TRon

:lol: £10M budget and Joe Kinnear in charge. Arsenal and Villa must be shitting thaself. Isn't the £10 million what he's prepared to put in? Not sure how many other clubs owners are prepared to stick their hand in their pocket to finance their clubs. He is loaning newcastle the money ain't he, with zero interest? alternatively there is always the possibility that he has no other choice. "While the club made a profit of £8million during the transfer window, Ashley has insisted that all incoming signings are paid for up front. The norm in football is for clubs to make and receive staged payments for players" The clearest sign for me that he still wants to sell. He is looking for ongoing transparency in the accounts so as not to put off buyers. Something he has learnt from personal experience. The best case scenario is that he expects a buyer to be found in the summer once Premiership status has been assured hopefully. If there is still no one willing to put the money down and take over the club then Ashley' s way is the only way like it or complain bitterly about it while paying £10 per head for the privelege. FYP FYP

Hope the rest of the squad share that motivation, probably Kinnear's redeeming quality is he's probably a popular figure if a bit clueless about modern football.

:lol: £10M budget and Joe Kinnear in charge. Arsenal and Villa must be shitting thaself. Isn't the £10 million what he's prepared to put in? Not sure how many other clubs owners are prepared to stick their hand in their pocket to finance their clubs. He is loaning newcastle the money ain't he, with zero interest? alternatively there is always the possibility that he has no other choice. "While the club made a profit of £8million during the transfer window, Ashley has insisted that all incoming signings are paid for up front. The norm in football is for clubs to make and receive staged payments for players" The clearest sign for me that he still wants to sell. He is looking for ongoing transparency in the accounts so as not to put off buyers. Something he has learnt from personal experience. The best case scenario is that he expects a buyer to be found in the summer once Premiership status has been assured hopefully. If there is still no one willing to put the money down and take over the club then Ashley' s way is the only way like it or lump it.

That would be handy if we were actually buying players.

It does seem pretty obvious that the club balance sheet comes above everything else including the strength of the first team squad. It's the mirror opposite of Fat Fred's reckless pursuit of glory by mortgaging the future by spending everything up front. Interesting that we expect to pay out compensation to Keegan seeing as the contract he signed was loaded in the club's favour whereby he had to pay us £2m if he quit. Look's like contracts and signatures don't mean as much as being as good as your word even in this day and age. Fair play to Kev and up yours Ashley and chums if he gets his money.

It's not the reduction in price that people are complaining about.

It's unbelievable that the club haven't even considered how this will look to the rest of the football world. Here we have a small time manager who has been out of football for years due to heart trouble, he comes to Newcastle in a temporary role and ends up needing a heart bypass. Yet we are talking about him carrying on the job once he's recovered! It's staggering tbh. A complete fucking joke.

We might not be able to attract a world class manager but we could have a go at attracting an up and coming manager like Martinez. There are probably even top notch managers who would come under the right circumstances, the likes of Fatih Terim for example. Mike Ashley gives me the impression he needs a bloke he could have a pint with though, so I don't see any foreign appointments in the near future.

Of course they would but how could that happen right now? It needs to happen before next season begins. I think Ashley will have a job on his hands convincing anyone it will even if he genuinely intends to make it happen.

Yep. First time he's done it. He looks like he's carrying too much weight though. That might be worth a fine if he can't get it down. Don't know if it's a weight problem but he runs like an old man. That might have something to do with the mis-timed tackle as well. He might have lost his bearings due to early senile dementia.

It's not stupidity on Kinnear's part, quite the opposite. He has no business managing a Premiership club, he'd basically be an average sort of manager in the lower divisions truth be told, and deep down he probbaly knows that. In his wildest dreams he can't have imagined he'd ever get the chance to manage a Premiership club again, and he'll hang on for dear life to the opportunity as long as he can. If that requires he tow the line and do what he's told by the guys in charge, not a problem. I reckon he'd suck Llambias off to keep the job if that's what was asked of him, because once he's gone from Newcastle he'll never have a job like it again. Shambles. The only question is why that contract remains unsigned. Nice one. Hang your hat on that then, it's the only thing left.

I think people would rather pay more for their season tickets if it meant getting a proper manager and investing more in the squad.

and he did this because 2 vital strikers were passed fit to start for him for the first time, meaning we had 3 very good strikers to attack with. his methods didnt just "click" suddenly. did we attack teams in the same manner with smith, ameobi and owen upfront? no, we didnt. dude, you're starting to annoy me with the repetitiveness of this now...i agree with you in the sense that when we had those three things clicked and he changed the system to accommodate, and it worked very well what was the alternative before they came back? what would a better manager have done with the tools at his disposal? only thing i can see is throw in untested bairns in the hope they'd do better than duff/smith etc... what else could have have done with such s****? which, again, is my entire point. the thread (i think) is bashing somebody because the football we're playing isnt great but with all the players missing what are people expecting? we looked s*** last year before martins and viduka came back so, like you say, how else can we attack teams with any potency without our best 3 strikers? if we get owen, martins and viduka (and possibly barton) all fit and playing we'll look infinitely better, like we did last year. It's not a bashing thread, more of a questioning one of where are we going? Not now, but come next season. Will we look to bring in a highly rated manager who will build a squad over the next couple of years that will play attractive progressive football? Or will we look to hire a cheap coach who will toe the line and buy hard working players who will graft out a result and try and keep us out of relegation trouble? I'm asking because it's undeniable that Kinnear was offered a two year contract extension. How does that sit with the expectations of last summer when Keegan was downplaying Ashley's aims of a top four place, saying we could aim for top eight maybe? Only the board can answer that in May, the decisions they make will tell us a lot. Good post. I would like to think we will bring in a highly rated manager playing attractive football but I cant see such a manager coming here with the current footballing set up (i.e. without full control over transfers and in all likelihood with little funding available) There will be funds available according to Llambias, the money raised from Given and N'Zogbia, plus we should be losing a few highly paid wasters at the end of the season. Someone on TT claims to be ITK that Steve Bruce is coming here in May, read what you want into that.

and he did this because 2 vital strikers were passed fit to start for him for the first time, meaning we had 3 very good strikers to attack with. his methods didnt just "click" suddenly. did we attack teams in the same manner with smith, ameobi and owen upfront? no, we didnt. dude, you're starting to annoy me with the repetitiveness of this now...i agree with you in the sense that when we had those three things clicked and he changed the system to accommodate, and it worked very well what was the alternative before they came back? what would a better manager have done with the tools at his disposal? only thing i can see is throw in untested bairns in the hope they'd do better than duff/smith etc... what else could have have done with such shite? which, again, is my entire point. the thread (i think) is bashing somebody because the football we're playing isnt great but with all the players missing what are people expecting? we looked shit last year before martins and viduka came back so, like you say, how else can we attack teams with any potency without our best 3 strikers? if we get owen, martins and viduka (and possibly barton) all fit and playing we'll look infinitely better, like we did last year. It's not a bashing thread, more of a questioning one of where are we going? Not now, but come next season. Will we look to bring in a highly rated manager who will build a squad over the next couple of years that will play attractive progressive football? Or will we look to hire a cheap coach who will toe the line and buy hard working players who will graft out a result and try and keep us out of relegation trouble? I'm asking because it's undeniable that Kinnear was offered a two year contract extension. How does that sit with the expectations of last summer when Keegan was downplaying Ashley's aims of a top four place, saying we could aim for top eight maybe? Only the board can answer that in May, the decisions they make will tell us a lot.

The best thing NUSC could do is shut up and fuck off tbh.

It took time to bring the change about FFS. He had to get the players minds switched from nagative football to open football. Birmingham was the turning point, where got a draw but could have won it. Libertine always sniping at KK, any little chance. Its ok tho, you just bend history to suit your argument. it took time to get 3 very good players back (and staying fit) to take the team forward in matches and score goals. the front 3 took the pressure off the s*** midfield the same as a good midfield will take the pressure off a defence. simple as that. Obviously the manager doesn't deserve any credit at all for changing the whole shape of the team though. to some extent. "playing your best players" is what its called at other clubs. dropping smith and ameobi to play martins and viduka isnt rocket science. You're absolutely pathetic. martins or viduka didnt start a game for keegan before the birmingham match and then they come back in and we start doing well. did keegan "change their mentality" or did we just get 2 very decent/vital players back in place of 2 s*** ones? the keegan thing. obviously. The players coming back was obviously instrumental but it was Keegans tactics that got us the results we did. Not many managers would have had the balls to play Owen, Martins & Viduka together. Allardyce certainly didn't. and prior to those players coming back? where were the tactics and the balls? Keegan did his best to inject confidence into the "name" players like Duff and Smith but in the end dropped them and accomodated all three strikers saying that he couldn't see any goals in the team and he didn't want to go into any future matches without goals in the team. By the way not only did it take balls to play 4-3-3, the most important factor was Keegan's refusal to stop playing passing football. That's actually what this thread is about, not about Keegan, he's gone and you can't turn back the clock. It's about the football and Ashley being overjoyed by the way Keegan's team swept the ghost of Allardyce's turgid s**** away with proper football...carpet football as SBR would say. That's what had Mort saying "Kevin's got them playing again". I just wonder what Ashley's vision for the club is now? With Keegan you knew what it was about. Is Ashley happy with muck and nettles football now? For anybody who's failed to notice, this is the central question in this thread, not whether Keegan could have got or should have been expected to get instant results. The owner and chairman have promoted free flowing attacking football publicy, but their actions in the past year, especially their manager appointments (including contract extension offer), have been in sharp contrast with this. What kind of manager do they want for this club. What style of football can we expect from them? Yes that is exactly the point I am making. While it's all very exciting to hear about Veloso's and Mbia's, not to mention Darren Bents, the reality has turned out to be Kevin Nolan alongside Nicky Butt with Ameobi up front. All of thes are on new, improved or extended contracts. All of these are shite and first team regulars. If this is still the case next season then I'd want to know what was the thinking behind it?

Fulham and Reading for 90 minutes, a good first half against Sunderland and quality second half performances against Birmingham and Spurs. It was like watching Brazil for just over 300 minutes. Probably why Ashley did the conga in the boardroom in front of the mackems.

And if not? A question to you and the open forum. And if not? A question to you and the open forum. Everyone has a choice how they want to spend their money. If you don't think you are getting value for it then spend it somewhere else.

It took time to bring the change about FFS. He had to get the players minds switched from nagative football to open football. Birmingham was the turning point, where got a draw but could have won it. Libertine always sniping at KK, any little chance. Its ok tho, you just bend history to suit your argument. it took time to get 3 very good players back (and staying fit) to take the team forward in matches and score goals. the front 3 took the pressure off the s*** midfield the same as a good midfield will take the pressure off a defence. simple as that. Obviously the manager doesn't deserve any credit at all for changing the whole shape of the team though. to some extent. "playing your best players" is what its called at other clubs. dropping smith and ameobi to play martins and viduka isnt rocket science. You're absolutely pathetic. martins or viduka didnt start a game for keegan before the birmingham match and then they come back in and we start doing well. did keegan "change their mentality" or did we just get 2 very decent/vital players back in place of 2 s*** ones? the keegan thing. obviously. The players coming back was obviously instrumental but it was Keegans tactics that got us the results we did. Not many managers would have had the balls to play Owen, Martins & Viduka together. Allardyce certainly didn't. keegans tactics did nothing for the few months before 2 vital players were fit again. worth noting in the context of the thread. He was trying to turn the mentality of the team around. Did you expect instant results? glenn roeder could but keegan couldnt? shock horror. this is hardly something to cling to when plenty of new managers taking over during the season have "honeymoon periods" when results improve fairly instantly for a while. sunderland or blackburn for a recent example. even tottenham had one. Honeymoon period? I seem to remember it took a while to turn things round. which is my point. fucks sake. Fact is keegan , got the tean Attacking, this is what he does, he gives his teams freedom to attack, and its far better to watch. when we got 2 very good strikers back, yes. before that, no. its no coincidence that the first game where martins and viduka were fit to start was the game we started attacking teams. That wasn't a coincidence mate, not many managers would have convinced Owen he should play in midfield with two other strikers ahead of him and make it work.

I thought Harper was a big improvement over Shay in his distribution first game back in the side, but he seems to be reverting to the big hoof gradually. Maybe Kinnear doesn't like to see his keepers fannying around throwing the ball and Hughton is following like a sheep. Kinnear done away with the 5-a-side games and admitted he focuses more on defensive work with the team before handing them to the fitness staff. I guarantee they will rarely if at all practice pass and move or touch and control. They will play games but they will be 8-a-side games or 11-a-side games at 10, 15, 20 minutes at most. Stop-gap tactic s from a stop-gap manager which is fair enough I suppose.

At the end of the day these agitation groups don't mean that much in themselves, but falling revenues whether from season ticket sales or lack of sponsors will. Ashley needs to give the fans something to hang their hats on next season,whether it's a quality manager or a a few decent players. Really it should be both and I'm hopeful it will be.

I never thought Spurs would go down so if anyone was going to lose this game I'd rather it was Hull.

I thought Harper was a big improvement over Shay in his distribution first game back in the side, but he seems to be reverting to the big hoof gradually. Maybe Kinnear doesn't like to see his keepers fannying around throwing the ball and Hughton is following like a sheep.

Woodgate is the best defender I've seen play for Newcastle, although he doesn't look as good now for Spurs. Bit daft to start comparing Bassong with him already, he needs that like a hole in the head. It just goes to show what a difference a class player at the back makes though.

Everton were decimated by injuries in midfield that's why they couldn't win yesterday. Saying that so were we, so fair's fair. Started with a 3 and it still seems a good judgement. We won't go down.