Bad Mongo

1) Shit argument? If the club has been debt free but otherwise equal, it would have cost £100M more. He bought the club, debt and all, and paid it. It's only what's expected. Also, the point that our club would be bankrupt is just hearsay. The fact that you have to take it for granted to defend the new board says a lot. 2) No, I'm not using "the fact we've spent the club record for a defender as an argument AGAINST ashley", I'm using it against the claim that we're "bringing in good players ... whilst not spending lavish amounts of money", which is only true for Jonas. 3) Keegan also wanted to keep Milner. Of course all three players would need to be replaced if they were sold, so I'm not celebrating the fact that Duff may play on Saturday. And anyway, my point, which was always a counterpoint to the claim that the board had succeeded in "shipping out bad players", still stands: the most expensive deadwood is still there, and Carr and Ramage would have gone no matter what. 4) So you're willing to bet that they'll spend if they spend. I'm not taking you up on that, genius.

1) When he bought the club, he bought the debt as well. Paying it was the most economical choice. 2) He's only brought in two players we know can lift the first team, one of them at a club record price for a defender. 3) Ameobi, Smith and Duff are still here; Carr and Ramage were out of contract. The "deadwood" would then be Rozenhal, Emre, Faye and Milner, two of them first team players -- one of which hasn't been replaced. That's pretty fucking progressive. 4) "Will lead us to be able to spend better in the future". And I'm sure they'll promise to do so, yet again. I'm willing to bet that they won't.

I have obviously no way of knowing what Keegan knew and when he knew it. I believe (and believed) he lied when he said it was his decision to sell Milner, but the reason for it is different: he needed to show that he was in charge. But if it was always part of the deal that he wouldn't be in charge of signings, it would make no sense to claim so. The difference between the lies is that Keegan's protect his authority, which is being undermined by the board, whereas Ashley's are fraudulent. Those "pieced together interviews and articles from various places" are all from official club publications, by the way. Match day programmes and that NUFC magazine. The part in bold is based on a) the owner having sold the club to Keegan on the ambition to win something and b) us not even properly replacing all outgoing players. There is a huge gap between stated long term plans and the will to implement those plans. In fact, there's no sign that those actually were the plans at any time. When you ask "why the vitriol" I have to ask whether you can read. Where is this so-called vitriol? It's nowhere to be found. What I've written is an objective criticism: on the one hand, what has been said by the owner, on the other hand what has been done by the club. If you call that "vitriol", it must be because you're mentally challenged. I've never attacked Wise or Ashley for being southerners, so I see no reason to answer to your last point.

So instead of taking my points seriously, you choose to ignore them to support your argument. Nicely done! Come on: Ashley has lied about who got to decide upon transfers and that there would be money available, that the squad would be expanded. If Dennis Wise et al were doing their job, which I believe they were doing (because if not, they would have gone and Keegan would have stayed), Mike Ashley lied. This is an owner who claimed he wanted to win something, but who's clearly satisfied with a bottom half finish.

No problem. It's not about regionalism, it's about an owner lying about how he wants to run the club.

Which of our signings are top notch? Guthrie? Bassong? Xisco? Nacho? The former two clearly aren't, nor were they cheaper than one would expect, and you haven't seen the other two. Then there's Coloccini. He's good, but he didn't come cheap. Not at all. Jonas did come cheap, and has certain strengths, but for how long will people love him when they notice he's less creative than James Milner? He's scored exactly as many goals in his whole career as Milner did in his time here, and in twice as many games. His assist ratio isn't any better. But he runs more and faster. Basically, we have replaced Milner with an older but faster and even harder working version. So much for our youth policy.

So you're defending someone who runs a business on fraudulent claims that he will invest in new players for the squad. "Following the program" means being part of the scam.

I'm not really sure where this has come from myself. It seems much more likely to me that Guthrie is the sort of player Wise would have been looking at as manager of Leeds. Keegan was supposedly only interested in Lampard, Henry & Beckham. You mean the Keegan who claimed we would be looking at the same kind of players the likes of Tottenham would go for? And that Guthrie, a player with offers from the likes of Bolton, would consider going to fucking Leeds? Guthrie played against us in Keegan's first home game, and I'm fairly sure he noticed. Of course, Spurs have made at least five quite ambitious signings (while selling two of their best players at a massive profit), and we have made only two.

So you mean they failed to add players to the squad because of Shepherd? That's just ludicrous, and for someone requesting facts it's plain embarrassing.

I think most people assume Guthrie was a Keegan signing, so he obviously had some input. He also had a few trialists in, among them Bassong.

That is true, we have only failed relative to everyone else.

I don't want to use this thread to go through all of those points again, as it's obvious people just have opposite viewpoints on a lot of that - both based on a lot of speculation and not a lot of fact. All I'm saying is that the overly-dramatic reaction to what has happened this week has a lot to do with what has gone before... Souness, Allardyce, our decline over recent seasons. Why else would anyone mention the last 10 years? As far as I'm concerned that has nothing to do with what is happening now. What in that list isn't fact, apart from the unknown amount of "force" behind Keegan's resignation?

Win what in the end? He's not going for the Premiership title, not even a UEFA cup spot. With the press rumours about everything else being spot on, I think he's looking to sell for a tidy profit. There's not all that much profit in owning a club, and I think we can say for certain that he's not after success on the pitch.

Yes, but whose squad isn't better than last season? Middlesbrough's? West Ham's? Probably. Certainly not Sunderland, Fulham, Manchester City, Aston Villa, and so on. I don't think we'll be relegated, but unless we get lucky with the next manager, I see no reason to expect much improvement. I would have expected top 10 under Keegan, but not now.

What a load of tosh. We have spent less money on transfers than all but 5 clubs, despite claims from the owner there would be money available. 100% cast iron fact. We have failed to buy players in several depleted positions, despite claims from the owner that the squad was thin and needed to be rebuilt. 100% cast iron fact. We have failed to add bodies to the squad, etc. Problem is, you replace observations with wishful thinking. There is no investment in the team, when it's sorely needed. There was almost no investment in the team last year. None in January. Only blind optimism can make you believe the owner has any ambition for us. Jonas was a shrewd signing, but the rest aren't exactly the work of magicians, are they? Coloccini was well known and wasn't particularly cheap. Guthrie and Bassong are backup players, and Xisco most likely as well. So then we're left with Nacho, the highly ambitious loan deal. There's absolutely no reason to believe we shall succeed with these people in charge, and with this transfer policy.

He was the Milner replacement, and isn't a striker. Also, how the hell do you know he turned us down? Some sources say Wise had told Keegan the transfer was droppet by Jimenez. There's no statement by Schweinsteiger, anyehere.

Oh, come on, this should be common knowledge by now. That's from the interview in that club magazine, hardly a press smear. Two lines, two fraudulent claims to make people buy season tickets.

That's a strange way of putting it, as we clearly haven't replaced Carr and Ramage at all. We have only one right back. Jonas and Coloccini are our only new first team players, possibly Nacho as well (he'll most likely need time to adapt), but the rest shouldn't be starting. Bassong is merely OK as back-up and Guthrie is one for the future, Xisco is unknown. Fact is, most teams around us have improved their first teams more. Luckily, that doesn't include Middlesbrough.

TRon, that's just ridiculous. That interview was barely weeks before he left, and Ashley claimed that a) the right signing is a player Keegan wants who wants to play for Newcastle and b) there was money available for the right signings. Both of those claims were incorrect, as has been proven. Even the official statement from the club contradict them. How is that "backing your manager in the public"? It undermines his position when actual fact proves it's all bollocks. What I find laughable is that some people still think these crooks are going to try turning us into Arsenal without investing anything in the squad.

That's easy: The club's latest statements contradict their statements before the closing of the transfer window. Now we know that they lied.

For definitions of 'sense' being synonymous with wishful thinking. Have we improved the first team? Slightly. Have we improved the squad in numbers? Not at all. Have we brought in players to the positions most needing it? No. Do we have a manager capable of bringing the most out of the players? ... Will we be able to attract one, considering we have no transfer budget and have treated our former manager like shit? Certainly, with extraordinary amounts of luck. But without one, all we have is a squad that is no better than the one Souness had for his first season.

And you seriously believe Jean-Michel Aulas was the one that decided Houllier wanted Milan Baros?

The difference is that the DoF works together with the manager. Also, does the following sound like someone who would like to work under Wise No chance.

You forget that we have no transfer budget, and that our most valuable player will be leaving for free next summer.

It should be possible to do something about this, as all his statements clearly have been fraudulent and misleading. Isn't there some kind of law against false advertising and fraud? He's made millions* of pounds on it. edit *I base this number on absolutely nothing, of course.