Scottish Mag

And so another experienced member of staff leaves the club. At least we still have Lee Clark and Terry Mac..

Happy Birthday dude..

Sounds shit to me tbh...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...e#StartComments Well someones happy...

Albert Luque is being linked with a shock move to Barcelona. Spanish sources have told the Sunday Sun that the Catalan giants are considering trying to land Luque on loan in January. And with no would-be buyers on the horizon for the Spaniard, Newcastle may decide to get him off the wage bill temporarily. Barca are desperate for attacking cover in the long-term absence of Samuel Eto'o. And the Cameroon striker is understood to have urged the club to consider signing Luque, who is among his best friends in football. Barcelona were interested in signing Luque while he was still at Deportivo la Coruna, but were not prepared to match the £9.5 million Newcastle paid for the Spanish international's services. Diego Tristan, Inter Milan's off-colour Brazilian star Adriano and even former Nou Camp favourite Henrik Larsson are also on Barca's radar. And the Sunday Sun revealed a month ago that Luque has already declared his desire to return to Spain during the next transfer window. Meanwhile, United boss Glenn Roeder has hinted Shola Ameobi, who started yesterday's game against Manchester City, might delay his hip operation for another week so he can face Arsenal on Saturday.

Under-fire Newcastle United chairman Freddy Shepherd wants to end the 15-year reign of the Hall family with a buy-out of the £90 million club. Shepherd has faced bitter calls for his resignation from Toon fans angry at the club’s slump to the foot of the Premiership. But, far from relinquishing power, Shepherd wants to take over the majority shareholding of Sir John Hall and his son, Douglas, and assume sole control of the club. With the club likely to be valued at £90m, he would have to pay around £37m for Sir John’s 29 per cent share-holding and his son’s 12 per cent. Shepherd already owns 28 per cent and if he does cut a deal with the Halls he will have to make an identical offer to all remaining shareholders, as it would take him over the 30 per cent threshold set by Stock Exchange rules. He then intends to remove Newcastle from their Stock Exchange listing, following the examples of Malcolm Glazer at Manchester United, Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, and Randy Lerner at Aston Villa. But Shepherd is likely to face competition. The mysterious Jersey-based company, The Belgravia Group, have been in talks with the club. Any buy-out would end the 15-year association with the club by Sir John Hall, who finally gained control of Newcastle after a bitter boardroom battle. Sir John set about revitalising the ailing club, bringing in Kevin Keegan as manager. Keegan achieved promotion to the Premiership and famously almost won the title in 1996, before being overhauled by Manchester United. But the news that Shepherd wants to stay at St James’ Park for the long haul will dismay those angry Newcastle fans who demonstrated against him following last weekend’s home defeat against Sheffield United. Shepherd, however, has often had to leave the big decisions to the Halls and, while they have been spending more time overseas, he has been left in a firefighting role. Now he has decided that if he is going to take the flak for poor results and bad transfer buys, he should be in control.

I'm surprised this place hasn't "died a death" yet tbh. Its far too snobby, too perpetual..

10 minutes to go until the weekend for me...

Then we'd have to call him Tripod Roeder I've been having a think about this quote, and I don't think you've fully thought it through.

He really is talking alot of shite these days..

I'm sure all the fickle fans will be calling his name once again..

It's 4 out of the 5, isn't it? Are you not originally from Newcastle?

Runaway was ditched after the first 3 episodes because of poor ratings.

Considering 3 of the 5 people who help pay for this site are not Geordies, I do not see it being an "Exclusive Geordie Forum" anytime soon..

Regardless of his recent form, is this the same Scott Parker who many thought was the complete battler for the team and was so highly praised for giving his all in every game including that performance against Arsenal but he pulss out what appears to the crowd of a 50/50 ball and he gets dogs abuse? Nothing like getting behind the team, fickle as fuck or what? As for his performances as of late, is it just me that thinks he has not been the same player or getting stuck in half as much since that collision that put Jimmy Bullard out of the game for the year?

Thats a shame..

We cannot fill the ground as it is at the moment and thats including all those who travel from afar, would be interesting to see how much more it would drop if those from outwith Newcastle stopped attending.

Newcastle United have finally admitted defeat with Shola Ameobi and his long-standing hip injury. For United will this week book the gangling striker into a hospital in the States so that the top American specialist in this field can perform an operation. And it means that, like Michael Owen, Ameobi will not kick another ball for United this season. With Owen out and Oba Martins struggling with hamstring problems and Kieron Dyer and Antoine Sibierski also not available to him, Roeder was hoping to give Ameobi one final blast before losing him for the rest of the season. But the United boss admitted today: "Shola's hip has all but seized up and he will be going to America for his operation, but this is easier said than done because the specialist is so good that all the top sports stars in the States who have this sort of problem are queuing up to see him." The absence of Ameobi means that United are desperately lacking physical presence up front. Roeder was disappointed when Sibierski reported unfit on Saturday morning and missed the defeat by Sheffield United. Roeder added: "Shola has been scoring in every other game since I took over in February and this shows just how important he has been to us, and he will be a big miss. "We were completely ineffective in the last third of the field on Saturday and we didn't really create a chance." Roeder will have another roll call today before United leave for tomorrow's Carling Cup fourth-round tie with his former club Watford at Vicarage Road. And he says ruefully: "We are going to the land of the giants tomorrow and we know that Watford will bombard us with long balls."

A furious Freddie Shepherd will read the riot act when he returns to work at St James's Park this morning. But it will be Newcastle's players rather than Glenn Roeder who will bear the brunt of their chairman's anger after the pitiful performance that has plunged the club into crisis. The Magpies slid into the top-flight relegation zone after a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Sheffield United at the weekend and, with only goal difference keeping the club off the bottom of the Premiership, the pressure is building to an intolerable level. Although there were reports suggesting Roeder's brief tenure is approaching an end, the 50-year-old insisted he does not expect to be relieved of his duties. Instead, it is the club's under-performing players upon whom Shepherd will concentrate his ire this morning having last night flown back to the North-East following a short break in Spain. Furious supporters staged demonstrations against the club's embattled chairman both during and after their troubled team's seventh league fixture without a win but Roeder has told fans demanding a boardroom change that Shepherd is not responsible for the present plight. "I think it goes without saying that the chairman was not out there playing," said a manager who made no excuses for a performance he rates as the worst of his nine-month tenure. "Generally, I'm a `we and us' person. But in this case, I have to say that it's my responsibility completely. "I would not hide behind the chairman, I expect to be standing up there in front of him because I'm the manager of this team. I would not hide behind anybody, I have to live with myself. "He (Shepherd) has given me complete responsibility and I accept that responsibility - I wouldn't want it to be any other way. I will say it again: the responsibility for results is mine and no one else's. That's how it should always be for a manager." Given the ferocity of the protests against the Shepherd regime, Roeder's ready acceptance of the blame appears a shrewd political move on his part, yet the 50-year-old understands that the pressure placed on a chairman is inevitably deflected on to the shoulders of his manager. And although Shepherd was not at St James's Park to hear the demonstrations for himself, he has still taken a dim view of what happened. The two men will discuss the fraught situation but there is not expected to be an imminent change in management. "I don't feel under pressure, no," insisted Roeder. "And if I don't feel under pressure, I'm not fearful for my job. Glenn Roeder has stood up all his life and he will stay standing, whatever happens to him. "I'm really not happy with the situation, it's not nice, and no one is hurting more than me. But it needs someone with broad shoulders. I have broad shoulders and I need players with broad shoulders, players who will stand alongside me, not behind me. "The supporters have to know that the players are hurting as much as they are. I have been here as a player and I know what it is like. Now is the time to stand up." Roeder's team have taken just eight points from a possible 33 this season and have not won a Premiership fixture in seven weeks. The club's league position is dire and a dramatic improvement is required if relegation is to be avoided. "It has been a very disappointing start to the Premiership season," added Roeder. "But for myself, the staff and the players to start talking about relegation is premature. We need to get our focus back and start winning. That was the poorest the team has played since I took charge, there's nothing else that even comes close to that. "The boys have put in a performance that is just not acceptable at Newcastle United and they have to be big enough to accept it. If they can't, there's a problem, but I don't think that's the case. "We have to be man enough to say we got what we deserved. I must make sure that was a one-off." Roeder admitted the decision to face the Blades less than 48 hours after Newcastle's Uefa Cup fixture at Palermo in order to collect a six-figure TV payment from Sky had not helped his side's efforts, although six of those who started on Saturday evening did not feature in Sicily. And Neil Warnock rubbed salt in black-and-white wounds by insisting he has long considered the Magpies a team his side can finish above in the Premiership.

Reports claim that Manchester United will turn their attention to Newcastle United skipper Scott Parker if they fail to land Bayern Munich star Owen Hargreaves. United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is keen to land a defensive midfielder, and with Bayern keen to retain England ace Hargreaves, other alternatives are being examined. Parker is believed to feature highly on Ferguson's list, and he is performing well in a struggling Magpies side. Although Parker is keen to make a success of his time at St. James's Park, the temptation of playing for a genuine title challenger could prove strong, and a move to Old Trafford could aid the player's cause at international level. Newcastle are unlikely to be prepared to part with one of their best players, but a cash-plus-player deal involving the likes of Wes Brown, John O'Shea or even current Magpies loan star Giuseppe Rossi could tempt them into doing business in January.