BottledDog

Seems to me it's just a misleading headline (which is not something that Green nescesarily had any say in anyway). 1st para is about Sam blaming the players (which might well be an own goal or not), but the rest of the story is about managers and media also blaming all sorts of things other than Sam. An opinion peice in which Green suggests Allardyce might be held more accountable than he is. Not particularly insightful, but a perfectly valid opinion to air nonetheless i guess.

Well. That's a bit of a pisser. Still, we are clearly moving forward so it's all good.

Same here. The room where I was born is now some rich buggers kitchen. Make that 3 for the Princess Mary Massive Four ! Five! Raised elsewhere though. Wahay, need to start an Old Boys' Association. All these Toon fans being born in a maternity hospital in Newcastle. Amazing Well, indeed. I'm just thinking of the drinks budget you would get from the annual subs tbh.

Same here. The room where I was born is now some rich buggers kitchen. Make that 3 for the Princess Mary Massive Four ! Five! Raised elsewhere though. Wahay, need to start an Old Boys' Association.

Same here. The room where I was born is now some rich buggers kitchen.

Good men indeed. What about debonaire rogues, with rather casual attitudes to both the ten commandments and the capital vices? Count me out.

Are you suggesting we should have stuck with Roeder or Souness? A fairly simple solution would be to make the right appointment in the first place, then there would be no need for "sack, sack, sack". It's never that easy though, because you know as well as I do that the fans are never 100% behind an appointment - the only man I could see getting anywhere near enough patience/backing/support/feelgood factor behind him is Alan Shearer, much the same as Kevin Keegan was. It's never been this difficult to be Newcastle manager, though, and Special K came in at the perfect time. A lot more goes into a successful managerial appointment than simply making the "right appointment". The vast majority of people saw Allardyce as the "right appointment" when he came in under Shepherd, then the club gets taken over by a billionaire and the doubters began to multiply when more factors came into the equation. It would be magic if it was as simple as you say it could be. EDIT: Also, if we'd stuck with Roeder then perhaps when Ashley/Mort came in they could have brought in their own man with them... food for thought. Who knows, hindsight is a wonderful thing, whoever they replaced Roeder with could just as well have been worse than Allardyce. My only arguement was that the view that 'sacking managers in the past got us nowhere' is no arguement for not sacking Allardyce now. That despite personally feelling pretty sick at the prospect at getting shot of another manager and (while never being particularly behind his appointment) still edge towards giving him time. As for Shearer, I would be very surprised if he were to get anywhere near the support and patience that you think he would considering just how far cynicism has taken over amongst the support. Certainly wouldn't be be my choice, but then other than someone like Mourinho, few would be. That's half the problem at the moment, and why I don't envy Ashley and Morts position in this one little bit.

Are you suggesting we should have stuck with Roeder or Souness? A fairly simple solution would be to make the right appointment in the first place, then there would be no need for "sack, sack, sack".

They have already come out and said that not many weeks ago didn't they? They would have to be idiots to say it again now.

Allardyce has done the right thing regarding transfers, the players he wants have been unavailable or turned us down so he's prepared to wait for the right players to come along. After how far the club has gone backwards in the past few years he's going to struggle to attract any real quality, especially in January. Crouch, Ben Haim, Diouf, Arshavin, Jaaskelainen etc are the sort of players we will be looking to attract, not top class but players who will help improve the squad and push us back up to a European place. But isn't that the problem. Faye Cacapa Roz Taylor are all good players, Ben Haim isn't that much of a step up. Arshavin could work out but again, is he that much of a step up from Barton Emre etc, the same with Jaaskelainen over Given. Adding more good players isn't going to boost us significantly, and just add to the likelyhood of more shuffling of the pack trying to fit players in. I'm sure the current squad is good enough to get us to a similar level and it is just the system they are trying to play that is holding the team back to an extent. Sort out a first 11, get them playing to a style they are comfortable with and then spend big if we have a chance at a player that really can add to the mix. You could argue that, the players we are being connected with are the players that can work with Sams tactics better than the ones currently at his disposal, but that doesn't say much when a good deal of the team are his own buys in the first place. Which is what I was getting at and you can understand where he's coming from if he does sign the likes of Crouch, Diouf and Arshavin, 3 players who you would think are suited to the 4-3-3 formation which he favours, I think his problem at the moment is the strikers he has are not really suited to it apart from maybe Martins, we've seen what Viduka's like up top in a 4-3-3 and he doesn't look too clever, Owen doesn't have anything that makes you think he could play there either. The problem he has is that the better players he want didn't want to come in the Summer, so I think the best thing he can do is take the long term view of getting the team playing how he wants(4-3-3) and add quality when hopefully we improve under the tactics he knows best, I said in another thread that some of the players he brought in were with a short term view just to get numbers in rather than being an important part of the team for the future. Agreed, but even as 'bodies' they have been dissapointing, and that has more to do with Sam than the squads individual abilities in my opinion. Sadly this will probably mean the end of the road for some of our more popular players, and I can see people getting somewhat disgruntled with the replacements, despite the need for them if we are to stick with Sam and follow his long term plans through to their logical conclusions.

Allardyce has done the right thing regarding transfers, the players he wants have been unavailable or turned us down so he's prepared to wait for the right players to come along. After how far the club has gone backwards in the past few years he's going to struggle to attract any real quality, especially in January. Crouch, Ben Haim, Diouf, Arshavin, Jaaskelainen etc are the sort of players we will be looking to attract, not top class but players who will help improve the squad and push us back up to a European place. But isn't that the problem. Faye Cacapa Roz Taylor are all good players, Ben Haim isn't that much of a step up. Arshavin could work out but again, is he that much of a step up from Barton Emre etc, the same with Jaaskelainen over Given. Adding more good players isn't going to boost us significantly, and just add to the likelyhood of more shuffling of the pack trying to fit players in. I'm sure the current squad is good enough to get us to a similar level and it is just the system they are trying to play that is holding the team back to an extent. Sort out a first 11, get them playing to a style they are comfortable with and then spend big if we have a chance at a player that really can add to the mix. You could argue that, the players we are being connected with are the players that can work with Sams tactics better than the ones currently at his disposal, but that doesn't say much when a good deal of the team are his own buys in the first place.

Pointless. Sam said he had the money to spend, Mort confirmed it. Sam possibly didn't fancy spending further, or the players were simply not available (more likely simply because of his constant rants against the transfer window system). Either way he seemed happy enough going into the season, and I have less concern about the money available and far more concern over the managers ability to get the players he has brought in/will bring in playing decent football.

And none of them will keep the payments up when they realise how little say you get for your £35, leaving the club in the s***. Heard the bloke running it on TalkSport a few hours back. He reckons members will get to vote on everything: team selection, tactics, training facilities, youth programmes, stadium developments, you name it. Aye, but if there's 20,000 people voting what are the chances of your vote counting? 1 in 20,000? I wonder if some fecker will ever start bulk buying accounts to get a block vote. /By christ their forums are going to get lively when the kneejerking kicks in. //Are the blokes running this/doing the deals pulling a salary from the membership fee? Cannot see anything about it on the site. It says £7.50 goes towards administration of the trust out of every £35 so i imagine the guy who runs it is going to be making a small fortune before too long. £260,000 or so towards their own pay so far then.

If 75% of members vote to sell the club, the money is supposed to go to charity.

Should be fine. As a revenue stream an extra £1 million or so a year from membership alone is a hell of a boost for a club of that size, and no doubt members will make an effort to get to the ground occasionally and buy the shirts as well. For 35 quid, for a years worth of feeling part of it however small, sounds pretty fair. Could go tits up, just because of the chaos of allowing factions in the support to gang up and actually drive out of favour players out of the club among other things, but an interesting experiment none the less. Looking forward to see how things turn out.

And none of them will keep the payments up when they realise how little say you get for your £35, leaving the club in the shit. Heard the bloke running it on TalkSport a few hours back. He reckons members will get to vote on everything: team selection, tactics, training facilities, youth programmes, stadium developments, you name it. Aye, but if there's 20,000 people voting what are the chances of your vote counting? 1 in 20,000? I wonder if some fecker will ever start bulk buying accounts to get a block vote. /By christ their forums are going to get lively when the kneejerking kicks in. //Are the blokes running this/doing the deals pulling a salary from the membership fee? Cannot see anything about it on the site.

I think you missed the joke mate. Wasnt that good to be fair.

Good luck to Norwich, and Glenn, but I have very little respect for Roeder as a manager or the oft trotted out idea of him being a 'nice person'. From the off his demenour and self referencing turned me right off, and sadly it wasn't very hard to understand that a player might find it difficult to respect the man.

He drinks way too many Red Bulls. Waaaaay too many. Last time I talked to him he was all over the shop. Nice guy, just don't think he or his collars are the greatest role models for the kids.

Spot on, that. What, that if we came away with a point or better you'd be glad? Well.... ummm yeah. I'm all for effective winning tactics rather that flouncy faaaabulous football. But to attempt to kill the game and fail (against even poor opposition) is a damn sight more depressing everytime.

How? It's always good to remain positive. I'm with UL, could have been worse etc etc.

Aye what a mong. We were a joy to watch again away from home today. nil-nil ftw. I'm amazed there were only 8 of us in the poll who were not entirely unconcerned by our playing style, especially in away games and cemented by todays display. But I guess that's what a decent result does to people.

Ugly as sin logo. Looked shit tbh.