TRon

Parker maybe had 2 games he did well in that's it. The rest of the time he was shit, to say one is better than the other is bollocks tbh. At least he passed the ball to his own players and kept the ball well, which is the basic requirement of any midfielder. He scored the odd goal as well. Parker was a bits' n pieces player who could do a job, Barton is a liability. Neither good enough, end of.

0? Roeder may never have been a manager that was going to get us challenging back at the top, but he is nowhere near one of the worst managers the Premiership has ever had. Even Souness isn't tbh. They were both bad appointments showing lack of judgement. In context of what's being discussed that's the important part.

Barton does look for the defence splitting pass which is something we need, but his overall ball retention is so bad he can become a liability. In his role, he needs to keep the ball better, and score some goals as well as making the odd cute pass.

If Torres is rested, Babel will probably have a field day instead.

The significant mistake, amidst all the transfer strategy cautiousness delivered by Mort & Ashley which has already been cited, which may well bring about our relegation. That mistake is the one that counts the most. That one month will go down as a 'not to do' blueprint for other clubs to go by. If we survive the drop, and if Keegan isn't sufficiently backed - surely promises must've have been made when considering the manner in which Keegan originally left - in the Summer as far as i'm concerned Ashley can bring in the scaffolders have them remove his "...... Direct" advertising and sell-up & bugger off, sooner rather than later that is. *Yet some many people still can't see the point. I guess 'not being Freddy Shepherd' is one factor, along with all the other stuff ie. Ashley's "i stand as the leader of Toon Army - i bleed as they do" warcry in the press and by getting down & dirty in the terraces and generally coming across as your everyday grassroots supporter.... and the debt reduction issue is also a relevant point, which weighs in Ashley & Mort's favour at the minute. This idea that because we couldn't buy in the January transfer window, we have endangered the club's Premier future sounds damning, but when you look at the actual circumstances it was perfectly understandable. The money wasn't going to be released to Allardyce because we didn't want to buy any more Smiths, Bartons or Nolans etc. He was sacked for abysmal results during an easy early fixture list (KK's now suffering the consequences). Keegan couldn't get in the players he wanted in a very short space of time, and here we are. What could we have done differently? Kept Allardyce which would have meant starting again in the summer. Is that the argument? not making excuse after excuse for not recognising a serous situation and putting the club in danger of relegation would be a start. Quite amazing the hypocrisy on here. People slating Shepherd for not splashing cash every time we lose, then complaining about debts and saying Ashley did right not to waste money on a team in relegation trouble. Then we have the sacking of a manager at a "bad time", where the last regime was absolutely slaughtered for it. It would really appear that being a fat bastard who eats all the pies is the ultimate crime, and you can get away with anything else. So your objections are 1) That Allardyce was sacked at a bad time, meaning you must believe that appointing Keegan was a mistake, seeing as Allardyce should still be boss in your own words. In which case: 2) Allardyce should have been given serious money to spend in January, regardless of the fact he wasted £18m on Smith, Enrique and Barton? This is where you're reasoning seems to be leading. Fair enough but your hypocrisy is astounding as you were more than happy enough at the time when Keegan was appointed. Once again people making arguments armed with shitloads of hindsight.

Surprising. These quick fix deals are usually binned after the trial deal is over. Hopefully he's getting a contract because we like what we've seen, not because we're desperate.

The significant mistake, amidst all the transfer strategy cautiousness delivered by Mort & Ashley which has already been cited, which may well bring about our relegation. That mistake is the one that counts the most. That one month will go down as a 'not to do' blueprint for other clubs to go by. If we survive the drop, and if Keegan isn't sufficiently backed - surely promises must've have been made when considering the manner in which Keegan originally left - in the Summer as far as i'm concerned Ashley can bring in the scaffolders have them remove his "...... Direct" advertising and sell-up & bugger off, sooner rather than later that is. *Yet some many people still can't see the point. I guess 'not being Freddy Shepherd' is one factor, along with all the other stuff ie. Ashley's "i stand as the leader of Toon Army - i bleed as they do" warcry in the press and by getting down & dirty in the terraces and generally coming across as your everyday grassroots supporter.... and the debt reduction issue is also a relevant point, which weighs in Ashley & Mort's favour at the minute. This idea that because we couldn't buy in the January transfer window, we have endangered the club's Premier future sounds damning, but when you look at the actual circumstances it was perfectly understandable. The money wasn't going to be released to Allardyce because we didn't want to buy any more Smiths, Bartons or Nolans etc. He was sacked for abysmal results during an easy early fixture list (KK's now suffering the consequences). Keegan couldn't get in the players he wanted in a very short space of time, and here we are. What could we have done differently? Kept Allardyce which would have meant starting again in the summer. Is that the argument?

The "frightening" thing is that this same topic has been covered before and the timelines were all posted yet once again it seems to be dragged up to slate the way the club is being run, we complain about the press having a go at the club yet we're as good as them at spinning, if not better at times. For some people it's more important to back Fat Fred than their football club. For some people its more important to slate someone off for eating all the pies than to be able to see that running a club who qualify for europe more than every team bar 4 actually means they are doing a decent job of running the football club. Still dont listen do you, i cant believe someone can use a stat which doesnt hold much water considering it doesnt paint the true situation of the club. You conitue to use the 7 european qualifications out of 10 years as opposed to the 4 top 10 finishes in the same 10 years stat, even thought the top 10 finishes show the truer picture for the club. If we were to look at who had the most top 10 finishes for the club in those 10 years, do you think we'd still be the 5th best? Nope. Show much for your ambitious chairman crap. No wonder your "opinions" hold no water on this board when you talkabout "facts" which have no relevant context to the situation and are contrived to fit a silly agenda. If you want to talk about relevance, what relevance is the arbitrary choice of 10th? Top half. Wow. No footballing significance whatsoever. Mid table is much of a muchness, pretty much a lottery where you end up. Oh noes Spurs were better than us because in the 8 years they finished mid table they came 9th twice and 10th twice, but in the 6 years we came mid table the best we did was 11th! If you want to talk about relevance you have to talk about relevant achievements. Qualifying for Europe is a relevant achievement. It's a hell of a lot harder to get a team into the top 4 (which we did 5 times under the previous board) than it is to win the also-ran pissing contest in the middle. Never mind, we'll be great now we're under new management, and thank god we didn't waste any money on players in January eh? You must be well chuffed about that. Only if they were complete idiots. You didn't did you? The success under the previous boards was never under-appreciated, especially while Freddie Fletcher and John Hall were still on board, but the appointments of Souness and Roeder showed a complete lack of judgement and football knowledge. There were other daft diversions as well, like spending all summer chasing Rooney then failing to sign anyone else when it all fell through. Shepherd vetoed too many good targets then replaced them with inferior playes. Anelka could have come if we'd pushed hard enough while he was in Turkey. Robson was refused Miguel because Shepherd wouldn't back him, and instead we got Carr. For someone who supposedly backed his managers Shepherd interfered quite a lot. oh dear. Coming from someone who is slating the old board for overspending, and defending the new board for underspending, I hope you see the irony in this but I don't expect you to. To be fair, I can think of a few others just like you mackems.gif I assume you can read, but anyway, over-spending or under-spending wasn't the key part of my last post. It was about wise judgements and good decisions as Chairman.

it's funny how NE5 wants to associate Fat Fred with Chairman Hall, during the successful period, but wants to blame Hall for the shite decisions made by Shepherd when he was made Chairman.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/w/west_ham_utd/6706955.stm Parker was sold to West Ham on the 6th of June, we then happen to raise whatever our intial offer was for Barton and it gets accepted in the process - ie. to match West Ham's bid: and West Ham were looking to buy 2 central midfielders at the time - and this took place after Parker's outgoing transfer was finalised. We eventually sign Barton a week later. The timeline backs up this opinion imo, that is from even getting from first to second base - getting to the stage where City let us through the door and allowed us to the talk to the player in question. Mick's point, backed up by his link of course, is still a moot one. It was worrying at the time to see the board waiting on incoming funds, rather than knocking the ambitious Hammers right of the water from the get-go, before getting back in the ball-park. Closely resembles a 'finance through sales/sell to buy' transfer policy to me. Cheers. Just about the only transfer that stands on it's own - ie. one that wasn't financed by one major outgoing transfer, or through the sell-offs of bits & pieces or bit-part players - was the Smith transfer, and even that went on the back of a period of inactivity while the cautious buggers up top scoured over the books - something they should've down prior to buying SJH's shareholding...... all the while Allardyce's alleged targets slipped through the net, and i'm sure this is the transfer which Mick alluded to as being the deal that dependant on the book-end sales of Parker & Dyer at both ends of the transfer window. Despite the shambolic happenings pertaining to January there seems to be quite a bit of resolute defending of Ashley & Mort going on here. I have a sneaking suspicion this might be the case simply because they're not Freddy Shepherd. or it might be they put their money where their mouth is.

It might not be perfect English but it makes perfect sense

The "frightening" thing is that this same topic has been covered before and the timelines were all posted yet once again it seems to be dragged up to slate the way the club is being run, we complain about the press having a go at the club yet we're as good as them at spinning, if not better at times. For some people it's more important to back Fat Fred than their football club. For some people its more important to slate someone off for eating all the pies than to be able to see that running a club who qualify for europe more than every team bar 4 actually means they are doing a decent job of running the football club. Still dont listen do you, i cant believe someone can use a stat which doesnt hold much water considering it doesnt paint the true situation of the club. You conitue to use the 7 european qualifications out of 10 years as opposed to the 4 top 10 finishes in the same 10 years stat, even thought the top 10 finishes show the truer picture for the club. If we were to look at who had the most top 10 finishes for the club in those 10 years, do you think we'd still be the 5th best? Nope. Show much for your ambitious chairman crap. No wonder your "opinions" hold no water on this board when you talkabout "facts" which have no relevant context to the situation and are contrived to fit a silly agenda. If you want to talk about relevance, what relevance is the arbitrary choice of 10th? Top half. Wow. No footballing significance whatsoever. Mid table is much of a muchness, pretty much a lottery where you end up. Oh noes Spurs were better than us because in the 8 years they finished mid table they came 9th twice and 10th twice, but in the 6 years we came mid table the best we did was 11th! If you want to talk about relevance you have to talk about relevant achievements. Qualifying for Europe is a relevant achievement. It's a hell of a lot harder to get a team into the top 4 (which we did 5 times under the previous board) than it is to win the also-ran pissing contest in the middle. Never mind, we'll be great now we're under new management, and thank god we didn't waste any money on players in January eh? You must be well chuffed about that. Only if they were complete idiots. You didn't did you? The success under the previous boards was never under-appreciated, especially while Freddie Fletcher and John Hall were still on board, but the appointments of Souness and Roeder showed a complete lack of judgement and football knowledge. There were other daft diversions as well, like spending all summer chasing Rooney then failing to sign anyone else when it all fell through. Shepherd vetoed too many good targets then replaced them with inferior playes. Anelka could have come if we'd pushed hard enough while he was in Turkey. Robson was refused Miguel because Shepherd wouldn't back him, and instead we got Carr. For someone who supposedly backed his managers Shepherd interfered quite a lot.

It would appear he also took some league points with him too. He should have shared some with his mate Souness. Some league points and some beans and maybe the two of them wouldn't have found it necessary to boot your idol, Bellamy right out of Newcastle. What a can of beans they made out of that one. I see. It escapes your attention that the fat bastard and his mate Bobby also brought my idol, Bellamy, into the club too. Most unlike you to pick out what suits your opinion and discard the rest. You missed out the bit about Fat Bastard sacking Robson and bringing in Souness to specifically instil discipline. Which he did by booting Bellamy up the arse and out of Newcastle with Fat Bastard's absolute and unequivocal backing. http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:B-XTExGbauyugM:http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/bgr/lowres/bgrn550l.jpg

It would appear he also took some league points with him too. He should have shared some with his mate Souness. Some league points and some beans and maybe the two of them wouldn't have found it necessary to boot your idol, Bellamy right out of Newcastle. What a can of beans they made out of that one.

I think Shepherd took most of the beans with him. Maybe hw wanted some to go with the pies

I just love these hindsight merchants. The vast majority of the clubs supporters - and on here - fully supported the sales of all these 4 players. And for what its worth, I agreed with the sale of Jeanarse and the sale of Dyer, being a massively underachieving prick for the club, who had pace but ended up with a terrible attitude whereby he was just no use to us anymore. I would not have sold Robert and Bellamy though, particularly Bellamy, and I had loads of grief for saying so at the time on here too. There is no hindsight here mate. Like SBR, a true football genius, I defended Dyer and Jenas while they were here because I rated their ability and athleticism, while narrow-minded cunts (no one in specific I should add) carried out hate campaigns online and offline which made it inevitable they would leave. I said so at the time, if you like, I can find the posts, assuming they are still searchable. well, as has been said by others, selling Jeanarse was a good deal at the time. He had no future at Newcastle left, and neither did Dyer. Having ability is a totally different thing to performing and showing it. In both of their cases, they were shot, didn't produce anymore and weren't going to. Also, we don't see them every week so they seem better than they are. Witness people bigging-up Titus Bramble this season I don't say either Jenas or Dyer are fantastic players. I like Robson's view of the bigger picture, and he liked players with pace and good engines. I said when we sold Jenas and when we sold Dyer we would lose mobility unless it was replaced. Now we have Barton and Duff in the middle hovering static round the centre circle - are we better off? The league table doesn't show it.

It's obvious to most people, and common sense, but it won't stop two types of critics: the ones with an agenda who just need to throw s*** in the direction of the new board at every opportunity or those who get frustrated easily and want signings...any signings ..now now now! love the liberal use of the word agenda on here; who on this board could possibly have an agenda...having an agenda would imply they hoped to acheive something, right? are you trying to tell me certain people on the board have been sent by powers on high to start undermining the board or some such bollox? as for the now now now pish we're all talking about more than a month ago, the windows shut, who is talking about now? if you can't see we need players on the park maybe you're the one with an agenda...? ooooooooooh I wasn'rt necessarily talking about everyone with this point of view if you scroll down a bit further you'll find Mr Agenda popping up on cue: It's obvious to most people, and common sense, but it won't stop two types of critics: the ones with an agenda who just need to throw shit in the direction of the new board at every opportunity or those who get frustrated easily and want signings...any signings ..now now now! or those who just needed to throw shit in the direction of the old board at every opportunity. And urged them to splash the cash every time we lost a game. Remind us all again. Have the new board got anywhere near looking like matching the old boards Champions League qualifications yet or showed any understanding of how it needs to be done ?

Which is why Ashley is now owner of Newcastle Utd. If Mort the bean counter had counted the beans I don't think we'd have had a new owner.

I don't even want to think about going down.

While that side might look good on paper it's changing the system to something the players weren't familiar with which (arguably) got us in this mess in the first place. 4-4-2 is a must. Stability in all aspects of the first team is a must. No fancy tactics, no chopping and changing, just work on morale and get back to basics. It's not fancy tactics really though, just putting players in positions where they are suited. No left backs playing right back, no forwards playing wide or anything daft like that. Just removing an ineffective forward and putting Zog central with a free reign. It shouldn't be too hard to implement. I thought you said not playing players out of position? What I said was "putting players in positions where they are suited". I happen to think Zog could be pretty dangerous running at Liverpool's defence. With Butt and Geremi as a safety net I think Zog, Duff and Milner could provide decent outlet. Beats having Smith in the line up but that's just my opnion.

While that side might look good on paper it's changing the system to something the players weren't familiar with which (arguably) got us in this mess in the first place. 4-4-2 is a must. Stability in all aspects of the first team is a must. No fancy tactics, no chopping and changing, just work on morale and get back to basics. It's not fancy tactics really though, just putting players in positions where they are suited. No left backs playing right back, no forwards playing wide or anything daft like that. Just removing an ineffective forward and putting Zog central with a free reign. It shouldn't be too hard to implement.

The "frightening" thing is that this same topic has been covered before and the timelines were all posted yet once again it seems to be dragged up to slate the way the club is being run, we complain about the press having a go at the club yet we're as good as them at spinning, if not better at times. For some people it's more important to back Fat Fred than their football club.

When scoring goals is a problem it's best to keep all options available. Viduka's goals saved boro last year iirc, to me it would be sensible to use him now, then get shot in the summer. It could be that he's being a cunt though and declaring himself unfit with this or that niggle.

We need Milner wide right, there's no other decent option. For this one away match I would go with a 4-5-1, the three central midfielders being Butt, Zog and Geremi. Martins up front preferably, but I can't see it. It's a team to stop Liverpool while still offering a threat on the counter with Duff, Milner, Zog and Martins. To go there gung ho will be suicide. Save that for Fulham.

I can understand picking players who have a great attitude - you need everyone giving 100% in a scrap for survival. But euqally it's stupid to cut your nose off to spite your face. If Viduka's fit he should be used. It's Premiership survival for fucks sake.