and start preparing yer PL victory parade a tad early.

"Follow follow follow...'cos United are goin' to Glasgow....."

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Answers

Some of them are getting a little carried away but not me mate, i'd expect a points deduction if we ever win the poxy thing ;)) and i'll take anyones bet that it won't be this year.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Alan Green yesterday said summat like "these Newcastle fans are starting to annoy me"...lol

I thought....great...some mad Geordie will be on the phone soon...FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT !!. And that was the whole point.....he'd had lots and lots of e-mails from irate Geordies about why nobody is talking about NUFC but NO phonecalls to his PHONE IN show :-)

Class!

BTW...our biggest song last wednesday as the 4th went in V's Derby..."staying up staying up staying up" :)

PS...rather you twots win it than Leeds , Arse and the Thieves

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Bliddy hell LR, is Christmas coming up or summat ? :-))

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Nobody can seriously expect us to win the Premiership this year, surely? But the longer we continue this run, the better chance of still being in a UEFA place when the inevitable slump comes.

Problem is, we could do with staying out of the limelight. If we ever hit that top spot, I have no doubt we'll be knocked down to size repeatedly. I prefer creeping around in the shadows in 5th or 6th, quietly accumulating the points whilst being underestimated.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Yeah i've been thinking that we only need another 4 wins or so before we're safe :))

One thing I will say about us this year is that suprisingly we aren't dropping games against some of the poorer teams like we usually do....I still don't think we're near the top 5 in the league as we'll soon see.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I've realised why there are two distinct camps - the optimistic and the pessimistic/realistic - as far as our chances this season are concerned. It's because some fans only ever see us play at SJP, while others only ever see us in London.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Gav
Don't ask, if you want more evidence than just how they look, but our defense hasn't given me 90 minutes of palpitations for about three games now, including Chelsea. Still work to be done but the basics seem to be starting to show.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

LOL Dan. You may have hit on something there.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Alan Green is a small hairy cock.

We'll not win it this year, but I think a cautious renewal of passports may be in order. End of January is the test: if we are still thereabouts we should do well. Prediction - 4th

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Can't win it: don't have the squad. However, if we f..k up on Europe now, it'll be scandalous.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

dougal goes and blows it

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Pit Bill, I agree reharding the defence although in the last ten minutes, they seemed so reluctant to just get rid of the b*stard ball.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

wonderful moment in the Leeds-Leicester game yesterday afternoon, with Green commentating I think, with Jim Smith being the 'expert'. Leicester had just pulled it back to 2-2 and it was time to start looking at the bigger picture.

"Great news for United, Leeds dropping points like this. Arsenal too must be pleased that unexpectedly dropping points against West ham won't have caused them to fall to far behing in the Championship race. Liverpool and Chelsea, who meet in half an hours time, will both be cheered by the sight of Leeds not taking advantage of their game in hand."

"Yes Alan, and you've got to look at Spurs as well, they had an excellect win again yesterday and seem to be building up a head of steam."

Then back to the game.

Luckily I was feeling amused rather than abused by this selective amnesia on the team 3 points and a game in hand ahead of Spurs/Manchester.

Ho hum.

For me we're miles behind the level we were the year's we finished 2nd, but "the table disnae lie, pal"

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

hard to believe we're 3rd, but look at our away wins - everton, boro, bolton , ipswich. nothing startling, but in other years we'd have 5 points from that lot instead of 12.

i think we're 3 players short of having a sniff of a CL place:

a left back - elliot's not up to it a central midfielder - obviously a centre forward - sorry but shearer has 4 goals from open play in 16 games, imagine if we had viduka, owen or fowler

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

BBC sport on the news read the table as: "Liverpool closely followed by Arsenal with Manchester United and Tottenham closing on the other challengers Leeds and Chelsea."

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

It's quite amusing really :)) we really don't have any chance and they're just letting us know.....we might get a mention tomorrow after we've foulded for Arsenal.

Something along the lines of "Newcastle prove they're shit as we knew"....

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

anyone else might view this as paranoia but its damn true

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Obviously we are a "Stealth team" and they won't notice us until it's too late!

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I mean... zebras have black and white stripes for camouflage

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I was at work yesterday listening to radio five (both games and the subsequent call in)I can't recall a more enjoyable day at work. Why does trevor brooking slava all over chelsea? what is it with spurs and everyone loving them, personally I hope they fold after christmas.

And lastly what is worse? Us going down to london with 29 games of misery behind us or being a london team (arsenal will do nicely) and knowing that the streak is going to end sooner rather than later. The game tomorrow has banana skin all over it for arsenal, while we are expected/expecting to lose, nothing more than a rout will suffice for both arsenal and the media.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

On Saturday's On The Ball the programme gave the Christmas fixtures of Liverpool (currently 1st), Arsenal (currently 2nd), Leeds (currently 3rd) and Man U (currently 5th). No mention of the fixtures of the then currently 4th team. So even the alleged toon fans Gabby and Venners are blinkered to us.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

It's a case of the Villas for me. When they went top for the first time in goodness knows how long, there was a polite murmur about it. Naturally, now they've dropped right out they're being ignored. However, we have been top 6 for a while, and 4th over a few games...I think there is a diabolical scheme to fool the public.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Hmmmmm, nice comments, Arsene....... ARSENAL v NEWCASTLE UNITED F.A. Premiership Arsenal Stadium Tuesday December 18th Kick-off: 8pm

ARSENE WENGER has insisted that his side will be able to cope with the pressure of going top of the table.

Liverpool's 4-0 defeat at Chelsea on Sunday means that we can go above the Merseysiders to lead the Premiership with a win over Newcastle on Tuesday evening.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I prefer it when we're not talked about - so it suits me fine that it's all quiet. We're realistic and know our team so not expecting to win anything. However, the league is very poor this year so who knows who will win it.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I'd be happy to quietly finish in the top 4 without getting a mention from here 'til May. I'm amazed we're still up there considering our central midfield has always been stop-gap. With Dyer fit, we have a few options.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Isn't top 4 Champion's League territory now?

I thought England has an extra place because of the strong showing from English teams over the last few years.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Anyway, I think we'll be about 7th or 8th by the end of January, before slowly creeping up to 8th or 7th by May.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Yes Paul - fourth is a CL place, presumably through a qual round.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

4th is a CL spot if we can carry on beating the ordinary teams we've ot a great chance of making a run for 4th in the second half of the season. Virtually every team we play after Jan falls into the "ordinary" category so provided we don't lose to much ground in Dec/Jan then it's not impossible. We could have done without Man United & Chelsea putting together a couple of wins, but the table still looks a whole lot healthier that I predicted at the start of the season (I think I said 8th, or 6th if Dyer came back reasonably quickly). A central m/f would be nice though!!

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Cliff - I know for a fact that Gabby is a toon fan. I used to know her you see.....

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Take no notice of them LR, I for one am glad you are going to Glasgow. I do have a couple of questions though.

Are you going there because you think you have a chance at winning their league?

Is it a transfer, you for Rangers and Celtic?

Just to be closer to your fans?

-- Anonymous, December 18, 2001