blaming Shepherd for the appointment of a manager who had won four league titles at two different clubs and his managerial performance at the toon?