The AA deal is valued at £3m in total though isn't it? If he doesn't trigger any add on clauses that would tend to suggest the move wouldn't have been a success.

I cheated and took the lift!. I counted the stairs on a previous visit. It's something like 31 or 32 flights I think. Needed oxygen by the time I got there.

We paid fees for Rothwell and Davenport thought to be in the region of 800k combined at the time. I cant remember the exact figures but I always assumed Rothwell cost us around 400k. Can't see his value has increased by sitting on the bench. Likewise I can't see Clubs queueing up to pay more than 3m for AA. I'd say his value has dipped rather than increased on the basis of his (rather disappointing) performances this season.

Maybe it's a bit of a minor complaint I didn't understand the substitution of Dack for Williams at all. You've just been rather unjustly pegged back to 1-1 and you have one guy on the pitch who's likely to do something and maybe get you back in front. So what do you do? Simples. You take him off!!! Plus, the removal of Dack had the effect of throwing Brereton to the wolves and leaving him with no support whatsoever. I'd go as far to say that if you were trying to make BB look as bad as possible and maybe even try and throw the game having lost the lead that's the sort of change you'd make. Not that I'm suggesting that was TM's intention but I thought it was a terrible substitution which we just about got away with.

Incredibly disappointing yet again. We played reasonably well but Newcastle looked as though they didnt want to be there and a more ruthless team than us would have well and truly put them to the sword. We seem to manage to contrive not to win matches no matter how promising our situation looks and I sort of expect us to now find a way not to go through against a team whose priorities and minds are clearly elsewhere. For the penalty I was thinking, don't dive in, dont dive in dont dive in, bugger! Dack for me showed that when his mind is on the job not only is he a Premiership quality player he is a cut above your run of the will Premiership player. Any thoughts we'll be better off selling him and investing in several inferior players is nonsense for me. We are still an extremely frustrating side to watch at times, there was one instance when Armstrong had the chance to beat his man near tbe bye line and home in on goal. Instead he checked back and a few backward passes later which put us under increasing pressure we were almost in a spot where the ball had to go back to Raya from near the halfway line. On the plus side as OssyDave said what a night out it is in Newcastle. The ground must be fairly unique these days in being in the centre of town right on hand for the Pubs and Clubs etc. The only other one I can think of is the Millennium Stadium.

I thought it sounded as far fetched as you and I wouldn't have bothered repeating it other than for the fact it came from an ostensibly excellent source and yes he was sober as a judge! I thought the same about BB. I can't believe he was a TM signing given the lack of game time he's had.

Was told the other night by someone who appeared a credible source that the owners have handed TM a 20m budget this window, the only potential fly in the ointment being that TM doesn't like spending unless he is completely confident about tbe target in question. We shall see. If they have, I hope we don't waste too much of it on Gallagher. Average at best for me, tries hard but lacking in quality and a pretty terrible scoring record.

Going up to this more for the night out with my daughters who live in Newcastle than the game but nevertheless hope we take it seriously and field a near full strength side as opposed to say Charlton away at the end of last season.

Quite a lot. How did we fare in those games, how many did he score?. I knew people would leap to Graham's defence when I posted but we need to be looking forward and trying to improve the side not rewarding ageing players for past performance.

Chapman should imo have been our player by now, assuming a reasonable level of fitness, he's exactly what we lack. The problem is TM doesn't really rate him and would rather play a past it Conway or a "wide striker" out of position there because he perceives rightly or wrongly that out and out wide men don't give us enough defensive solidity.

So we've given new deals to a guy who if he lasts that long at all is at best ion his last legs and another who we refuse to hand a start to and who as a result may never make it. We really arent progressing as a Club at all are we? Re: Graham it said in the LT that one more appearance in the last game would activate a clause in his contract entitling him to a new deal. I thought Venky's had stopped that sort of nonsense when John Williams left.

For me I think its more the case that TM still sees it as bringing in one or two players to help the ones already here rather than trying to bring in players who will go straight into the team and improve the starting eleven. A major overhaul is needed if we're going to challenge for promotion in tbe forseeable future not a bit of window dressing and tinkering with the depth of the squad. Hanley on loan, Wharton recall, a main striker and Chapman would get us through unscathed to the end of the season. Then hopefully the major reconstruction which should have started in the summer can commence.

Ok thanks. Hope the daft predictions don't come back to bite us!

I wasn't sure if it was a serious post or one taking the rip out of nicko.

Where have you seen that? £15m would be a ridiculously low fee.

No. He's just way past his best. I don't get it when people go bananas when he collapses somewhere near the half way line and earns a free kick. You'd think he'd beaten five men and bent a thirty yarder into the top corner. You've got to do a lot more than hold it up occasionslly for me.

I thought he looked lively and put their defenders under quite a lot of pressure when he came on. The incident with the keeper wasn't his fault, he made a bit of a meal of it but he didn't do anything wrong, probably wasn't quite a red but should have been a yellow for the keeper I thought. Certainly not the other way round.

Yes and everyone around me was of the same opinion.

By god we needed those three points which take the pressure off a bit. However at the risk of sounding negative I fear it may be only papering over the cracks as the underlying problems still remain. After Dack set up a one on one for Graham inside the first 4 minutes which he was too slow to capitalise on I thought we'd play until this time next week until we got a freak goal with Mulgrew scoring direct from a corner After that we played a lot better for a period and Armstrong came up with a bit of brilliant play to set Dack away and he showed great quality to take out the defender by cutting back inside the.defender and arrow the ball into the top left hand corner. After that we contrived to make hard work of it by conceding a needless penalty, we had the usual bizarre TM substitution replacing Dack with Conway and we ended up having to be reliant on a brilliant save from Raya to seal the points despite finishing the match against ten men. Main positive: Travis. As at Sheffield he was excellent and fully deserved his MOM award. Too many negatives for me though to think the win is anything other than "a blip" rather than the start of a sustained run of form. - Bennett - not a RB and had a shocker today - Lenihan - looks poor at the moment - Mulgrew - prone to letting the opposition get free headers on our goal - Bell - nowhere near as bad as Williams but still not that convincing - Evans - degenerating into the bastard love child of Jason Lowe and Keith Andrews, marking space and doing a lot of pointing whilst the game completely passes him by - Not getting the best of the tenacious Reed out wide. - Graham - completely past it for me and hardly touched the ball in the second half

Yawn. Back to the stale old tactics. Timid Tony strikes again. Bloody Evans back in, no way Palmer should have lost his place on merit, at least Travis is playing but that is probably only on account of Smallwood's suspension.

We should be all over that if true. While we're at it get Scott Wharton back as well and let's have two actual centre halves playing in those positions as opposed to converted midfielders.

BB did all right imo yesterday. Nothing earth shattering but the midfield and attack looked a far more cohesive unit in the first half yesterday than when we're lumping long balls up to a past it Danny Graham. If for example it was the first game of the season there was certainly nothing to suggest he should be immediately dropped again. But I'm sure he will be.

Don't have a tape measure to hand but Reed at West Brom maybe?

Have we ever gone 0/12 over Christmas before as we are threatning to do? I can't recall it although that period can't have been particularly good under Lambert.

I never get this obsession with if a young player looks the part, "Send him out on loan, we don't want him playing for us, oh no." No way he should be going out on loan for me but he probably will. He's miles better than the old favourites like Evans, Smallwood, Bennett, Conway etc etc