Match Day Banter – Newcastle v Stoke City

Big Dave

Mid-table Newcastle and Stoke fight for top-half berth at St James’ Park
Having been appointed manager until the end of the season, John Carver got off to the perfect start with a 3-0 win at Hull last weekend.
Along with rounding off a brilliant opening to his fledgling managerial career, victory would see the Toon leapfrog Stoke into the top half of the table and bolster JC’s claims for the role on a more permanent basis.
Team news

Newcastle will be boosted by the return Paul Dummett (hamstring), Gabriel Obertan (thigh) and Ryan Taylor (knee) who are fit and will be included in the squad.

Striker Papiss Cisse has a week’s training under his belt following his return from the Africa Cup of Nations and could feature.
Siem de Jong (thigh) and Rolando Aarons (hamstring) need a little more time, while Davide Santon, Remie Streete, Shane Ferguson, Kevin Mbabu, Gael Bigirimana and Haris Vuckic all left the club on loan on Monday.

Stoke will be without skipper Ryan Shawcross for the trip to Tyneside. The centre-half is set to be absent for the next few games because of a back problem that forced him off in the first half of last Saturday’s 3-1 win over QPR.

Walters is a doubt due to a knee problem that has prevented him from training this week, although Hughes is hopeful the forward will be available.
HOWAY THE LADS

Newcastle Krul; Janmaat, Coloccini (c), Williamson, Haïdara; Sissoko, Anita, Colback; Cabella, Perez, Ameobi.

Subs Woodman, Dummett, Abeid, Obertan, Gouffran, Rivière, Cissé.

Stoke Begovic; Bardsley, Muniesa, Wollscheid, Wilson; Whelan (c), Nzonzi; Walters, Ireland, Moses; Diouf

Subs Butland; Cameron, Wilkinson, Palacios, Adam, Sidwell, Crouch

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385 thoughts on “Match Day Banter – Newcastle v Stoke City”

  1. Sorry owner.

    Stuart the answer to that 294 sounds like a good article. I’ll see if I can answer it.

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  2. Stu/GTE/Prem – for me, what I’m hoping for is a couple of years of poverty and relative obscurity for Ashley to claw back his 130 million or whatever. We’re going to make a decent wedge this year by most peoples guesses, so fingers crossed the debt will be gone in 4 years. After that, compete for the best of the rest constantly and avoid any chance of relegation, and as a priority, target a god **** cup trophy!

    Probably going to be as good as it gets. Pick up more gems like Perez, we’ll probably sell them on but at least we’ll see some class for a while and, fingers crossed, see the back (or the “generosity”? 😉 )of Ashley sooner..

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  3. Incidentally though Troy, my comment was no more or less necassary than the one you came on and made about the conversation Stu, Kim and I had about suicides the other morning.

    Is that a fair point to make by me? 😉

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  4. Running the club in a financially sensible manner is half the battle for clubs of our size and they have largly done that. Now that the FFS/SJH financial train wreck has been dealt with it’s time to spend. With a few spots on the 25 open, some bigger wages leaving the club, at least two clear squad needs, and a new manger coming, this is a big summer for the club’s future.

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  5. That’s the frustrating thing, Sharpy. Even in the face of the facts and seeing what is happening in front of our eyes the ‘other sides’ view still doesn’t change. Very strange and possibly down to pride.

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  7. But Stu we haven’t really had the big profits to spend until this past summer. Now we’ve debated what that money is allocated for without really knowing (new players this summer, paying back some debt to Ashley, new traing ground, etc) and we don’t know why they didn’t spend a chunk on players yet. My personal take is they had no room on the 25 and felt they had a good enough squad to finish in the top 10 this year anyway (which of course means even more profits on top of last year’s). Whatever the reason my point is that there are no such issues going into this summer and therefore no excuses. They finally have the makings of a good young squad on reasonable wages. The academy is churning out players and the money is there. The time is right to strike

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  8. I totally agree but I also think we were in the same position last summer and we haven’t had the conviction to improve our squad to try and move us to the next level. We didn’t do it after we finished fifth and we didn’t do it in January. The 25 man squad is a bit false as we had let go, Mbiwa, HBA, Marv and also Santon in January. That allows for us to have brought in players if the will was there.

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  11. I don’t have a problem with them not buying players in January as we don’t know who was available, at what price, etc. Prior to that the 25 was full.

    I thought we needed a striker and CB and still do. So we’ll see

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  12. It may take a few more years yet but if we continue with the non cup runs and keep failing to get any where near a Europa spot, the attendances will soon drift. I actually think they have already started to. Only then when the masses have collectively said I’ve had enough, will he consider leaving. No way will he want an half empty stadium, not because of cost but because it reflects badly from an advertising point of view. Sky won’t be too keen on empty grounds either, no fans and noise equals very dull viewing especially if the football matches it.

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  14. the only thing missing from the ashley era is a good cup run,if he took them seriously every thing would be golden..
    reet off to graft.

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  15. HITMAN
    March 21, 2014 at 20:29 (Edit)
    ashley selling the land just shows that he isnt arsed about taking this club forward(but hey ho i knew this from day one 😉 )if there is any pro ashley mob left they need lining up and shot.
    2014/02/16 at 10:30
    the fat coont isnt finished getting the boots in yet.there will be alot more hurt to come before hes gone.
    2014/03/30 at 11:30
    aye ice,ashley has this club fked
    2014/09/04 at 11:44
    as for a new owner could be worse,worse than ashley that duznt want us pushing for europe or any cup runs.wtf is it with some people just happy to plod along in mid table for the fro seeable,has ashley crushed ya dreams for the toon,blantant case of stockholmes

    Hitman you have changed your tune ❓ 😆 😆

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  16. DAVE well put mate lol,where are all those we laughed at the quote,he saved us from a fate worse than death,dieing breed me thinks

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  18. Ice I think some just find it easier to just fall in to line and just accept the odd scrap from Jabba’s table.
    I do find it funny that some are convinced that we were going down the tubes under SJH and FFS yet it was Jabba that got us relegated and ripped the heart and soul out of the club

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  19. Troy@239, regarding your claim that I dislike you, you couldn’t be further from the truth mate. I don’t know where you got that one from 🙄
    How can I dislike you when I don’t know you 😆 😆

    Keep up the good crack mate, I quite like you’re posts when you have been on the gargle :-)….

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  20. MDS Dave has always been a level headed guy imo,seems to know the game and fans will even have a joke with the best of us,two tips IMO never call him a lier or not being a 100% toon fan he’s nee soft *****

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  21. Stuart has it spot on @294, we have a new sponsor in Wonga, and the TV money has gone through the roof. We have financed new purchases with sales, so where is the money going ?
    Either under Ashley’s mattress or north of the border…it for sure isn’t going into the team…

    or maybe that bore hole at the club cost a lot more than expected…?
    Has our new or upgraded training ground been approved by the local authority yet ? Has anyone heard when things are likely to be started ?

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  22. DAVE take the TV money ect away and we are in a bigger dept than we ever were,he even owns our dept ffs

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  23. @MM

    it might of been when you called some on here the ‘usual knackers’. ‘daftness and bullying’

    or

    I know which form of dialogue I prefer, and wheras it is sometimes difficult I prefer to ignore the abusive **** being thrown around. They all know who they are, but obviously feel they are entitled to that. Perhaps they are in there own minds, but it’s a pity when the community suffers at the hands of the few,

    last article @464. had you been on the drink 😆

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  24. @Big Dave

    I never accepted the odd scrap handed out but I did live in hope that things were changing for the better. even now we’re not that far away from being a well run club and a decent team. (if we bought some players) But only in the last year or so have I been convinced Mike will never change, my hopes have been well and truly dashed although I still enjoy listening to the guys who think things will get better in 5yrs time lol

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  26. Mark @ 324 we wern’t that far away from ” being a well run club and a decent team. (if we bought some players) ” the year we finished 5th but some people were still convinced that the right players wern’t available at that time but we would get them in the next window.
    As for ” But only in the last year or so have I been convinced Mike will never change, my hopes have been well and truly dashed ”
    I don’t want to say I told you so 😀 but I am happy that you have now seen the light after pulling your head out of the sand.

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  28. Ice, don’t always agree with Dave but as you say an honest poster that never has a go at anyone.

    Happy to have him running the place just so long as he doesn’t ask for donations for a new laptop

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  32. @BD yes mate, and here’s me thinking for ages you were just a miserable auld sod 😆 not the wise owl you turned out to be 😉

    @MM. a little, I’d much prefer people to name who they talk about. I do like some craic but I understand it can annoy others so I do try and keep it minimal now.. 😀

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  33. Gashley@332, I wasn’t having a pop at you…or at least I don’t think I was… I was probably pissed at the time of the post 😳 😳 😆

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  36. MDS never heard owt about him, I just hope he can kick on and become a good player for us and not fall by the wayside, like so many of our younguns

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  37. On the FFS/SJH thing. I am in the camp that think they had us on the precipice of disaster. No guarentee we would have “done a Leeds” certainly, but there was serious trouble brewing. Had they kept the club, they’d have either had to sell players to balance the books or really added to the debt to unsustainable levels. Had we gone down on their watch, a distinct possibility in my mind, we would have been done as I don’t think they would have put in the cash to get us right back up

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  38. MDS we have had to sell players under Jabba normally our better players so no difference there, we have also added more debt now than we had under Jabba .
    Yeah we can guess what would have happened under SJH / FFS but we know for sure what HAS happened under Jabba and that is that we have sold lots of players including our best , we have added lots more debt and we have been relegated 😉

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  39. certainly it’s a hypothetical. But something had to give at some point and they just got out at the right time

    i don’t get too fussed over player sales as theyve largley reinvested the proceeds and I can’t say I really miss any of them other than Cabaye

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  40. dave,that was tounge in cheek earlier. 😆
    in truth ashley is no better or worse than previous owners of the club.
    as for selling our better players,we really couldnt turn the money down for the judas crazy money,cabs went on strike to get a move,bas release clause was met.nowt you can do.

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  41. I also think when the big credit crunch came jabba in some fans eyes was a knight on a big white charger,no one can say what would or would not happen imo jabba timing was spot on,but now we can see he is no knight should ware a mask and a bag with swag on it

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  42. MM

    Have I said you disliked me? I’d be surprised if you didn’t but I don’t recall saying such a thing.

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  43. MDS ” but there was serious trouble brewing. Had they kept the club, they’d have either had to sell players to balance the books or really added to the debt to unsustainable levels. ”

    well going by your answer at 339 the player sales wouldn’t have bothered you, so we can count that one out 😉
    what about the debt that has near doubled from £70 mil to over £ 129 mil at the last count ? or the relegation that we had to go through 🙄

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  44. Agree hitman. It’s funny but Ashley is the exact opposite of the previous regime, both in a positive and negative sense. If we could somehow combine them we’d finally have the ownership group we deserve

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  45. Hitman IMO Cabs went on strike because he knew the club had no ambition, remeber Pards was asked how he managed to get Cabs to the club to which he said that it was the promise of being able to push for european football

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  46. Ice ” jabba in some fans eyes was a knight on a big white charger ” only he turned out to be a fat greedy ***** on a sports direct lorry

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  48. Dave their debt was higher than 70M as it doesn’t include the 57M mortgage on the grounds that Ashley had to pay off after sale. And yeah the other debts seems to now be higher but we arent getting whacked with 10M+ annual interest fees ( though I’ll concede the point that not charging SD for ground advertising in exchange for the loan is probably costing us 10M anyway).

    Very different situation in player sales. My point was that players would have had to be sold to balance the books under FS/SJH as opposed to being reinvested on new players.

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  50. MDS so if your saying the £70 mil debt didn’t include the £57 mil mortgage then that would have meant that the overall debt was £ 130 mil ?? I cant agree with you that the player sales has been reinvested in new players, I think if you look up what players we have sold you will find that a lot of the money hasn’t been reinvested 😕

    Hitman IMO if we were challenging for a euro spot and building a team like Cabs was promised then he would have been happy enough sticking round for a while, for me he seen that the club had no ambition at all, all players like to try to win things and under the regime even the league cup was out of the question

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  51. Cabs left his club that would have been in CL to come to the toon after being told ****,soon got his eyes opened just in jabba shop window to highest bidder,just get them fed up enough to ask for transfer then jabba does not have to pay them 10% of fee,jabba has this game sussed

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  53. MDS

    The entire debt was £70m which included the mortgage. Don’t make figures up to suit your argument.

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  54. The debt accrued under Ashley was the payment to the bank for the ground as that was to be paid immediately on sale of the club, but Jabba didn’t know that because he didn’t do his due diligence! Moby! The rest was down to relegation and him having to put money in to keep the club going hole in the Championship.

    So he’s been responsible for at least half of the current debt. But please don’t forget that the club have stated the debt to Ashley is the reason why Sports Direct are getting free advertising. The funny thing is though the debt doesn’t appear to be reducing in line with the advertising Sports Direct are getting.

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  55. Hitman some players could be happy at a club that are pushing for Europe every year, yeah he still might have went, but I am 100% sure that he wouldn’t be happy at a club with zero ambition that he was sold a lie about

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  56. Stu when and where did the club come out and admit that the debt to Ashley is the reason why Sports Direct are getting free advertising.??

    The last I knew was that it was only to showcase to potential sponsors

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  57. Yeah Dave those numbers might be too high. It was always reported that the club had about 100M in debt which he paid off plus the 34M to cover relegation.

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  58. Dave – Charnley said it in a fans forum.

    Ashley had to pay the mortgage on the ground but also decided to pay off all the transfer fees we owed from transfers that had staged payments. Ashley used his own money to do this and of course added it to the debt. In reality the only thing he has saved us is interest payments but to counter that he’s added to the debt and we haven’t exactly used the saved interest payment money have we…?

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  61. So yeah, the debts higher because of relegation. Where you and I disagree Dave is that I think we’d have gone down anyway

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  62. MDS yeah mate you THINK we would have went down under FFS .
    But I KNOW that we did go down under Jabba 😉 😀 😀
    I think we’ll agree to disagree 😆

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  64. The reason we got relegated was the sale of players like Milner and Given and appointing several managers in one season including Kinnear.

    Hardly something FFS would have done.

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  68. Unbelievable! Rangers have banned Daily Record in Scotland! Didn’t take Lambias and Ashley long to get their modus Operandi going did it!

    These wankers need to be driven out of football!!

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  74. thought of the day 😉
    “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”
    ― Salman Rushdie

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  75. Kim, don’t want to post it as I don’t want to offend anyone, but his statement after the Paris attacks was spot on IMO

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