macphisto

look at how long it has been since queiroz worked in portugal and after an initial flurry rafa eased on the spaniards (even i could spot torres as a talent. right about wenger and french players but not just french he just has a very good knack of finding talent. you're part right about the advisors as some are like that,as are a lot of ex players who talk s**** about the game and know less that you or me (ever listened to steve claridge ?). agree with you about wise personal decision to move being slightly odd. Doesn't really matter how long someone has been out the country as long as they have contacts there. I imagine queiroz could ring a few people in Portugal, people he knows and find out what is happening any emerging players. . Also imagine if Keegan was working abroad in say Italy, he would have a much better knowledge contacts in the UK compared to his Italian counterparts on emerging players in England. Anway just my thinking on how it works. Also and this is not directed at you, another point I'd make on the role of advisers is how much different is the role the new guys are playing to that of Stretford under Shepard? Is this not just all about repackaging a role and presenting it in another light? Im just very dubious of people who have never played or managed a club being so high up the chain of command! People might think I'm going over the top, but I'm pig sick of saying give people a chance/time! I'm all for that but I'd want them to have a track record to go off. I really think we should be doing much better than we are! I really thought things had changed under the new regime but everything that has happened has just left me feeling really deflated. As I said in my first post, if Ashley had got his way our manager would be Redknapp with Wise thrown in! I just hope that who ever comes in as the No.2 to Keegan has something about him.

so much wrong in that. if we get a DOF (which hasn't been confirmed thats what wise'll be doing yet)fro a foreign country isn't it likely he'll have knowladge of that country alone as thats what you imply about having an english one ? each club on the continent uses DOF's differently,some have more say than others,some the head coach dictates the purchases at some they don't. the advisors who you don't know how they get where they are, a bit like scouts in that even the best are relativly anonymous. my guess is that someone reckons they have sen something in wise that he can bring here in the same way without having the great reputation someone saw something in wenger when he was merely a coach What's so wrong with what I said? The way I see football people is that everyone knows generally about what is going on at the top level in each country but not too much at other levels of the game. So I imagine that Newcastle will know about most players in the top leagues in Europe but not too much below that. So for example if we got a German DOF then he would have expert knowledge of German football and have a whole set of contacts that could be used to our effect. Contacts that we don't have at the club! Look at Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal. All of them take advantage of the foreign element to their football setup. To be honest there would be nothing wrong at getting a DOF who did not know too much about English football as we should have that well and truly covered! It would also bring in fresh ideas. The thing I have against the advisers is that they have no history of knowing about football. That's why you end up with laughable people like Grant at Chelsea and possibly Redknapp getting the Toon job! At least with scouts a lot of them will have been ex players or have dedicated their lives to football! I cannot believe your comparing Wise to Wenger, yes Wenger had to start somewhere and without knowing his history before Monaco I imagine he would have got where he did through his own brilliance and also hard work. He earned the right to be where he is. I couldn't say that about Wise! realistically those clubs mentioned have a better scouting system and players are prepared to bend over to play for them.thats why they get them from all over,not just the home nation of a member of the backroom staff. advisors....the advisors we are talking about vetere, has been involved in football throughout his life and jiminez was instrumental in getting ramos to spurs. yes i'll compare wise to wenger at the appropriate stage of their careers. what i'm driving at is that sometimes someone sees something (imagine telling people 20 years ago what wenger would go on to do ?) and that job works (think keegan telling you barry venison would play central midfield for england when we just signed him) i'm not sure about bringing wise in only because i don't know what his role is ? i have no idea of his capabilities unlike some on here who really should be running the club. Obviously we're not going to agree. You're right about the other clubs having better scouting set ups and getting players from all over the world but if you look at Arsenal they sign a lot of French players, Liverpool Spanish and Man U Portuguese. That's not coincidence, they just have a lot of contacts there who they can trust in those countries! Also good to have these ties to help players settle at the club. We'll also have to disagree on the advisers because as I said they are nothing but hanger ons in my opinion. Just taking all the money out the game. Sure I read on this thread that Jiminez is 33 years old so I wonder how he got to where he is? It also looks like at this point that we'll not be able to compare Wenger and Wise for much longer. One went on to manage top clubs and thrive in the game. Whereas Wise has decided at a young age to quit management at a big club (which Leeds are) and be involved in the management of the club. For me a person who loves football would want to manager at Leeds, make their mark and move on to a better club. We’ll see what he brings in time. With regards to running the football club, can’t comment on the business side of things but with regards to the football decisions I really have not been impressed by the current set up at all, just completely baffled! Maybe they know something I don’t.

so much wrong in that. if we get a DOF (which hasn't been confirmed thats what wise'll be doing yet)fro a foreign country isn't it likely he'll have knowladge of that country alone as thats what you imply about having an english one ? each club on the continent uses DOF's differently,some have more say than others,some the head coach dictates the purchases at some they don't. the advisors who you don't know how they get where they are, a bit like scouts in that even the best are relativly anonymous. my guess is that someone reckons they have sen something in wise that he can bring here in the same way without having the great reputation someone saw something in wenger when he was merely a coach What's so wrong with what I said? The way I see football people is that everyone knows generally about what is going on at the top level in each country but not too much at other levels of the game. So I imagine that Newcastle will know about most players in the top leagues in Europe but not too much below that. So for example if we got a German DOF then he would have expert knowledge of German football and have a whole set of contacts that could be used to our effect. Contacts that we don't have at the club! Look at Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal. All of them take advantage of the foreign element to their football setup. To be honest there would be nothing wrong at getting a DOF who did not know too much about English football as we should have that well and truly covered! It would also bring in fresh ideas. The thing I have against the advisers is that they have no history of knowing about football. That's why you end up with laughable people like Grant at Chelsea and possibly Redknapp getting the Toon job! At least with scouts a lot of them will have been ex players or have dedicated their lives to football! I cannot believe your comparing Wise to Wenger, yes Wenger had to start somewhere and without knowing his history before Monaco I imagine he would have got where he did through his own brilliance and also hard work. He earned the right to be where he is. I couldn't say that about Wise!

No doubt what I'm going to say now might already have been mentioned! Can't believe Wise is coming to the club as he really doesn't offer that much, no tactical input, no great contacts in the game and no proven track record in the game! People might say how do I now that but just look at Leeds, none of their fans are too bothered about him leaving! Also he might have contacts in the game but primarily they will be British based so they will probably almost be the same contacts that Keegan has! Lets face it the pool of talent in the UK is not great and even then what's going is very expensive! Don't know why we did not go for an outsider from outside the UK? With that we'd have someone who had a good knowledge of another country and also would probably be more familiar with the whole system of DOF. They may also have been able to have an input into the tactical side of things, had new ideas. I'm sure Keegan must know people from his days at Hamburg. I know people are praising Ashley and Mort but so far I don't think they could have done much worse in their football decisions. First of all they didn't give Allardyce much money so I'm not really sure what they expected from him. Looking back I really think he was on a loser to nothing. Also and this is a big IF, if it was their idea to get Wise then have a think about it. Their first choice of people to run Newcastle would have been Harry Redknapp and Dennis Wise! beggars belief. One of the reasons I was so pleased that we got Keegan was that I did not have too much faith in them getting any one decent after the Redknapp affair. I know people will say let’s see what happens but I just think we put up with so much crap, it's untrue. Here we are getting 52,000 fans (if we were in the top four we could get a lot more too) and this is what we get! Don’t even have to look at the top four, but look at Spurs and Man City. For my money they have a much better set up than ours in every department, just a crying shame! It looks to me like the only way we will have any success under Keegan and Ashley is if we spend a huge sum of money. Parky mentioned a figure of £100 million a few weeks back and that’s what I really think it will take for us to be where we want to be because so far it looks like our strategy is to get in people who are good motivators and have “passion”. Passion will only get you so far but nowhere near where we ought to be. There's also been mention of the mysterious agents/advisers who have an influence. This al reminds me of the guy at Chelsea who advises Ambramovich, Pinni Zahavi. How these people get where they are, I'll never know!

Is it true he was only selling hot dogs at Aintree before he got the job first time around when Keegan took over as manager?

Ghost written by Oliver??? Don't like the guy but I'd buy it!!

Does anyone else think Oliver's time is up? I know the general consensus is yes, but I mean from the point of view of what happened with Robson, Souness and now Allardyce (not to mention Ferguson having a go at him in the match program). Of course he got along with Roeder and not too hard to see why seeing Oliver led a one man press charge for Roeder to get the job! His name must be complete dirt in football circles! I never really hear other local papers being criticised this way, though in fairness would I hear about it if they were?

Seen a few people mention the weather as a reason for not having the games in the summer! Should be alright for any countries South of Kenya, in fact the world cup in South Africa will be one of coldest tournaments held for a long time! A lot colder than Germany! Obviously couldn't have it in the North African countries as it would be boiling, there is also a belt of countries that might have the rainy season during the summer. All this being the case they should assess each tournamet with regards to the country hosting it and look at the best time of year. I doubt sponsorship would be affected too much!

Good words but lets see what happens! For me personally his whole ownership has been undermined by the events of the last week and he'll have to do a lot to restore my confidence! I know he's sorted things out with the debt and what have you but at the end of the day it's on the pitch where it counts! Somehow though I think things will come good!

Unless you witnessed the Fairs Cup win then I don't see how any of us can answer this question as none of us knows what it is like to win anything! To answer this question all we can do is imagine what it is like to win a trophy! For this reason alone I'm desperate to win a trophy and see what it feels like! Then I’d get back to you about whether I’d want entertaining football or win a trophy the George Graham way!

Everyone has their own opinion but I'm sick of people saying "give him a chance". How many managers do we have to appoint where we start off thinking "give him a chance". The bloke is garbage, he's 60 years old and been managing for what 20 years and the best club he's ever had is Portsmouth/West Ham! Is that the level we're at? What has he won? Has he been in Euope more than once? We've just got rid of a manager who did a better job than Redknapp at a small club with less funds. We can all be selective about signings as you could argue Allardyce bought Speed, Anelka, Diouf and Okocha. All good footballers! This is not to defend Allardyce but he did buy flair players too, who's to say he would not have done that here? Two clubs who in my opinion are smaller than us are Spurs and Man City and look at the managers they have got! We get 50,000 odd fans every home game and take thousands away and we end up with Redknapp! We're much better than that, I can't believe what some people will accept! Just think about our managers since Robson who was the last guy to have a decent CV, we've had Souness, Roeder, Allardyce (I was in favour of him) and now possibly Redknapp. Tell me another club in Europe who gets the crowds we get who have had such average managers?

Just echo what other people have said, I'd be gutted with Redknapp! I'd much rather have Allardyce who I think would do a much better job long term. If this is true then just another nail in the coffin of football for me as you've got people like Redknapp who has done nothing to warrant the Newcastle job and the same with Grant at Chelsea getting jobs simply on the basis of who they know! You then get good managers like Benitez probably getting the boot! Crazy!

Begin again as I got all my quotes mixed up in my last post! Has anyone watched the review video that Oliver and Ryder do of the Stoke match. They spend about half the review going on about Taylor's performance at Stoke, talk about the match and then go back to Taylor and talk about how he should have a new contract! Taylor's got to be the Mole!!!!!! http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/videos-pictures/ United were not happy when The Chronicle revealed in September that Taylor had turned down their offer of a new contract.

Was totally serious. A lot of the tactical chatter on here straight after a game baffles me. I have 6 pints before and after and I'm lucky if I can remember the scorers the next morning (the way football is meant to be watched ). Seems reasonable enough like, but I'd say all the players we have have shown they have some of those qualities in the past. Injury or age might have robbed a few of them, but can't see any reason they collectively couldn't be organised to start utilising their talent as much as they have before. When have any of our players utilised their talents before on a consistent basis?

I agree, rebuilding must start now. Perhaps Allardyce is the one to do that, perhaps not, but youth must be the focus. Once the fundamental structure is laid around viable young talent you can sprinkle in one or two 10m+ players. More Kazenga and less Matty Pattison. I know where you're coming from when you quote starting with young talent but I'm not sure if that's not a recipe for disaster. Fair enough Ferguson did it in around 1996 with Neville, Beckham, Scholes and what have you. But I'm not so sure you could do that now with the game having more money. For example I remember when Leeds was being quoted as the next big thing with their youngsters that got to the semi-finals of the Champions League but they self destructed. Not many of those players have gone on to big things. I also look at our team under Robson with some good young players like Bellamy, Jenas, Dyer who were seen by many as players that would go on to great things. Again they just seemed to self destruct. Could also be argued that Spurs were the last team with a group of young players who were going to go on to great things and look what has happened to them this season. For me I don’t think you can build a team with youngsters anymore as I think if you have too many it becomes too difficult to manage as they get carried away with the glamour and money. I’d say you need to build a team of say 9 core players around 25 and older who would cost us serious money and then buy three young players with good potential. I know it’s a squad game but hope you get my drift! I know people will say look at Arsenal, but that tells me two things, either we have to find another Arsene Wenger and allow the person the time to build the team which I couldn’t see happening here and the other thing is if we do go down the road of building a young team then maybe they have to primarily be foreigners. May be young foreign players have the discipline to cope with the glamour and money that goes with the game today. I also think people are getting it wrong when they say don’t spend a lot of money on “trophy players” and then quoting Luque and Owen. Well give me “trophy players” all day long such as Shearer, Ferdinand, and Albert.

Fair point. ie the money is not showing on the pitch? Essentially I meant that we are starting to be outspent and also the big money we have splashed out has been very poorly spent with no return. Apart from Arsenal, where you have to consider that Wenger started from a much better base than Allardyce which allowed him the time to mould the club, every other team that has been successful has spent money. Just look at our most successful time under Keegan, that only happened because he was allowed to splash the cash, i.e. buying the world’s most expensive defender and breaking the world record for Shearer. Let’s face it, it did not happen because he was a tactical genius or anything! I also don't agree that we couldn't buy some of the top players. Money talks and if you got a top player or two and showed ambition, the rest would follow. Look at Chelsea and what happened when they starting splashing the cash. I even look at some of the players Bayern Munich got in the summer in Toni and Ribery, they are not in the Champions League. Yes they have a good heritage that is much better than ours, but it does show that the Champions League is not everything.

Agree 100% that we need to start spending a lot more money to be where we want to be. You also have to consider that a large amount of our spending has gone on players who have contributed nothing or we didn't get our money back, such as Owen and Luque!

Couldn't agree more, apart from N'zogbia and Given I would happily get rid of any other player.

Ferdinand for me as you don't break up a 50 goal partnership that he had with Shearer in your first season in the Champions League! Madness! He may have been good to watch but he didn't really produce the goods so I'd rather have got rid of Tino instead of Ferdinand. Seems to be a lot rose tinted glassed on with regards to Ginola as after he got sent off against Arsenal he was never the same player again under both Keegan and Kenny. Robert produced a lot more than him in his time here, might not have been as good to watch but he created and scored more.

An awful lot of people suggested he was the Worlds Best Player in 1987/88 - taking over from Maradona. I wouldnt argue with that. He was exceptional. Whether he was better than Kaka? Probably. Talking about the best of the best here, but for my money I would put Maradona over Gullit until about 1990.

Can't deny that it was magical times under Keegan but it just about sums up our club which gets 50,000 plus fans every game to be talking about a manager who had a shed load of money and won nothing! It would be great to harp back to a manager who had won something! I was going to say that it would have been even more interesting if Robson had the same money as Keegan had or if we imagined a younger Robson getting £100 million to spend over the next few years. But then I thought give Keegan his due, by far he's been the best manager with regards to singing players we've had as there was too many bad ones made. Was this down to him being able to shop at the top end of the table or having a good eye for a player?

At the beginning of the season I thought Sam would have got us challenging for the top six. It may still happen, you never know. For me though the big reason why we haven't done well this season is simply because our players are so average and they are now being found out! Even if we had a manager playing the "Newcastle way" we still would not have done much better than what we are doing now. Yes you can say he had money to spend in the summer but we were one of the lowest spenders in the league. Not a big fan of Smith but who else could you get for £6 million who is a consistent quality performer? Yes you can mention Elano but there will always be the exception to the rule. For my mind though you mostly get what you pay for and £6 million these days does not get you much in terms of a quality midfielder. Due to the lack of money and how small our squad was is also another reason why Allardyce had to sacrifice quality over quantity. I think back to the team Robson inherited from Gullit and he had a much better base to work from than Sam Allardyce. Robson had Lee (still had legs in him), Speed, Barton, Solano (much better version than the one we got rid of in the summer), Dyer (I would say he was a lot better around that time, though how much was that down to Robson or the player is a fair point) and Given. All players who Robson could count on and build from. I look at what Sam inherited and really there's not much there, Given, Charles N'zogbia can be a top player if coached properly and possibly Martins if coached the right way but there's not one other player I would be bothered about if they left and just thinking about it I wouldn't be upset if Martins went! Yes Sam should have been doing a lot better against the lower teams and I can't understand some of his decisions/tactics but it's the players who should be taking the blame!

I remembe a while back that the top of Byker next to B&Q was muted as a possible place for a new stadium. Wouldn't be too bad as it would be easy to get to! I just wouldn't want it south of the tyne which is what John Hall wanted to do initially.

Sorry but I can only judge him on what I'm seeing on the pitch now and it's not good at all. Eriksson's turned a mediocre Man City team into quite a formidable team in the same time as Allardyce has had with us. Ramos has turned a failing Spurs team around in less time than Allardyce has had with us. I'm not saying that we should sack him this minute, but the football we've played thus far does not fill me with any optimism that things will drastically improve. Going to the SOS looking for a draw? FFS!! Playing 5-4-1 away to second bottom Wigan? Crap negative tactics against teams we should be looking to overpower. He spends more time worrying about the other side's stats rather than coming up with a plan on how to beat them. I think the writing is on the wall for Allardyce if he continues in this vein. My sentiments exactly and I suspect many others feel the same way. I don't see how you can compare us with Spurs and Man City. Spurs finished way above us last term and spent much money than us in the summer. With regards to Man City I'm sure they only finished a point behind us last year and also spent a lot more cash than us in the summer. I'm not saying that Sam should not shoulder some of the blame for what has happened this season but personally the lack of investment and the players should be blamed more for our current situation. I understand that Ashley had to clear off the debts but until there is a lot of money pumped into the squad then I can't see us doing much. In many respects I see similarities now to when Robson first came to Newcastle and did not have much to spend. With money tight you have to take more chances on players which Robson did with people like Bassedas, Gavilan, Cort and O'Brien.