McFaul

We signed Woodgate in 2003 as well, not cheaply neither.

You're talking coppers and splitting hairs there. Commercially and gate wise we were making £40m more then than we are now. It's staggering.

How is it? People use the broad criticism, "Shepherd was a cunt". He bowed to the fans and managers demands at chucking money at overpaid arseholes, he didn't put a foot wrong in the first 70% of his tenure at Newcastle, and as I said the majority of the debt was on the loan on the ground.

http://www.joinmust.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9224 Look how far we were above Tottenham it's only 10 years ago. Mike Ashley has been a disaster for NUFC. You correctly point out that our TV revenue has went up £40m in 10 years, yet the turnover has went down. What it shows is commercially the club should be making £140m turnover every season, we're nearly £50m down on that. He's running the club like Butlins, but not the one at Skegness, the one at Ayr. Disgraceful man. The biggest evil in the clubs 121 year history.

What did FFS do wrong up to 2004. Someone will have to explain this to me. Even this "debt", the majority of it was the mortgage on Level 7 which was £115m. It's not like he'd been in fucking Grosvenor and blew it all on red or black.

Absolutely spot on. I can't think of two centre midfield players who are less alike. I think the Didier Deschamps analogy is absolutely correct too, he was just like him.

Absolutely. That is the only reason we've signed these players. I can never stress enough that the actual success of Newcastle United is secondary to the financial success of the club, it always will be till they sell. It's a sad day for all of them when money leaves the club.

Sadly these days over the last 5 years, Tottenham have financially moved away from us, and no doubt if we had a proper business man with the clubs best interests at heart, our turnover would be £160m like Spurs. We were £30m above them 10 years ago. We're ran like a corner shop with the objective being profit making. It's a sad reality than financially we are only the 7th biggest club in this country, but the figures still show we're a long way above Everton and Aston Villa (£15m+), who a lot of people regard as similar sized clubs. The sad reality is we were making more money 10 years ago than we are now, I'd say our profile is as low as it's has been for the last 20 years, but we should still be outperforming Everton. Our turnover in the Championship was £52m, that's nearly double what Leeds United's is. The brand Newcastle United was far far far above Tottenham 10 years ago, Everton pmsl they didn't even get a mention, but sadly that's the level (or slightly above) we're at the moment.

Utter UTTER bollocks. Probably would've started midfield. My god. Bryan Robson (fair enough he got injured in the second game) and Hoddle were far far above him in centre midfield, then you had Wilkins who was playing for AC Milan at the time, Reid, Steve Hodge, they were all in before Bracewell irrespective of him being injured pre tournament. He only ever got 3 England caps, and in a career spanning 20 years scored TWENTY TWO goals. He was fuck all like Glenn Hoddle, just accept it and stop making yourself look stupid. Tell me three goals Bracewell made for other players during his spell at Newcastle. Hoddle used to make them every game, he was a genius, Bracewell was a water carrier like Deschamps. That's not to say you don't need water carriers to keep possession. To be fair both Hoddle and Bracewell would laugh at the notion that they were in any way similar.

You didn't say that though you said he was a bit like a Glenn Hoddle who could tackle. That's a sweeping statement. Glenn Hoddle made goals and scored goals, Bracewell very rarely made goals, he gave the ball to people who could and as his record shows scored 1 in every 30 games throughout his career.

St Mirren would get about 15 points from 46 games in the Championship like. Who is Premiership quality in Celtic's squad? Wanyama could get a game at someone like Reading or Wigan without a doubt, and if he improves who knows. Apart from him who is genuinely good enough to play at a high level? Possibly Hooper, who else? Who would a club like Newcastle or Tottenham seriously look at, I'm not saying nobody, I'm just asking the question.

The biggest club he'd get is someone like Southampton or Everton. He really is not that good, I still think £2m was a good price for us, and he still can't kick it neither.

I meant to say far more like a Ronnie Whelan type player (who was better than Bracewell) than a Glenn Hoddle.

He was NOTHING like Glenn Hoddle at all so completely disregard what Dr Gloom said. He scored 20 goals in 600 games ffs, Hoddle was almost a one in four man. One was a majestic creator, the other was a sit in continuity man. In terms of a midfielder I can't think of a worse comparison, he was far more like Ronnie Whelan or Stefen Freund. Bracewell was finished when he signed for Newcastle. He was a top player for Everton in the mid 80s without a doubt, and tactically even with us he was good, but he couldn't run. That said he was still good enough to play in the second tier, and his highlight came 8 minutes in to his Newcastle career with an absolute screamer against Southend with his wrong foot too.

Aye and he was also coming from the reigning European Champions, where he got a few games as well ffs. One of the worst strikers I've ever seen so much more whenever me or my friends went for a shite we used say "I'm away for a Rob McDonald". Abysmal striker.

He'd be in good company to have all of those accusations thrown at him.

Its like Championship Manager. Which Pardew will be if we don't sign them.

Whole heartedly agree, but why was this Ricky thread put in here, and Sissoko one still up? To be fair Ryder reckons its pish, not that that means much either way.

I will personally have a year long Ashley amnesty. I've seen him a number of times, he is an agile, brave quality striker. Young too. Saw him get a hattrick for Utrecht, and a number of times in Europa League etc.. at Sporting, and apparently we've bid for him. They want £10.5m, don't know how much our bid is, but the Portuguese journos are all over it, he WOULD dee, he'd more than dee.

Ba was still winning the aerial battles and the one competing in the air despite being on the right. It wasn't Ajax 1974 by any stretch of the imagination. You have one point of view, mine is the polar opposite, I think it's imperative we sign a striker in the Didier Drogba mould.

Where's the evidence during Pardew's reign that we'll play a sophisticated style of football though? Say we sign this Gouffran, the only 6ft+ striker is Shola, and he doesn't count. Someone in the Ricky Lambert mold but better would be ideal. Obviously we need pace, Cisse isn't slow, someone to actually hold it up and bring people in to play is more important in my view, as NJS said, a very underrated part of Ba's game. We're not Barcelona, we never will be, we're an English football team, with a manager with very anglicised beliefs in how the game should be played.

Pretty obvious what I meant, people trying to be clever shites though. I'd say obviously they need to hold it up, but a bit of height needed too.

Someone else said this to me today as well. Course we need a tall striker, who do we have that can hold the ball up adequately in the entire club? No one. Not one player, we need a big striker at least as strong as Ba, especially with rapeys lust for direct football.

Not impressed. We need a tall strong striker, not a doilum.

What ye on aboot ya daft cunt? My sources coming up with fuck all about it at this stage.