OzzieMandias

What I want to know is, why didn't the Belgravia or Polygon deals go through? If they didn't go through because Fat Fred wouldn't sell his holding, then all of the above is pretty damn cheeky. If they didn't go through because Hall chickened out of selling his portion, then I suppose it's fair enough. But the impression you get is that Fat Fred does indeed want it all, and presumably wants it all before next season's huge hike in TV revenue. That won't improve our position vis-a-vis other clubs, because other clubs get a huge hike in TV revenue too. But it will produce a lot more cash in real terms, and thus lots more than can be creamed off in dividends and the like.

So we know that whatever we've got to spend this window, it's a good deal less than £24 million. The bit about other clubs raising their prices is the sheerest nonsense, however. It's hardly going to escape anyone's attention that we haven't been bought out and don't have a fat transfer fund.

1. Shepherd doesn't spend his own money, he spends the club's money. He can hardly save the club's money in order to buy the club with it. Well, I say that. Actually he sort of can, but only slowly. He can award himself huge dividends and use them to buy shares in the club. But hey, he's already done that to the maximum amount of shares he can hold without having to make a bid for outright ownership. And even that conniving greedy bastard can't save enough on transfers to pay himself a dividend big enough to buy out all the remaining shareholders in one fell swoop. Well, maybe if he sold Owen, Given, Emre, Martins, Duff, Butt, Parker, Dyer... no, probably not even halfway to £100 million from that lot. 2. He most certainly has been frightened to splash the cash at times in the past. Notably the close season before Partizan hoofed us out of the Champions League – and back into mid-table mediocrity. The likelihood is that Fred has simply steered us into a position where we can't spend much for the time being, even though he can probably see that his existing investment would be much better protected if he could find the cash for a centre-forward and a defender or four.

The official site isn't produced by anyone to do with the club. Premium TV produce all the content from their central office somewhere near Heathrow Airport. Just as they produce all the content for the websites of 12 other Premiership clubs, also for most lower-league clubs, and dozens of other sporting clients. The clubs' press/PR people feed Premium the stories they want out there, and the Premium hacks work them up into something that looks more like a news story than a press release. What probably happens then is that much of the resulting content is shared between various sites, and arrives on our official site automatically. We get all the stories that are flagged "Newcastle", even if it's mostly about Villa (another Premium TV client) or Fulham (ditto) or whoever the fuck (more than likely ditto). I haven't bothered looking at any to compare, but I bet in the case of an upcoming match there'll be one general preview written specifically for each team -- our site gets one from a Toon point of view, they get one from theirs -- but also a bunch of other "related" stories regarding players and managers that get sent to both sites.

Never saw the film but I read the book it was based on (called something really different -- The Season Ticket, I think) and I thought that was excellent. Sad, though.

Aye mate, and who will be responsible for that failure should it happen? Abramovich for backing Mourinho or Mourinho for not getting it right? Or is it just one of those things where there are so few trophies and no matter what happens you always need a bit of luck? Mourinho has already won a trophy. If he had appointed Mourinho and he didn't win anything before f***ing up, it'd be Abramovich's fault. Boring as F***, tbh. I expected better from you, even though we don't agree I know you're not stupid. Is that your reply? Abramovich has appointed a manager that has won him trophies. This confirms that Roman has appointed a manager capable of winning him trophies therefore he has done his job correctly. If it goes pearshaped from there it's Abramovich's job to either keep faith with him or replace him with a manager to take the club forward. If Abramovich decided to keep faith and it didn't work out, then it would be his fault. If he decided enough was enough and appointed Souness and Chelsea won nothing and finished 14th, it'd surely be his own fault? On what evidence did he make that appointment? He probably assessed his football club and assessed Mourinho's personality and character and decided that the two were compatible. Competence! Are we going to compare this to appointing Dalgleish, the defensive style manager, to manage the most attacking team in English football? What do you know about the Liverpool team managed by Dalglish? Or are you basing everything on his time at Blackburn? I see him as a very experienced and successful manager of 2 football clubs, success achieved under entirely different circumstances that indicated AT THE TIME that he could be a very good choice for us. Apart from the liar, I don't know anybody who thought this was a crap appointment at the time. So your defence of Shepherd is that he once made an appointment that people thought would be good but wasn't? So you don't think a manager who had won premiership titles with 2 clubs, 2 FA Cups and 3 manager of the year awards is qualified enough :lol: Not the right man for the job, as he proved to be a FACT. Right? so what would your criteria be - apart from hindsight At that time it would have been not to appoint a manager with a preferred defensive style to manage the, at the time, most attacking team in english football. I've already said that. I know you find it outrageous that anybody feels that Dalglish wasn't the man for the job, but he proved he wasn't, therefore I can't understand that you seem to still think he was the ideal appointment. Also, if Dalglish was so awesome, why didn't he win anything for us like he was able to at the other clubs he managed? The manager had a proven track record, so there must have been something else holding us back. What was it? Of course, we didn't have a devine right to trophies because he was the manager, so don't throw that old line in, but if success isn't achieved there's a reason for it somewhere along the line, and as you're so adamant that Dalglish was the man, where does the blame like for our failures in that period? The idea was that, at the time, Keegans team needed "tactical astuteness" - not that I believe that sort of crap myself because I think teams should play to their strengths and that is "tactical astuteness" - but the ability to defend a lead etc etc was generally presumed to be the reason we didn't win the title and so a person who had done that and had the track record to back it up was the ideal replacement. We weren't to know that he was going to rip the team apart. Even then, if he had had time, who knows what would have happened. He also wasn't "my man", my man was Keegan. But the club had to move on. I wonder if Dalglish lied to Fat Fred about his intentions, or whether Fat Fred simply forgot to ask the question: "What would be your intentions concerning playing style and the development of the squad?" Or perhaps Fat Fred thought it was a great idea to transform us from vibrant flair team and title contenders to boring mid-table plodders. Welcome back to the resident mackem WUM. Still supporting your man Souness are you Dished the dirt on the club to a shitbag London journo lately ? Too much of a chickenshit to deal with the point, then? No surprise there, but you could at least have the decency to try and think of a new reply. bluesleep.gif have you been digging the dirt on the club again Still supporting your man Souness :roll: You just repeated yourself. Can't you actually deal with his raised point? Foolish to expect anything other than bird-brained behaviour from a squawking parrot. Must say, though, it's kind of cool the way that, when LeazesParrot repeats himself often enough, the quotebacks get squeezed really narrow in the middle. I wonder what happens when the same handful of lame put-downs are recycled so often that there's no longer even enough room for the words "sad bastard".

To repeat the question I asked the other day, wasn't it Sir John Hall who appointed Dalglish? I'm betting you already know the answer to that question.

Aye mate, and who will be responsible for that failure should it happen? Abramovich for backing Mourinho or Mourinho for not getting it right? Or is it just one of those things where there are so few trophies and no matter what happens you always need a bit of luck? Mourinho has already won a trophy. If he had appointed Mourinho and he didn't win anything before f***ing up, it'd be Abramovich's fault. Boring as F***, tbh. I expected better from you, even though we don't agree I know you're not stupid. Is that your reply? Abramovich has appointed a manager that has won him trophies. This confirms that Roman has appointed a manager capable of winning him trophies therefore he has done his job correctly. If it goes pearshaped from there it's Abramovich's job to either keep faith with him or replace him with a manager to take the club forward. If Abramovich decided to keep faith and it didn't work out, then it would be his fault. If he decided enough was enough and appointed Souness and Chelsea won nothing and finished 14th, it'd surely be his own fault? On what evidence did he make that appointment? He probably assessed his football club and assessed Mourinho's personality and character and decided that the two were compatible. Competence! Are we going to compare this to appointing Dalgleish, the defensive style manager, to manage the most attacking team in English football? What do you know about the Liverpool team managed by Dalglish? Or are you basing everything on his time at Blackburn? I see him as a very experienced and successful manager of 2 football clubs, success achieved under entirely different circumstances that indicated AT THE TIME that he could be a very good choice for us. Apart from the liar, I don't know anybody who thought this was a crap appointment at the time. So your defence of Shepherd is that he once made an appointment that people thought would be good but wasn't? So you don't think a manager who had won premiership titles with 2 clubs, 2 FA Cups and 3 manager of the year awards is qualified enough :lol: Not the right man for the job, as he proved to be a FACT. Right? so what would your criteria be - apart from hindsight At that time it would have been not to appoint a manager with a preferred defensive style to manage the, at the time, most attacking team in english football. I've already said that. I know you find it outrageous that anybody feels that Dalglish wasn't the man for the job, but he proved he wasn't, therefore I can't understand that you seem to still think he was the ideal appointment. Also, if Dalglish was so awesome, why didn't he win anything for us like he was able to at the other clubs he managed? The manager had a proven track record, so there must have been something else holding us back. What was it? Of course, we didn't have a devine right to trophies because he was the manager, so don't throw that old line in, but if success isn't achieved there's a reason for it somewhere along the line, and as you're so adamant that Dalglish was the man, where does the blame like for our failures in that period? The idea was that, at the time, Keegans team needed "tactical astuteness" - not that I believe that sort of crap myself because I think teams should play to their strengths and that is "tactical astuteness" - but the ability to defend a lead etc etc was generally presumed to be the reason we didn't win the title and so a person who had done that and had the track record to back it up was the ideal replacement. We weren't to know that he was going to rip the team apart. Even then, if he had had time, who knows what would have happened. He also wasn't "my man", my man was Keegan. But the club had to move on. I wonder if Dalglish lied to Fat Fred about his intentions, or whether Fat Fred simply forgot to ask the question: "What would be your intentions concerning playing style and the development of the squad?" Or perhaps Fat Fred thought it was a great idea to transform us from vibrant flair team and title contenders to boring mid-table plodders. Welcome back to the resident mackem WUM. Still supporting your man Souness are you Dished the dirt on the club to a shitbag London journo lately ? Too much of a chickenshit to deal with the point, then? No surprise there, but you could at least have the decency to try and think of a new reply. bluesleep.gif have you been digging the dirt on the club again Still supporting your man Souness :roll: You just repeated yourself. Can't you actually deal with his raised point? Foolish to expect anything other than bird-brained behaviour from a squawking parrot.

Aye mate, and who will be responsible for that failure should it happen? Abramovich for backing Mourinho or Mourinho for not getting it right? Or is it just one of those things where there are so few trophies and no matter what happens you always need a bit of luck? Mourinho has already won a trophy. If he had appointed Mourinho and he didn't win anything before f***ing up, it'd be Abramovich's fault. Boring as F***, tbh. I expected better from you, even though we don't agree I know you're not stupid. Is that your reply? Abramovich has appointed a manager that has won him trophies. This confirms that Roman has appointed a manager capable of winning him trophies therefore he has done his job correctly. If it goes pearshaped from there it's Abramovich's job to either keep faith with him or replace him with a manager to take the club forward. If Abramovich decided to keep faith and it didn't work out, then it would be his fault. If he decided enough was enough and appointed Souness and Chelsea won nothing and finished 14th, it'd surely be his own fault? On what evidence did he make that appointment? He probably assessed his football club and assessed Mourinho's personality and character and decided that the two were compatible. Competence! Are we going to compare this to appointing Dalgleish, the defensive style manager, to manage the most attacking team in English football? What do you know about the Liverpool team managed by Dalglish? Or are you basing everything on his time at Blackburn? I see him as a very experienced and successful manager of 2 football clubs, success achieved under entirely different circumstances that indicated AT THE TIME that he could be a very good choice for us. Apart from the liar, I don't know anybody who thought this was a crap appointment at the time. So your defence of Shepherd is that he once made an appointment that people thought would be good but wasn't? So you don't think a manager who had won premiership titles with 2 clubs, 2 FA Cups and 3 manager of the year awards is qualified enough :lol: Not the right man for the job, as he proved to be a FACT. Right? so what would your criteria be - apart from hindsight At that time it would have been not to appoint a manager with a preferred defensive style to manage the, at the time, most attacking team in english football. I've already said that. I know you find it outrageous that anybody feels that Dalglish wasn't the man for the job, but he proved he wasn't, therefore I can't understand that you seem to still think he was the ideal appointment. Also, if Dalglish was so awesome, why didn't he win anything for us like he was able to at the other clubs he managed? The manager had a proven track record, so there must have been something else holding us back. What was it? Of course, we didn't have a devine right to trophies because he was the manager, so don't throw that old line in, but if success isn't achieved there's a reason for it somewhere along the line, and as you're so adamant that Dalglish was the man, where does the blame like for our failures in that period? The idea was that, at the time, Keegans team needed "tactical astuteness" - not that I believe that sort of crap myself because I think teams should play to their strengths and that is "tactical astuteness" - but the ability to defend a lead etc etc was generally presumed to be the reason we didn't win the title and so a person who had done that and had the track record to back it up was the ideal replacement. We weren't to know that he was going to rip the team apart. Even then, if he had had time, who knows what would have happened. He also wasn't "my man", my man was Keegan. But the club had to move on. I wonder if Dalglish lied to Fat Fred about his intentions, or whether Fat Fred simply forgot to ask the question: "What would be your intentions concerning playing style and the development of the squad?" Or perhaps Fat Fred thought it was a great idea to transform us from vibrant flair team and title contenders to boring mid-table plodders. Welcome back to the resident mackem WUM. Still supporting your man Souness are you Dished the dirt on the club to a shitbag London journo lately ? Too much of a chickenshit to deal with the point, then? No surprise there, but you could at least have the decency to try and think of a new reply.

Aye mate, and who will be responsible for that failure should it happen? Abramovich for backing Mourinho or Mourinho for not getting it right? Or is it just one of those things where there are so few trophies and no matter what happens you always need a bit of luck? Mourinho has already won a trophy. If he had appointed Mourinho and he didn't win anything before f***ing up, it'd be Abramovich's fault. Boring as F***, tbh. I expected better from you, even though we don't agree I know you're not stupid. Is that your reply? Abramovich has appointed a manager that has won him trophies. This confirms that Roman has appointed a manager capable of winning him trophies therefore he has done his job correctly. If it goes pearshaped from there it's Abramovich's job to either keep faith with him or replace him with a manager to take the club forward. If Abramovich decided to keep faith and it didn't work out, then it would be his fault. If he decided enough was enough and appointed Souness and Chelsea won nothing and finished 14th, it'd surely be his own fault? On what evidence did he make that appointment? He probably assessed his football club and assessed Mourinho's personality and character and decided that the two were compatible. Competence! Are we going to compare this to appointing Dalgleish, the defensive style manager, to manage the most attacking team in English football? What do you know about the Liverpool team managed by Dalglish? Or are you basing everything on his time at Blackburn? I see him as a very experienced and successful manager of 2 football clubs, success achieved under entirely different circumstances that indicated AT THE TIME that he could be a very good choice for us. Apart from the liar, I don't know anybody who thought this was a crap appointment at the time. So your defence of Shepherd is that he once made an appointment that people thought would be good but wasn't? So you don't think a manager who had won premiership titles with 2 clubs, 2 FA Cups and 3 manager of the year awards is qualified enough :lol: Not the right man for the job, as he proved to be a FACT. Right? so what would your criteria be - apart from hindsight At that time it would have been not to appoint a manager with a preferred defensive style to manage the, at the time, most attacking team in english football. I've already said that. I know you find it outrageous that anybody feels that Dalglish wasn't the man for the job, but he proved he wasn't, therefore I can't understand that you seem to still think he was the ideal appointment. Also, if Dalglish was so awesome, why didn't he win anything for us like he was able to at the other clubs he managed? The manager had a proven track record, so there must have been something else holding us back. What was it? Of course, we didn't have a devine right to trophies because he was the manager, so don't throw that old line in, but if success isn't achieved there's a reason for it somewhere along the line, and as you're so adamant that Dalglish was the man, where does the blame like for our failures in that period? The idea was that, at the time, Keegans team needed "tactical astuteness" - not that I believe that sort of crap myself because I think teams should play to their strengths and that is "tactical astuteness" - but the ability to defend a lead etc etc was generally presumed to be the reason we didn't win the title and so a person who had done that and had the track record to back it up was the ideal replacement. We weren't to know that he was going to rip the team apart. Even then, if he had had time, who knows what would have happened. He also wasn't "my man", my man was Keegan. But the club had to move on. I wonder if Dalglish lied to Fat Fred about his intentions, or whether Fat Fred simply forgot to ask the question: "What would be your intentions concerning playing style and the development of the squad?" Or perhaps Fat Fred thought it was a great idea to transform us from vibrant flair team and title contenders to boring mid-table plodders.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Agree 100 percent. I looked down the squad lists before the game, thinking player for player, and Fletcher was the only name (apart from Given's) where I wouldn't have swapped ours for theirs.

So what would moving ahead but in the wrong direction involve?

it's even more dumb to think someone seriously thinks we're cursed. We haven't won the league because we had a shit board who had no ambition, no imagination and lived in the past up until 1992. And even more dumb to think we had the same board from 1927 to 1992. Some of the rest of your post actually made sense, though. Congratulations!

It's dumb to believe it's a curse. Apart from anything else, it embodies a fatalism that's counter-productive. If we're convinced we can never win anything, we'll never win anything.

Agree with all of the above, except why would Roeder worry about "succession" when he's only on a relatively short contract? That area should be one of Fat Fred's resolutions, as it depends on him appointing the right manager for the long term. Even his one decent managerial appointment, Sir Bobby, was the wrong man in this sense – simply too old to lead the club into the future.

Bellamy is history. Martins is the future.

Do what grass just said, but spend the rest building the best academy in Europe.

There's about as much sense in thanking Fat Fred for buying players as there is in thanking a builder for buying bricks.

Jon Dahl Tomasson. Always felt sorry for the lad, played out of position and expected to fill Shearer's boots. Proved himself since he moved on.

you could have had safer stadiums, and razzamatazz, without having to sit and pay the huge increases in prices. There is a place for standing areas in all grounds, with controlled capacities, and accountability of fans among the top clubs. Sky was only doing what was business, in reality it is the rulers of the game, and their greed, and weakness, which has allowed this to happen. Except for Fat Fred who is of course completely blameless in the greed department.

The title of the thread is Craig Bellamy - cleared. It means its about Craig Bellamy. My response about him and what he meant to Newcastle was in response to the mindless drivel spouted by Mandiarse, why don't you take that up with him ? Spoken like a true scouser.

Meanwhile, who'll be the first to name the six (yes, six) Newcastle players who, even in our pathetically low-scoring season, have so far managed to score as many as or more goals than ickle Craigy at Liverpool?

spoken like a true mackem spoken like a true moron

I liked the cop's testimony about Bellend ranting on that he was just jealous of his fame. Whether he got off or not, the whole thing is a reminder of what kind of arrogant, mean-spirited little spunkbucket he is.