OzzieMandias

The increasingly unhinged nature of "arguments" from the pro-Fat Freddy camp (if two people can be called a "camp") suggests a certain desperation.

If he's colourblind perhaps it explains some of his opinions. The daft bugger's been watching the teams playing in blue or red.

It'd be a bit like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. "When I was a bairn the club could only afford eleven one-legged men!" "Luxury! When I[/] was a bairn we could only afford ONE one-legged man, and he had to play with a lump of concrete instead of a football boot!" "That's nowt, that! Until Wor Freddy put things right, the goalkeeper had no arms and the mackems were allowed to field 27 players!" "Aye, try telling that to the young people today and they'll not believe a word of it!"

Yes, it's clearly support from you and NE5 that sustains the wonderful regime that is giving us all the great football, glorious victories and thrilling Intertoto nights that we are so profoundly fortunate to be enduring today.

It's astonishing, really, that Fat Fred has managed to convince a tiny but vocal minority that the buck doesn't stop with him. It just goes to show that even someone as piss-poor at PR as FFS can still fool some of the people all of the time.

Very mature response. Perhaps you could point out which of the facts I presented is, in fact, wrong? Thought not.

Some people can't tell the difference between facts and spin. Fact! On average, around seven clubs finish above us since Fat Fred took over. In some seasons it's as many as ten or 12. Fact! Your particular version of "lies, damn lies and statistics" also foolishly ignores that the situation has been steadily getting worse and worse for years. Fact!

Even that much is doubtful. But you seem correct in implying that some people are happy with the level of abject mediocrity we have "achieved" under Fat Fred.

A non-argument. He didn't take over the setup from McKeag.

Who could have named Abramovitch or Mandaric before they popped up to revitalise Chelsea and Portsmouth?

A lot of talk about "facts" on this thread, so here's a few: Average league position under Fat Freddy: 8th Average points total under Fat Freddy: 54 Average points per league game under Fat Freddy: 1.4 Number of managers sacked just a few games into a season: 3 Number of insults to Newcastle supporters: I've lost count

He's pulling £500,000 a year. I wonder what proportion that represents of our actual income from "international marketing"? Shirt sales, basically. Maybe a bit of web business. But that's surely it. Phew! When you mentioned pulling I thought you were back to your nob obsession. A little more maturity from you, please.

He's pulling £500,000 a year. I wonder what proportion that represents of our actual income from "international marketing"? Shirt sales, basically. Maybe a bit of web business. But that's surely it.

Or the knight in Monty Python & the Holy Grail who still thinks he's in with a chance after all his limbs have been chopped off. "Come back! I'll bite you to death!!"

Unless it's a load of bollocks. It may be a load of bollocks to you, but it's no reason to slate it. Debate. I suppose we could compliment him on his spelling.

Unless it's a load of bollocks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

Over time, the board's signal failure has been its inability to consolidiate on the success we achieved in the SJH/KK days. We had a chance to establish ourselves as a top four club and we blew it. Miracle of miracles, SBR almost got us back up there again with a chance to build on a season or two of Champions' League money but (Partizan) we blew it again. The overall trajectory has been downwards and we're back where we were when I first started supporting the club in the late 1960s -- mid-table, good on our day and capable of inching our way into Europe (we'd finished 10th the season before we won the Fairs Cup and only got into the competition by a quirk in the qualification rules) but generally pretty mediocre and no match for the top clubs of the day. All else is haggling over the details of how this happened. What to do? NE5 says "better the devil you know". A recipe for more of the same, in my opinion, subject to the law of diminishing returns. Most of the rest us reckon that our resources indicate the club can perform better than it is currently doing, and that evident stagnation can only be arrested by some kind of radical change. Fat Fred has shot his wad, and is surely our biggest obstacle to finding the right manager. It's not just that his choices are poor. It's not even that he as likely to undermine them as back them once they're in position. It's also that now everyone knows what he is like, few people seem to want to work for him. He's not exactly a well-respected figure. In fact he's a downright embarrassment. What's needed is different structure, new thinking, better appointments, less bullshit, and a much-need infusion of cash. Otherwise we ain't going nowhere.

Fat Freddie is to blame -- obviously.