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Will believe it when it happens.

 

At least it ain't gonna be your mate Freddy!

So long as everybody else's mate Mike "anyone is better than Fred" Ashley sells up! 

Will believe it when it happens.

HTL, its not about FS or who is worse or better. That 'debate' went out the window years ago.

Yes, I know, mate.

Thing is, I'm massively hacked off at the situation the club is in but also massively hacked off that a very vocal faction of know-nowts didn't appreciate what ambition means.  I lost count of the times I was called a stupid old bastard for saying stuff like "there's nowt worse than supporting a club that has no ambition, a club that isn't even trying". 

That's the last I'll say on it. They know who they are.

We're not down yet. If we survive I hope people don't suddenly forget what a total disaster Ashley has been and continues to be for this football club.

From facebook

Ten Years of Mike Ashley: - Feel free to share this the next time a fan of another club tells you "he hasn't done a bad job".

 

Twice relegated (pending the inevitable)

Twice appointed Joe Kinnear

Only two top ten finishes in ten years.

Five relegation fights.

Twice lost major lawsuits launched by his own staff (Keegan/Gutierez)

Branded a "liar" by a high court judge in the Keegan trial.

Found guilty of firing a player because he had cancer in the Gutierez trial!

Had John Carver fire two senior players by telephone (the same call - to save money) then...fired John Carver.

Hired John Carver.

Fired the popular Chris Hughton after he masterminded the club's return to the Premier League and a 5-1 thrashing of Sunderland. Hired Alan Pardew who became the first ever NUFC manager to lose four consecutive derbies and the worst losing streak for 100 years!

Inherited debt of 129 million when he bought the club - this has remained static for TEN YEARS, despite his media friends telling everyone he "cleared the debt" - he hasn't...not a penny. He transferred it to himself so that instead of NUFC owing a bank £129 million we owe HIM £129 million.A figure that never reduces despite the vast profits he has turned over in player sales nearly every season.

None of this debt has ever been cleared despite this benevolence allowing him to cream transfer profits and use the stadium as his own personal advertising space for Sports Direct FOR FREE!

 

Here's a few other things he did:

 

Changed the name of St. James Park to "Sports Direct Arena". Total funds received from Sports Direct for this honour: £0

 

Declared it club policy at a fans forum that winning cups was "not a priority" as it interfered with club's stated goal of "finishing tenth".

 

Declared "The buck stops here" after the club dodged relegation last year.

 

Declared "Don't come crying to me" around a month ago when it became apparent that the club will now be relegated for the second time under his watch.

 

Declared "I have virtually nil effect on Newcastle United" in the same interview.

 

The Newcastle United that I grew up watching challenged for the title 20 years ago, played regularly in Europe and reached two FA cup Finals. They played in the Champions league under Bobby Robson and even when they were terrible under Dalglish and Gullit they reached FA Cup Finals and had a soul.

 

The NUFC I have watched under the Ashley Regime is not the same institution, he has leached and bled the heart out of the club, turning the stadium into a tacky billboard for a zero hours contract charver clothes store, the shirt into a barely recognisable advert for a classless payday lender, the playing staff into a revolving door of legends in their own minds, whose only interest is to step into a shop window and be sold for profit to whoever will have them.

He has isolated and alienated club legends and sucked the willpower out of supporters who were once considered some of the noisiest in the country.

 

NUFC under Ashley is a hollow vacant shell so don't peddle your "he's done a good job" myths or your "but he cleared the debt" fantasies at me.

 

Until he is gone you can look forward to the Sports Direct Boot stamping on your face forever.

 

Wake up Newcastle. Do whatever it takes to get rid of this parasite...and no, I don't mean throwing a bunch of fucking beachballs onto the pitch.

 

‪#‎ashleyout‬

 

But people still go and support this shit...

I won't repeat myself, I remember the flak and abuse too well.

Anyone but Fred, they said...

Anyone but Fred...

Again

Ok it might be too late but at least we are now showing g some ambition buy spending big.

 

I'm not digging at you personally like, but it's really beginning to irritate me now reading and hearing this stupid phrase over and over again. Ambition with regards to what exactly?

 

'Showing ambition' is appointing and listening to a knowledgeable, clued up director / board of directors and going after a good / successful manager that could potentially win you something. Showing ambition is not appointing the reserve team secretary, Alan Carr's fucking dad and an old, useless puppet of an ex-player and vehemently going after Steve fucking McClaren. Not once, not twice but three times? Don't get me started on the likes of John Carver being given the reigns.

 

'Showing ambition' is going after players and building a solid team that can win you games. Showing ambition is not getting mostly medicore, half arsed players that don't fit or belong in your team and putting them on 5 and 6 year contracts, in the blind hope that they do well so you can make more money. On a similar note, forcing out and giving away arguably one of your best players and then spending circa £40m trying to replace said player by signing a Ligue 1 flop of the season (who knocked the club back previously), another who was either not interested, not tried or frankly not good enough and then a Spurs cast off who's barely done anything of note nor turned out this season?

 

That's not ambition, it's fucking stupidity. What's worse, they're only a handful of examples over his 8 year tenure. 8 years. You think Ashley has somehow just now decided he wants to be ambitious with the club? You don't think being on the verge of falling off the gravy train in 18th place is reason enough they are pissing all the club generated revenue up the wall? The whole thing is a massive gamble. Kinnear was a gamble. Carver was a gamble. McClaren and this transfer window will be this years gamble. There's no ambition or plan here aside from propping up the league for the benefit of Sports Direct.

And all so predictable.

From a fans perspective Ashley has made a whole series of poor decisions since he bought the club, however he's making money, so no problem.

 

Jesus, where did someone drag you back from?

Haven't been away, just lost interest in arguing when a load of kids insisted a club/board with no ambition is better than one that tries. 

From a fans perspective Ashley has made a whole series of poor decisions since he bought the club, however he's making money, so no problem.

Abeid? Not even on the bench?..

There has been no ambition for success on the field since Ashley arrived. Entirely predictable.

Hope Carver has gone.

I won't be surprised if Ashley thinks he can do the job himself though.

Sooner Ashley sells up the better.

No ambition is a whole lot worse than trying and not quite making it.

Dya know what, when we were shit by accident I didn't mind it, I almost expected it. Now we are shit by design though, it's probably the worst ever time for me as a supporter. I actively despise the thing I once loved and it's horrific.

 

It isn't a football club anymore, it's a living breathing monument to one mans largess and disdain for his "customers".

 

Fuck what now calls itself NUFC, fuck it. Burn the fucking thing to the ground with Ashley, Charnely and John "I'm a Geordie" fucking Carver all inside the cunt. They can keep it.

Reminds me of the Westwood and McKeag days of no ambition, the days before JH and FS came along and had a go.

Supporting a club that has no ambition is soul destroying and it's back.

Here's my view of why he's so hopeless in derbies.

 

Pardew's problem in derby games is that he doesn't understand them at all. He played for and managed a succession of London teams that don't have derbies (Brighton - Crystal Palace doesn't count) - the only real derby he's had before he rocked up here was an FA Cup arse-kicking at home to Portsmouth when he was at Southampton.

 

In his attempts to "understand what it means", he tries to overcompensate and subscribes to the sort of idiotic thinking that is always wheeled out in cliches before derby games - "the form book goes out the window", "it's all about pride", all this bollocks, and he drags the game down to its basest level. Long balls, go in hard, win ugly but just win.

 

The problem with this approach is that those cliches are wheeled out by the losers. I've seen Newcastle win a lot of derbies and the ones that have been the most comfortable have never been hard fought, or a matter of us "wanting it more" - they've been us turning up, breezing through it like we're having a wander round Tesco, beating them and fucking off home. 5-1 was fantastic but think of 2-0 under Keegan (Owen brace) and Robson (Bellamy and Shearer) as two of the easiest games I have ever seen Newcastle play. If you treat the game any differently to any other, that's when you come unstuck.

 

Teams that are shit tend to treat it differently, they try and drag the game down and try not to let a game of football break out - that's what the mackems did for years, unfortunately it tends to have the reverse effect because they race round more, leave ridiculous amounts of space, end up with ten men and get beat every time. That is now us. There's been loads of comments on here in the last 24 hours about the mackems "wanting it more" - really? Ki was playing with his fucking slippers on, he never broke sweat. I never saw any evidence of that whatsoever. It's just an easy cliche for a dire performance.

 

Have Spurs got a poorer record over the last 20 years against any teams other than Arsenal or Chelsea? Even since they've been good, they still generally turn up at the Emirates and get absolutely humiliated. Have Everton won less points against anyone than they have against Liverpool? Even this season, when they go to Arsenal and play them off the park, they still got battered at Anfield. The cliches and "passion" waffle simply aren't true and never have been. The better team will win derbies far more often than statistics would suggest they should because the other team is trying too hard.

 

This is where Pardew falls flat on his face. His meticulous preparation goes out the window in the run up to derbies. Instead he has John Carver showing the players DVDs of old derbies, trying to get them psyched up, trying to get them thinking like they're about to go to war. Hardly surprising that Santon and Anita started throwing themselves into tackles that they would never normally make. The mackems went through a succession of derby red cards because they got themselves in such a ridiculous psyched state beforehand - think of Cattermole shitting himself in the tunnel on Halloween (next to Kevin Nolan looking as if he's about to take a stroll with the dog) before going through the back of Tiote within the first minute.

 

There's absolutely no way Suarez and Ozil are watching old derby DVDs before they wander out and humiliate the locals again by being better at football. I would bet my life that those games are treated exactly the same as a game against a big side - of vital importance to win, but not to be played in a different way.

 

Our players simply aren't the type that can by psyched up into a frenzy that will allow them to outfight the opposition, instead they just look dazed and confused and stop even doing the things they are good at, instead they give away daft free kicks, belt it long and end up permanently out of position. We're going into these games thinking like an underdog and ultimately looking like one.

 

Pardew made a comment last week of "the performance doesn't matter, only the result" - he couldn't be more staggeringly wrong. That is something that can only be judged after the fact. The performance is everything and the result will generally take care of itself.

Excellent post.

Woah there

 

We hardly robbed PSG, we should have pushed for a lot more.

 

No way is Cabaye a £40m player.

 

Nor is Ozil....except that was apparently the fee .

 

Ozil is on another planet to Cabaye, in terms of ability and achievements.  We could have perhaps got another £5m or so for Cabaye, but howay.

Time will tell in the PL.

Cabaye is a top class player who was able to successfully transition to the PL and be a major influence.

Ozil has time because he hasn't been here long but whatever he's done before, which to be honest, is ok but doesn't make him worth £40m imo. If Ozil is worth £40m Cabaye is worth similar despite not looking so fancy on the ball, so based on the evidence, we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

 

I wouldn't, Mick.

 

Ashley didn't save the club from going bust despite the propaganda to the contrary and going bust would be the worst thing.

 

Taking money from the fans while showing no ambition is as bad as it gets while the club is a going entity.

 

 

I don't want to get into that again, it's been done to death but we can both probably agree that what we have now isn't good enough.  I watched an old bloke who looked to be in his 70's at the match yesterday at half time and just thought that his last memories of a derby might be getting stuffed while the club treads water, that's shite.

Agree with that .

Woah there

 

We hardly robbed PSG, we should have pushed for a lot more.

 

No way is Cabaye a £40m player.

Nor is Ozil....except that was apparently the fee .

 

 

Maybe, but for different reasons. We're talking a lack of ambition and that's the market boy.

 

I agree and I'd take the same gamble again, even though we could get worse than Ashley.

I wouldn't, Mick.

Ashley didn't save the club from going bust despite the propaganda to the contrary and going bust would be the worst thing.

Taking money from the fans while showing no ambition is as bad as it gets while the club is a going entity.

I've not posted much for a few years and I'm not about to read 317 pages in this thread, I only hope people are still not of the thought "anyone is better than Fat Fred" because that's how it was here when I last spent much time here.

 

Supporting a club with no ambition to succeed is not good. I saw it before Fat Fred and it's been the situation since this market stall trader bought the club.

 

Shepherd needed to go then, Ashley needs to go now.

Maybe, but for different reasons. We're talking a lack of ambition and that's the market boy.

Aye I couldn't believe it. He just said that he's the only player that we've sold in a while and we shouldn't turn down 4x what we've paid for him. He's just bought into all the bullshit.

 

He's an ST holder who goes to loads of away matches too.

I wouldn't have made the sale at all but if Yohan was to be sold the benchmark for the fee should have been around the Mata and Ozil mark, he's better than those players.

I've not posted much for a few years and I'm not about to read 317 pages in this thread, I only hope people are still not of the thought "anyone is better than Fat Fred" because that's how it was here when I last spent much time here.

Supporting a club with no ambition to succeed is not good. I saw it before Fat Fred and it's been the situation since this market stall trader bought the club.

Quite possibly the worst left back I've seen for Newcastle in years.

To all of you who have cancelled, well done - if its any consolation, its the ONLY action you can take to even begin to get rid of this awful regime. As I have said before, quite a number of us attached to the Magpie Group did the same thing in the late 80s in order to force McKeag out and because John Hall had such a large share-holding but wouldn't put any money into the club until he got control, the club got into a financial mess and then McKeag had to go or the club would have gone under - hence the rescue by SJH.

I am not saying it will be as easy this time because it won't - Ashley is in another league financially when compared to McKeag or even SJH and it will take financial losses or an even richer person to force him out. He is only interested in taking your money and giving as little as possible back on the field....the only reason we got signings last year was because his policies had got us landed with a lousy manager(shown up totally by Poyet yesterday)and too many second-rate players whilst selling decent ones, and we were in danger of relegation which we missed by the skin of our teeth on the last day.

All of the club's problems have been brought on us by Ashley himself - he went behind KK's back by recruiting Wise and his two Spanish stooges and then proceeded to sell a player Keegan wanted to keep whilst pretending that Sebastian Schweinsteiger was going to be joining the club(at least this is what KK was told but he contacted the player's agent and found out this was totally false...allegedly..!). Keegan then walked out - justifiably, a verdict backed by the Tribunal who heard his constructive dismissal case - and Ashley had to cough up compensation. The fans were rightfully furious at the treatment of one of the club's legends and protested that they wanted Ashley out. Instead of admitting he had made a mistake, he set out to alienate the fans and anyone else who disagreed with him and that vendetta continues today. He has appointed and retained the 'services' of a manager who is patently out of his depth at a club of NUFC's potential and other smaller clubs have got rid of him exactly for that reason too - he has succeeded in breaking record after record from the club's past ; the only trouble is that the 'records' concerned are not ones we should be proud of ...Biggest home defeat in over 80 years last season, 9 goals conceded without reply in two home games last season, 3 of them to our Derby rivals(I won't pay them the compliment of calling them our 'biggest' rivals, because they are not big enough for that - yet..!), a spectacular achievement bettered yesterday by supervising our 3rd Derby defeat in a row, another record which hasn't happened since 1924...great stuff, isn't it ? And this all because he is Ashley's stooge and a yes-man who knows he wouldn't get a decent job anywhere else or he would follow KK's example and walk out because of lack of support from the other clown who Ashley appointed after his 'Fantastic record' with the Crazy Gang...just the pedigree you need to manage or run NUFC - NOT.

Our lack of investment is there for all to see with the latest PL club spending chart - BOTTOM, with a net INCOME from transfers of 45m...nothing else needs to be said. The people in charge of finance at the club have clearly stated that winning trophies is not a club aim and just finishing in a 'mediocre' PL postion is enough because it guarantees the owner a large wedge of SKY cash and free advertising for his tatty sports outfit.

 

Sorry this has gone on but it helps to remind yourselves just WHY you have made the sacrifice and stopped giving him ST money...there is no reason why you can't go to the occasional game if it suits YOU, but then sometimes you need to see an ex-partner to know why you left them in the first place..!

Ashley will be gone one day but it may not be very quickly...in the meantime we will be forced to endure more days like yesterday and the transfer which preceded it this week - that much is certain.

When it happens, you will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you didn't contribute to the whole mess and that others will undoubtedly follow in due course. The next 2 games could be more of the same and the season is now a write-off so once again, well done....you've made the first step to getting change at the club.

Top post.

Anyone is better than Fat Fred....