Rich

That's a great read like, brilliant to know a bit more about what's going on. Fair play to the NUSC on this one.

Definitely.

Ronaldo, you used to be a jolly happy-go-lucky chap. Bring that man back.

In fairness, Jonas has looked better on the left than on the right so far this season. The main issue for me is robbing us of any potential delivery from wide-right, which is what Taylor had looked good at before he was asked to play out of position. I do realise this happening would have meant Lovenkrands or Jonas getting dropped with Smith or Geremi coming in, like.

Wikipedia, already. Who has the time/inclination?

Did I get away with that?

What a signing Bentley has been.

Screw you man, it was unavoidable!! Probably could have done it later, but ho-hum!

That's all sorted then, apologies for it being off for 5 mins or so. Back in time for penalties by the looks of it!

Sums him up.

Just doing a backup of the forum so if anything slows down, then you know what the craic is.

I hate this "knives out" attitude that engulfs everything when things don't go well. Yes, he probably could have done more today but he was still full of effort and running and looked our only real chance of a breakthrough. People should save their bile for those that have proven time and time again that they are not good enough for this football club, not aim it at those who have shown signs of being a very, very good player indeed.

We've got far bigger problems than Jonas man, howay.

For fuck's sake.

Another stunning showpiece for the Premier League. Fucking woeful that this is what football is coming to. Horrible game.

Oh God, Ameobi loses it yet again. I cannot get over him. What a stinker.

I've enjoyed Geremi since he came on, nice to have somebody in there who can play a bit. Obviously he's not the answer but the difference his craft makes to such a turgid team is very evident. Imagine if we could get someone with his craft AND some athleticism.

Missed that, what happened? Just muttering away to himself looking pissed Ah right. Aye, a few "fuckings" and a face like a slapped arse. As an aside: Ameobi makes me cry.

Smith not happy at not getting on.

Could have seen Anelka bombing here to be honest, especially under Souness. One of the mardiest cunts in football with one of the least diplomatic managers? Recipe for disaster if you ask me.

A solid fact that we had no money is the club accounts, not just the balance but also the fact that we'd spent £millions trying to and failing to re-finance the debt. The huge problem with the wages/turnover ratio was/is a solid fact, too, and identified as such by many on here at the time, even though some of our more naive posters attempted to laugh the problem away. That's a problem which has worringly increased since the takeover too, which would have probably been the same under Shepherd and perhaps even to a greater degree based on assumptions due to previous practice. It's a problem that is only solved by increasing revenue through European football (and even not so much UEFA Cup, based on our earnings through our last run) or reducing the wage-bill by selling your high-earners and replacing them with lower-paid players. Obviously another way is to simply fund things through outside investment or from the owner's pockets, as well.

Shepherd was given time to put right his mistakes, some people are going to give Ashley time to get it right. If we'd all kicked off after either, or both of Dalglish and Gullit we wouldn't have had Sir Bobby and what he gave us. if we had kept our best players, who didn't want to go ala Owen, Given and zoggy for starters, backed our managers and therefore kept them, and reached 2 FA Cup Finals, then I daresay Ashley would have been given more time by people like me too. A decent point, but too simplistic really man. Doesn't take into account anything else bar performance on the park and as such is a pretty weak position to argue from. Obviously performances are the end result of a lot of what goes on behind the scenes and around the place, but they alone cannot simply be used as a measure of success. Not to compare us to them, but the best example I can come up with at the drop of the hat: I'd bet Leeds fans, if you ask them now, would swap their CL campaigns and league finishes in a heartbeat with staying solvent and out of administration. They've had their heart ripped out for being overly-ambitious and not doing things properly and they could have been left without a club altogether, which is the very worst thing that could ever happen to a football fan. I appreciate your stance on ambition and admire the fact that you still live and breathe for us to be the best we can be after so many disappointements and so long supporting the club, but like anything else it has to be done in a measured fashion and it has to be financially viable, more so than ever before these days. The fact is that they've had 18 months and people have never given them a chance since day one. The way you're talking, you'd think we were already in the Championship with no return in sight.

I've got to go out but will respond when I get back, but I think we may have spent and ran out of money later in the year. Remember the casino had already fallen through and we had nobody lined up to build a hotel and since that time, but not long after, the whole global financial position changed. Yeah, exactly. The global climate would be the biggest worry for me and in fairness to NE5 in the past (a good while back when Shepherd was still here) he himself raised the concern that we were already falling behind others financially, so Lord knows how the crisis would have hit us. Nobody knows what would have went on though, which is why it frustrates me to see some people adament it would have been better or worse, he could have found other investors or anything, or alternatively we could have hit the skids.

good post Rich, i can summarise for you, Bad leadership since the Halls left. I agree with most of it too, but as the thread is about the NUSC, I don't get why people don't see that the NUSC is showing its discontent and providing a vehicle for people to show they aren't happy. While not being a black and white situation, anyone who was unhappy with the old regime must surely be unhappy now. Excuses for, and avoidance of admitting that they are, just isn't really good enough. In fact its damn pathetic. They have a personal agenda, and they know it. I stand by my view that Ashley has little ambition for the club, and has already created a club where good players see it as a stepping stone with no future for them, just like we had for years before 1992. Older people ought to be able to see this, if they supported the club back then, and at least now admit it is the case. For what it's worth, I'm as unhappy now as I remember being at any point under the last regime and I was certainly more unhappy when KK left in September. However, I don't share your view about ambition (at least yet), preferring to believe that he's been hamstrung by the financial situation he inherited at the club and his lack of understanding about football itself and particularly the nature of the beast up here at NUFC. For this reason, I am willing to hope to hell we survive relegation and sort the finances out and see where we go from there. I haven't completely called time on Ashley and Co. yet, much like I never did with Freddy Shepherd. It takes a hell of a lot for people to go past the point of no return for me usually, and Ashley isn't there yet. He's not beyond redemption. If nothing else they should leave us with a more solid foundation for new owners to come in on with the high-earning chaff offloaded. However, if they get us relegated with their lack of know-how and their terrible handling of Kevin Keegan, etc. then they deserve all the shit that comes their way, much like the previous board would have been strung up. They're all crooks to me, to be honest, none of them care about the club as much as I do (or a lot of you lot do) and for that reason alone they'll never be good enough. Until someone is in the job who bleeds black and white AND has the personal finance to support it, while not taking anything out themselves/looking to make money off it, they'll all be held in contempt. I just want a club that is run properly and efficiently at all levels, which isn't too much to ask. The NUSC should exist to ensure that is what we get, at the moment my problem with them is that they appear to be a one-trick pony and that they themselves are run in a fairly poor, incoherent manner. I wouldn't want to be a member or be proud to be a member right now (I can't really do much anyway from Hull), but I hope that with time (like with Ashley) they get a handle on things and fill the role that they should rightly fill. We should always be striving for the best owners possible and for the current owners to run the club as best they can, that should be our role as supporters. It's just that personally I don't agree that protests and demonstrations are the best thing for the club at this point in time (I also never took part in any anti-Shepherd protests, for the record, even though I probably would have done post-Sheff Utd under Roeder if I'd been sat in another part of the ground... or with Shak.)

So right, he'd brought Sam Allardyce in to try and run things on a tighter leash... there was the increased TV money upcoming, the potential sales of numerous players (while possibly not spending as much as Ashley has, if you can imagine such a thing), the potential expansion of SJP and the sale/redevelopment of the land around the stadium, a potential casino deal... was this it, do you reckon? The grand plan? Was there anything else I've forgotten? (Anyone?) We're getting somewhere here, away from the usual shite. We're at the point now where Freddy Shepherd has hired Allardyce, he's in hospital and he comes out without there having been a takeover from Mike Ashley. You'd assume Viduka and Barton would have both still arrived as they were already in motion and that the likes of Distin and others were targets too (where is this money coming from??) Now, things could obviously go either way, but we can't just base that on opinion. What solid evidence is there either way to say we would have been alright or we would have crashed and burned? You've set us off by saying he's failed to re-finance the debt, so on the other side of the coin what does NE5 have to make him so sure that we're worse off now under Ashley? I'm not looking to catch anybody out here, I'm not playing any games, I am genuinely interested to know one way or another to try and get a better picture in my mind of where we might have ended up. The club accounts apparently had no money, yet we were talking about taking SJP to 60k and were on our way to getting Viduka and Joey Barton in on considerable money with considerable wages as well as looking at the likes of Distin who you would imagine wouldn't come cheap as well... what am I missing?