I'm having a nice Newcastle game at the moment. Here's a mini story for anyone that's interested...
First Season
1st in Championship with 104pts (W 30 D 14 L2) (Media prediction is for Newcastle to come 1st)
3rd round FA Cup (Millwall!)
3rd round League Cup (Chelsea)
Signings:
July - Emerson (free), Vieri (free), Sol Campbell (free), Brahim Hemdani (free), Macheda [Loan], Insua [Loan]
Jan - Claudio Lopez
SOLD NO ONE.
Summary: Decided pretty quickly that my main aim was promotion so I wasn't too down about the early cup exits. Millwall was a shame as they are only League 1 but Chelsea couldn't be avoided.
To be honest a few of my signings did nothing - Vieri was pants for me, and Hemdami. Same with Lopez. Campbell didn't feature much. Macheda was good (22 games, 10 goals, 7.27 rating) and Insua had a good av.rating (got bought by Inter start of 2nd season for 12.5 mill). Emerson was standard, pretty solid.
Good season overall, up with ease.
Second Season (Fri 31st Dec 2010 currently)
Currently 16th (W 5 D 6 L 8) 1 point off 12th, 5 off 10th - I have a game in hand. (Media prediction 12th)
3rd round FA cup (NO GAME PLAYED, got Barnet)
4th round League Cup (Aston Villa after extra-time - they are currently 2nd in the league)
Signings:
July - Vieira (free)
August - Artem Milevskyi (9 mill), Cesar Azpilicueta (6.75 mill), Deco (1 mill), Guti (free), Freddy Adu [Loan 400k fee]
Players Out:
Nicky **** (free), Fabrice Pancrate (free)
Jonas (AC Milan 9.75 mill), Hemdani (Cagliari 1.2 mill), Vieri (Salernitana 20k - have to pay part of his contract cheeky git!), Lopez (Sporting 250k), Lovenkrands (Torino 2.5 mill)
Steven Taylor is excellent. Coloccini is struggling a bit in the Prem. Tim Krul is my first choice and his av.rating is 7.20, pleasantly surprised by him.
I'd be doing better if Guti and Deco weren't always knackered/injured but then they are old. Enrique has 2 red cards in the league already, one more and I'm gonna kick him.
Fingers crossed for a board takeover, he's willing to listen to offers!
Good luck everyone