James

The Blackburn board are serial liars - not to be trusted.

Jose Mourinho Newcastle manager. Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble.

And the person that actually runs the club is around.

Because the Spurs guy wanted Redknapp instead of Ramos.

Bellamy was still sold against Hughes wishes, with a clause that was kept secret from him by the chairman. This season, Blackburn are 3 points off 6th despite having quite a few periods without key players being available. Blackburn have been better than us post-Robson thanks to Hughes. We are not as good a team as you are making out, hence the quality of manager that is considered to be the best available to us. Source for the 'behind the back' thing? IIRC Hughes just kept quiet about it but it was obvious that it existed. He was asked about it for ages in the second half of that season and said 'no comment' or something to that effect. But maybe I'm wrong. And there's no point bringing up injuries. They've had two or three of their best players playing for most of the time (Santa Cruz, Bentley and Samba). If you're going to mention injuries, we've lost Viduka, Owen, Duff, Emre and Faye for a significant amount of time. The difference being seven points over half a season.

Oliver: "All United would hint at today was that they are looking for an experienced manager who is with a club, and this rules out the likes of Martin Jol, Jose Mourinho, Marcello Lippi and Ottmar Hitzfeld." http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2008/01/10/look-hughes-in-the-frame-72703-20333994/

Bellamy was still sold against Hughes wishes, with a clause that was kept secret from him by the chairman. This season, Blackburn are 3 points off 6th despite having quite a few periods without key players being available. Blackburn have been better than us post-Robson thanks to Hughes. We are not as good a team as you are making out, hence the quality of manager that is considered to be the best available to us.

The difference is though that Allardyce has throughout his career worked at smaller clubs with smaller names. Hughes has been amongst some quality in his time as a player, and I can see that helping when it comes to acquiring players with a greater transfer backing.

Blackburn are way down the bottom of the Premiership net-spend league.

I think people are being too snobby about the prospect of having Hughes as manager. Lets look at his managerial track record. For starters, he got Wales into the playoffs to qualify for Euro 2004, which was quite an achievement considering that Wales were in a group that featured Italy, Serbia and Finland. The Wales team that beat Italy in that group was: Paul Jones, Delaney, Melville, Gabbidon, Speed, Davies, Savage, Pembridge, Giggs, Bellamy, Hartson. Subs: Page, Johnson, Legg, Earnshaw, Carl Robinson, Weston, Crossley. After this, he moved on to Blackburn to replace Souness who had come to join us. We were 19th in the league at the time, Blackburn were 20th. That season, Blackburn and Newcastle were pretty much neck and neck in terms of points accumulated under their new managers, despite Hughes inheriting the worser team (Blackburn had finished 10 places below us the previous season), and the smaller financial backing. The next season, despite spending much much less than Newcastle, Blackburn leapfrogged us into 6th place and the final UEFA Cup spot. Blackburn finished two points behind Spurs, and four points behind Arsenal. So in his first full season, he took a club that he had inherited from the bottom of the league, and whom had finished 15th in the previous two seasons, to the position that we want to be. I don't see how this achievement can be compared to the inconsistency of Moyes, or the slow and gradual development of Redknapp's Portsmouth or Allardyce's Bolton. Of course, people can look at the tenth place last season, but if people can blame the old board for failing to back Robson when we finished 3rd, then sympathy can be shown towards Hughes who had his star player Bellamy sold against his wishes to raise funds. Hughes has been forced to sell by his board over and over again, and has only got fractions of what was recouped back. Subsequently, Blackburn have sufferred in spells that coincide with injuries to key players, due to being forced to skimp on squad depth. When they get their good players together, Blackburn have consistently won matches under Mark Hughes. Look at Blackburn's transfers under Mark Hughes: Roque Santa Cruz Bayern Munich £3.5m July 2007 Gunnar Nielsen BK Frem Undisclosed July 2007 Maceo Rigters NAC Breda £350,000 July 2007 Christopher Samba Hertha Berlin Undisclosed January 2007 Stephen Warnock Liverpool Undisclosed January 2007 David Dunn Birmingham City £2.2m January 2007 Stéphane Henchoz Free Agent Free September 2006 Andre Oojier PSV Eindhoven £2.3m August 2006 Shabani Nonda AS Roma Loan August 2006 Benni McCarthy Porto £2m July 2006 Jason Roberts Wigan Athletic £2.5m June 2006 Francis Jeffers Charlton Athletic Free June 2006 Jason Brown Gillingham Free June 2006 David Bentley Arsenal Undisclosed January 2006 Florent Sinama Pongolle Liverpool Loan January 2006 Martin Olsson Högaborgs BK Undisclosed January 2006 Zurab Khizanishvili Glasglow Rangers Loan August 2005 David Bentley Arsenal Loan August 2005 Richard Lee Watford Loan August 2005 Craig Bellamy Newcastle United £5m July 2005 Shelfki Kuqi Ipswich Town Free July 2005 Robbie Savage Birmingham City £3m January 2005 Aaron Mokoena Genk £300,000 January 2005 Ryan Nelsen DC United Free January 2005 Jay Bothroyd Perugia Loan January 2005 He has signed some very good first team players at low prices. He clearly has an eye for a good player, and uses his scouting network very well. I'd like to see what he could do if he was handed a good transfer kitty. He is a natural leader, and will command the respect of the entire dressing room. Having played for some big clubs, he can handle the big names, and handle the pressure put on him from demanding fans. All in all, Hughes is clearly to me a figure that could potentially be much much bigger than Allardyce, Souness and Roeder, and also the likes of Moyes and Redknapp, and he has in general shown himself to be the more capable of getting the results quickly, if he gets the support of his board.

Although it may sound like it, I'm not crying out for Redknapp being appointed, I'm just highlighting any evidence out there that may suggest that we could be going for him.

Plausible deniability. Newcastle and Redknapp would be in big trouble if this doesn't appear to unfold in a manner that follows standard protocol.

Well consider this: Who were the other club that wanted Diarra? Portsmouth.

Redknapp and Mourinho are linked by superagent Pini Zahavi.

Not necessarily. Whether Redknapp or Hughes are considered of the 'blown socks off' standard depends on how highly they are rated by the board, whom at the moment have a very questionable level of football knowledge. nah sorry i'm not having that, if it turns out to be one of them he was lying Really, if Redknapp or Hughes are appointed, it means that the board thinks he was the best possible man for the job, and therefore given what must therefore be assumed to be limited football knowledge, Mort's socks blew off when he received the call touting whoever.

Not necessarily. Whether Redknapp or Hughes are considered of the 'blown socks off' standard depends on how highly they are rated by the board, whom at the moment have a very questionable level of football knowledge.

You need good contacts and footballing knowledge to identify who that guy is though. It is questionable whether this is the case for Mort and Ashley. It could be that their most trusted contact is Kemsley, and Kemsley leads to Redknapp.

Might have blown Mort's socks off though, depending on whether he rates Hughes or Redknapp highly enough to make them our manager.

Jol, who else, apart from Redknapp and Ramos, did Kemsley court post-Jol?

Kemsley was a big fan of Redknapp when at Spurs, and is clearly one of Ashley's biggest confidants/advisors.

Don't worry. It's not Droopy, it's Snoopy. Chris Mort is sgrey.

People say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, And support the Special One.

Remember when Mourinho secretly managed Chelsea against Barcelona after his ban. Perhaps he could do this until the end of the season so that we dont have to pay Chelsea anything.

Alex Inglethorpe.

:lol: If we've got Mourinho, we've already got him because he has already sounded us out. Newcastle aren't in a position to persuade him to take the job.