capriccioso

What's genuinely scary about Newcastle is they've done all that with that clown Ashley in ownership of the club.

Top 3 players are very likely signings, not sure about the last 3.

Leandro Damião is a quality young striker who's impressing with Internacional in Brazil. He came to my attention a few days ago when I watched a clip of him destroying The Strongest in a Copa Libertadores tie with a hat trick. He's mainly been linked with Spurs, but I think a player like him- cheap, young, hungry, goalscoring- is exactly what we need. He's also averaged a goal every 87 minutes in continental competition so far this season, and is coming off a 40 goal season last year, so its safe to say he knows how to find the goal. There may be work permit issues with him though, he's only played for Brazil 5 times. Transfermarkt reckon he's worth 12.5 million, which is a bargain when you consider Lukaku cost 5.5 million more and hasn't done anything of note yet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP3FAqZv7r4 From that clip its evident that he's an excellent mover off the ball and a decent finisher to boot; we probably need a Brazilian poster to elaborate on his strengths because I can't seem to find many videos of him. From memory we made a bid for him last summer but it was rejected.

Higuain would be a failure at this club. The golden rule for us with strikers is that he must under no circumstances cost more than 24 million pounds or he will turn out to be a flop. On a more serious note, I just don't think we need to spend 80 million on any one player, let alone a striker. Higuain's not that great anyway, he's no more than a 30 million pound player for mine.

You could try for this SHM. Your incredible, Bradman-esque likes to post ratio should have you installed as a favourite

How's he done of late? FM doesn't rate him at all, sadly, he always turns out to be rubbish at Hamburg

He was supposed to be the dogs gonads when he was young, French player of his generation or some such. He was better than Benzema for a while though, not sure what happened to Hatem.

No more marquee signings please Roman! 9 times out of ten they fail for us. We should only sign unproven youngsters, that come with a desire to better themselves and win some trophies; rather than the marquee's who have usually been there and won trophies and are more interested in money than bettering themselves.

Not sure whats happened to the Premiership. It's only been a couple of years since it was by far and away and without a shadow of doubt the best league in the world; with the Sunny Scottish League in 2nd place. Suddenly Jose Mourinho hoves into view and it all changes and the sunny Scottish League overtakes the Premiership, and is soon followed by Serie A and the Bundesliga. United will probably be the worst team in a decade to win the League, and with City, half a billion pounds spent yet they rely on James Milner from the bench to come on and change the game. Arsenal have been rubbish for the best part of a decade, and Spurs are just enjoying the all-round weakness of the other teams. Liverpool, much as I hate them, were at least always up for a scrap but now are the worst team in the Premiership. That Swansea are on the verge of 7th place speaks volumes as to how poor the Premiership has gotten. Then you look across at Spain, Germany and Italy and look at their best teams being light years ahead of England's best... in my opinion it was the FA's 'must have 4 home grown players' rule has caused the decline. They have such things across other European countries because their youth system and its products aren't wank for the most part, unlike England's. Which is why the Premiership has suffered, while the other Leagues produce great talent and aren't hampered by the regulations at all. It's a rather stupid idea by the FA. The 'dirty forriners' aren't the cause for England's failures on the national stage, its the vast pressure England players are put under, their lack of pride and motivation in the shirt and the fact that the golden generation were never that good to begin with. The influx of foreign players, managers, owners, backroom staff etc. is just a sign that England is no longer at the forefront of football barring the Premiership and if the authorities fuck around with that then England's status is going to fall further. Another problem England have is that you haven't gotten a distinct national style. Some youth coaches insist on '4-4-2 up and at them!' while others want the Barcelona approach. That's not going to work, all the horses have to pull in the same direction or you're going to end up with a bunch of confused 25 year old fully fledged internationals with no idea how to work with each other, which is what has happened with the so-called golden generation.

Bertrand Torres and Sturridge have way too many.

They won't take Rafa seriously. Capello is a disciplinarian, plus he won't take shit from anyone. He'll have no hesitation about terminating Frank Lampard's contract, for example, right then and there if he's causing trouble. Now I think of it, Capello is all kinds of awesome but our young players lack experience and he isn't getting any younger so no more than a short term fix, I think.

The new manager must either have an earth shaking reputation that would make even our current set of bellends think for a second before trying any shit, or must be given a 100%, lock in guarantee that he will not be sacked for the duration of the contract. Imagine if Villas-Boas and Roman had a deal where he was 'sacked' with the promise that he'd be reappointed once the rebels in the squad had been crushed/sold

Kalou-Mata-Torres Sturridge/Lukaku. Doesn't look half bad.

Someone's got to be given a run. Kalou or our number 15, Slo Mo Flo Mo.

Yeah, we can approach 5 of the 8 games with a free mentality. Lets just go out there and try and smash through the opposition defence with our youngsters. If they score 4 we'll try to get 5. No need for the elder statesmen except for those 3 important fixtures.

Not right now he isn't but give him a few seasons and I reckon he will be.

He shouldn't play anymore, this season it's going to damage his career. Look at him. You can see the exhaustion in his eyes. We can't keep playing him, the poor kid is on the verge of collapse, and he has a packed summer schedule ahead of him. I'm not sure if there's a correlation between fatigue and the body's ability to withstand shocks, but if so he could pick up a horror injury soon. But on the other hand we absolutely must play him to salvage our season. It would be best for him and the club if we forget about the league and save him up for the Champions League.

This 'history' line is old and unbelievably stupid. Even if the club was founded last week there would be substantial historiography written about its foundation and quite literally its early days. 107 year history, older than sliced bread by 23 years. Same stadium throughout the 107 years. We have plenty of history.

Does this mean we've lost our 31-0 record? And I thought American Samoa were a shambles.

He was decent on the ball, tbf. Utter wank when it came to crossing and passing though, this guy should not be on the wing.

That's awful news. I hope you have insurance.

I agree and I would rep that except I've used my quota. I hate the way overseas fans such as myself and strike are treated, its like we are second class fans or something. We're not plastics. Let me tell you about this guy who went to the same high school as me; he supported Blackburn in 04/05, then Barcelona in 05/06 to 06/07, then Man United in 07/08, then when they made a poor start to the 08/09 season he switched over to Arsenal. When Arsenal bottled it a few weeks later he declared he was finished with football. Then by the time Mr. Ovrebo came up to Stamford Bridge, he proclaimed that he was a Barcelona supporter and always had been. Since then he has supported Barcelolna, but I only give it 2 more years before he supports someone else. That is a plastic fan, not us. I will support Chelsea even if we slip down to below League football, even if we go down to the bottom most tier of English football.

This thread Jimmy Smith was awesome on FM05, brings back some great memories.

Hoilet and Tiote are quality, and are certainly good enough to play for most Champions League level clubs; Higuain is an overpriced sack of shit. Gotze will never leave Germany. Hopefully de Bruyne and Kakuta can together deliver performances around the Hazard level, and Lukaku and Sturridge are the future for us up front. It's all looking good, except in midfield.

All my fault