Benwell Lad

The bottom line in this is that Sunderland just decided that they no longer wanted to pay his wages. However no matter how many relegations you suffer, or how bad a decision it originally was you can't break or change the player's contract without mutual consent. If no other club would match his salary, nor Sunderland be prepared to pay a percentage of it, impasse arrives and he is perfectly entitled to sit on his contract until it's termination date. It looks from the outside that they have tried to push him out because they simply cannot afford him. However it is not his fault that he isn't good enough to earn an equivalent salary elsewhere or that they gave him a stupid deal in the first place. It's happened dozens of times before to relegated clubs and they have had to take the inevitable hit. Sunderland seem to be trying to get out of it and it could end up getting messy.

The Don thinks he's still running a Sunday league team

Yet it's only a few months since we looked much better than them on their own ground and they've lost their best player since. What's gone wrong ?

There's no doubt that the impact of Freddie Fletcher was huge after the Magpie Group took control and it's often overlooked as the debate concentrates on owners/chairmen. We went out and recruited the best and it paid huge dividends to the commercial business development side of the club. Although the appointment of Rafa was probably as big on the football side, the failure to bring a high calibre business developer on the commercial side has been a big mistake of the Ashley era.

God i love that argument ... " He's not gonna stop me pouring money into his fat pockets so i can watch utter garbage at a dying club " Those fuckers should take a bow for the most moronic justification of sticking around when the very thing we need is that they leave like the rest of us . No-one is going to listen to a keyboard warrier who doesn't go to games telling them to stop going. Supporting is about thick and thin and we have had a lot worse owners than this and a lot worse times than this. This does not condone the way he runs the club by the way. Don't come on here being all moderate and reasonable and expect to get away with it lightly It is now almost universally agreed that the best thing will be a change of ownership, but it does seem that we have been protesting against various owners/chairmen for decades now. Ashley is the worst because he's the present incumbent, the next one will probably be deemed to be worse again. Perhaps that's why no sane person with money seems to want anything to do with us, despite there being so many positive things about the club. Over that time we've never been far away from a chorus of "sack the board" or various crackpot, inevitably futile, schemes to force change at the top. Although I don't think anyone's suggested using fan's pension funds to buy the club this time yet. We need a Magpie Group which has the nous, the steel and the resources of the original version in the absence of a seriously rich individual buyer or consortium.

Not to forget that Burton Albion beat them as usual too. Yep, they don't seem to be enjoying Burton what with them relegating them and beating them all the time :lol: One point from successive fixtures against Fleetwood and Burton Albion

So tales of their big day out in Burton include a debate on whether the racist behaviour of fans is to be vilified or not really such a big deal at all and how one of of them was so drunk that he shit himself and puked up over a fellow fan. Good to see that the "classy club" image lives on despite their recent travails.

While the two players have behaved despicably and don't deserve any sympathy that's not the real story here. This is once again again about the Sunderland owners being out of their depth and thereby playing to the gallery and wanting to appease the Sunderland fans to a cringeworthy and ultimately foolish extent. Any legal process or judgement by football authorities would have to think very carefully about coming out in favour of the club. It would set a very dangerous precedent for allowing clubs to get rid of players they no longer want, especially following a relegation or in Sunderland's case successive relegations.

Good day for our lower league and non league teams today with some very credible and encouraging results on a day when the top level teams aren't playing and they get the limelight. Just a shame these fuckers could only scrape a flukey draw at home to Joey Barton's Fleetwood Town.

Unless Steven Taylor lands a management job in the third division I can't think of any game I'd rather see them lose than Fleetwood today

Aye it was very different back then. What it took though was a group of powerful, committed people who knew what they were doing and had deep enough pockets (at the time) to pay above the going rate and blow the opposition out of the water. It will take something similar this time but what they end up buying will be a very different corporate entity to those days.

Tbf you've completely missed the point here like. TMG is doing the things that the original Magpie Group did. In principle and objective maybe, but it was a completely different structure and up against a much weaker ownership. Ironically the old Magpie Group may have been more effective against the current ownership and vice versa. Also the original one was almost universally supported across the fan base and city as a whole whereas some of those involved in this latest incarnation do nothing but turn people off.

You don't appear to understand what TMG is doing. Possibly not, but I'd then say that apart from the same couple of dozen who post on this thread regularly the vast majority of the "sheep" may not understand, so are they getting their message over ? What I do know is that a lot of us have seen this (or very similar) before and know that the fat lad will hardly be quaking in his boots about a twitter campaign or a couple of hundred people shouting outside one of his stores every once in a while. Nothing wrong with a bit of protest in the meantime if you think it helps or makes you feel good but ultimately change will only come when someone with real clout and finances fancies taking it on. You might well be of an age to have seen the original group and I couldn’t possibly comment on that. Think you’re getting a bit hung up on the sheep label touted by less tactful characters on here. Haven’t heard that expressed by TMG yet. I’m 31 and have never seen anything like this being done with tools like SM and direct conflict against media elements so I’m not sure what’s gone before is directly comparable. KPMG retracted an article based on protest. Pretty unprecedented. I’ve not seen anything as serious as this in my few couple of decades of support so I’m definitely watching this space. I totally get how having seen it all before or not can affect our views but definitely concede that today's use of SM makes it different. Not really "hung up" about the sheep label but I did think it's counter-productive to use it against 50,000 odd supporters who won't be standing outside of SD on Saturday, for whatever reason. Insults will never make people change their minds. This thread has pretty been the same couple of dozen people airing their views and while a different perspective is not always welcome it's not really a bad thing

You don't appear to understand what TMG is doing. Possibly not, but I'd then say that apart from the same couple of dozen who post on this thread regularly the vast majority of the "sheep" may not understand, so are they getting their message over ? What I do know is that a lot of us have seen this (or very similar) before and know that the fat lad will hardly be quaking in his boots about a twitter campaign or a couple of hundred people shouting outside one of his stores every once in a while. Nothing wrong with a bit of protest in the meantime if you think it helps or makes you feel good but ultimately change will only come when someone with real clout and finances fancies taking it on.

Sheep Not sure that insulting people who don't totally agree with you has ever been the best way to influence them and make them change their mind. The problem may be that, although the majority of the 50,000 "sheep" want to see Ashley out, they take the view that it's just the same old bunch of attention seekers, promoting the same ultimately ineffective, form of protest. The original Magpie Group, unlike today's version, was strongly backed by savvy and successful businessmen who knew how to really make things change and realised that singing "sack the board" every time we went a goal down wasn't going to do it. Scaring a few teenage, minimum wage earning SD employees, and asking the staff of crammed pre-match pubs to distinguish between prices for those who are wearing a sticker or not wearing a sticker may get the approval of the zealots on here but I think the majority of the "sheep" are hoping that someone with serious intent and a realistic strategy to remove Ashley will come forward.

Some classic "macktracking" being fed to the masses there like Didn't they spend most of the summer chasing Chris Wilder assuming he'd jump ship because they were such a hewage massive club compared to Sheffield United ? Also this "fearlessly ‘going for it’ - in life,business, and sport required to be a winner" shite. Didn't the Don spend ten years trying to get a non-league club out of the conference and fail spectacularly ?

I saw Cheapskate Charlie in the airport recently and have to say he looked a right fucking clip. Hungover and dressed in shorts and formal jacket The woman he was with was a bit of a minger too. You'd have thought a wannabe big shot like him would want a trophy on his arm. He seems to like dishing it out so hopefully he can take a bit too.

Their entire takings from season ticket sales may just about cover his salary

It was important to tie down Dubravka and Kenedy after the way we finished last season and we did that. Added experience with 4 decent internationals who will strengthen the squad over last year, brought in a forward who Rafa obviously prefers to those he already had and probably most important we didn't lose any key players. We've had worse windows. Not related to the window but Lejeune is going to be a huge miss.We ended last season with a CB pairing as good as any in the league and he was a big part of that.

It's true but nowt to do with the current stuff. It happened months ago.

If anyone sees Michael Martin or anyone from True Faith there ask them why they are stealing money off fans on their merchandise website, not delivering stuff which has been paid for and ignoring all correspondence about it ? Imagine their outrage if they heard Sports Direct were doing that.

Good to hear. He's a great lad, very down to earth and modest. Such a brave recovery. Good luck Liam!

Yeah A huge display of apathy and vindication when 52,000 sheep turn up and sit in silence grateful to mike for Rondon on loan Unreal patter Must be the life and soul of any party

Great result for Gateshead yesterday. Unlikely, but it would be nice to see them or Hartlepool return to the league. It's not great for NE football only having one lower league team.