Howaythelads

Fine, you're right. His interview with Gibson made him sound a complete selfish curnt. Where did I say that? Harper will start next season as a first choice premier league keeper. He's never been in that position in his whole career. So relegation has been good for him in the long term. I'm sure Shay Given isn't looking back thinking "why did i leave?" just yet. The point was he was talking about the club as a whole maybe benefiting from the clearout following our drop, not his own career. I'm sure he's chuffed that Shay upped sticks, that said though, going by parts of that interview I think he feels he genuinly has a battle on his hands to hold off Krul and Foster. /It was really good to hear him speak about Foster like that (and gave even more credence to that Norwich fan in the other thread), glad he seems to think the club will do it's best to hold onto him too. Not "the" point, "your" point. "My" point was we all bring our own circumstances with us when we look at a situation. Does Harper see us as better off? It would seem so. Does Given? Probably not. Does Hughton? Probably. Keegan? Probably not. Ashley/Llambias? Definitley. Me, having seen us promoted last time around and in the Champions league several times over before starting our slow descent? Not yet. My little cousin who went to his first match in 2007 and has never seen us win so many games in his life? I'm afraid so. It's very much a personal thing whether you're happier at Newcastle now than you have been in the past. You must have been hallucinating. It was twice. Thrice! I don't count defeat by Partizan, even though it was one of the most important games in the club's history. We fell before qualifying. Typically juvenile of you to focus on some insignificant comment in a post while ignoring the major point or points that have been made.

Weve been promoted to premiership have we? weve spent on class centre forwards? weve replaced ryan taylor and nicky butt in midfield? weve survived the first season post championship? Fuck me you are THE over-expectand geordie fan myth played out by the media. You fuckin stupid cunt. WE WILL BE UP FOR SALE THE DAY WE ARE PROMOTED Please give me a season of mediocrity before you piss me off again Everyone seems to know how it should be done, for some reason no one will put their money where their mouth is and JUST DO IT. Why are all the prospective buyers of Newcastle weighing their pennies and trying to buy the club at a stupidly low price and all their dithering will just allow Ashley to emerge the winner if promotion is achieved? I don't imagine many are comfortable dealing with the twat.

I don't rate either but Carroll is definitely able to contribute more than Taylor, who is a bit of a leg iron on a good day. He's also a cockney so I know which way I'd be going on this one.

Holly (one of my labradors) was telling me just now she thinks Taylor was working on his "diving like I've been shot" routine 'cos so far it's been looking gash. He suggested the tough guy take a pop at him to see if he could get out of the way but unfortunately it's as gash as ever.

For those who think Best looks shite because he's too similar to Carroll, well we may get a clue sooner rather than later about the accuracy of that.

Damien Duff Ian Bogie

Personally, I think this kind of comment is way off the mark. Newcastle were in a god almighty mess. We needed relegation to sort the club out. I don't think we have changed as much as I would like but as previously mentioned we have an upwards momentum at the moment. Our aim for next season should simply be 17th. Stay in the league. From then our target should be an increased number of points year on year. A gradual, slow building process that keeps us financially stable, based on a good transfer model-something along the lines that Sir Bobby employed. Good young players in, and let them develop with a few senior heads around them. That is a sustainable approach- We are not ready for European football and won't be for some time. Perfectly put, in my opinion, and not even a mention of the name, ASHLEY. For those people on nhere, they shoul;d really underatand this post. It perfectly summarises the club at the present stage therefore implying Ashley IS steering the club in the right direction. Well done Patronising rubbish.

Personally, I think this kind of comment is way off the mark. Newcastle were in a god almighty mess. We needed relegation to sort the club out. I don't think we have changed as much as I would like but as previously mentioned we have an upwards momentum at the moment. Our aim for next season should simply be 17th. Stay in the league. From then our target should be an increased number of points year on year. A gradual, slow building process that keeps us financially stable, based on a good transfer model-something along the lines that Sir Bobby employed. Good young players in, and let them develop with a few senior heads around them. That is a sustainable approach- We are not ready for European football and won't be for some time. Where did I say anything about european football? The idiot has taken the club so far backward it'll take a few seasons to even get close to top 5 positions as achieved by the previous Board, if it ever happens again in my lifetime. The ambition to reach that kind of position doesn't start AFTER a couple of seasons of survival in the PL and lower ambitions, it needs to start right now. It is essential to have ambition and having that level of ambition does not mean top 6 or so has to be achieved next season, obviously. I would prefer for Ashley to have the ambition to take the club right to the top of the PL but it's enough of a stretch to want him to show enough ambition to simply keep the club in the PL at all. Read the post properly before you reply, mate.

I'll revisit this at the end of next Aug (if we're promoted) but my expectation is we'll go back down. My hope is we don't.

No, your question is far too simplistic. I don't think anyone is asking that at all. The question is does the owner have any ambition to take the club into a challenging position in the PL or not. Beyond that there are no guarantees, as I've always said.

Not me. I expected players to be sold with Skirge and Dave signed up on permanent deals, just as long as they were cheap enough. Ian, You shouldn't make such a big play of January, it's making you look daft and so far out of touch it's unreal. Supporters are well aware Ashley allowed the squad to be increased during January. Supporters are well aware it was down to Ashley that the squad was so thin in the first place, we also know players should have been brought in last summer but were not because Ashley was apparently trying to sell club and didn't have a clue about who the manager was going to be, so who would join anyway. Supporters are also aware that for the 2 1/2 years before January 2010, Ashley made a series of bad decisions, showing a breathtaking level of ineptitude. It takes more than 1 transfer window to turn things around.

Is Mike Ashley steering Newcastle United in the right direction? He never took over in 1956. Happy.............you missed the point again. I will try again. What is past is past. You cant change that. History is history. You can moan, whinge, complain and protest until the cows come home but it will do no good. However, you could give the bloke the benefit of the doubt and see what he is trying to do and support him and the club. You can change the future. It doesnt mean you have to like him personally but you can appreciate the policies he is putting in place which quite clearly, is to try an avoid what happened under the shepherd regime. I thank him for that because if we continued down that path, we would oprobably have ended up another Portsmouth or Leeds. Thankfully, by putting in astute financial plans and re-building towards the future, Ashley and crew are steering us on the right path, whether you like it or not. Macca, again you're being pathetically grateful for the tiniest of mercies. I'll try again. What is past informs the the future. This is not a hollywood movie. People don't learn valuable life lessons and change. You can put your faith in the inherrent goodness of human nature over and over and be walked over again and again. As you can see above I've given this bloke the benefit of the doubt in the past. but as George Bush said, Fool me once, shame on — erm - shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again. What the fuck on you on about now? People dont learn valuable lesson and change?? What a load of nonsense. If anyone in life makes a mistake and doesnt accepot responsibility for it and changes, then you are more or less setting yourself up for another fall. We are talking abut a bloody business here. A business that was clearly failing. A business that could no longer exist within its own financial commitments. A BUSINESS SETTING ITSELF UP FOR A FALL. Ashley took over that business and made a lot of mistakes and admitted to them. He had to deal with the financial black hole left him by the previous regime. He appointed the wrong managers (including KK) and probably acted on bad advice on how his plan failed resulted in relegation last season. It was relatively clear that this season was armeggeddon for us both on and off the field. Everyone recognised that, hence the protests, the chanting at games, the attempt to sell the club and the NUST stance. We could have gone the same way as Leeds as continued into freefall. Cleartly, salary costs had to be reduced, players had to be sacrificed and transfers fees brought in to assist the reduction of the debt. He could have sold more players, that has been well reported. But, he didnt. He kept a very high wage bill, certainly for this division and probably more than many in the PL, supported the manager in January with money to sign players and got rid of some deadwood in Geremi. We are reaping the fruits at the moment. The depths have been hit and everyone is surprised at whewre we are today. We appear to have a reasonable squad, certainly capable of surviving next season in the PL with the addition of a few new realistic faces. He has continually supported the club financially, something which Shepherd and cronies failed to do and he has obviously set a business plan together for the club, within its means and not overstated. Is Ashley styeering the club in the right direction? I think anyone who is not biased against the man would have to admit that he is and doing a bloody good job under very difficult circumstances. He has the backing of a good management team in Hughton etc and the players. That will do for me. We could after all have a disorganised rabble like NUST or the bloke who tried to buy the club in the summer runni9ng things with fucking Shearer as manager. Then, we would definitely be in a whole lot of shit............IN MY OPINION. We do not have a squad capable of doing anything other than fluke safety next season should promotion become a reality, we definitely need to see new players come in but they will have to be of a PL standard. That may come as a surprise to Ashley, given the players who left without replacement during our last January in PL, where we were relegated by just 1 point. The summer transfer window will show whether Ashley has learned anything. I will add that having watched dross for most of my life I'm not expecting miracles. We may drop back down but I want to see some stability and some sense of direction within the club. I want to see some show of ambition that may make any good players want to stay, unlike when we lost Given, Bassong and Milner etc. The fact is, Ashley has not done a good job since taking control of the club and he is not doing a good job now, let alone a very good job. These difficult circumstances people mention time and again are of his own making, hence Ashley is due no credit at all for any supposed improvement in how he's running the club over just the last 2 months, which is all it is. 2 months out of nearly 3 years. I listed a load of his decisions earlier that show the level of ineptitude and it's barely believable. I'm waiting for more from him, much more and we will find out in the summer.

He's only had almost 3 years, how much longer does he need? well hasnt he been tolerable this season, major fuckups not really around willing to spend cash in jan to ensure promotion if llambias could f*** off everything would be fine I’d say the renaming of the ground was a f*** up, as was starting season without a permanent manager. The meagre spend in January is given far too much credit. Ashley spent the absolute bare minimum he thought he could get away with to cover any possible injuries problems. When we were looking good for promotion under KK the board went out and spent serious money on Andy Cole, who went on to serve us well in the PL until he was sold for a 400% profit. This time we went out and bought Best for next to nought, we couldn’t even compete with Wigan for Moses. Or, looked at without the gosh-how-I-miss-my-Fweddie glasses on, during that transfer window we were probably the most active club in the top two divisions in terms of getting players in. I think you’ll find SJH was in charge of the purse strings last time we went up. Not that it matters, my point was (until you tried to turn this into another debate about Shepherd, you’re obsessed with him) that the investment in January wasn’t the big w*** fest it’s frequently made out to be. all people said was that we bought well, not that it was the best window ever. you'll rememebr in that summer under hall many weren't happy that our only signing was beardsley (allen only coming in because of beardsleys injury) No, it’s put forward as evidence that he’s learnt from his mistakes. When in fact it could just as easily be another variation on the short sighted minimum investment policy that got us relegated. The failure to land Moses is interesting. A highly rated young player who Hughton said we were after who ended up at Wigan. Was it the £2.5m price tag that scuppered our attempt to sign him, or was he attracted by the bright lights of Wigan? Or perhaps we couldn’t match the wages Wigan were offering. Whichever way you look at it looks like NUFC weren’t interested in building for next season. yes the moses thing was ineteresting...perhaps they didn't want to pay what they considered to be over the odds (like most every other prem team bar wigan) Or perhaps they aren’t prepared to pay the market rate and we will only sign players our competitors in the PL aren’t interested in. Hughton himself said ‘our efforts to sign Moses is a combination for now and the future. The most important thing is to get promoted, but there has also been an eye on the future’. And then our eye on the future was scuppered by Wigan and their outrageous wage structure. If we can't compete with big spending Wigan the quality of player we bring in is unlikely to move the club forward. We’ll get promoted and that will be the end of our progress - which some will no doubt find highly amusing. or maybe he just wanted too much. even if its wigan if someone wants more than you think they are worth you don't do it. At the end of the day Wigan got Moses and we got Best. A million maybes doesn’t change that, or what happens on the pitch. This season has been a great example of how wages influence results. How Hughton would have fared if he’d had to operate within Scunthorpe’s wage structure we’ll never know, but it’s looking like we find out how good he is at managing the division’s poor relations over the next few years. do you know if best or moses are on the bigger wage ? as for the rest it'll make a change to underperforming at an unmanagable wage structure.......................unless of course you think the banks would have let us borrow more ? are you happy that Wigan are buying better players than we are ? Since when has a 2nd division team been able to turn heads and hold its own against a top division side on transfers. It's delusional to think we had a chance once the Premiership sides got involved.

Stupid comment. You clearly aren't reading properly.

Did he? Wow!

Were gonna win the league man, the same league we won under Sir John Hall. Hughton is going to win the same league Keegan won back in 92/93. /Tin hat on What a stupid comparison. Whoosh OMG, the forum moron stalking me again...

Were gonna win the league man, the same league we won under Sir John Hall. Hughton is going to win the same league Keegan won back in 92/93. /Tin hat on What a stupid comparison. Twas a joke hence the Mate, I know. I didn't miss the " /Tin hat on " either. It's a stupid joke.

Were gonna win the league man, the same league we won under Sir John Hall. Hughton is going to win the same league Keegan won back in 92/93. /Tin hat on What a stupid comparison.

ffs The club is in a far, far worse position now than it was when Ashley took over, which means he's been taking the club in the wrong direction. End of.

Totally agree. We should aim for achievable goals. Even if Ashley did want to sell the club he couldn't. The fans ire should be direted at Desmond Decker. Show that he's less popular than Ashley and give him the opportunity to use him as a scapegoat. To be replaced by ... ? They haven't contacted me when I offered to be an advisor so maybe his plan is to shift lamb chop and offer me the top arse-licking job. Thing is, I'd be kicking his arse...

How about getting back on topic? Nobody cares if it's toe or tow and in any case, yung jernalists can't spell becoz there a product of the currant edgeucashion sistem. Us auld tw*ts hav know problim at all wif speling, we was edgeucated propa.

I think it's obvious what he said and it's obvious what Bob has said. It's also obvious that Bob is right and that some people are either stupid or acting like kids. He said that supporters put more money into the club than Ashley and that is entirely correct. Furthermore, Ashley isn't even putting in an amount of money equal to the amount he caused the club to lose by being relegated, which makes it even worse that he keeps bleating on about it and that some with their heed up their arse think he's sooopa for doing it. For gods sake man, talk about stupidly falling for a wind up I didn't fall for anything, sunshine. As I said and you seem to have missed, nobody could have been so stupid. It was obviously a wind-up but a very stupid one. Sunshine? How cute, clearly bob was that stupid otherwise i wouldnt be wasting my time talking to you The stupid posts were the one's attempting a wind-up. It's the stuff of 10 year olds. We cant all be boring old twats like you tbh

Yes, I agree. It is unbelievable how far down Ashley has managed to take the club in such a relatively short space of time, undoing all of the excellent work done by those he bought the club from. the undoing of the excellent work started arond 2004. So you keep saying, mate and I read it the first time months ago. It's mildly interesting that according to others the decline started in 2003, when despite heavily investing in the playing squad for the previous 'x' years and bringing in 3 players during 2003, this wasn't ambitious enough. It does seem somewhat stupid to be blaming the situation in 2010 on what happened half a decade ago but then you do have a big determination to not give any credit where it's due. They made mistakes, nobody has ever denied that, but the ambition they showed for the football club transcends anything we've seen so far from Ashley and his crowd of football morons. Ashley took over a PL club and knacked it through a series of poor decisions, it's a fairly straightforward situation to understand. ashley took over a club going backwards rapidly in every sense. it does seem stupid you trying to make out that i'm referring to only 2004 in particular and not the timeframe since then. yes ashleys decisions have contributed to us being relegated, however by the end of fred's time i wanted him rid as that was where i saw us heading anyway. then again if you don't think we were going backwards with little chance of turning it round due to the financial position we were in then it's not worth discussing further as it's not really being truthful to the situation as was. (oh i also said "AROUND" 2004, surely you aren't goiung to be so petty to want an exact date) edit...i have gave nothing but praise for the previous board until around the time of robsons leaving. I don't give a toss whether you gave the previous Board praise or not. What I'm saying it is ridiculous to blame anyone other than Ashley for what has happened to the club since the day he took it over. It's nearly 3 bloody years ago, man. He took over a PL league club and took it backwards. Simple as that. if you don't give a toss why make a point of saying i have " a big determination not to give credit when it's due" when what seems patently obvious is you won't give criticism when it's due. I mentioned it because it's a fact, not because I'm bothered.

I think it's obvious what he said and it's obvious what Bob has said. It's also obvious that Bob is right and that some people are either stupid or acting like kids. He said that supporters put more money into the club than Ashley and that is entirely correct. Furthermore, Ashley isn't even putting in an amount of money equal to the amount he caused the club to lose by being relegated, which makes it even worse that he keeps bleating on about it and that some with their heed up their arse think he's sooopa for doing it. For gods sake man, talk about stupidly falling for a wind up I didn't fall for anything, sunshine. As I said and you seem to have missed, nobody could have been so stupid. It was obviously a wind-up but a very stupid one. Sunshine? How cute, clearly bob was that stupid otherwise i wouldnt be wasting my time talking to you The stupid posts were the one's attempting a wind-up. It's the stuff of 10 year olds.

Yes, I agree. It is unbelievable how far down Ashley has managed to take the club in such a relatively short space of time, undoing all of the excellent work done by those he bought the club from. the undoing of the excellent work started arond 2004. So you keep saying, mate and I read it the first time months ago. It's mildly interesting that according to others the decline started in 2003, when despite heavily investing in the playing squad for the previous 'x' years and bringing in 3 players during 2003, this wasn't ambitious enough. It does seem somewhat stupid to be blaming the situation in 2010 on what happened half a decade ago but then you do have a big determination to not give any credit where it's due. They made mistakes, nobody has ever denied that, but the ambition they showed for the football club transcends anything we've seen so far from Ashley and his crowd of football morons. Ashley took over a PL club and knacked it through a series of poor decisions, it's a fairly straightforward situation to understand. ashley took over a club going backwards rapidly in every sense. it does seem stupid you trying to make out that i'm referring to only 2004 in particular and not the timeframe since then. yes ashleys decisions have contributed to us being relegated, however by the end of fred's time i wanted him rid as that was where i saw us heading anyway. then again if you don't think we were going backwards with little chance of turning it round due to the financial position we were in then it's not worth discussing further as it's not really being truthful to the situation as was. (oh i also said "AROUND" 2004, surely you aren't goiung to be so petty to want an exact date) edit...i have gave nothing but praise for the previous board until around the time of robsons leaving. I don't give a toss whether you gave the previous Board praise or not. What I'm saying it is ridiculous to blame anyone other than Ashley for what has happened to the club since the day he took it over. It's nearly 3 bloody years ago, man. He took over a PL league club and took it backwards.