OzzieMandias

Well, maybe they're wrong.

I think that game was the lowest point of my season so far. Took me days to cheer up from it and cemented my now utter hatred of Man City.

Wear a blob, but put it on before you hare out on to the pitch. Otherwise, you'll be all centre stage for your big screen moment, and suddenly you'll be fiddling around trying to get the damn thing out of its foil packet.

Fair enough. I think my general point is valid though - that the decision took some courage and that they haven't hidden themselves away from the reaction. It's an unusual type of decision in that normally owners only make a change when things start to go wrong. They very rarely back themselves to bring in someone new pro-actively. So many of Ashley's decisions have been reactive to events around him. Even bringing in Keegan - which was the only remotely pro-active one - had a whiff of panic about it and pleasing others rather than backing his own beliefs. In the current wave of criticism, all his decisions tend to be lumped together, but in this one he's really put his neck on the line and stamped his own judgement on the situation. It's a gamble, but I suspect that, in his thinking, putting Hughton in charge long-term was also a gamble. He now feels that, if he's going to lose, it'd be better to lose having backed himself rather than going with the flow. The only problem I have with that assessment is the choice of Hughton's replacement. What on earth does Pardew have going by his past experiences -- especially in the transfer market -- that Hughton didn't, or couldn't have achieved himself? It's about faith, and they seemed to either, a) have none in Hughton, for whatever reason, or b) there were other reasons which we'll probably never know regarding his sacking. I'm just trying to see the logic in Pardew's appointment, as if Ashley really wanted a proven, experienced, even world-class manager, he could've appointed one. Giving Pardew a five and a half year deal is a little presumptuous, and requires a lot more faith than the amount the players and fans already had in Hughton. I don't know the answer to that, but my guess is that Ashley had long-standing doubts about Hughton's ability to be sufficiently tough with the players, which is the usual issue when a coach becomes manager. I'd felt that Hughton had answered those doubts, but maybe one or two things were going on that we don't know about. Chris's last minute decision to wear a suit and look the part may have been in response to that, I don't know. As I said, a change of manager normally happens when the existing one is judged a failure, and maybe that's why the dominant question is 'What did Hughton do wrong?' Maybe of more importance is that fact that Ashley was going to have to offer a long-term contract to a manager, recruit a new assistant and probably spend more money in January. It was crunch time, and he decided he wanted to make his own choice, rather than deal with Hughton, who is the product of circumstances. In that sense, it may have been more a positive judgement of Pardew, as much as a negative judgement of Hughton. Pardew comes across as confident and intelligent, and his early record was good. He ran into boardroom problems at Southampton and West Ham, and Charlton is the only real blot in his copy book. Even then, he was taking over a club in decline. He's also keen and motivated to get his career back on track, so I can see why Ashley might seem him as the best bet from all the available candidates. It certainly isn't a impulse choice. What he's gambled on is Pardew being able to overcome the inevitable reaction, on and off the pitch, to Hughton's sacking, which Ashley's unpopularity has magnified. He needs a bit of luck, and on Saturday, he got it. Torres had that chance to put Liverpool ahead, and normally with him, it goes bang into the bottom corner, no problems. In this case, it hit Krul on the legs. On such moments can futures depend. Or maybe Ashley is just a control freak who didn't like the fact that Hughton was starting to disagree with him and invented an excuse to replace him with one of Llambias' gambling buddies who was desperate to get into football and would accept any terms and conditions to do so. I suppose we'll never now. Well, a few months ago, Hughton was supposedly the 'yes man'. I think there was a disagreement in that Hughton wanted a long-term contract, and the decision about who appoints the assistant (which is a long-term decision) brought all that to a head. Underneath it all, if Ashley had confidence in Hughton, it would have been settled. I think Ashley has reached a certain point. He knows he can't sell the club, and he knows he'll continue to lose money as the owner. There's talk about 'asset-stripping' and 'selling at a profit' but those clearly aren't options. Now that he's going to be carrying the can, he thinks that he may as well back his own judgement, and forget about normal conventions or trying to please other people. That's the way that he's run his business. The bloke looked completely relaxed on Saturday. It's like he's taken so much abuse that he doesn't care any more. That's not a great place to be, but it's probably better than all the wavering that's gone on over the last three years. I thought the Wall Street Journal (of all places) had an interesting take on the difference between a manager and a coach: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704457604576011332568345512.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter I don't know if Pardew will work out or not, but it seems that this kind of appointment might be a reasoned alternative to the kind of DOF/coach structure (Wise etc) that Ashley has already tried and abandoned, and to which many posters on here are emphatically opposed on principle. Not necessarily a bad thing, in that sense.

Quite a good piece, that. THe WSJ - wow. Well written article and witty - but Newcastle "insular" - whatever could have made him think that ?

Quite a good piece, that.

His team of highly paid agents and lawyers do.

No, that's bollocks. 1. Basic economics - price also alters buyer interest. Offer me a 1996 BMW 5 Series diesel with 200k on the clock for £15k 'because that includes how much you've spent to keep it running over the years' and I'm not interested. Offer me it for £500 and you're on. 2. The unrest was fleeting, bewildered, confused and ultimately docile. As I've effectively argued over and over again here, a repeat of that truly will be worthless at best. It was nothing like what I now advocate. 3. Take your head out of 2005's arse and you'll read better. Predication - IF we act as I say we should, Ashley's priorities will have severely changed and a future relegation would be quantitatively different to the last one where we DID NOT act as I say we now should. No one would try and draw lessons from one experience and apply them to a totally different one unless they don't know what they're talking about. Buyers will buy at the right price, and this is fundamentally a much fitter company now. Funnily enough I started to write earlier today that you're so overcommitted to the 'Anyone But Shepherds and Halls' brigade it's embarrassing, but had to go out and abandoned the post. You invested so much of your life in groundhog day internet arguments with NE5 about why they had to go that you're afraid to let yourself think there might be someone else as bad if not worse. So you don't think, you don't actually engage with anything anyone says, you just post smart, trite shite and punch straw men instead.[/b] The weakness of your argument is evident to the degree that you resort to personal attack. OTOH, if you can get the club down to, say, League Two, maybe there will indeed be someone willing to shell out a couple of bob for what's left of it. See bold. And you've helped prove my point yet again. I've thought this for a long time and the first sentence of the last paragraph literally contains a cut and paste of the tab I'd left open from earlier that day. You're the one who had the temerity to just dismiss everything I'd said offhand and tried talking down to me despite not having understood what I'd said because you didn't want to. You still haven't even attempted to deal with any of the points I've made with anything other than jokey or abusive comments. 95% of what I wrote is just a statement of the truth as I see it, and I think I'm not alone. If that looks like an attack, that's because the truth's cutting - I'd have to lie to not attack you. Well, I'm certainly not going to engage with this ad hominem drivel. Sue me. Nor will it change my honest opinion that "protesting" a decision that I'm 100% sure won't be changed can only have a negative effect on the club's immediate future. I realise that we're about to get a mass exercise in dummy-spitting anyway. Doesn't mean I have to pretend I think it's a good idea, nor that I don't have plenty of anger of my own at the recent turn of events. Over to you for some more personal attacks.

No, that's bollocks. 1. Basic economics - price also alters buyer interest. Offer me a 1996 BMW 5 Series diesel with 200k on the clock for £15k 'because that includes how much you've spent to keep it running over the years' and I'm not interested. Offer me it for £500 and you're on. 2. The unrest was fleeting, bewildered, confused and ultimately docile. As I've effectively argued over and over again here, a repeat of that truly will be worthless at best. It was nothing like what I now advocate. 3. Take your head out of 2005's arse and you'll read better. Predication - IF we act as I say we should, Ashley's priorities will have severely changed and a future relegation would be quantitatively different to the last one where we DID NOT act as I say we now should. No one would try and draw lessons from one experience and apply them to a totally different one unless they don't know what they're talking about. Buyers will buy at the right price, and this is fundamentally a much fitter company now. Funnily enough I started to write earlier today that you're so overcommitted to the 'Anyone But Shepherds and Halls' brigade it's embarrassing, but had to go out and abandoned the post. You invested so much of your life in groundhog day internet arguments with NE5 about why they had to go that you're afraid to let yourself think there might be someone else as bad if not worse. So you don't think, you don't actually engage with anything anyone says, you just post smart, trite shite and punch straw men instead. The weakness of your argument is evident to the degree that you resort to personal attack. OTOH, if you can get the club down to, say, League Two, maybe there will indeed be someone willing to shell out a couple of bob for what's left of it.

It's at Via Keegani 51.

The good thing is once it's totally gone to ratshit, players jumping and the likes. Supports that sat around moaning about us that wanting to do something will hopefully have fucked off Please don't write any banners.

Sorry but that's just bollocks. The worse state the club is in, the less likely that a buyer will be interested. We've already been through one period of major fan unrest. Did it dislodge Ashley? No. We've already been through one relegation. Did it bring loads of buyers out of the woodwork? Of course it fucking didn't.

Should have strung him along a bit further, tbh.

Do you think the strategy of using UNICEF to put a name on the shirt so people would get used to the idea will prove to have worked, or will there be mass shirt-burnings and other such protests?

Giving the new manager as much shit as possible isn't going to help anyone. The mackems will enjoy it, though.

No kidding.

And not rocking the boat and turning up with fixed grins is not going to make any difference either, just do whichever makes you feel better, blocking it out of your mind and acting like evrything's fine, happy clapping and backing the manager the players hate, or kicking off and making Pardew feel like Nick Clegg at a student rally. Same outcome, different route. So you're keen on relegation, then. You obviously are. I honestly don't believe you're quite as stupid as your posts to me make you appear.

And not rocking the boat and turning up with fixed grins is not going to make any difference either, just do whichever makes you feel better, blocking it out of your mind and acting like evrything's fine, happy clapping and backing the manager the players hate, or kicking off and making Pardew feel like Nick Clegg at a student rally. Same outcome, different route. So you're keen on relegation, then.

Keegan:

Yeah, what an Ashley-bummer he is!

Precisely. It seems, in fact, the only sensible thing to do.

I didn't say that, though. When will some people get their brains out of neutral? Your idea that you are now "vindicated" in believing Ashley is acting out of pure spite is particularly laughable.

Well, I've criticised owners in the past for sacking managers with no fucking idea of who they're going to appoint in their place, so it seems daft to criticise this lot for actually having a plan worked out in advance. And giving stick to the manager who took the job is, frankly, moronic.