OTF

He also wanted to come back to watch the Socceroos match, and to get in the head of the Australian Manager. He plans on coming back to play for Australia at some stage. The second opinion was good, so hopefully he'll be back in black and white before too long.

No way we will get his side of the story until the legal proceeding are sorted out - and Ashley has sold the club.

He's better than Robbie Keane, and Liverpool paid 20 million pounds for him.

I would think that any team that has injuries to such a high percentage of their first team players would be in pretty bad shape. Of course I would also think that a team with a specially assembled task force for recruiting players and a billionaire owner would be able to ensure that they could put a half decent side together, even when we have a substantial injury list (let's face it when don't we have a long list of players not available through injury?).

True. My bad for not keeping up with the flavour of the month injury (Habib, Smith and Viduka all having the same).

Yep, I think he's picked up the customary I've just been picked up by Newcastle United hamstring injury.

Duff was rubbish in the first half, but was very good in the second. Cacapa was rubbish all game. Butt was missing for the first half. OUr central midfield was missing for most of the game. Geremi wasted our best chance to equalise. Newlson should have been sent off (we would have had a free-kick on the edge of the box that Geremi or N'Zogbia would have blazed over).

Are we suggesting that Ashley got his hand wet with the Wise puppet, and now he has upsized?

The billionaire? He may have once had 'credible business sense'. But nothing he has done at Newcastle in recent times could lead you to the same conclusion. The handling of the whole affair has been comically amateur.

I can't believe someone still thinks Mike Ashley has credible business sense.

TBH I think he does.

Yep ship Taylor out. He's been particularly bad of late. Sad to say but I'd rather see Bassong and Coloccini in there. Cacapa is too old/slow. I'd have MUCH rathered that Coloccini was partnered with Faye, but thanks to some rather idiotic business that can't happen.

I'd hate to be an honest businessman from Nigeria!

Yeah apparently to get the £200m bond Ashely needs to send them his passport and bank details. He has it on the good word of Prince Maputu.

Probably another rubbish story, but I wouldn't mind us being able to tap directly into the largest talent pool of African soccer!

Fixed Mr Taylor's quotes.

You're probably right. I haven't seen that much of him in black and white, and when he was on loan he didn't exactly set the world on fire (even in the Championship).

Yeah, Viduka was apparently back in training around the start of the season. Don't know whether it was full training, but I find it highly unlikely. In fact I find it highly unlikely that he has been in full training at all over the past couple of years. Don't get me wrong, it would be great to get him back, just don't see it happening for a while. And when he does come back, I don't think it will be long before he is out again. If only we had him on a pay for play contract. I see Xisco and Carroll as the future of our 'big' strikers. Neither of them are the same sort of player as Viduka mind.

Looks like Steve Carrell TBH.

Sorry, I wasn't counting them as they were bought to flesh out the youth team by the Youth Recruiting Team. When the Youth Recruiting team took off their Youth Recruiting hats and put on their first team purchasing hats the only young first team players they bought were the afforementioned Guthrie, Xisco and Bassong. They did slip in Ranger in the same period, but he's more known for his ghetto exploits than his on field ones. The fact is they were responsible for all of the recruiting, and as such they failed. I can just see us in five years time, with all of our 'youth' players realising their potential, we'll have a wonderful side that will dominate League One.

can be taken any other way than the club had £100 million of debt and thats now been paid off It's semantics, and if it was indeed intended in the second way then it was deceitful. You have a basket of 20 apples, you eat 7 of them. You could say that like this. I had seven apples in my basket that I have now eaten. (Out of my basket I have eaten seven apples). I nominate myself for worst post ever.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle3885412.ece So who is lying? Mort's statement can be taken in two ways: (i) Newcastle United had a total of £100million of debt. This has now been cleared. (ii) Newcastle United has cleared £100million of their debt. If taken the second way, it gives no indication of the total amount of debt. I wouldn't have thought it was Mort's style, but when it comes down to it, he is a lawyer.

3 weeks is better than I was expecting tbh. Lets see the club try to defend their transfers (both in and out) now. Given that they have assembled a crack team to do just that it's pretty poor that a player who they tried desperately to get rid of started a match. Love how he uses the term 'such as' prior to listing the young players we've bought, indicating that there is more than just the ones he mentions. Such as??

Bet he wishes he had a billion quid in cash. Also you'd get a hell of a lot more than a 4% return on a billion quid. He's not without fault in this whole situation, but I think he's being painted as more of a villian than he actually is.

Surely that means that Ashley should sink that 20 million straight into debt that we still have?