UV

im not too fussed by it, its just rather worthless having an opinion on anything on here. Who said that? If people thought your opinions were worthless they wouldn't bother debating them. I'd just like to say that IIRC I've never bothered debating any of Libertine's opinions. http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/2463/1733whaambulanceco5.jpg Did someone call?

''Men at some time are masters of their fate" Nice bit of shakesphere a little dry for me though This is Sam's Shakespeare moment. 4-3-3 or not 4-3-3: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler on the pitch to suffer The long balls and set pieces of percentage football, Or to pass the ball against a weak defence, And by attacking beat them?

Given - 11 games, 45 shots on target, 19 goals conceded. Harper - 8 games, 40 shots on target, 10 goals conceded. Currently conceding at a rate of more than 2 goals for every 5 shots on target.

I'll eagerly await the "big four" apart from Chelsea and most of the rest of the teams in the league going into administration then.

Well none of us know the answer to that one mate. We'll see I suppose... Under Shepherd, I've had agreed with you but I think he'll be given a little slack under Ashley. Just a hunch. I think the exact opposite. Shepherd appointed him and had wanted him for a while, there's no way he'd have sacked him this season. Whereas Mort can get away with a quick sacking without much criticism by saying he never would have picked him as manager to start with.

I think net spend is a fair a way to look at it tbh. If you can sell players to another team then they obviously added something to a squad and that will have to be replaced. To be fair to Sam, frustrating as it may be I don't care how much a player costs I'd rather he didn't play him if he doesn't think he's up to it than put him in the team anyway just because of how much he cost. Or maybe he justs hates Spaniards as much as Roeder did

It doesn't work like that though UV. We finished 7th with a small and average squad yes, which has since been improved to a degree, but we all know that 7th place finish was a false one or rather brought about by a feel good factor that kicked in because of Souness' sacking and with it the lifting of all pressure and expectations. That squad was never good enough nor large enough though and Roeder's subsequent dealings in the transfer market the season after didn't do anything to change that. For years Newcastle have been going from one crisis to another, in free-fall almost, you can't just fix that overnight. I think phase one has been completed or rather taken on which was to clear dead wood and bolster a very thing squad. We now need some quality as all clubs do. Liverpool have a very good squad but they lack the quality of Man Utd and Arsenal in their first-team and therefore won't win the league. Well for me we lack the quality that Blackburn, Everton et al have in their first-team and so we won't overtake them until we address that area. It's that clear. To me anyway. How? How has the squad been improved? Please elaborate. I see no evidence of an improved quality on the pitch, in fact it looks a lot worse to me & I repeat, 15 out, 9 in. You do the maths. I find it laughable that you can attribute a 7th place finish with a supposedly poor squad simply to a "feel good factor" because a manager was sacked and not permanently replaced. Souness was sacked because results and performances weren't good enough for the players we had. We had a caretaker manager for half the season, so there was no one there for the players to try and impress; if anything the uncertainty would unsettle the players. When Roeder took over we were in 15th looking like possible relegation candidates, and you incredulously attribute an improved performance to a lack of pressure! Feel good factor performances do occur, but they don't last half a season. Face it, we either had a decent squad who were well capable of European place finishes with a good manager, or Roeder (or maybe Shearer!) was a miracle worker. The correct thing to do then is to do what you are now saying we should do from a much weaker position where it is less likely to improve us. Yet you mercilessly criticised this approach and advocated the exact opposite. What happened to the feel good factor for this season anyway? With the optimism of a new billionaire owner, our supposedly improved squad, new better manager, easy fixture list. Shouldn't we be much higher than 11th?

But you could argue that Man City weren't in as big of a dogshit position as us. They needed a spark of quality management and Sven provided that. We needed more than a spark, we needed a revolution, and we got one ( and it is still happening ) so it can only take more time for us than Man City. I'd really like to see you try and do that. You might get some help here http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?topic=41456.0

I don't really get what your point is here. Are you trying to say Sven had some kind of head start over Allardyce? Most of the players we've bought or looked at were targets or already bought by Allardyce when he was at Bolton. All it means is that it seems Sven is also a better judge of players than Allardyce as well as a better tactician and motivator.

I agree with what I believe is the main point of the OP, ie that we should spend what money we have available on quality (aka "trophy" signings) rather than quantity. I'm just curious about a few things: You defend Allardyce's Summer transfers where he did the exact opposite of what you're now saying, by claiming he "strengthened a very small squad into an average squad". Was this quality wise? - remember, the squad he inherited (minus Bowyer & an ageing Shearer but without Martins & Duff) finished 7th under a combination of Souness & Roeder - or quantity wise? - according to this it's 15 out, 9 in. We finished 7th in 05-06. A position where you would think adding a few quality players rather than a bunch of average players would be the correct thing to do. Yet you and most others heavily criticised Roeder for spending most of the transfer budget on 2 "quality" players instead of spreading it around on a whole new defense and 2 cheap strikers. In the Summer Allardyce did exactly what you wanted Roeder to do, and we now have a team which, comparing results against equivalent games in our injury-riven previous season, has the same number of points and has conceded 28 goals compared to 19 last year. Apart from the odd game (seemingly only when the team is motivated by intense criticism) we don't look like we're learning or improving at all as the season goes on, so in all probability the current squad would finish this season in a very similar position to last, ie bottom third. This season though we wont have the excuse of half the squad being injured for most of the season. Why in this position where it seems like we have a poor squad - or rather just one which can't play well in the managers desired formation - would you completely switch your view to one where you think a couple of quality players will fix everything? Even if they make a difference, what happens when those players are injured - we go straight back to the shit we're seeing now.

They were probably s*** scared of the potential manager we were going to get. 06-07 7 Bolton 56 05-06 7 Newcastle 58 04-05 7 Boro 55 03-04 7 Charlton 53 I will concede that the 7th place finish was significantly due to a player which Allardyce hasn't had available to him for most of the season due to injury...

News archive footage - we were a top 7 side merely a year and a half ago, and the only players of significance missing from that squad when Allardyce took over were Bowyer & an ageing Shearer . Unless you think we only achieved that due to the management & tactical skills of Souness & Roeder? I think we achieved it due to a wave of optimism surrounding the club with the potential appointment of a 'world class manager', many of whom had applied for the job the second Souness was ejected from the SJP hot seat if Fat Fred was to be believed. This meant there was little or no pressure of Rodders or the team, as most fan had already written the season off. Anyway, Roeder seems to do that at every club he joins. I'm sure he dabbles in the dark arts. Quality. We got 7th with a s*** squad (in your opinion) on the promise of a potential appointment for half the season. We should just get some better players in and do that every year then. If we sack Allardyce now and hint that we're getting Mourinho in the Summer we might get in the Champions League.

Bramble was released by Allardyce. He could have given him a new contract.

News archive footage - we were a top 7 side merely a year and a half ago, and the only players of significance missing from that squad when Allardyce took over were Bowyer & an ageing Shearer . Unless you think we only achieved that due to the management & tactical skills of Souness & Roeder?

^^^ Completely agree with that.

There is a vast difference in NUFC not making any advertising money out of Sports Direct and actually paying money for an empty warehouse.........that happened to belong to the Chairmans brother. Spending season ticket holders money on a f****** scam involving family. Nice. Sorry like. Its Ashleys club.........he own's it and he's not answerable to various shareholders like FFS was. Nor has he spent season tickets holders money on stuff without integrity. If he want's to stick a banner on the empty roof of one of the stands I couldn't give a f*** tbh. I'm talking about the Sports Direct adverts on the boards around the pitch. If Sports Direct are not paying advertising revenue or not paying the full going rate (I'm not saying they're not as I don't know) then that's denying the club revenue from elsewhere which adds up to the same at the end of the day.

Jewel is gutted they didn't win because of his side's shoddy defending. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/7158867.stm He reckons we can play the "fundamental basics of football" though. So that's a positive isn't it? Isn't it?

Yes youre right, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference, I'd go as far as to say its good business practice, and all good companies should do it. The puzzling thing for me is that the new people have cancelled the agreement instead of taking full advantage of this best business practice, I think theyve dropped a massive bollock but theyll have to live with that decision. You could be onto something there, Mick. I wonder how much Sports Direct are paying us in advertising revenue. Unless I've missed something it's only slightly more than the average spend so far (around 10m), so I don't know why you keep going on about that. If the team had been run into the ground so much by the previous managers/board, then surely initially it will take much more than the average previous spend just to get us back up to where the previous board were able to get us let alone better it? Either that or it will take a much longer time, very good scouting and even better management to build a team up from promising youth and cheap foreign undiscovered talent. Do you realistically think the supporters who are already starting to grumble in increasing numbers about Allardyce will have the patience to see that through without demanding changes? Do you think any future manager will be allowed the time to do it that way? I personally doubt it because I believe expectations have been raised so high it will take either relegation or a decade of mid table finishes to lower them to a point the majority of supporters would be happy with that. You can blame the old board for that if you like. Serious question as I've not been following it, but where does this £100m debt figure come from? What did it consist of? I assume we've now fully paid off the stadium extension (45m?) but where's the other £55m come from? Is there any evidence of it other than just Mort's say so? I ask because even Macbeth didn't reckon the debt was anywhere near that much (didn't he say £20m or something), so how was this extra £35m hidden in the accounts?

Unless we spend even more money in January, Duff (and/or Owen) playing well is our only hope of finishing any higher than 14th this season, because I can't see Allardyce's signings playing his system achieving it.

I don't actually. What's ironic about it? Did you learn all you know about irony from Alanis Morissette? No one has ever said the old board were perfect. No one has said they didn't make mistakes or couldn't be improved upon. All some people are saying is that we could (and have in the past) done an awful lot worse. They are somewhat a victim of their own success in that anything less than a top ten finish is seen as failure by modern supporters. You and others are wrong to so flippantly reject the past as irrelevant. I'll give you a good example of irony like: Are you seriously saying here that over the last 10 years Everton, Bolton, and Charlton have done better than us? I know who I'd rather have been a supporter of. I'm interested in your full list of the "many" clubs that have "progressed much further than us" and could you identify their common "blueprint for success". Okay Mr business expert. Sports direct has lost 2/3 of it's market value in less than a year. By your reasoning what kind of businessman does that make Ashley at this moment in time? He also said this: Does that sound like a man who's going to sit back and wait for steady progress over 10 years to you?

'Finally turned the corner' 'Could have scored 10' 'There's no easy games in the Prem' 'Martins is better than Owen Shearer' 'Defense is really solid now'

Show me just a couple of these many people please, I'd like to laugh at what else they say. I've seen it said on this(and other)fans' Websites several times over the past few years... Many times obviously as you said. You won't have any trouble finding a few examples then will you.

Show me just a couple of these many people please, I'd like to laugh at what else they say.

We had a squad which finished 7th with half a season of Souness which was poor enough to get him the sack, and half a season of Roeder. Last season we had MAJOR injury problems for a large part of it, so our performances or final position last season cannot seriously be taken as a true reflection of the quality of the squad we had. You say Geremi and Viduka and Barton are vast improvements over what we had, but we are currently doing worse than last season if you take into account the teams we have played so far. If the squad is vastly improved and Mort and Allardyce are doing everything right, what's going wrong on the pitch?