OzzieMandias

Try reading my post more slowly.

Aye "Nigerian Mafia OOT" People will find it difficult holding up bed sheets after having their arms macheted off. That was Rwanda. Or the Belgian Congo -- where it was Europeans who chopped off Africans' hands, not the other way around.

Nope. Keegan is history -- three times over. The man walked, of his own volition. Get used to it. We need to move on and leave sentiment behind.

Voodoo is from Haiti -- a mere ocean away from Nigeria.

A Nigerian takeover would clearly bring out the bigots among our support -- especially if they're London-based Cockney Muslim Nigerians. And we'd never get rid of Shola, our bona fide Geordie Nigerian.

Depends why he felt like that. There's so much we don't know. It might have even been one of his brinkmanship games -- "You do that or I'll resign" -- exccept the bluff got called.

Perhaps he tried to fight his corner? Just a thought mind. I know it's a bit out there. Probably he did, but he didn't stick around, did he? From the point of view of the wellbeing of the club, he simply could not have picked a worsr time to leave.

Why does it always have to be Ashley OR Keegan? Seems to me they've both played their part in bringing us to this position. Keegan's gone down in my estimation, too, even though we all knew he had this tendency to walk away when the going gets tough. It's all very well applauding him for his principles, but his principles have resulted in him leaving us in deep, deep shit. Personally, I wish his principles had involved him sticking around to fight his corner and doing the best with the hand he was dealt.

Seems fair enough to me. OK, it's an opinion, but it's an opinion from an insider (ie he knows more about what's going on than we do) and one who we know has the club in his heart.

Hmm.

Whether "dithering" is the right word or not, I can imagine a scenario whereby Keegan publicly tieing himself to the hope that Owen should stay, come what may, strengthens Owen's bargaining position to the point that Ashley can't make what he considers to be a satisfactory deal, gives up, tries to sell the player while he can still get something for him, and thus pisses Keegan off. Or else Owen did indeed just dither until they were at the point where Ashley had his last chance of selling him. It's no odds to Owen.

I certainly don't have a problem with the club for not leaking transfer stories or general club gossip to the local rag. Yet his failure to communicate with the Toon-supporting public is one of the most valid complaints about Ashley, I'd say -- not that I give a shit about him snubbing the Ronnie either.

Obviously they'll join in the anti-Ashley chorus. He didn't feed them stories. And many on here were applauding him for this not long ago.

I reckon Owen's dithering over a contract is one of the main contributory factors to the mess we're in at the moment.

Sorry, I could only support Newcastle since I was born, can't do any better than that I'm afraid. I'll try to rephrase it differently. Why should one of the biggest clubs in the country EVER be "patient". Shouldn't we ALWAYS be expecting to challenge and show the ambition to challenge on that very basis ? Don't you think that we understand that this "planning" and "patience" is absolutely no guarantee of anything ? Do you understand that lots of other clubs are attempting to preach "patience" that might get in the way of our own hopes too ? In football........things change quickly, often and unexpectedly all the time....today and the immediate future, is ALL that matters. Get the supporters in, and if you are a big club, keep them in. It's a good job ManU didn't think like that when they hadn't won the league for god knows how many years and Fergie was allowed 5 or 6 years building a team that could finally win it. Patience doesn't guarantee you anything, but it's a more sustainable approach than throwing money at the problem. If that doesn't give immediate returns, and like "patience" there are no guarantees, then you end up in a worse position than when you started. And taking the patient approach doesn't necessarily mean not spending a decent amount of money, it just means spending it in different areas that will have longer term benefits. We've tried the big money approach and while it was fun for a few years we won nothing, so where is the harm in spending 3 or 4 years investing in the best youth, developing talent and showing a bit of support and patience? Unless we get some multi-billionaire owner willing to throw the cash around then surely it's our best chance of competing even if it does take a number of years? you're completely wrong. Do some research. ManU continued to spend more money than everybody during those years, they also won a couple of FA Cups and the Cup Winners Cup. They were, in spite of that, only 1 game from sacking Ferguson. NUFC would not have sacked Dalglish if we had won the FA Cup Final. We also didn't ask Keegan to walk out [the first time]. The FACT is that you need to speculate, or you get nowhere. You can name as many teams as you like that have spent money and won nothing, the only reason for that is because there are only 3 domestic trophies, however there ARE european places up for grabs, and we have had plenty of those. If you think patience always pays off, do you think we should have stuck with Dalglish, Gullit, Souness, Roeder or Allardyce ? I've just quoted Everton. Moyes has been there for 6 years ? What has he won ? They have been very much a yo-yo club, and the reason for that is that they have not speculated. Their approach has a limit, only possible with a half decent manager, and they have reached it, and he hasn't matched our positions under Bobby Robson or reached an FA Cup Final like Dalglish and Gullit. The problem there isn't patience, but poor managerial appointments. Presumbly you think spending £50 million on Souness was a marvellous idea.

The whole "industry" is in a mess? I really don't care whether Leeds go bust, or Liverpool can't finance a stadium, or the state of others. NUFC had £19m in the bank in July last year. We had borrowed against everything, ground, training ground, future season ticket, sponsorship money there was no where else to get cash from. The banks were lending to us at 13% we were such a bad risk. The £19m would have paid the wages for 4 months, then what ? We wouldn't have been able to pay players, we wouldn't have been able to buy goods to sell itn he club shop, we wouldn't be able to pay the police to stage games, we wouldn't be able to pay hotels to put players up for away games, we wouldn't be able to pay visiting teams their share of the gate receipts. We would have gone bust. I''ve just re-read all that and it sounds over the top, and wil raise the question "why is it different fomr any other season". Well the answer to that is that things deteriorated hugely in 2006 onwards. I hate to shwo graphs but I will cos it highlights the way things spun out of control as Shepherd chased his dream, and ran the club into a mess ... http://www.football-finances.org.uk/newcastle/2007/assets14.gif So up to 2005 he coudl always borrow more, as peopel knew we had asssets. By 2007 we didn't have any assets. no more borrowing. The end. Thats where the refinancing of debts comes into play. Anyone involved in the football industry knew that TV revenues were about to shoot up and the (virtual) certainty is that the TV rights across Asia etc are about to be opened up in favour of the clubs. Add on the expected (overdue) utilisation of the internet for rights and you have some very strong forward income streams. Now bear in mind Ashley came in pre Credit Crunch. There would have been plenty of willing lenders in those circumstances. It would have been costly yes, but its wrong to say that we couldn't borrow any more. All it would have taken is one good/lucky season to break the top 4 again and the clubs finances would have been a lot healthier. Shepherd needed this season to happen quickly, hence he was prepared to gamble on high transfer fees and wages, eventually though he would reach a dead end with this if the top 4 was not reached. Ashley on the other hand was prepared to bide his time and build up from the youth team, his barrier would be different to Shepherds as within a short space of time the fans would turn on this policy if the first team was not performing. Get a hybrid Shepherd/Ashley figure in and you've got a winner. Unfortunately there aint that many of these about Oh, is that all?

O'Leary? Can't abide the smarmy, dishonest git.

I've had mine pierced.

I read something similar on here.

Someone will have to remind me exactly when it was that Barca fans raised £300 million to buy the club.

All the same aren't they? At least funded by the same guy. The fan buyout is the most appealing, IMO. Similar to the Barcelona set up, hopefully. Difference is, Barca fans generally aren't charver morons. Yeah I'm sure all Barca fans are geniuses.. they speak Spanish after all so they could never be idiots And Catalan.

The Not Very Special One.

The problem here isn't that someone can't admit that Ashley fucked up. It's that someone can't admit that Shepherd fucked up.

Obviously my question was too simple to get an answer.

Is Ashley fucking up somehow supposed to absolve Shepherd of the mess he left the club in?