Scottish Mag

Both Hitzfield and Le Guen are out of work are they not? I would be talking to them right now.

If you don't try you don't get. 21149[/snapback] Spot on. We should not bother with the likes of Souness, who has lived off winning the poxy Scottish title for all his managerial career. [no offence intended Scottish Mag!]. 21168[/snapback] Why would i be offended? I agree... The chairman wastes his tiem chasing "superstar" players, yet settles for a mediocre manager. I am still sceptical as to why Souness ever got the job in the first place. I do not believe he was the only one interested or that he was here for discipline reasons..

Hitzfield was looking for a year out and wasn`t interested in a return to football last season he is however available now and is interested in the Dynamo Kiev job... Now is the time to make a move for the man.

Aston Villa are understood to be closing in on a deal for PSV Eindhoven defender Wilfred Bouma. Reports in Holland claim that the Dutch international is travelling to England to undergo a medical at Villa Park on Monday. Bouma appears poised to become the latest player to quit the Dutch champions after Villa matched a minimum fee release clause in his contract. The 27-year-old is now due to meet Villa boss David O'Leary to discuss personal terms ahead of clinching a move to The Premiership. O'Leary has lined up the swoop for the centre half due to the continued concerns surrounding the fitness of Martin Laursen. If Bouma does sign for Villa, he could be quickly followed to The Premiership by Lee Young-pyo, as the South Korea international is due to undergo a medical at Tottenham Hotspur. PSV have little option but to accept Bouma's departure due to the clause in his contract, although it is unclear what the sum is. An unknown Premiership club met that asking price earlier this month but they were unable to meet Bouma's wage demands. Bouma has three years remaining on his contract at Philips Stadion and has been a key figure in the defence for several seasons. Liverpool have also been linked with a bid for the powerful stopper but it appears Villa are homing in on his capture, with Bouma's agent Ger Lagendijk expecting the transfer to be completed. Lagendijk told De Telegraaf: "The chance is 90 percent that Bouma will leave. "We hope to get an agreement with the club today."

A fellow relegation candidate? Should be quite a match..

11 points in 9 games is accepting mediocrity..

We are creating next to nothing. Yes we have plenty of possession, but i feel thats due to an extra man in the middle of the park. How many saves did Lehman or Van der Sar have to make?

I cannot believe both the manager and chairman got off scot free today without the supporters telling them what they thought of the current situation. We were quick enough to give them abuse last weekend for the state of affairs but because we put what we are beginning to accept another so called "brave" Newcastle performance not a peep regardless of the fact we are another 6 points dropped and yet no more goals since that match. Whilst Souness has been getting the backing of some as of late i think playing Dyer and Emre was a disgrace, both evidently were not fit and showed signs of desperation of a man trying to save his job by taking a chance on them. He put the future of his job ahead of the long term success of Newcastle United by taking this risk and the players may now be out for longer. As for him being unlucky with them going off the squad we now have left us with square pegs in round holes. Was their any tactics at all? It never appeared like there was any plans to get back into the match once the first goal went in, but then why would we, with the lack of goals in our team it was clear we would have to settle for 0-0. The chairmans head must be on the chopping block too it has been his decisions that have got us to where we are now, his hirings and his firings and the man knows it. As i left the ground today all i heard was Boumsong this and Boumsong that, whilst i am not defending his two howlers today i am more concerned with the overall state of affairs at the club than todays loss of points however i worry that if we had got a result today or even in our next result people will turn a blind eye to the shambolic running of our Football club. Is whats happening acceptable? I don`t think so.

Whey maaaan Meenz if I'd known me fave 'alternative lifestyle' guy was going then I'd have crawled outta me deathbed and staggered along! 20917[/snapback] Deathbed? Was your night in Sunderland that bad?

We don`t have the players for either IMO the squad is just a mess.

We were the ones standing in everyones way as they tried to get to the bar...

Thanks to Cath and Karl too..

Tottenham are still confident of signing Newcastle midfielder Jermaine Jenas before the transfer deadline. (News of the World, Sunday Mirror) Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is not keen on Michael Owen as the pair fell out when the England striker left for Real Madrid last summer. (Sunday Express) Celtic defender Bobo Balde is set for a free-transfer move to Fulham. (The People) Chelsea are preparing an £800m redevelopment of Stamford Bridge which would increase the capacity of the ground to 70,000 plus. (Mail on Sunday) West Brom are set to make a late swoop for Manchester United winger Kieran Richardson. (News of the World) Wigan believe they face competition from Arsenal for Trabzonspor striker Fatih Tekke. (The People, Daily Star Sunday) Real Madrid striker Michael Owen flies into England on Sunday to have transfer talks with both Liverpool and Newcastle. (Sunday Mirror) Everton and Manchester City are battling it out for the signing of Porto striker Benni McCarthy. (News of the World) Bolton have tabled a second bid for Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann. (The People) England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson is ready to drop goalkeeper David James from the squad to face Wales. (Various) Feyenoord striker Dirk Kuyt could stay in the Netherlands until the January transfer window. (Sunday Mirror) Aston Villa want to sign Leeds midfielder Erik Bakke on loan before the transfer window closes. (The People) Tottenham are lining up a bid for Portsmouth striker Lomana LuaLua. (Daily Star Sunday) Michael Owen is prepared to stay with Real Madrid if he does not secure a move to Liverpool in the next three days. (Mail on Sunday) Arsenal want to sign Sunderland goalkeeper Mart Poom, in a loan swap with Justin Hoyte. (The People) Spurs are also closing in on the £2m signing of PSV Eindhoven left-back Lee Young-Po. (News of the World) West Ham are keen on signing Arsenal's highly-rated youngster Quincy Owusu. (Sunday Mirror) Everton are concerned that manager David Moyes could be targeted by both Newcastle and Celtic. (The People)

There is a northern city near the sea, famous for its river and the bridges that span it, for its local tipple and for the passion with which its people support the football club that bears its name. A club whose players wear stripes. When I tell you that twice these people have welcomed home the champions of Europe, the more recent occasion being in 2004, you will realise that the city is Oporto and not Newcastle-upon-Tyne, although the notion of such a Geordie celebration might appear a little less risible had Jose Mourinho taken seriously an offer he received from Sir Bobby Robson five years ago. I was reminded of it when talking to Robson who, generous as ever, had taken time out from collaborating with Paul Hayward on his autobiography (an enthralling work, flying off the shelves as we speak) to discuss his long, affectionate and fruitful relationship with the man who was to become the dominant figure in English football in connection with my own forthcoming book about Mourinho. Robson, as you may know, had encountered Mourinho in 1992 when he arrived in Lisbon to take over at Sporting. Mourinho, then an obscure 29-year-old teacher who did a bit of youth coaching in his spare time, was his interpreter at first but soon doubled as an assistant of growing influence who accompanied the Englishman to Porto and Barcelona where, after Robson had been kicked upstairs, he completed an extraordinary education under the wing of Louis van Gaal. It was after Van Gaal's departure that Mourinho decided to be his own man. By now Robson was in charge of Newcastle and when he rang to invite his Portuguese friend on board Mourinho's hands were ready for the helm. Robson, without making promises, spoke of the Tyneside revival and the attractions of the succession, but he was talking to someone who knew him too well and could accurately assess as very, very slim the prospects of the great man's voluntarily relinquishing a post that made his heart pound. So Mourinho declined and became head coach at Benfica. He lasted a couple of months, but found more congenial conditions at Leiria, from where Porto took him. And the rest is history. As, indeed, is Robson's tenure at Newcastle. They sacked him - shot Bambi, as the chairman, Freddy Shepherd, pathetically put it - this time last year. They thought he was past his best at 71 and introduced Graeme Souness in the hope of bringing some order to a squad apparently containing too many makers of trouble on and off the field. These, we imagined, were separate issues. Until Lee Bowyer started brawling with Kieron Dyer in the middle of a match. The slide continues and today Newcastle go into their fourth match of the Premiership season looking easy meat for Manchester United, even at St James' Park, where once, in Kevin Keegan's day, the men from Old Trafford were memorably minced, 5-0. You could see Newcastle as an illustration of the Premiership's competitive decline: the biggest of all those clubs who have rebuilt their stadiums, or built new ones, as massive symbols of ambition, and lavished vast sums on players in a mad inflationary spiral - Albert Luque is the latest and they still have an offer for Michael Owen on the table - only to discover there are not enough titles to go round and they cannot even pacify their supporters by picking up an occasional FA Cup because United and Arsenal want that too. Not to mention Chelsea, who have leapfrogged everybody since they got Mourinho. And the only way Newcastle could have avoided this fate was to have hired a brilliant manager in his prime: like United did when they got Alex Ferguson from Aberdeen, or Arsenal when, having noted Arsene Wenger's achievements at Monaco, they beckoned him from Japan. Newcastle, though, are left with the tale of the one who got away. Should Robson have made him a more tempting proposition? The question may have crossed Geordie minds but, if only in terms of timing, it does not bear dwelling upon. He had nothing suitable to offer and, being a decent man, declined to suggest otherwise. Robson was doing an excellent job, obtaining the maximum from Alan Shearer, surrounding the inspirational leader with a whirlwind of pace - Dyer, Craig Bellamy, Laurent Robert - that scared opponents. With the assistance of Mick Wadsworth and John Carver, Robson guided Newcastle to fourth place one season, third after that and fifth at the conclusion of the final campaign before Shepherd, having announced that the next would be Robson's last, curtailed it. Meanwhile Mourinho had led Porto to triumphs in the UEFA Cup and Champions League. It is silly, but you do not have to bleed black and white to wonder what Mourinho could have achieved for Newcastle, given all the advantages football's economics convey on a leading English club by comparison with one from Portugal; would even the multi-millions of Roman Abramovich have been able to lure him to West London, there to end Chelsea's half-century wait for the Premiership title? All we can be sure of is that both Shepherd and Souness know it is the hunting season. As do the fans who never really fancied Souness; the tally-ho has been floating down the St James' slopes and the manager is beginning to look a little weary. In a sense he is a victim - if such a term can be applied to man who has the insurance of an extremely lucrative contract - of English football's constant doomed quest to squeeze a quart of fevered aspiration into a pint pot. Newcastle have plenty of material from which to fashion the basis of a respectable side: Shay Given in goal, that outstanding defensive prospect Steven Taylor, Dyer when he is fit and Scott Parker, the most astute of Souness's signings. But, when mature reflection and strategy are required, all we seem to get from them are dramatic gestures such as the bids for Wayne Rooney, who astonishingly chose to join Manchester United instead, and now Michael Owen. To be fair to Shepherd, it was a board on which he sat that, when Robson was appointed and strategic thinking did intrude into the club's considerations, discussed the succession and the name of Mourinho did crop up. That is still the task facing the club: to find, as Porto once did, tomorrow's man and not yesterday's. It is a lot more difficult than throwing money at Real Madrid and a lot less likely to get the crowd off your back, but it might just work.

To my knowledge Allardyce was the only one.

Clicky here.................

Bump...........

They are still dismissing Hearts as nearly every year now one of the teams does this at the start and they are comparing to the Dundee side a few years ago who "appeared" to have some capital behind them. However what most people north of the border are ignorant too is the manager. George Burley IMO is easily the best manager in the league. I do however think its asking to much to soon, if Romanov continues to buy and they keep hold of Burley the Old Firm should beware.

You f*ckin wish...

Would you not rather Bellamy and Robert?

..do more people not start posts? They are post happy in existing threads but never start new ones? Just a query?

Craig, do you know the name of the paper/magazine he got this from? From my time there I'd say there are 40% excellent ones, and 60% are crap. 20440[/snapback] You know he got it from the crap ones

20406[/snapback] 20407[/snapback] meaning he picks his games bet hes injured for next game my wifes got a skjirt but i dont wear it 20436[/snapback] Please keep posting... *BTW is a skjirt a Dutch skirt?*

Stevie Wonder - Superstition

Italian international Cristiano Lucarelli has revealed that both Tottenham and Newcastle have made moves to sign him. The English outfits are both keen to secure new strikers before Wednesday's transfer deadline and Lucarelli is the latest big name to appeal to Graeme Souness and Martin Jol. Lucarelli was last season's top scorer in Serie A and he started the new campaign in fine style with the opener in Livorno's 2-1 win over Lecce on Saturday. After the match he confirmed that he knew of the interest from Newcastle and Tottenham, who could now be tempted to try and land the 29-year-old within the next five days. "Surely I can't deny these two sides [Tottenham and Newcastle] have asked for information, but the situation isn't as dramatic as a few papers wrote," he told Sky Italia. Lucarelli added that he must now again speak with president Aldo Spinelli about his future, but he is likely to stay put. "I must talk with the president, should I clear certain things up with him then I'll stay at Livorno 100 percent," he added.