--> QUOTE(Ste B @ Nov 21 2006, 12:49 ) 461570[/snapback] Part of the BRISA remit is to provide a way of providing dialog between the fans and the club. The FF did that, but suffered from a lack of being open with what was discussed. BRISA has to be careful not to fall into that trap, as imho its suffering from keeping too much behind closed doors. Let's be fair about this if the Fans Forum has failed in recent months it's for no other reason than the family problems suffered by the Forum chairman. As for BRISA I went along on Monday expecting there to be a huge turnout and there were I think six people other than myself present. So it could fairly be said that both organisations are struggling at the moment. As for the motives of the people concerned in both organisations I don't think you can get beyond the fact it's a load of fans giving up their free time to try and help the club. People are doing it for the right reasons in the first instance but they also need more help from everyone else in terms of involvement.

............courtesy of Newcastle's 1-0 victory over Portsmouth. Thing is, Savage apart, do we have enough players willing to roll their sleeves up and battle their way out of trouble?

Great great result, but another poor performance. Friedel did what he had to do in goal and of the outfield players Ooijer and Gray played with great courage and spirit but no-one else can look back on their performance with any fondness. Emerton - just about ok. Zurab - absolute nightmare, never put a foot right and a case of "After you Maude" in the penalty area Tugay - never got in the game Savage - ditto until the last 15 mins. Bentley - very poor game MGP - the guy has a broken rib, withdraw him til he's fit. Nonda - encouraging workrate but lack of quality when it mattered i.e. the free header he should have buried in the first half. MCCarthy - pathetic -spent the whole game being caught offside. Great Kudos due to Hughes and his team for our European accomplishment but there was little in tonight's performance to suggest an immediate upturn in League form.

Let's not pretend it's just us - look at the gates for the other 2 televised games over the weekend. City v Fulham - 35776 - about 11,000 or roughly 25% down on the 46,000 they were getting. About the same as us. Wigan v Villa 18455 It's so easy to watch virtually every game live on TV at the moment I think most clubs are going to have to start taking a hit on their gate revenue in exchange for the increased TV wonga.

Agreed. Of all teams United were denied a stonewall penalty on the stroke of half time last week when Saha was bundled over from behind. I'm sure the RFW would have had plenty to say about it had they not gone on to win.

In hard cash terms the Trust are currently injecting 3m a year into the club not 6m. This has been the case for quite a few seasons now and was originally intended to equate to a full stadium when attendances were averaging 24-25000 under Souness. As gates have dropped the injection from the Trust has remained constant at the same 3m. Not a criticism, just an observation of fact. If you're talking about overall investment being greater than 3m p.a. due to concessions such as loans being written off etc then that probably bumps the figure up substantially but it's difficult to put a precise value on that..

I can't actually see us having any joy with an appeal because there was contact, it was a foul, and if Tugay was the last man (I wasn't at an angle to be able to see that) it was technically the correct decision. Although I think in this particular instance the ref should certainly have used his discretion and not sent him off.

If you remember that's more or less exactly what Graham Poll admitted in the "big club bias" thread I started. Although I didn't think we were particularly hard done by yesterday, I thought the handball given against Ooijer away at Villa Park was ridiculous. The clearest example I can think of is the Carling Cup semi against the red scum at the theatre of merchandising the other year. Two absolutely identical "handballs" neither of which were penalties in a month of Sundays. The one against Zurab, ref couldn't blow fast enough. The one against Rio, ref never even looked twice. Ref's name errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..................... Graham Poll.

I'm only in favour of cameras on the goal line for "Was the ball over or not" type decisions. Otherwise you'd be stopping the game at every opportunity and imo it would completely kill off the rhythm, flow and passion of the match. We didn't quite get the rub of the green with the decisions yesterday but our problems are more down to our own deficiencies in midfield and attack than poor officiating. Worryingly Sparky is starting to sound a bit like Souness, whinging about officials all the time. I guess when he gets round to using the phrase "We were mugged by lady luck" it's really time to start worrying.

Not saying Gray's a better player than Neill or vice versa, just said Gray played well. However if Neill is in fact off in January (something only Hughes will know) there's surely little point in him playing for us again. We won't particularly miss him if, and admittedly it's a big if, Gray can reproduce that form week in week out.

No, Neill has made it plain that he doesn't want to play for us and his last few performances have reflected that. The sooner that particular saga is over the better. Thankfully it may only be another few weeks. If anyone still wants him.

Have to disagree Den, I'm not normally one to defend referees but I thought the ref got both big decisions basically right with the exception that the red card for Tugay was exceedingly harsh. I thought at the time it was a penalty and slow motion replays confirmed my initial instincts. Tugay caught the Spurs player with his trailing leg, Definite penalty but it was inadvertent as he was going one way and the Spurs player the other so to send him off was extremely harsh. I actually got the impression that the ref wasn't going to send Tugay off initially but our players persuaded him to consult with the linesman in the vain hope of getting him to change his decision. Unfortunately it appeared the linesman indicated in his view Tugay was the last man earning him a belated red! Similarly two minutes later I wasn't up in my seat screaming for the Mido handball and I was wondering if I'd missed something. Again on slow motion Mido clearly controlled the ball on his chest and it might just have brushed his arm slightly on the way down. I wouldn't have given it and would be livid if the same thing was awarded against us. Other than those bits of controversy it was a very poor game with precious little quality on offer from either side - Tugay excepted. By far his best game of the season -we all know about his silky skills but his work rate today put most of his younger colleagues to shame. Henchoz played really well and looked far more assured than Ooijer but where were they for the penalty incident? Bert didn't seem on his game today. Gray was back to last season's excellent form - see ya Lucas don't let the door hit you on your arse on the way out. Savage wasn't quite up to full speed but still did a decent job of stopping Spuds from playing, especially after we went down to ten men. Bentley had an off day - quite rare for him recently. What was MGP even doing on the pitch? - He has a cracked rib hasn't he - and it showed. A virtual passenger throughout. What does that say to Peter and Gallagher and any other youngster hoping to be given their chance? Sorry, thought the front two were really disappointing once again. When the ball comes into the area neither of them seem prepared to attack it, they seem to want the ball right on their head or to their feet or they ain't interested. On the plus side the sending off seemed to fire us up a bit and as others have said I thought we played a lot better with ten men than eleven. A point was better than I was expecting before the game and hopefully that and a decent result on Thursday night can kickstart the season again.

Except that poor old Tugay got sent off trying to cover an area the 2 centre backs should have been covering after they went AWOL.

It's pretty trendy to knock Vinjay on here and he might even be a closet dingle but regardless of his motives and despite his unique style he does have some good points trying to get out. The one mistake he makes is that the Club and Trust Fund are run by the Walker Trustees who are completely separate from the Walker family. If for example Fred is now worth 600m that's his prerogative and good luck to him. Aside from that there are some fundamental questions that need answering: How do the Trustees see their long term relationship with the club? Why has funding for the current manager dried up when the previous incumbent received excessively generous backing? What is the progress or otherwise in finding additional sources of investment. After all that was one of John Wiliams main tasks on the formation of the new superstreamlined board. We can't be that bad a bet with little or no external debt and new TV deals in the offing. To whom is John Williams accountable if things aren't going so well? If push comes to shove are we prepared to do what is necessary to make sure we actually benefit from the new TV deals? However Vinjay's best point is about the seeming obsession with completely irrelevant discussion about the drummers. Ho hum.

Can we get a point without Savage in the side? Personally I don't think so. 0-2 tomorrow, the chronic lack of investment in the playing side of things since Hughes took over to be highlighted once again and game on as far as the relegation scrap is concerned. After which things might start to gradually improve and tomorrow may be the low point of the season.

Grrrr.............. "Punching above our weight" I despise this phrase which John Williams came out with some years ago to excuse below par performances. We are not "punching above our weight". We are exactly where we deserve to be at this moment in time (i.e. sweating after four poor performances and straight defeats) We only got to the Premiership (twice) due to the benevolence of one man, who also put a superb infrastructure in place. Thanks to that for all but two of the Premiership years we've been buoyed by large amounts of TV money plus the added bonus of the Trust Fund. Weights don't come into it. Could someone please explain why we should possibly not be stronger than the promoted sides every year?

You can also compensate for lack of out and out pace by shifting the ball about quickly and effectively. A well struck pass travels far quicker than a player can run. When you're not doing this, and there's no movement off the ball either, sheer pace is the only way left to trouble the opposition. We don't have that last resort "catch them on the hop" type outlet since Bellamy left, so we'll either have to be a lot cuter with our movement or a lot quicker and more accurate with our passing or preferably both.

Was speaking to a United fan who was in the Darwen End today and he said the behaviour of the travelling support was extremely poor including: The Portaloos in the Fernhurst being set on fire and becoming unusable Fans ripping off the metal shutters on the bar areas inside the ground and generally vandalising anything they could get their hands on Seats being stood on and mistreated until they cracked or snapped Sounds like it's going to cost us a fair few quid

Bloody hell. Extremely harsh that, unless there was stuff going on behind the scenes we aren't privy to.

Getting the topic back on track to the subject of Gally, it's fairly obvious why he doesn't seem to be getting a fair crack of the whip, McCarthy, Nonda and Jeffers are Hughes signings, Gallagher is not. That's not a particular criticism of Hughes, it's a characteristic displayed by all managers. His lack of time on the pitch certainly can't be connected to his performances, by and large when he's come on he's done well we've looked far more potent as an attacking force. On the flip side it's becoming obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that Jeffers has about as much chance of making it at this level again as Matt Jansen. However I would imagine Hughes will persevere with him for a bit longer as he will be loath to admit he was wrong. Which again will be to Gallagher's detriment.

It's a sad sign of how poorly we're playing at the moment when some are relieved we only got beaten one nil in a home fixture regardless of the opposition. We beat them twice last season for heavens sake and Southend didn't seem to have too many problems mid week. Spurs has now become a huge game, we really must take something out of it to break the losing sequence. Just as importantly we need to see the team starting to work for each other again, players battling for the ball as if their life depended on it, players moving off the ball and making themselves available when we have possession, and the front two need to start putting in an honest shift and trying to stretch the opposition backline. It shouldn't all be down to Savage, the other players need to start taking some responsibility as well.

Absolutely spot on Gordon whenever we had the ball there was no movement off it whatsoever from anyone. No-one seemed to really want it badly enough. This was also extremely noticeable during our first poor run in the first four games of the season.

Couldn't agree more. After the obvious midfield problem that's the other major contributory factor in our alarming slump imo.

Sorry that's absolute rubbish in my opinion, the mancs won at will, it was a matter of when not if they were going to score. And it was only kept down to a respectableish 0-1 by the over rated Rooney having an off day. We created nowt. But even worse was, if in doubt against a technically superior side get in their faces and rattle them. We didn't even try to do that. Until Savage returns god knows where the next points are coming from.

He probably means it would hold back Bentley's development. Like someone else said I think Sparky's comments have been dragged way out of context to make a newsworthy story. All he basically said was that anyone in their right minds would want him if he became available and it was viable financially. Somewhat unlikely on the face of it but if you suspend disbelief for a moment it would theoretically be a great move for both parties. Massive exposure and increased commercial and TV revenue for the club. Star billing and a regular starting slot for Beckham which he ain't going to get at the "big four." Plus if he moved to us he could move back to leafy Cheshire rather than live in Newcastle. Even if it doesn't happen it's encouraging to see us linked with such a mega name.