Cronky

I wouldn't trust that lot to run a bath, let alone a football club.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you a) suggesting that he should abandon the attempt to sell the club, or b) not abandon the attempt to sell, but act as if he has? If he can't sell the club he has to do B. put the idea of selling on the back burner and try to turn the club into something attractive to potential buyers, in other words re-establish us in the premiership. Regardless of what is going on in the background he has to get serious and stop pissing about. If he doesn't that will be at least 2 years of the club being ran on an 'interim' basis. if someone comes in and wants to buy then great, but he can't continue to ignore the football club in the meantime. what he has done would be the equivalent of Hicks and Gillett running liverpool on the bare minimum for a few years until they can sell to the dubai consortium. Birmingham had some instability when Yueng wanted to buy two years ago but even they went out and got a proper manager signed up instead of making do with a caretaker. Unfortunately Ashley's philosophy since the day he came in has been to try and generate money by cutting costs but it's sadly had the knock on effect of damaging performances and making the business less efficient and less attractive to its consumers and potential investors. I'm not convinced that simply making the club more attractive to a buyer is in itself a viable longer-term strategy. If he's going to be in it for the long-term, then he has to mean it and present a convincing picture of his commitment to the players and manager who he's hoping to attract. If deep down, he's faking it, I'm not sure it'll work. Of course, he then has to face the problem of the large number of fans who want him out because of the Keegan issue and later the subsequent relegation. That was what drove him to sell in the first place. Whether things have quietened down enough I don't know. If he announces he's not selling, it may all erupt again.

Unfortunately, getting rid of Mike Ashley has become an end in itself.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you a) suggesting that he should abandon the attempt to sell the club, or b) not abandon the attempt to sell, but act as if he has?

More likely he's decided that there's very little prospect of selling the club this season, and the manager's position needs to be settled at least until next year. Potential buyers aren't willing to take the risk on a Championship club with a high wage bill. If we're promoted, they've got a bargain, but if not, then they'd have to bear a loss. Why does it need to be settled? Hughton is doing ok as he is, why does anything need to change if the club is not sold? Leave him in the caretaker role. I know what you mean, but it gives everyone the message that change is not imminent and the owner is planning for the status quo to remain for the rest of the season. It's also a vote of confidence in Hughton and, indirectly, the players. It's also only fair that if he's doing a manager's job, that he gets recognition for it.

I think it's worth asking for the ban to be reduced. He grabbed the bloke, rather than hit him.

More likely he's decided that there's very little prospect of selling the club this season, and the manager's position needs to be settled at least until next year. Potential buyers aren't willing to take the risk on a Championship club with a high wage bill. If we're promoted, they've got a bargain, but if not, then they'd have to bear a loss.

Relegation writted alover it Hopefully Portsmouth will go into admin or something, so we at least wont get the record for the lowest amount of points. We must be the only set of supporters in the country that are dreading the prospect of promotion.

Either they haven't got the money, or they're doing what businessmen do when they think the seller is desperate to offload - jerking around in the hope that the price comes down.

I wonder if Hughton would have had the balls to drop Owen or to take on Joey Barton? I doubt it. At least Shearer didn't pick by reputation. Also, we were playing in a much tougher league last season. I'm sure Hughton had a record last season which read 8 games played, 6 games lost, 2 drawn and didn't look as if he'd get a win in that division if we played 100 games under him, he had a worse record than Shearer. Hughton did drop Owen in his final game in charge. Shearer immediately restored him for 4 games, which was a costly error. Hughton also faced down Barton at the start of the season. They had some kind of a row, I seem to remember. I'm not sure whether Shearer comes ahead of Hughton in terms of his record last season, but if so there's hardly anything in it. The point was that Shearer was cut an awful lot more slack by most fans. 8 games where we were as good as down is not right to judge Shearer on. He may not be a better manager, but he needs a proper chance before he's written off. Shearer has potential and I certainly wouldn't write him off. I can't agree that we were as good as down though. Hull were in free fall. One more point, and in fact one goal in the last two games would have done it. We had a good chance of escaping and failed to take it.

I wonder if Hughton would have had the balls to drop Owen or to take on Joey Barton? I doubt it. At least Shearer didn't pick by reputation. Also, we were playing in a much tougher league last season. I'm sure Hughton had a record last season which read 8 games played, 6 games lost, 2 drawn and didn't look as if he'd get a win in that division if we played 100 games under him, he had a worse record than Shearer. Hughton did drop Owen in his final game in charge. Shearer immediately restored him for 4 games, which was a costly error. Hughton also faced down Barton at the start of the season. They had some kind of a row, I seem to remember. I'm not sure whether Shearer comes ahead of Hughton in terms of his record last season, but if so there's hardly anything in it. The point was that Shearer was cut an awful lot more slack by most fans.

true but I wonder if Shearer was managing us atm and had exactly the same set of results and performances etc would he be getting as much stick as Hughton, we are top of the league so he's doing something right obviously That is something we will never know. Can't see why appointing him as a permanant manager would make any difference to what he is doing now tbh. Ashley should just leave things as they are. We'll see when Shearer eventually takes over how people will react to his results. We've already had a pretty good indication. His results weren't any better than Kinnear's or Hughton's last season. Those two were regarded as useless while he was considered the man that Ashley must appoint.

I have very little faith that Hughton has continued the one-to-one coaching that Shearer and Dowie started. Caulkin claimed in a lengthy article the other day that Shearer's idea of them all eating together (as they did under Sir Bobby) had already gone out of the window, as had the series of fines for being late to training and stuff. That's very disappointing if true Everyone has to manage their own way. Even with half the team out, we're still top of the league, so Hughton must be doing something right. Let's also bear in mind that Shearer won 1 out of 8, and we failed to score in 6 of those 8. He was still very much on the learning curve.

Moat doesn't have the money. He's dependent on outside backers from the US who we know nothing about, and they would effectively be running the show, not Moat. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It's reasonable to assume they'd be wanting some return on their investment, even if it's just interest rather than profit. On top of that, it would help the promotion push if Hughton were confirmed in charge and everyone knew where they stood. Some are saying he's not up to it, but we're top of the league despite a bad injury situation. Time to end all the uncertainty. At least for this season.

That's the kind of win against the odds that should really lift a team. Well, an entire club, in fact.

On paper, that is one seriously dodgy looking back four. I'm not that surprised we're losing. If we were losing with Simpson, Colo and Taylor all playing, I'd be a bit more worried about the longer-term.

I can't see why this idea that Ashley has no intention of selling should persist. He publicly declared that he'd sell for £100m. If he wasn't serious, that leaves him wide open to exposure if someone then does bid £100 million and he still turns them down. So far, nobody has said that's happened. Potential buyers either haven't come up with the money, or when they've looked closely at the club's financial position, decided not to go ahead. The real debate is whether £100m is a fair price. If someone has money to invest in players to ensure promotion, it's a bargain. For the likes of Moat, who it seems can't invest any more than Ashley, it's too much of a risk.

If other, more significant signings were made without Keegan's consent, there's no way that it wouldn't have emerged during the hearing. Keegan's lawyers were trying to build the strongest possible case, and they wouldn't have witheld it as evidence. The tribunal would then have had to comment on it in their summing up. If you look at paragraph 38, part of the club's case is that overruling the manager over a loan signing isn't sufficiently important to be defined as a breach of contract. If there had been similar signings, Keegan's lawyers and the Tribunal would have commented on that. Paragraphs 33 and 34 actually puts the term 'final straw' in context. It states that Keegan was unhappy at the structure of the club and the failure to make sufficient signings, and didn't have a good working relationship with Wise and Jimenez. There's no hint at all of having other, previous players imposed on him. The club's case was that, in that context, quitting over the Gonzalez signing was an excuse. The Tribunal felt that it was of sufficient importance to justify Keegan's actions. Everyone's entitled to their opinion on that, and it really does boil down to a matter of opinion rather than fact.

I pray every night that he dies in a house fire These forums are all about free speech, but sometimes............. I wish people would be a bit more careful what they say.

You sound surprised by the negativity of fans. We have suffered appalling mismanagement, been insulted by two successive owners who have made a total pig's ear of the club, have seen a popular manager forced out and have recently seen our team relegated. Our owner is now recognised as one of the worst in the business (if not THE worst) and I doubt there is any set of fans in the land who envies our position right now. How exactly are people supposed to feel? I think it's absurd to suggest Newcastle fans are spoilt. In all my time following the club I have seen nothing but false dawns, poor management, money squandered, players who didn't care, but there was always hope. Yes there were highs but to see the club languishing where it is when we know and have seen its potential is what hurts most. We weren't spoilt, we were just shown a glimpse of what could be achieved, and football fans live on hope. That's all we've ever had and our situation has never felt as hopeless as it does now. I wouldnt say our fans are spoilt more like hungry. Obviously youre right when you say that the club hasnt been run well over the last 10 years, and that this has led to anger among the fans. But Ive also seen the reverse process happen the views of the fans influencing the owners decisions, to the eventual detriment of the club, which in turn leads to more resentment etc etc. The bottom line is that Shepherd and Ashley should have been sufficiently strong and professional to ignore those kinds of pressures. The buck stops with them. But ours is a club where the fans do exert a lot of influence and so its easier said than done. I dont want to go into details that have already been debated to death here, but decisions were made in relation to Shearer and Owen as players, then Keegan and Shearer as managers, which have all badly rebounded on the club. Those decisions were influenced by what owners saw as ways of keeping the fans onside. In some ways we are a big club, but I dont think the other big clubs are nearly as prone as we are, to those kinds of mistakes. sorry the need to sign owen was a playing one to replace bellamy, that was a decision was made alone by souness, many fans would of kept bellamy and used the rest of the money on another striker i.e. own the amounts of money football fans put in, they deserve to have their say, and demand success. football cost's a fortune to go to now, compare this to before the premier league started, the proportion a fan spends will be far greater now Well the Owen signing seems more complex than that, and Souness himself would dispute what you're saying. My take on it is - yes, he wanted Owen, but he didn't want to miss out on Anelka, pay £17 million and vast wages for a player who didn't want to come, wait till the end of August before completing his team, and sell Jenas. All of those were clever Freddie's decisions. I don't think that fans should have their say, mainly for the reasons already outlined - that there's a tendency for supporters' opinions to be led more by emotion and a mob mentality rather than common sense and professional knowledge. There has to be proper leadership, and those who are financially responsible have to have the final say anyway.

You sound surprised by the negativity of fans. We have suffered appalling mismanagement, been insulted by two successive owners who have made a total pig's ear of the club, have seen a popular manager forced out and have recently seen our team relegated. Our owner is now recognised as one of the worst in the business (if not THE worst) and I doubt there is any set of fans in the land who envies our position right now. How exactly are people supposed to feel? I think it's absurd to suggest Newcastle fans are spoilt. In all my time following the club I have seen nothing but false dawns, poor management, money squandered, players who didn't care, but there was always hope. Yes there were highs but to see the club languishing where it is when we know and have seen its potential is what hurts most. We weren't spoilt, we were just shown a glimpse of what could be achieved, and football fans live on hope. That's all we've ever had and our situation has never felt as hopeless as it does now. I wouldn’t say our fans are spoilt – more like hungry. Obviously you’re right when you say that the club hasn’t been run well over the last 10 years, and that this has led to anger among the fans. But I’ve also seen the reverse process happen – the views of the fans influencing the owner’s decisions, to the eventual detriment of the club, which in turn leads to more resentment etc etc. The bottom line is that Shepherd and Ashley should have been sufficiently strong and professional to ignore those kinds of pressures. The buck stops with them. But ours is a club where the fans do exert a lot of influence and so it’s easier said than done. I don’t want to go into details that have already been debated to death here, but decisions were made in relation to Shearer and Owen as players, then Keegan and Shearer as managers, which have all badly rebounded on the club. Those decisions were influenced by what owners saw as ways of keeping the fans onside. In some ways we are a big club, but I don’t think the other big clubs are nearly as prone as we are, to those kinds of mistakes.

There is a tendency among sports fans generally to voice opinions that are a bit extreme and led by emotion, but having said that this forum does have a wider range of opinion and a better quality of debate than the others that I'm aware of. The negativity of our fans in general does bother me a bit though. I get the feeling that it's become a bigger problem since the failure of 1996. It's like there's an undercurrent of resentment and anger that's bubbling under the surface all the time. It has had an influence on how things have gone both on and off the field. The only relief we've had was when Sir Bob was in charge, and even he fell victim in the end.

I wonder how much they did offer? and does it mean keegan is a proven liar ? No - Keegan was very specific in his choice of words and only referred to an offer of £4 million and no other sum. I drew attention to this on here at the time and suggested it might be a true statement but a bit misleading. I seem to remember being told that KK would not play with words in that way..... so do i....shame no-one seems to care. It was actually me that said that I didn't think Keegan would do that. That's on practical rather than moral grounds. The truth was bound to emerge when they discussed legal costs.

I know I shouldn't but - Keegan's a phoney The rest is baloney

One area where I think most of us can be agreed is that the relationship between Keegan and Ashley is shot beyond repair. Doomed from the start, in fact.