OTF

I'd prefer that we keep him. At 1.5M there's every chance that you get someone worse. We need another right winger anyway on top of a backup, the more we spend on one the better our first 11 becomes. Keeping Routledge as the backup makes sense. Some pace off the bench is always good to have and he's shown he's not adverse to the odd goal.

Honestly, the worst part about this, and it's something that Leazes has been noting for some time now, is that this is yet another sign that the owner and board at NUFC are not at all behind Alan Pardew. I have no doubt that Pardew has believed everything that he's said (about Carroll in the past and now about Enrique) but he has to be learning quickly that the owner and board only tell him what's actually going on at the club when it suits their agenda. In this case I have a feeling that there is in fact no deal done between Enrique and Liverpool - as they're not going to have been silly enough to risk punitive damage by tapping up the Spaniard. Nonetheless though this kind of derisory contribution to any semi-realistic attempt by Newcastle United to actually legitimately resign Enrique will have an impact. Already there is a suggestion from some that he's lost his enthusiasm and determination on the field, certainly he's not been at the standard he was earlier in the season. At this stage there is a legitimate reason for this - a niggling injury. If it continues through to the end of the season when his full match conditioning has returned then perhaps there is more to it. He has to be completely aware now that clubs with far more ambition are interested in signing him, and now would be the time to do so. The only reason he has to be loyal to Newcastle United are the supporters and some of his team mates. In the context of modern football that doesn't count for much. Whatever the case I cannot see the club offering him a suitably improved contract, which there is obviously money there to do. Some of the money from the Carroll sale would be well spent in improving Enrique's deal. Let's not forget that we had a much higher wage spend (with numerous players signed under Ashley) in our last Premier league season so there's no reason that there shouldn't be enough room to make a legitimate improved offer to Enrique without even looking at the money from Carroll's sale. The nail in the coffin will be if there is any sort of negative reaction from the supporters towards Enrique at the next home game. Like I mentioned earlier the support are one of the only two reasons that could potentially keep him here so if they go any miniscule chance of him re-signing will also. The most frustrating aspect of this all for me, is that even will Carroll gone, we're not that far off having a very competitive side. Retain Enrique, Barton and Nolan and we need only to get a couple of strikers and a couple of wingers in, something entirely possible within the constraints of a 35M budget. I'd even have Routledge back as one of the wingers, costing us nothing and freeing up more of the 35m to improve our front line. Don't know how I can retain any sort of optimism given what we've witnessed over the last few seasons.

That's all we've ever had since 1969 tbh and with the way the game is, at the summit, that's all there's likely to be for some time yet, unless Platini's stuff works. I'm talking about the success of the players, and not the success of the club. It is of course possible to have a player excel whilst the team flounders - Habib Beye and Sebastian Bassong being two examples of those that consequently were bought. My point is that we can't even hope that a player does excessively well here because they'll just become another red light flashing in the for sale window of Newcastle United Football Club.

So under the current regime what we really want is kinda decent players to come here and have a moderate level of success.

Look at Carroll, he was contracted until 2015 meaning that he would not even be permitted to talk to another club until January of 2015. Regardless of what he wanted the club could have very easily prevented him from even talking to Liverpool. That's 3 and a half more full seasons we had guaranteed of Andy Carroll being at the club before he could even talk to someone else. In fact if Liverpool have talked to Enrique already it will have to have been with the express consent of Newcastle United or else it will have been illegal. The club may have offered Enrique a new contract, but there is nothing anywhere stipulating the terms of that contract. For all we know it's likely that he would get a pay cut, which quite frankly would be ridiculous as he has come along so far as a player since he was signed. If Ashley was serious about wanting to bring success to Newcastle United and taking the club in a forward direction then the money from the sale of Andy Carroll, plus the retention of our best players could have us improving as a squad next season. He isn't though so Enrique will effectively have no option but to leave if he wants to win something in his career and/or be paid at appropriate market value. There's no way you could paint this as a case of Enrique doing anything wrong by the club.

Not sure about that with Mike Ashley in control, but agree with it otherwise.

We can't offer money or ambition, our only draw-card is now our support. That's all well and good for a while, but you can't blame anyone of sufficient talent for looking for a more ambitious club who will also provide more money (as they are intrinsically linked in the modern game). Jose Enrique is also much more likely to receive a Spanish call-up if he's playing for a higher profile club that figures in European football. Whilst Liverpool aren't likely to get Champions league football this season (it would be a minor miracle if they did) they are making positive moves in the market so should be a very good chance of finishing in the top 4 next time around. Personally I'd much prefer if he went to a Spanish side. I'm now resigned to him leaving. It was a good stint he had here, and I don't begrudge him departing. The club should have had a new offer on the table for him a long time ago, the problem being that our ambition has shrunk since he signed, whilst his no doubt has moved in the opposite direction. I can only hope that wherever he goes he gets the same appreciation he has here.

You'd like to think that these mobs would be smart enough to put out a few early prototypes to gauge the supporters reactions. If not they're bloody idiots. Hopefully this one will be left on the cutting room floor where it belongs.

Id love him to stay, he for me is the only major player i think could possibly leave in the summer. Cant see Tiote, Barton, Nolan or alike leaving. If we got 15 mil for him, that and the 35mil from Carroll then if we spend anything less than 40mil theres going to be uproar. Theres no way we can take in that kind of money and justify not spending it, especially when its already evident that we NEED at least 5 players as it is. I do however thing that we will spend quite a bit in the summer, its time for ashley to show his hand. Or fuck off. 40mil = 1x Quality striker 10mil (From europe likely) 4x Young promising squad players 5mil and a LB 10mil We can live in hope. 50 million should just about be enough to cover our wages for next season, of course Ashley may have to dip into his own pocket to cover the differences and save the club from certain doom. I don't think we'll get 15m for Enrique though. The fact that he only has one year remaining on his contract will mean other clubs will try to low-ball us. As much as Ahsley will try to hold off to drive the price up at the end of the day he will sell because he'' see it as a profit and will think that he can bring someone in on much lower wages to do the same job nearly as well. The 'international' players that we buy will be from France and the Netherlands where there isn't huge wages. Other than that they will be lower league 'promising' players like Best and Perch, but slightly more 'promising' and expensive.

That's wrong for starters I thought that's wrong for starters, cos we finished on 58 in 05/06, I knew we ended well but not this well, nee wonder pigeon heed got the job. Tottenham (h) 3-1 3-1 Bowyer 2 Ameobi 25 Shearer 30pen 52,301 42 12 Middlesbrough(a) 2-1 2-0 og(Boateng) 29 Ameobi 44 31,202 45 10 Wigan (h) 3-1 2-1 Shearer 28pen, 66 Bramble 36 52,302 48 9 mackems (a) 4-1 0-1 Chopra 60 Shearer 61pen N'Zogbia 66 Luque 87 40,032 51 7 West Brom (h) 3-0 2-0 Solano 30 Ameobi 40pen, 90 52,272 54 =6 Birmingham (a) 0-0 0-0 28,331 55 7 Chelsea (h) 1-0 0-0 Bramble 73 52,309 58 7 Title winning form that. ...and that Bramble goal No way we're going to finish with form anywhere near that. A tougher run in this time around for us as well.

After saying what he said the pressure was on Barton to come out and perform. He failed spectacularly to do so, and was amongst our worst players so fair go to them to have their say. Barton had his, then immediately after proved himself wrong.

Has looked a little rusty of late, doesn't want to run at full pace and seems to have lost a little bit of bulk also. The injury and the constant speculation are no doubt playing on his mind.

Well that was a shit game, lots of poor performances and we didn't even get to see the promised 5 minutes of added time.

Ranger needs to come off. He's a black hole for the ball.

Not a bad sub to make, Saylor going off that is. Raylor on I'm not so convinced about.

Taylor incredibly lucky there. We're looking shit, not much avenue to change things up.

Barton's wanting too much time on the ball.

Yeah, could easily have not been given and we'd have gone in 2-0 to what is essentially a very poor side. We're not getting any value out of our right hand side (or the middle) in attack.

'twas a needless foul and a silly reaction from Barton. Williamson unlucky a little, Agbonlahor made the most of it. Barton needs to calm the fuck down.

Yeah Enrique is back. The talk of Ferguson or Raylor is to fill the midfield void resulting from Nolan's suspension (one guess is that Barton will be moved into central midfield).

The slimming magic of vertical stripes.

It's frustrating when Simpson does that, his biggest weakness, hopefully something he works on and improves. Habib Beye was great for us in the same positions, Simpson's probably quicker than Beye, but Beye's anticipation and timing in making tackles was all the difference. On Ryan Taylor being in the side to help out defending in wide areas - bad news. He's not a good defender by any stretch and is slow. Ferguson's defensive positioning was poor on a number of occassions, but that's to be expected given he's not a natural defender.

That's one good thing with New Vegas... even quite a way into the game there are still places where you are likely to die if you venture there. With no dart gun to slow down deathclaws they're much more deadly, plus there's a variety of other creatures that are more dangerous than in F3. I found the same in F3.. after a certain point I was able to go anywhere without any trouble, it took the excitement away that had existed in the earlier stages where I was scavenging for ammunition always on the lookout for potential enemies that could whoop my arse. The ability to have two followers is good for storing up stuff to sell, helping to generate funds, plus they come in handy for particularly enemy clad areas (you still get the XP for their kills). The DLC was the same for me.. even though they opened up the top level for the character it wasn't required to compete as the expansion stuff was no tougher than the regular game. It's also a bit of a time sink. I played F:NV quite a bit when it came out, but lost steam towards the end, and still haven't actually finished it.

Never a truer word spoken! Would have been a cracking first half to watch nonetheless.

The dark underground tunnels were a PITA in F3. Much improved in New Vegas.. though there are loads more bugs in NV. A better game, but more of an evolution of F3.. F3.5 maybe.