James

I hear the Dyer testimonial money is going to go to a really good cause though if he has one - COLDE Counsellors for the Owners of Lost Diamond Earrings

Just to consign all that Mackem rubbish to the scrapheap once and for all: Lee Clark has played more games for Sunderland than Sam Allardyce.

Allardyce is one of the few managers who I can see finding a way to effectively accomodate Dyer. It is therefore upto Dyer to buck his ideas up and produce the goods.

So absolutely nothing is different from this morning then ?? T27 said it was confirmed on the BBC then it wasnt. Apparently. Several people can back me up on that.

I'm having that.

A blind, deaf WOMAN could have appointed Allardyce. Fucking hell, no credit whatsoever. He's the best man for the job, and he's free and available, he's hardly moved Shepherd man. Thing is though is that assumming that he stays in the background and backs the manager and Allardyce does reasonably well, we can't blame Freddy Shepherd. Likewise, if Shepherd does the same, and Allardyce doesn't do well, then it would be silly to blame Shepherd. Until the next managerial appointment, Shepherd has effectively bought himself a clean slate.

The BBC have just significantly downgraded the certainty of the Allardyce appointment.

SHIT! The BBC have downgraded it from "Sam Allardyce to be appointed the BBC understands" to "Sam Allardyce tipped to be appointed" with quotes from Ladbrokes.

I know it is being reported in more strong terms on BBC television and radio, but the only two internet sources describing it as definite are www.bbc.co.uk and www.newcastle-online.com Hope I haven't just caused a massive cock-up.

.com will be really unhappy about this, judging by their article from earlier this week.

That was one of the best posts I have ever seen on this forum.

Allardyce was definitely the biggest name at Bolton. Hopefully, he can make the step up and be the biggest name at Newcastle.

Can we have a better thread title please?

Freddy Shepherd has done excellently over the past 48 hours. Magnificent work. Although there are a few better candidates, we don't know for sure that they would be willing to join, and there is no guarantee of success. Even if Allardyce fails, people wont be able to hold this appointment against Freddy Shepherd.

Pleased.

It hasn't.

It makes sense to me, the manager should be the most important person at the club. And if he is the most important, he should be paid the most.

Just to enforce this cult of personality, I would have the new manager as the highest paid person at the club.

When we've been at our best, the manager has been the biggest individual at the club. Keegan was Massive. Robson was always centre of attention, until Freddy started poking around In less successful periods, the club's attention has been centred around big name players such as Shearer and Owen, or even the chairman himself. Looking at other clubs, Ferguson has always been top dog at Manchester United. Mourinho gets the attention ahead of his so called world class players. Liverpool have done better since Owen left and Gerrard took more of a backseat. Arsenal have declined since Thierry Henry has become the biggest part of Arsenal. Real Madrid fell apart with their galatico system. What is clear to me is that we need to get back to having the manager being the biggest thing at the club. Obviously reputation isn't all, you need to have good management skills. But he needs to be big such that he commands the respect of players fans and boardroom. I look at Louis Van Gaal and I see a cult of personality coupled with a good upbringing of attacking football. That is why he is my favourite choice for the NUFC job.

Not how I remember it. Sir Bobby seemed to be begging for the job; there was no need to court him. In his book, he says that Shepherd approached him once with an inferior wage, Robson said no way, so Shepherd went off for a week, only to come back and beg with a larger offer.

This isnot an assessment of the standard of NUFC managerial appointments, rather a description of the circumstances leading up to each appointment. I'm goiung to start with Gullit, as I was too young to remember Keegan's (BWJ) arrival, and I was on holiday when Dalglish was appointed. Gullit Dalglish got sacked/resigned out of the blue, and Gullits appointment was also very quick and suprising. Robson General fan clamour for Robson Was very much a case of just waiting for the club to agree terms and then announce the deal. No alternatives were really discussed. It took a while to court Robson, but he was persuaded eventually, after he had initially turned down a derisory offer. Souness Every day, there was a new candidate, and they would rule themselves out. Problems related to the apparent lack of options. Then as soon as people started looking at the continent, Shepherd pulled Souness out of nowhere. Roeder Fans failed to unite over this one as there were too many alternatives to choose betwen, especially as we got closer and closer to the end of the season. Because things took so long, the caretaker was given a long time to prove himself, and thus got the job. Conclusions Prior to the last two appointments, nobody particularly appealling appeared to throw themselves at the job. Obviously, it is up to Shepherd to take all the possible steps to court the managers. Shepherd has behaved differently for each appointment, although another point to make is that only once has the initial favourite got the job. We were lucky that all the circumstances were perfectly timed. Has Shepherd timed Roeder's departure such that the circumstances can suit him for once? Or are we going to wait for Shepherd to pull out another totally unexpected 'pleasant suprise' as we have seen the other three times?

Van Gaal for me.

Like I said before, last time around, there was a closed book on numerous candidates including Glenn Hoddle. This means nothing.

Has Freddy asked for your shortlist yet? Nope, but I'm 99% confident that when the manager is appointed, it will be someone on this list. Is he going to ask for your shortlist then? Nope. I dont intend to give it to him, as he would probably read it upside down and try to appoint Mr. Eko I'm intrigued. Who is this Mr. Oke you refer to upsidedown-wise? "Lift up your eyes and look north" - John 3:05

Has Freddy asked for your shortlist yet? Nope, but I'm 99% confident that when the manager is appointed, it will be someone on this list. Is he going to ask for your shortlist then? Nope. I dont intend to give it to him, as he would probably read it upside down and try to appoint Mr. Eko