Cronky

I'm not bothered whether he scores or not. He's making a good contribution to the team, holding the ball well and opening things up for his team-mates. His level of skill on the ball wasn't apparent to me on the compilation videos that I saw previously. I'm no longer a doubter.

Pardew clearly has a problem because it's not the first time he's crossed the boundary and got physical. I can understand his anger and his need to assert himself in that situation, but every other manager would have just got up and shouted in the player's face or given them a shove back. Either that, or take the piss. We all know the repertoire of responses. He has to sort out why he feels the need to retaliate like that.

He probably should have but that was never going to happen and we might even have a contract without clauses in it because of it being a loan. Allowances are made when tempers flare during a physical contact sport. When it's a manager, and it happens off the field of play, it's something else, of course. I think the club have acted correctly - a big fine and a warning. But no more chances after this one.

There was some provocation, but he had time to steady himself and choose a different response. I imagine he'll get another fine from the FA and a touchline ban till the end of the season. It seemed like his ego dictated that he had to try and put Meyler in his place.

Persisting with Cisse is an error. He's not good enough for the level that we're aiming for. I don't see the point in his comments about De Jong. Maybe he's trying to reassure him that when he doesn't get picked, it isn't because he doesn't rate him, it's because he wants to give Cisse the chance to improve. Either way, he's being too smart for his own good.

When in a hole, stop digging.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UzNi2Q9CRGU/UZTwqsLjuTI/AAAAAAAAlX4/B5ByTURAMhA/s1600/Ed+DE+GOEY++-+Panini+Sparta+Rottedam+1987-88.png http://www.afc.co.uk/javaImages/d5/80/0,,10284~9404629,00.jpg No?

You're mad.

I've no issue with him using our position to experiment with some younger players and different formations. Managers rarely get the chance to do that so we may as well take the opportunity. And missing out on the Europa League is no calamity. Naff competition.

I've not seen much of him running with the ball, but I'd agree about his technical ability. That quick control and dipping shot from the right hand edge of the penalty area were the signs of a good player. And I'm sure he wouldn't be taking the corners if there wasn't some faith in his technique. I don't think he took any of the free kicks around the penalty area - I may be wrong. He seemed to be hovering with intent but more senior players prevailed. I'd like to see him take one from the right hand side of the area, curving in.

Actually, we are, too. Which is about as laughable as you adhering to it. I've a feeling there's an increasingly wide ranging acceptance at clubs like us and you that, to make the jump into the CL places is prohibitively expensive, and the increase in earnings from 3 or 4 places higher up the league (when you are in the middle) doesn't really justify the risk and expense involved in having a punt at it. So what they do instead is talk about managing wage bills, being FFP compliant, "seeking value" (that's us and our £1m lower league players, which is fine when it is one or two, but not the whole squad almost) and reining in expectations. I have thought for a while that FFP adherence is manna from heaven for owners who want to limit their exposure. Managing the expenditure and generally bobbing along, not getting relegated and ensuring a certain level of income is where it's at for them. I'm fine about FFP as a principle. It's far better if clubs undertake to stay within their means. It won't produce complete equality, but it would be an improvement. The problem will be the willingness or lack of it on the part of UEFA, to enforce the rules against clubs that cheat. Sadly, they've already broadcast a lack of determination rather loudly.

That's a fair comment but my problem isn't with the specific numbers - I just think it's cheeky (or "deliberately misleading") to call it interest-free when, really, it isn't, depending on your definition of interest. The stadium has been used as collateral; resulting in it being defaced and made a mockery of, seemingly as an indirect result of Ashley's loan. Then comes the lost revenue side of things (~£5m a year), and how his company has benefited from getting this exposure for nowt. It just seems that all of Ashley's motivations are enveloped in a attitude of cuntery towards something I care so dearly about. They should have been more honest about the advertising. Financially, the cost of the advertising and the loss of interest probably do balance out, but they should have been open about it from the start.

Yeah, this needs sorting. A number of the shots on Sunday seemed to be silly - outside the player's range, with the weaker foot etc. It felt like a lazy decision.

Ronnie, I know you like to hedge your bets, but that's ridiculous.

I agree. De Jong looks far better than either at holding the ball up and linking play, and he should start instead of Cisse. Bit of a puzzling decision from Pardew there. He made a similar mistake with Ba and Cisse. I'm not expecting Remy-De Jong to be 'mouthwatering', but yeah, it has possibilities.

That's a bit of a glass-half-empty response. I was relieved to hear him acknowledge that the football wasn't great.

Is Sammy injured, by the way? He didn't even make the bench.

Yeah, he added that bit of craft to our attacks, and that made a big difference.

I've seen this before with Anita and Tiote - two defensive midfielders and yet neither of them are protecting the back four. Remy has been a bit greedy, but he remains the one most likely. This could go either way. It's a matter who gets that bit of luck in front of goal.

Not sure most fans are unhappy with our scouting at present or our transfer philosophy, we were 3-4 signings away from fighting for the top 4 in my opinion without the big money signings. The issue is there is now no transfer plan other then to sell for profit and the club in generally has no direction or actual ambition - this is shown clearly by the appointment and sticking with a sub standard manager and back room team. In the most part we have a team of internationals yet a coaching setup sub League 1, we have no identity on the pitch and we are slowly loosing out identity off also. Personally don't agree that its about returning to the boom and bust era of Shepard but atleast showing some controlled ambition on all fronts, starting with a new manager who can mould a team that actually knows what they are doing once they cross that line. I don’t think the club lacks ambition, but they are cautious and pragmatic in their approach. In contrast, the fans of every football club are energised by dreams of glory, and what the club have said does cut against that. No-one dreams of finishing 10th. The trouble with putting a dreamer like Fernandez or Ridsdale in charge is that it will eventually go belly-up, unless you’re something of a bottomless pit of money , like Abramovich. So every club, bar the exceptional, has to have some kind of financial discipline. The problem with Shepherd was that he spent all the club could possibly afford in terms of debt, we got a break and made the CL, but then there was nothing left to push on with. The second season we made the CL places, all we could buy was Bowyer on a free. Then there was the inevitable slip backwards. The aim has to be that if we get that bit of luck and make the top four in the future, we’re in a sufficiently healthy position financially that we can take advantage, and not come to a full stop. Youth development, hitherto neglected, is another part of being in a good financial state when opportunity arises. So in the absence of a Mansour, I’m not yet convinced that Ashley’s general strategy is wrong. He’s made some poor decisions, the latest being Kinnear, but overall I’m prepared to give things a bit longer. I wouldn’t say Pardew is sub-standard incidentally, but that’s another debate. This is not a terribly wrong account of what's going on, it's just that you are mistaken when it comes to ambition and motivation, I believe. Now, this is all speculation, but the way I see it, Ashely's main 'ambition' at this point in time is to recoup his investment, so the aim is to turn in a profit. From a purely economic standpoint, the safest way to achieve that seems to be mid-table mediocrity. The biggest source of income for the club is media revenue (if I'm not mistaken, roughly 60% of turnover in the latest accounts), which is fairly evenly distributed among Premier League teams, and is only partially affected by the league position as long as the club stays in the league (more on this later). The second is match-day income, which of course may decline due to bad performance on the pitch, but even after years of under-performing and numerous scandals, a good audience still turns up at SJP every other week, and I'd be surprised if the average attendance would fall below, say, 45,000 in the near future. In short, NUFC has a rather loyal fan base which produces a hefty income that can be taken for granted. Third, commercial revenue may also be affected, but it's a rather small chunk of the pie overall. So, with the TV money flowing in and people still turning up at SJP, revenues will continue to be relatively healthy. From the expense side, the club is operating with a small squad on comparatively mediocre wages and turns in a profit on the transfer market, so it's on a rather shoestring budget. But it has a decent scouting network, and this allows it to be a selling club while not being in constant threat of relegation, so the TV money is not in danger. Whether this is sustainable on the longer term is debatable, but it seems to be working for now, and Ashely seems to believe in it. Of course, better performance on the pitch may lead to higher revenues, but it would also mean higher costs and risks. And it's not only the one-time costs of buying a number of better players and assembling a bigger squad, but also the constant costs of maintaining that squad and its quality. Realistically, a solid top four spot is 100m+ of one-time investment away, and with the rising constant costs, the rising revenues may not even result in higher profits (we could probably get +40-50m/year provided we get into the CL every year). So, the expected return on investment for this scenario is pretty low (if it's positive at all), and going for it would involve huge risks (i.e. not getting into the CL). Not something you'd like to do if you're after your money. There's still huge competition for 5-7th place, TV money is not substantially higher, and the EL doesn't bring decent money anyway, so it's just not worth it. In our current position, investing more heavily in the playing squad just doesn't seem to have the potential to improve the profitability of the club substantially. Moreover, focusing on cups would not generate substantially higher revenues, yet it would involve risks as to our league performance, where the TV money is. Now, I'm not saying that this is right this way, but given Ashely's (presumed) motivation, it suits him perfectly. Of course, the performance of the team could be improved by bringing in a half-decent manager and having a more though-out transfer strategy (i.e. buying players to fit the system/team instead of buying every French bargain we can get our hands on -- of course having a system in the first place would help a lot) without spending more, but it has been proven from time to time that Mike Ashely is not very wise when it comes to either footballing or personnel decisions. And playing good football just quite simply isn’t the point for him. So, sadly, I do expect us to stay where we are as long as Ashely is in charge, and that's possibly one of the more positive takes on the near future given his well demonstrated capacity to f*** things up horribly. Thank you for that post, which addresses the points that I was making, even if we don't entirely agree. When I said that I didn't think the club lacked ambition, I meant it in the sense that they're not indifferent to the idea of success, and would like the team to thrive. What others mean by the word strikes me as rather different ie spending more money on players. And achieving success that way is not as simple as all that, as your post acknowledges at various points, I think. Where I think we differ is in our assessment of Ashley's motivation, which I think is more complex and more erratic than is usually stated. I don't think he bought the club purely as a business proposition. I think it was a poorly thought-out impulse buy, by a genuine sports fan. He'd got all that cash from selling part of his business, and the sudden opportunity to buy a major Premiership club was too much to resist. Since then, he's stumbled along, making as many bad decisions as good ones, as the realities of running a club hit home. I certainly think he's fallen out of love with the task. He's had to put in a lot of money which he's unlikely to recoup, and he's determined not to lose any more. I also think a certain mentality has crept in, along the lines of I'm going to be unpopular no matter what I do, so I may as well please myself, as with the appointment of Joe Kinnear and the Sports Direct advertising. But I baulk at the idea that where we happen to be at this precise moment is where he was planning to be all along, and where we're necessarily going to stay. Though obviously we need a bit of luck as well as good management to progress. Whether Pardew is good enough, I'm still not sure tbh. His representatives bought the club for him on his behalf for completely non-sporting reasons and ENTIRELY as a business proposition. Why spout random crap that conflicts with what the guy who sold the shares has actually said? And according to Llambias, I think it was, he bought the club because he thought he could sell it at a profit to Arab oil money, and Keegan was appointed with that in mind. I don't doubt that marketing in the Far East could well have been mentioned in a conversation between Sir John Hall and Ashley's representatives, but that's hardly proof that that was the sole reason for the sale. The guy has various ideas in his head, and it's hard to tell which one is most prominent at any given time. At the end of the day, he didn't do due diligence. That's not the action of a man who is solely motivated by money.

Not sure most fans are unhappy with our scouting at present or our transfer philosophy, we were 3-4 signings away from fighting for the top 4 in my opinion without the big money signings. The issue is there is now no transfer plan other then to sell for profit and the club in generally has no direction or actual ambition - this is shown clearly by the appointment and sticking with a sub standard manager and back room team. In the most part we have a team of internationals yet a coaching setup sub League 1, we have no identity on the pitch and we are slowly loosing out identity off also. Personally don't agree that its about returning to the boom and bust era of Shepard but atleast showing some controlled ambition on all fronts, starting with a new manager who can mould a team that actually knows what they are doing once they cross that line. I don’t think the club lacks ambition, but they are cautious and pragmatic in their approach. In contrast, the fans of every football club are energised by dreams of glory, and what the club have said does cut against that. No-one dreams of finishing 10th. The trouble with putting a dreamer like Fernandez or Ridsdale in charge is that it will eventually go belly-up, unless you’re something of a bottomless pit of money , like Abramovich. So every club, bar the exceptional, has to have some kind of financial discipline. The problem with Shepherd was that he spent all the club could possibly afford in terms of debt, we got a break and made the CL, but then there was nothing left to push on with. The second season we made the CL places, all we could buy was Bowyer on a free. Then there was the inevitable slip backwards. The aim has to be that if we get that bit of luck and make the top four in the future, we’re in a sufficiently healthy position financially that we can take advantage, and not come to a full stop. Youth development, hitherto neglected, is another part of being in a good financial state when opportunity arises. So in the absence of a Mansour, I’m not yet convinced that Ashley’s general strategy is wrong. He’s made some poor decisions, the latest being Kinnear, but overall I’m prepared to give things a bit longer. I wouldn’t say Pardew is sub-standard incidentally, but that’s another debate. This is not a terribly wrong account of what's going on, it's just that you are mistaken when it comes to ambition and motivation, I believe. Now, this is all speculation, but the way I see it, Ashely's main 'ambition' at this point in time is to recoup his investment, so the aim is to turn in a profit. From a purely economic standpoint, the safest way to achieve that seems to be mid-table mediocrity. The biggest source of income for the club is media revenue (if I'm not mistaken, roughly 60% of turnover in the latest accounts), which is fairly evenly distributed among Premier League teams, and is only partially affected by the league position as long as the club stays in the league (more on this later). The second is match-day income, which of course may decline due to bad performance on the pitch, but even after years of under-performing and numerous scandals, a good audience still turns up at SJP every other week, and I'd be surprised if the average attendance would fall below, say, 45,000 in the near future. In short, NUFC has a rather loyal fan base which produces a hefty income that can be taken for granted. Third, commercial revenue may also be affected, but it's a rather small chunk of the pie overall. So, with the TV money flowing in and people still turning up at SJP, revenues will continue to be relatively healthy. From the expense side, the club is operating with a small squad on comparatively mediocre wages and turns in a profit on the transfer market, so it's on a rather shoestring budget. But it has a decent scouting network, and this allows it to be a selling club while not being in constant threat of relegation, so the TV money is not in danger. Whether this is sustainable on the longer term is debatable, but it seems to be working for now, and Ashely seems to believe in it. Of course, better performance on the pitch may lead to higher revenues, but it would also mean higher costs and risks. And it's not only the one-time costs of buying a number of better players and assembling a bigger squad, but also the constant costs of maintaining that squad and its quality. Realistically, a solid top four spot is 100m+ of one-time investment away, and with the rising constant costs, the rising revenues may not even result in higher profits (we could probably get +40-50m/year provided we get into the CL every year). So, the expected return on investment for this scenario is pretty low (if it's positive at all), and going for it would involve huge risks (i.e. not getting into the CL). Not something you'd like to do if you're after your money. There's still huge competition for 5-7th place, TV money is not substantially higher, and the EL doesn't bring decent money anyway, so it's just not worth it. In our current position, investing more heavily in the playing squad just doesn't seem to have the potential to improve the profitability of the club substantially. Moreover, focusing on cups would not generate substantially higher revenues, yet it would involve risks as to our league performance, where the TV money is. Now, I'm not saying that this is right this way, but given Ashely's (presumed) motivation, it suits him perfectly. Of course, the performance of the team could be improved by bringing in a half-decent manager and having a more though-out transfer strategy (i.e. buying players to fit the system/team instead of buying every French bargain we can get our hands on -- of course having a system in the first place would help a lot) without spending more, but it has been proven from time to time that Mike Ashely is not very wise when it comes to either footballing or personnel decisions. And playing good football just quite simply isn’t the point for him. So, sadly, I do expect us to stay where we are as long as Ashely is in charge, and that's possibly one of the more positive takes on the near future given his well demonstrated capacity to fuck things up horribly. Thank you for that post, which addresses the points that I was making, even if we don't entirely agree. When I said that I didn't think the club lacked ambition, I meant it in the sense that they're not indifferent to the idea of success, and would like the team to thrive. What others mean by the word strikes me as rather different ie spending more money on players. And achieving success that way is not as simple as all that, as your post acknowledges at various points, I think. Where I think we differ is in our assessment of Ashley's motivation, which I think is more complex and more erratic than is usually stated. I don't think he bought the club purely as a business proposition. I think it was a poorly thought-out impulse buy, by a genuine sports fan. He'd got all that cash from selling part of his business, and the sudden opportunity to buy a major Premiership club was too much to resist. Since then, he's stumbled along, making as many bad decisions as good ones, as the realities of running a club hit home. I certainly think he's fallen out of love with the task. He's had to put in a lot of money which he's unlikely to recoup, and he's determined not to lose any more. I also think a certain mentality has crept in, along the lines of I'm going to be unpopular no matter what I do, so I may as well please myself, as with the appointment of Joe Kinnear and the Sports Direct advertising. But I baulk at the idea that where we happen to be at this precise moment is where he was planning to be all along, and where we're necessarily going to stay. Though obviously we need a bit of luck as well as good management to progress. Whether Pardew is good enough, I'm still not sure tbh.

Not sure most fans are unhappy with our scouting at present or our transfer philosophy, we were 3-4 signings away from fighting for the top 4 in my opinion without the big money signings. The issue is there is now no transfer plan other then to sell for profit and the club in generally has no direction or actual ambition - this is shown clearly by the appointment and sticking with a sub standard manager and back room team. In the most part we have a team of internationals yet a coaching setup sub League 1, we have no identity on the pitch and we are slowly loosing out identity off also. Personally don't agree that its about returning to the boom and bust era of Shepard but atleast showing some controlled ambition on all fronts, starting with a new manager who can mould a team that actually knows what they are doing once they cross that line. I don’t think the club lacks ambition, but they are cautious and pragmatic in their approach. In contrast, the fans of every football club are energised by dreams of glory, and what the club have said does cut against that. No-one dreams of finishing 10th. The trouble with putting a dreamer like Fernandez or Ridsdale in charge is that it will eventually go belly-up, unless you’re something of a bottomless pit of money , like Abramovich. So every club, bar the exceptional, has to have some kind of financial discipline. The problem with Shepherd was that he spent all the club could possibly afford in terms of debt, we got a break and made the CL, but then there was nothing left to push on with. The second season we made the CL places, all we could buy was Bowyer on a free. Then there was the inevitable slip backwards. The aim has to be that if we get that bit of luck and make the top four in the future, we’re in a sufficiently healthy position financially that we can take advantage, and not come to a full stop. Youth development, hitherto neglected, is another part of being in a good financial state when opportunity arises. So in the absence of a Mansour, I’m not yet convinced that Ashley’s general strategy is wrong. He’s made some poor decisions, the latest being Kinnear, but overall I’m prepared to give things a bit longer. I wouldn’t say Pardew is sub-standard incidentally, but that’s another debate.

I don't know how representative of general opinion this forum is, but when I read threads like this I do worry about another post-Keegan meltdown, which won't do anyone any good. This will no doubt fall on deaf ears, but can I point out two things - Having an aim of finishing in the top ten means that 10th place is the minimum standard. It doesn't mean that you don't care whether you finish higher. Prioritising the League against the Cups is what every Premiership club and most Championship clubs do. The only difference is that the club acknowledged it when asked a direct question in a fans forum. We already know what Ashley's strategy is, because it was made clear at the start. He won't pay over the odds for established players - he'll go for young players who can be developed or players at the end of their contracts. The club itself will not run at a loss. It's a long-term strategy. I'm not sure how well it will work, but unless you're prepared to pay huge amounts of money, there's no quick way of getting beyond the point we're at at this moment. The boom and bust Freddie Shepherd way is not the better alternative.

I don't think we got the best out of him playing him wide, because he lacked pace. His best position is in midfield in a 4-3-3 - a formation we didn't often see when he was with us. As for him being average / shit - I'm not having that. When he wasn't in jail, suspended or injured, he had a real impact on the side. He played a big part in saving us from going down in Keegan's first season. It usually gets attributed to the tactical switch of playing Owen deep, but the upturn in form also coincides with Joey's return to the team. The following season, I think we'd have stayed up if it wasn't for him getting himself banned for the final three games. Moving ahead, his absence from QPR coincided with their going down. Whether he's ultimately worth the trouble to a manager is another matter, but if you're picking a hypothetical side based on ability, he's a candidate. It hasn't helped his reputation that both with us and elsewhere he's never played in a good side, but that's almost entirely his fault. He had the talent to do much better. PS - Also depends on which system you go for. Most people seem to have gone for a four-man midfield with two wingers, which wouldn't be the best for Barton.

I'm not sure if there's confusion here or not, but I was talking about Joey. One exasperating character, but he could play a bit. Sod him.