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slaphead

He's not in charge' of Newcastle United, he's the first team manager. As most managers generally are these days. Think most managers in England still have the final say (or at least some say) on transfers. Pards clearly doesn't. Carr has come out and said emphatically that all he and the scouts do is put names forward, then organise trips for the manager to see the players play. That's as far as their involvement goes, it is then up to the money men, with the final say going to Pardew. Is Carr now also part of your imagined cabal of liars at the club? Wut. Pardew certainly has no say when it comes to outgoing transfers, that much is clear. It's pointless even discussing the managers influence at the club though while we have these muppets at the helm. The best we can hope for is a decent coach. Is Pardew a decent coach? Probably not. That was a reasonable 'Wut' to that line tbf. Pardew has a say in outgoing transfers, just very little when it comes to the big one's or transfer disputes. Again, I think that is fairly standard across the board. I do believe he has a good degree of control and the final say in all incoming transfers. Just my opinion of course, but the players he has brought in are not randoms, they are all players that fill gaps in our squad and change the philosophy of the team quite dramatically. I believe this is something Pardew along with the scouts has put together without influence from the board. So assuming we have or are trying for one of Pieters or M'Bengue, I guess they're the same type of full back to fit into the style of play Pardew wants. Are they both attack minded or defensively minded players?

Act like a child?

25 years old, has played for Spain U21's, out of favour at his club so would be cheap, the only reason he hasn't started many games is because other players have been ahead of him in the team, looks decent on youtube, has a decent goals to games ratio, and at his age he "can only get better". If he wasn't on our books already, we'd probably have signed him.

No we aren't, and I don't think anyone with any intelligence truly believes that either. The ONLY similarity is that we're the only 2 teams that regularly make money in the transfer market. In Arsenal's case, it's because Wenger (and his staff) are one-offs (in this country) at spotting potential and developing players so the players he sells who are fully developed and often beyond their peak command bigger fees than the one's with potential he brings in. Often there's no need to go out and buy a direct replacement as there's a younger player already in the squad ready to step into their shoes. In our case, it's simply down to a desire to make a profit. The players we are bringing in are not being signed because they are players the scouts believe are the most likely to develop into some of the best players in the world, they are just the ones who through contractual or other reasons the scouts believe are undervalued in the market. The players we've sold for the largest fees are precisely the one's with the potential to develop which we should be trying our hardest to keep if we want to improve as a football team. They are 2 completely different models based on 2 completely different sets of aims. If we're trying to emulate anyone, a better example would be Alan Sugar's Spurs.

Did he not say, his medical is today. I think he also said Tiote weakened the back 4

It is a bit of an eye opener. Maybe why outsiders like neil and brummie view the situation differently to the majority of Newcastle fans. Yeah, it's a good article. I said a while back that it's too early to judge Ashley, and I still feel that. He has a long term plan but of course most supporters want things to happen now. I actually like his ability to stick to his plan no matter what other people might be saying. Once an owner starts making decisions to please the fans is when things get dicey. Only a year until we're challenging for everything isn't it?

I read it and digested it. The excuses are repeating on me, I think they were off and well past their sell by date, in fact it's left me feeling a bit sick. Incidentally, this is an example of Alex Dimond's knowledge of the club and it's finances: His powers of deduction aren't that great are they. It's not surprising that an article written by someone ignorant of the facts has been applauded as being astute by the people it has though.

It's like QPR. Richest owners you could possibly hope for, and Warnock is bleating on today that Routledge wanted to go to them but the couldn't afford a deal. Seriously? Why did they buy the club? To make a profit clearly. I know the only reason people get that rich is because all they care about is the profit etc. But fuck me, if I was in my dotage and 2 other multi billionaire lads said fuck it, lets buy QPR, I like to think I'd have a bit of fun. Christ, we can reasonably complain about Ashley, yet they could buy Ashley a few hundred times over and not even wince, but they can't even buy their manager a Championship winger? That's the point though. QPR clearly can afford to buy players, the fact they won't is because they are in the football business because they can see there's profit in it if you look at it as purely a business. I'm not sure Ashley started out this way, but where we are now i don't see too much difference. The thought we might be run on a similar basis as QPR isn't a happy one. At the time, it could have been argued they were only talking about developing academy players and selling off the ones not fit for the first team, and that's probably how Keegan took it. Looking back at that statement with hindsight, I think it's hard to argue that running the club the way he is now wasn't the plan all along.

As far as I can tell you agree with most of Ashley's important decisions and strategy for running the club, ie cutting the wage bill, minimal transfer spend or making a profit, targeting "good value" players only (out of contract/last year of contract/not wanted by club/trying to leave club), selling Carroll & Nolan, putting Barton on the transfer list, the way Enrique's new contract has been handled. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I've seen you arguing in favour of all of them. I'm sure you've done so, but off the top of my head I can't remember you being critical of Ashley on anything specific at all (nothing that would be relevant to a manager anyhow). You seem to think Pardew is having to do nothing that managers of other clubs don't have to do, and isn't having to put up with decisions being made over his head that managers of other clubs don't have to. So, as I said, if you generally agree with the way Ashley is running the club, and think it is heading in the right direction with a bright future, what exactly is it that makes you say no manager better than Pardew would take the job? Why would these managers not see it was a good job to have?

No, but I don't see why you don't as you largely agree with his strategy and most of his decisions.

Sounds like a great opportunity for a quality manager - mid table club in the Premiership is one of the best managerial jobs in the world you can ask for, especially one with such a promising future. Finances are great, every manager should expect to lose their better players if stupid bids come in, when replacing them transfer spend doesn't matter as long as the team is improved on paper. Doesn't quite fit in with:

No concrete offers? Obviously trying to cut out the middleman on the next lot of ground repairs, the builders are obviously right rip off merchants on materials.

Credit to Pardew if he manages to recover the Barton situation. #butactionsspeaklouderthanwords

You're crazy, it's the other way around..The wages are killing us..When the club already is using 80-90 % of its turnover on wages, it's lunacy to remove the wage cap. Are we planning on being in the Championship regularly then? The wage bill is currently in the 50-60% range which will be one of the lowest in the league, only higher than some of those at the very top with massive revenues (Arsenal, Man U), or newly promoted teams who half expect to go down again.

which strictly speaking he hasn't as long as the club owe him money (discounting the original purchase of course) However he will not be "paying for his own mistakes" as some are eager to claim. This extract from the 2010 accounts suggest he intended to repay some of his loan last year and this: Tehnically 'after more than one year' doesn't mean in year 2 - it could mean year 3/5/10 or indefinitely. Also, with not being privy to the underlying records I can't say for sure, but the structure of this debt (i.e. payable in 1 year etc) could be linked to something else in the accounts and it may be 'hot air' - i.e. it will be restructured this year and the acounts will show that the amount repayble was not taken up by MA. We'll know by the next accounts 1) In another section, the amount due between one and two years is £16.5m, so I put 2 & 2 together. 2) Of course, which is why I didn't say he HAS repaid some of his loan, only that it looks like he intended to. Personally I doubt the £35m for Carroll did anything to change his mind.

which strictly speaking he hasn't as long as the club owe him money (discounting the original purchase of course) However he will not be "paying for his own mistakes" as some are eager to claim. This extract from the 2010 accounts suggest he intended to repay some of his loan last year and this:

You can forget about seeing any of that.

Give him time, he's only had 8 months. Seriously, he hasn't had long enough to judge him as manager of our club, and unlike most new managers he came into a reasonably well functioning team of players in a decent position in the league, with a certain amount of self-management that Hughton had allowed or fostered. Of course there was disquiet over Hughton's sacking and the Carroll's sale which he had to address, and he deserves some credit for not rocking the boat and calming the situation down, but players get used to managers being sacked and I'm sure most if not all would put the blame on the owner/MD and give Pardew the benefit of the doubt. Honeymoon's over now, let's see how he pulls the squad together after this Summer. Tactically, I'm not convinced he changed or affected the team much at all in the second half of last season, most of the time the team and tactics picked themselves, and I think we mostly just carried on with the first half of the season momentum. Sometimes however his tactics and team selections were a bit bizarre, and often didn't work, but for now I'm willing to put that down to injuries and lack of squad depth. On the negative side, and I stress I'm not judging him yet as it's too short a time to tell if it's not just circumstances or coincidence, but there are a few worrying signs which I've noticed: Injuries - under Hughton we seemed to have a relatively low problem with injuries, specifically strains, recovery breakdowns and injuries picked up in training. With Pardew the rate of these niggly injuries seems to have picked up a lot, and I wonder if it's down to different training methods. Discipline - again, under Hughton we seemed to have relatively few disciplinary problems. When there were problems - and there was quite a major one with Carroll and Taylor - they were handled quietly in-house, and the situation was resolved without any fallout. Handled differently Carroll could easily have been shipped out (and there were many on here who wanted it), and then we wouldn't be arguing about where the £35m has gone. Pardew on the other hand seems to like washing the dirty laundry in public, and hangs his players out to dry. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my perception so far, and it's not a tactic I like. Whatever, he seems to have lost all semblance of player discipline now with players left right and centre chipping in. The solution - whether it's his decision or not, he's been unable to stop it - is to ship out the "troublemakers" regardless of the cost to the team. Tactics - mentioned briefly above, but I believe it's been a criticism before at his past clubs that he can mess around with the team a bit too much. Results will be the judge on that one I guess. PS I almost forgot - I hate him because he's a ego-centric, bullshitting, cockney.

Probably an Ashley apologist in an "I'm not an Ashley apologist, but..." kind of post. It's certainly the way it's most commonly used now.

who are you counting here HBA? Ba? Cabaye? Gosling? Marveaux? other than HBA & Ba (harsh imo too) who else have we targetted that "play up and cause trouble"? a player leaving on a free doesn't automatically make him a cunt You've not read the Enrique thread then. Ben Arfa - no comment necessary Gosling - left on a free after assurances he'd sign a new contract Cabaye - a year left on his contract, utilised a release fee in his contract and announced to his manager he was moving to Newcastle just before their last game of the season Marveaux - ran contract down, as such wasn't played much last year Ba - left Hoffenheim after refusing to play N' Zogbia (if serious) - no comment necessary They wont all act up like Barton, but none of them are stickers, and they are all motivated enough either by money or ambition to leave their respective clubs in the lurch. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but when it's combined with the lack of ambition, and the lack of any kind of integrity from the senior management at the club, at the very best you can expect many more Enrique type situations in the future. It's no way to build a squad with any kind of stability, and will mean at best the club is constantly in a "rebuilding" phase. Of course that plays into the hands of an owner who isn't bothered about onfield success - just blame it on those greedy players for destabilising the club.

Barton is obviously a difficult character to handle, but handle him well and he's the sort of player who is of massive benefit to the team both on and off the pitch. If you can handle that kind of player, you can get bargains in the transfer market and fashion a decent team on the cheap. It's not easy though, and not many clubs have been successful at it. The problem is that our management team cannot handle difficult characters, that much is blindingly obvious. In fact it goes way beyond that, they can't even handle players who have always been model pros like Milner, Nolan, Enrique who have all eventually felt the need to come out and publicly criticise them. They are the antithesis of what is needed to make a system like that work. The fact that we are actively targeting this kind of player - who have either let their contracts run down, left on contract loopholes, or are known to play up and cause trouble if they don't get their own way - is just so staggeringly short-sighted. It's just such a car crash waiting to happen, it's almost beyond belief that they are blind to the inevitability of it. I honestly can't decide whether they are just so stupid and arrogant that they don't see that they are a major part of the problem, or that they just don't really care and think that they will be able to make enough money selling on some of the players after a bit of exposure regardless, and the more the player acts up, the more those dumb supporters will feel the club's decision to sell them is justified.

The answer to your first question is not many, and then not for more than a season or two when their better players or over achieving manager are lured away to clubs who can offer them more. The point is moot anyway as our wages are on a par with all those clubs these days. Our revenues are still a fair bit higher, but they're catching up, or rather we're dropping back into the pack, and will continue to do so as long as paying off Ashley's loan is the main objective and "doing ok" is the footballing ambition.

FFS man, nobody is making a profit. If we didn't make a profit last year, I'd like to know how the hell we didn't considering our wages are down to 2006 levels, but TV revenues have almost doubled since then, that's without even considering the Carroll money. What's more, if you think we still made a loss last year, I don't know how you can say with a straight face you think that Ashley is running the club well financially. How do you think we're going to start making profits in the future? Even more cost cutting in wages? Finding more players to sell for more than £35m? More free advertising for Sports Direct? We have a top half of the league turnover, a bottom half of the league wage bill, have something like a £40m profit from transfers over his tenure, and you think we're still making a loss? Great financial management that is if so.