UV

http://www.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10278~1351876,00.html "We've got no cover for right or left-back at the moment and that's probably the two most important areas." - Kevin "I only want Henry, Beckham, and Lampard" Keegan, 26 July 2008

If he sticks to form it will be a rolling "must end soon" date (sale extended due to unprecedented demand).

But then how many scouts have brought s**** into this club. If we work on the theory of hes brought all the youth in hes done a decent job a lot better than some. Most hte stems from the man not the work. Has he? How are the reserves doing? Could some of his starlets not fill in some of the positions the threadbare squad can't cover? It seems that the ideal way to run the club would be to give out absolutely no information about who does what (ideally, don't even let anyone know who the people employed are), then when things go wrong noone can be blamed; and if noone's to blame for anything then how can there be a problem?

Whether or not Keegan had come back under duress to manage the team until it was sold (and we have no idea how long that will take) it doesn't change the fact that we have a threadbare squad which has been exposed by the current injuries & suspensions, or take away the fact that everyone at the club will be unsettled due to the owner looking to sell up. Keegan may have been able to coax the team into getting a few more points from the past few games, but it's by no means certain that even he could have gotten anything more out of the current midfield. I don't get this Keegan walked out at the worst possible time argument either. Had Keegan left earlier, say in July after Jonas & Guthrie or even before then, would supporter reaction have been any different? I don't see why, maybe it would not have been as vociferous as there would be less people feeling conned for buying 3 year STs, but there would have been protests none the less. Would Ashley have reacted differently? Again, I don't see why he would. Disgruntled supporters would have more easily been able to hit the club financially by not buying season tickets. So I don't see how we would not have been in the situation we are now, but during the transfer window. How many of the players we did get in would have signed coming into that situation? How many more existing players would have put in transfer requests? I can only see how it could have been far, far worse if Keegan had left before the end of the transfer window. If he'd stayed on until January say, we would have struggled along, probably lower mid table (he's not a miracle worker). What happens when he leaves then? We would very probably go into the same freefall we are in now, but with less of the season to rectify the situation, and at the time when the other teams at the bottom typically start to up their game. Far more likely to get relegated in that situation IMO than we are now when there is plenty of time for new ownership to come in and stabilise things. Although I'm not saying any of this thought went into Keegan's decision (how could he have forseen Ashley selling up at the first sign of a misspelt banner), knowing what we do now about the reactions on both sides of the fence (supporters & Ashley), I can't think of a less damaging time that Keegan could have left.

based on what exactly? or is this some ITK bullshit, or just some blind faith in Mike Ashley? The article is incorrect in saying that the club made a profit in the year ending 30th June 2007, it was a loss of almost £33 million. The source of this is the published accounts available for £1 from Companies House. It is now October 2008, so your opinion is 18 months out of date, so it’s unsubstantiated blind faith in Mike Ashley. Putting two statements together to create an argument relies on logic, something missing from that post. The Telegraph article is clearly based on a copy of the Seymour Pierce report and if you'd been following the story closely you'd have noticed that the Telegraph have had the inside track on this story before the other majors. Personally, i reckon the article is correct as its based on FSA compliant documentation. If Seymour Pierce were distibuting financial documentation at odds with the accounts the'd be comitting fraud. I'm lost. Are you saying you think we made a £3.5m profit or a £33m loss?

That's damn clever considering less than a couple of months ago we owed £27m net according to Ashley (and this was after Emre & Rozenhal had been sold).

So why is it okay for you to attribute opinions and quotes to multiple people - i.e. that supposedly everybody thought anybody could run the club better - when you then decry someone for attributing a view to you personally in much the same way? You make stuff up yourself, it'd seem. Can't have it both ways. because the vast majority of people DID imply that qualifying regularly for europe was "s****" and pretty much anybody would do better, as if by right. They didn't though, did they? They, whoever 'they' are, just didn't imply this. I'd be happy to admit I'm wrong if you can find some vast majority evidence of this. If people had grievances then it was down to the s**** such as the Souness appointment, that was really the straw that broke the camel's back for most people. All it'd have taken was a quality appointment after Robson and Shepherd could have bummed a donkey and I wouldn't have cared. It seems European football is the only criteria you have to prove long term success but that those European nights started disappearing long before Ashley appeared on the scene. About 2 months actually. 15-Mar 2007 UEFA Cup Rnd 16(2) and as for those who thought Ashley would be better than H&S (before anyone knew anything about him or his supposed intentions for the club): http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?topic=40582.0

1) Put item on sale for a brief period at massively inflated price 2) Put up closing down sale everything must go sign 3) Make up fictional potential buyers to hurry the sale along 4) Reduce original price and slap a 1/3 off RRP sticker on it 5) Profit Mikey sticking to what he knows. I'm half expecting to see 4.5) This offer is for a limited time only, don't miss out, hurry on on down to SJP NOW!!! soon

prey.....he originally intended to milk the club's revenue while also using us as a shop window for players, but soon realised it's not as easy to stay mid table as it looks so is getting out at the first opportunity. I don't believe for a second he intended to put £20m/year into the club, and his "plan" such as it was would have merely turned us into a breeding ground for younger players which we would sell once we got an offer "too good to turn down". Any potential onfield success would have been temporary and only as a by product of the main goal of financial return.

I swear, Ashley could shag some of your wives/girlfriends with Wise videoing it and you'd still say he was a great bloke if he bought you a pint after and told you it was for the long term good of the club. Quite unbelievable that someone who from day 1 has done nothing but look out for his own best interests and make excuses for not spending any money when he can be bothered to say anything at all can engender such loyalty.

It doesn't work like that. The current standing of the club in the league will have little to do with the price of the club. Businessmen look at numbers first of all, and if we are selling a fairly healthy financial club (with good facilities and on paper good players) the current standing of the club in the league is of secondary importance. Every further game lost, the risk of the club being relegated increases, which would greatly reduce the value of the club. So as the risk increases, the amount anyone is willing to pay for the club will go down. It's in Ashley's interest to sell ASAP (unless Kinnear turns the results around and we start winning of course). Ashley obviously thought it would be simple to keep the club on life support, maintain a midtable team at minimal cost, and milk the Premiership cash cow, but once he realised it was a bit harder than it looks and that he might actually risk losing money on his investment, he started looking for a way out. He realised he wasn't going to be able to do it in secret, so he started looking for "outside investors". The fuss over Keegan has just given him a great excuse to make his desire to sell up public without looking like he's trying to get rid for financial reasons.

But with the savings in Owen's wages we can get 3 or 4 Xisco or Guthrie type players.

Forced out my arse. Purely unintentional. Not meaning to imply he's a big shit at all.

Forced out my arse. For over a year he received nothing but gushing praise for everything he or any of his appointments did (or in the vast majority of cases simply for the things they didn't do, or were only perceived to have done) by the vast majority of supporters. This was based initially on nothing more than his own claims of club salvation by paying off a debt which became due once he bought the club (which was coincidentally in his own best interests to do), and some pie in the sky notion of becoming the next Arsenal by trying out a managerial structure Arsenal don't employ, spending zero money on transfers, and basically hoping Dennis Wise will be the next Arsene Wenger. Then from January people bought more heavily into the sham because he brought onboard someone the fans trusted, someone who we knew would put the best interests of the club (not the business) first and foremost. Some people bought into it for 3 years up front. How do you expect people to react when that person then walks out after half a year at a potential financial loss to himself and knowing very well he'll be called a quitter? Just shrug and say oh well, it's obviously the fault of this person who we trust, not someone who we put blind faith in but has yet to deliver anything tangible at all, the system is what's important, bring on Gus? Of course people are going to get on SSN with banners, of course people are going protest, or course angry words are going to be spoken and written. But has there been any violence? Has there been any vandalism? Has there been any real trouble at all? No. Yet what does Ashley do at the very first spot of a complaint at his ownership? Does he even try to explain himself and win the supporters back? Does he f***. Completely out of character he gives up straight away. He cries about how big a footy fan he is even though noone knows who he supports, how he's just an ordinary bloke who wanted a bit of fun, and think of the children!!! He was going to plough loads of money into the team year after year honest he was... if only he'd be given the chance... but now sadly he's been forced into giving up his dream and will now have to sell up - well only if he can make a couple of hundred million pounds profit in just over a year like, that's only fair isn't, after all he's dramatically turned round the fortunes of the club by paying off some of a bank loan hasn't he. Wake up and smell the roses. Just like the people who believe they're actually buying something at 70% off, just like the people who rush to the never ending closing down sale, just like the people who bought Sports Direct shares when it floated. You've been had.

Jesus, are there still people who believe this tripe. He's such a massive football fan - he saw England play once you know - maybe he should have bought the team he's always supported and has had a season ticket for. Not sure I ever heard which team that was like.

I'm not sure why you keep banging on about why you think Keegan should have left, as in the context of the original question it is completely irrelevant. Frankly you should be asking yourself why he was ever appointed in the first place as he was quite clearly not someone who would be able to work happily under the system which has been set up since. Even Ashley must have been very aware of this as he put clauses in Keegan's contract to try and stop him talking about non-team matters and stop him resigning once he realised just how little say he would actually have in the buying and selling of players. I've never heard of such clauses in a manager's contract before, and it leads me to the conclusion that Keegan's level of influence in these key decisions was planned to deviate from what was verbally agreed at the start. Ashley just either underestimated Keegan's principals or overestimated how important the money was to him. He probably thought he'd get a season or two out of Keegan putting a supporter friendly face to his sham of a plan before he got rid by blaming him for the poor performance of Wise's purchases. Anyway, back to the point. I only ever raised your quote as you used a phrase in the question as a feeble excuse to try and dodge answering it. Unless you think a "mediocre manager" whose "position seemed untenable for the system" would not obviously hold the club back, then I really don't see what your problem with the phrasing of the original question is. You said the squad has improved dramatically. You said Keegan is a mediocre manager. Why then is the quality of the football played by the team so s*** if the squad has improved dramatically? Why then is the squad's confidence low if we all we have done is lose a mediocre manager? I'm glad you brought up Souness & Roeder actually. Can you answer these questions: Is the squad better now in your opinion than when Roeder took over from Souness? Yes or no. Is statistically (using the same principals as you have to describe Keegan as mediocre) Souness a better manager than Keegan? Yes or no. Is statistically (using the same principals as you have to describe Keegan as mediocre) Roeder a worse manager than Keegan? Yes or no. If your answers to the above are as I expect they should be in your opinion yes to all 3, can you explain to me how at that time when we replaced a better manager with a worse one the performances turned around, we managed to finish 7th and got to the FA cup quarter finals, and yet now we are looking like relegation fodder and have been dumped out of the FA cup at the first hurdle, at home by the only team who have started worse than us in the division? Something's wrong with your opinion of the squad strength and/or your logic of how to rate a manager. I think it's both.

Im not sure ive ever had a post from you which actually gets the crux of any of my points. "obvioudly holding us back"?? Where have i said that then? You've made that up, and that is the crux of your entire post. So basically a non post - well done. Ahhh, out of context quoting - how refreshing. Nice change of pace to your usualy miss the point posts i suppose. I'm not sure if you think you're being clever by deliberately trying to avoid the question, but if you ever managed to structure a sentence so it made sense you might have better luck putting across some of your so called points. Put some context around your words "for the best interests of the club Keegan should definitely of left" if you like, but perhaps you could also explain how having a "mediocre manager" as you call Keegan would not hold us back. I would expect results to immediately improve as the players were relieved of the mediocrity. Pointing out someones poor english? Very cute. Well, if you read the bit around that quote you've highlighted you'd of seen that i was giving 2 scenarios which both sets of fans believe as the true account of what happened at the club. (i.e Keegan was undermined from the start or Keegan dragged his heals over the signings and didnt pick suitable targets himself). And you'd of seen that the outcome in both scenarios was that Keegan would/should of left, either he resigned becasue of his principles or he was forced due to not fitting in with the policy. As his position seemed untenable for the system - it was in nufc best interest that keegan should of left. No way here am i implying that he was a s*** manager who was holding us back, but that he just didnt fit in. The bit about him being a mediocre manager is in reference to his record and blind backing in light of his record. So in fact the context changes absolutely nothing, and the quote "for the best interests of the club Keegan should definitely of left" fully represents your opinion. Thanks for clearing that up. I'll ever so slightly rephrase the questions then in the hope that you might answer them. How does having a "mediocre manager" whose "position seemed untenable for the system" in your opinion not hold us back? Now that "the squad has improved dramatically" and we have relieved ourselves of a "mediocre manager" who was obviously holding us back "should definitely of left", why do we keep losing abjectly to poor teams? Is this still part of the "long term plan for the club with slow steady progress"?

Im not sure ive ever had a post from you which actually gets the crux of any of my points. "obvioudly holding us back"?? Where have i said that then? You've made that up, and that is the crux of your entire post. So basically a non post - well done. Ahhh, out of context quoting - how refreshing. Nice change of pace to your usualy miss the point posts i suppose. I'm not sure if you think you're being clever by deliberately trying to avoid the question, but if you ever managed to structure a sentence so it made sense you might have better luck putting across some of your so called points. Put some context around your words "for the best interests of the club Keegan should definitely of left" if you like, but perhaps you could also explain how having a "mediocre manager" as you call Keegan would not hold us back. I would expect results to immediately improve as the players were relieved of the mediocrity.

Im not sure ive ever had a post from you which actually gets the crux of any of my points. "obvioudly holding us back"?? Where have i said that then? You've made that up, and that is the crux of your entire post. So basically a non post - well done. If you don't think having a "mediocre manager" as you call Keegan would hold us back, then you have an even more deluded faith in Ashley and his "structure" than I thought.

fredbob there's just on thing I don't quite understand. Now that "the squad has improved dramatically" and we have relieved ourselves of a "mediocre manager" who was obviously holding us back, why do we keep losing abjectly to poor teams? Is this still part of the "long term plan for the club with slow steady progress"? Am I just missing some subtle part of the plan here?

It wasn't your boss who said we had £100m to spend in the Summer was it?

It's getting tiresome, please read the new forum rule thanks. *Removed* I don't see any new rules, am I missing something? Anyway, as Mr Astley's works are protected under copyright law, shouldn't anyone who has ever posted the link be banned for 2 weeks under either the "Posting of Copyrighted Information" or "Piracy of Intellectual Property/Posting Malicious Links" rules? The bans should actually be combined into a 4 week ban IMO. PS this is not "Attempting to get Another User Banned", merely asking for a clarification of the rules.

There's a difference between replacing a player who the manager is not happy with (both Allardyce & Keegan have been reluctant to play him) and just getting rid of a regular first teamer. I'm sure you can see that. Our run of good form last season came when Milner was not in the team. Good move to try and replace him? Was Milner played on the RW at every opportunity this season when every other option was fit? Was Enrique left on the bench when his replacement was a left winger who can't defend? Good move to replace him? Arguably, depending on the replacement. Good move to try to replace him after he's been sold? No.

There's a difference between replacing a player who the manager is not happy with (both Allardyce & Keegan have been reluctant to play him) and just getting rid of a regular first teamer. I'm sure you can see that. That's Wengers policy at Arsenal too. The c***. What happens at Arsenal when the player becomes a first team regular? Does he: a) Sell him b) Give him a good salary to keep him happy Hint: Arsenal have the 3rd highest wage bill in the League. In the 06-07 season it was 40% higher than ours. Arsenal's relative success is not sustained quite as cheaply as is made out. Are we really trying to follow the Arsenal model (with Wise as a young Wenger) when our best young players are complaining about contracts throughout the season and handing in transfer requests?

Fair enough then, it's just that some people go on as if it was the typical MO of the old board to buy over the hill players for loads of money, whereas in actual fact that couldn't be further from the truth.