Baggio

Former England and Birmingham striker Trevor Francis is recovering in Birmingham Heartlands Hospital after a suspected heart attack. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17709412

I would of thought being a Newcastle fan you wouldn't need to ask how good he is. Or are you a Ben Arfa fan that follows Newcastle because he's here?

Played 33 Points 59 A huge game for our European hopes tomorrow, if Liverpool win then we are practically guaranteed European football next season however if they lose then we will likely need to finish 5th to get it, depending on if Spurs or Chelsea win the cup and don't qualify for Champions League as that hasn't been made all that clear if 6th will get it then or not. Hopefully Carroll can repeat his mid week winner.

I think we already agreed a £2 million fee with them last summer if they want to take him full time.

Manager Neil Lennon believes Celtic's title-winning party at Kilmarnock last weekend will persuade Fraser Forster to make his move to Parkhead permanent. The Newcastle goalkeeper is nearing the end of his second loan spell. "He knows we are very keen to get things tied up with him because he has had a fantastic two seasons here," said Lennon. "The feeling he may have got on Saturday... I think it would be very difficult for him to leave here now." Forster, 24, won a Scottish Cup medal in his first campaign with Celtic. And a second success in that tournament remains a possibility if Lennon's men can negotiate a way past Hearts in Sunday's semi-final. Forster has made 43 appearances in all competitions this term as Celtic cantered to the championship, keeping 22 clean sheets along the way. "We are hoping to speak to his agent and Fraser himself in the next few weeks," added Lennon. "He is making all the right noises at the minute so it is a case of getting things sorted out." http://www.bbc.co.uk...tball/17694616?

Just to throw more weight behind the rumour Joe Cole has said he's seen Pardew at at least half a dozen games this season. http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/jim-white/newcastle-revel-bizarre-renaissance-115329232.html

Unfortunately Bernard since you seem to know so much about me while I know nothing about you while hiding behind the identity of your new username, I think I'll make use of the functions here and stick you on the ignore list. Nice try for a bite btw. Chomp.

Contrary nature and hatred for Keegan?! Keegan got rid of the reserves and Dalglish brought in loads of free and cheap signings to bring it back, is that wrong? Coming from someone hid behind an alias too

Or in the case of a couple, to give the Liverpool old boys one last pay day. Oh, and his son. Whichever way you want to look at it. That may be the case but he still needed the bodies in, which is why so many players came in either free or for a small fee. I think Barnes outscored Asprilla too in the league

right you are, kidda. A competent manager doesn't sell Les Ferdinand and replace him with John Dahl Tommasson if he needs a goal threat. Shearer got injured then he signed Rush and Barnes btw and THEN in January, signed Andreas Andersson. He had plenty of time to look for a good striker and failed at that. The man was confident in those 4 to score goals and that's before you get into how he changed the tactics. If you're trying to use revisionist history to defend Dalglish, there's something seriously off in how you approach football. Gullit and Roeder are far better options for that sort of carry-on. JDT was bought to play in the hole behind Shearer, it was only after the injury that they tried to convince Ferdinand to stay but he had already given his word to Spurs. How do you think we would have done if Shearer hadn't got injured with an attack of Shearer, JDT, Speed, Hamann, Lee and Solano?

4 out of 30 signings is a disgusting strike rate, mind. The majority of them were free or for very little to be fair to him and that was to get the bodies in to start up the reserves that Keegan had abandoned. He had a few other decent players like Dabizas and Ketsbaia.

As I said, it was the injury to Shearer that fucked him over as it took away our goal threat. Ginola went on to have a great season with Spurs but Beardsley was practically done, Asprilla was poor most of the time and Ferdinand didn't play anywhere near the standard that he did here again. I think it was the board who wanted to sell Ferdinand anyway as they put pressure on Keegan to do it too.

Aye, he did. His overall record was poor though (in terms of who he shipped out as well as who he brought in). I Not really, it was the injury to Shearer that ruined it for him as he just didn't have the goals in the team without him. Hamann, Speed, Given and Solano were great signings, I think JDT could have been too if he was played behind Shearer which was apparently what he was bought for. The only player he sold that went on to play as well was Ginola.

Hamann too but he didn't really manage them here for any length of time iirc.

He's one goal away from equalling Owen and Martins best league seasons for us He's also got the same league goals now as Gyan got at Sunderland and they raved about him.

Is there a reason why they haven't played Coates? He was the only signing I think I would say that Comolli was probably responsible for.

That's not really the point, you had a huge amount from player sales too and pretty much wasted it. You don't have a £50m player you can sell this time.

We've got Carr tied to a 5 year contract anyway which I don't think he can easily walk away from. I have read that they expect to turn a good profit next year btw due to their huge sponsors, not anywhere like what they're spent recently though and with King Kenny spending it chances are it will be wasted.

It seemed a farce situation to begin with. From what I remember they brought in Comolli to do a similar job to what Carr does here in identifying talent, then when they wanted Dalglish to have the job he said he will only take it on full time if he gets full control over who comes in which is fair enough, but then instead of identifying young foreign talent they go and spunk the majority of their money on Premiership players. So either Comolli as a scout was useless or Dalglish didn't take any notice of his recommendation, either way he got the sack for it.

It's just festered into an unhealthy situation now, 23 years of mourning is just crazy.

Whereas if he'd listened to you he'd have sold Ben Arfa. First post a defence of HTT. Let's hope things pick up from here. It's funny how people read this forum but choose not to bother posting unless it's to defend one of their chums over the road, it makes you wonder how often they are viewing here. For example I make a comment about HTT and within minutes someone has made their first post to defend him, another example is I said on here a few weeks back that I was just reading N-O and literally within 2 minutes that IP had been banned Now on to Bernard Righton... My views on Ben Arfa are here > http://www.toontasti...ost__p__1022640 However if Pardew continued to leave him out then I would be all for selling him, that goes for any of our players as there is not much point in having someone in the squad that you won't play. He was terrible in the number 10 role btw like I told you all

He's got gloves on too, what's that all about?

Although if Pardiola had listened to HTT and signed Collins John in the January window we would have had the fire power to have us 3rd already.

Here's a list of our Premiership seasons points wise since the league changed to 20 teams. 95/96 - 78 96/97 - 68 97/98 - 44 98/99 - 46 99/00 - 52 00/01 - 51 01/02 - 71 02/03 - 69 03/04 - 56 04/05 - 44 05/06 - 58 06/07 - 46 07/08 - 43 08/09 - 34 10/11 - 46 11/12 - 59 so far 5 games still to go, I think the Keegan/Dalglish season and the 3rd place finish under Sir Bob are too far out of reach for Pardiola.

We have opened talks to sign Douglas from Twente but will have to wait until the end of August to sign him, he needs to get his 5 years in in Holland to play for the Dutch national team. http://www.voetbalzone.nl/doc.asp?uid=162865