Arriving the day Bolton came to visit, Celestine Babayaro gets the 1989 New Order album cover treatment. Smashing image; lazy player. The Bellamy situation, Heerenveen and the new signings get ample coverage as we try to cover two predictably chaotic months in the life of Newcastle United Sporting Soap Opera and Greek Tragedy Incorporated. Nigel Pearson writes an impassioned defence of Souness, while Pete H calls the formerly moustachioed one worse than shite and we blow our own trumpets about the shiny new website we'd just set up. Football writer and Independent journalist, David Conn is interviewed and there's a load of letters and text messages from disgruntled punters. About the club, not us (cough!)

Out for the Liverpool away game just before Christmas, where centre page poster boy Craig Bellamy's "back problem" flared up for the first time. The covers boats a seemingly portrayed painted JJ with a Bradford City claret and amber background. Following a thoroughly rotten six weeks, the cautious optimism of issue #39 is out the window. The editor sticks the boot in on Shepherd's comments on lower league teams while Neil Mitchell worries whether Souness will have the nous to buy wisely in the transfer window and Colin Whittle withering writes off the first half of the season. On a positive note, Dave Downey takes us through 48 liquor-soaked hours in Sochaux and, more spiritually, there's the story of some Kenyan lads visiting SJP for the first time, their love being nurtured by Geordie lad Richard Young's selfless decision to go and work there. Oh, and there's an article slagging Dyer off.