TRon

I wonder even more if things turn round by the summer, we spend big and start heading in the right direction next season, whether NE5 will be big enough to say "you lads were right to wait to see how things panned out, rather than dumping a skip-load of turd over the new regime at the first possible opportunity" I won't hold my breath though.

To keep this short, the title of this thread is bang on. As is Chez' last post. I'm not defending anybody, but people talking about "eating pies" instead of the job they do, is pretty idiotic, as is people harping on about "wank material" just for putting across a point of view with facts to back it up. I always said that replacing the last board with better would be difficult, everybody said otherwise, is that not automatically assuming that things would be better ? Such rants that I have referred to would suggest this is indeed the case in some eyes. Why can't you people just admit that so far, the title of this thread is bang on, and doing better - because they did well - WILL be quite difficult. If it isn't obvious by now, it never will be. No offence mate, but are you taking the piss? I have pointed out time and time again that I am not happy with various things the new lot have done so far. Did you get that? Should I repeat it? I am not happy with various things the new lot have done so far. What is there to admit? you are speaking for yourself, and not others then ? I'm obviously speaking for myself, how could I claim to do otherwise? I've seen the likes of Mick say he's unhappy with things too btw, but that seems to pass you by. fine. Thats understood then, nowt to do with Tron and numerous others giving the impression they automatically assume the new board are better, despite having done nothing to prove it yet and not eating any pies as yet. You just know that if we get relegated, and are heading back to where the Halls and Shepherd found us, its going to be everybody's fault but the new board. In a couple of weeks time, we could be right in shit street, I can't believe people seem to think things are better/going well [delete as appropriate] We are just going round in circles as usual. I have already said I am not about to make a snap negative judgement about the new board in such a short space of time because I don't disagree with much of the work done. Let me repeat it in case you missed it: * Fat Sam fired mid-season - no problem with that for reasons already explained. * No January transfer activity - no problem for reasons already explained. * Dennis Wise - no idea yet for reasons already explained. *Fat Fred - history now so irrelevant unless you want to turn every thread into Shepherd debate which you do without fail. Give it a rest for fucks sake.

What's it like in Europe? Europe ? Now there's a memory. It's where that man who called you nasty names ran the club you say you support and played there more than any other chairman in the clubs history Fancy that eh mackems.gif d'you think we'd have got back into europe with a fat fred board ? I'm pretty confident we will get back into europe with a board that backs their managers. I don't see what personalities has to do with it. Unless you are one of those who are massively offended by being called nasty names and for some strange reason conclude that such things mean that it makes them shit chairman who don't back their managers ? As has been said. Haven't things been GREAT since the new board came in who were automatically better on account of not being fat bastards who ate all the pies Well we've got Jeff Vetere on board, who I reckon will find a few decent players, we've got a Chairman who might well spend a boatload in the summer and we've got Keegan back as manager, not to mention a few pies left over so everyone gets a bite to eat these days. I'm looking forward to the summer - maybe you are dreading it but each to his own.

One of Sam's positive steps here was imo the forward thinking approach with fitness and diet. The staff can go but I'd like to think the method and approach is continued.

Keegan is bigging up every player in the squad, it would be a lot more effective to get the right ones on the pitch.

It's not so strange, Shepherd had used up any goodwill a long time ago. If Ashley and Mort make blunder after blunder with their decision-making they'll soon find support dwindling just like the old board. In the meantime you can either buy in and see if they deliver, or you can decide they don't know what they are doing and hark back to the Shepherd glory years. the hilarious thing about this, is you seem to have convinced yourself that the new board have done better already I'm not convinced of anything, but will give the benefit of the doubt until I know better. If you can tell me for definite that we are doomed to failure next season under the new regime and why I'll listen, otherwise your conjecture's no better than mine really. Except, mine isn't "opinion". The highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years is a FACT AND NOT OPINION As is also the FACT that only 4 clubs have qualified for europe more than us in the last decade, and also in the last 15 years. Your "opinion" may tell you different if you like but I prefer to go by facts. Cheers Have we been here before? and your "opinion" is that these facts aren't facts, correct ? mackems.gif "Facts" which dont tell the full story, or are a true reflection of the clubs actual position. What a load of bollocks. You can state stats and "facts" till the moon turns to cheese but if you cant use them with the correct perspective then they are in essence, meaningless, its exactly what you are doing, and its actually laughable that you belittle other peoples opinions when they show the same level of wieght that your crappy facts do. "7 European qualifications in 10 years" holds about as much weight as "we were in decline" It's a fact that Fatso hired Souness who dismantled the least decent team we had under SBR. It's a fact that Shepherd preferred whoring abroad because he didn't think much of the local canines. Facts, facts facts. Why hold opinions when there's so many handy facts flying about? Here's an interesting fact: The new chairman is slimmer than Fat Fred therefore it could be argued that he carries less weight in the boardroom. FACT. A ringing endorsement for the fat bastard if ever there was one.

It's not the real Keegan. The evil Mike Ashley has engineered a clone to fool the Geordie public into getting behind the new board in a dastardly plot. The real Keegan is actually at saintly Fred Shepherd's residence toasting his health with a Newcastle ale and a stottie.

It's not so strange, Shepherd had used up any goodwill a long time ago. If Ashley and Mort make blunder after blunder with their decision-making they'll soon find support dwindling just like the old board. In the meantime you can either buy in and see if they deliver, or you can decide they don't know what they are doing and hark back to the Shepherd glory years. the hilarious thing about this, is you seem to have convinced yourself that the new board have done better already I'm not convinced of anything, but will give the benefit of the doubt until I know better. If you can tell me for definite that we are doomed to failure next season under the new regime and why I'll listen, otherwise your conjecture's no better than mine really. Except, mine isn't "opinion". The highest 3 consecutive league positions in 50 years is a FACT AND NOT OPINION As is also the FACT that only 4 clubs have qualified for europe more than us in the last decade, and also in the last 15 years. Your "opinion" may tell you different if you like but I prefer to go by facts. Cheers Have we been here before?

Sacking Allardyce after half a season, sacking a manager in the middle of a transfer window, not buying any players in January, appointing Dennis Wise as Director of Football, appointing a DoF that wasn't the manager's choice, going for Redknapp. Just off the top of my head. Fairly or unfairly I'm pretty confident Shepherd would have gotten criticism for all that (by that I acknowledge at least one of those wasn't neccessarily the chairman and/or owner's decision). Sacking Allardyce after half a season: what alternative was there in reality? Ashley decided to give him a go as opposed to sacking immediately, but if he wasn't convinced once it became clear it wasn't working, it made sense to get his own man in and make preparations for next season rather thasn hang around January window: not always possible to get the players you want in such a short time. Dennis Wise: criticism or no criticism, no one really knows how this will pan out. It might be a masterstroke or a mistake - only time will tell. Redknapp: yes that was a cock up. Wise - its a fucking joke, and you know it is. Transfer window - toher clubs seem to be able to get players in. And our players are, in many positions, shit, so please don't use the "can we get better in" response. Because yes, we could have, or we are fucked. I don't know anything about Wise joke or not, if you do then please enlighten. I don't think we are fucked either so I don't really want stop gaps if they aren't better than what we've got.

It's not so strange, Shepherd had used up any goodwill a long time ago. If Ashley and Mort make blunder after blunder with their decision-making they'll soon find support dwindling just like the old board. In the meantime you can either buy in and see if they deliver, or you can decide they don't know what they are doing and hark back to the Shepherd glory years. the hilarious thing about this, is you seem to have convinced yourself that the new board have done better already I'm not convinced of anything, but will give the benefit of the doubt until I know better. If you can tell me for definite that we are doomed to failure next season under the new regime and why I'll listen, otherwise your conjecture's no better than mine really.

the word 'agenda' comes to mind there like

Sacking Allardyce after half a season, sacking a manager in the middle of a transfer window, not buying any players in January, appointing Dennis Wise as Director of Football, appointing a DoF that wasn't the manager's choice, going for Redknapp. Just off the top of my head. Fairly or unfairly I'm pretty confident Shepherd would have gotten criticism for all that (by that I acknowledge at least one of those wasn't neccessarily the chairman and/or owner's decision). Sacking Allardyce after half a season: what alternative was there in reality? Ashley decided to give him a go as opposed to sacking immediately, but if he wasn't convinced once it became clear it wasn't working, it made sense to get his own man in and make preparations for next season rather thasn hang around January window: not always possible to get the players you want in such a short time. Dennis Wise: criticism or no criticism, no one really knows how this will pan out. It might be a masterstroke or a mistake - only time will tell. Redknapp: yes that was a cock up.

It's not so strange, Shepherd had used up any goodwill a long time ago. If Ashley and Mort make blunder after blunder with their decision-making they'll soon find support dwindling just like the old board. In the meantime you can either buy in and see if they deliver, or you can decide they don't know what they are doing and hark back to the Shepherd glory years.

meh..

I might have missed this, do you think we should sell? If we sold Zog for £7m, then bought Downing for £10m (figures which are being bandied about) would that be good business? No, because N'Zogbia's better. not based on the past 18months Fair comment but imo he's both a better player on his day and has the potential to be better too. N'Zogbia has his faults but finding a replacement wouldn't be easy IMO. Just look at Duff, supposedly a superior player. I'm not a Duff critic either, but his end product is nowhere near as productive as Zog's. No goals, few assists and lacks the direct threat that N'Zogbia does when running at players. Good left wingers aren't that easy to find as the few around tend to be at big clubs already.

Ditto as far as Roeder is concerned. Roeder is intelligent enough, but he has a total lack of authority and character. I still cringe recalling his awkward tv interviews. I don't think he has bad ideas, but it's clear that players lose respect for him very quickly. His main 'leadership' policy when he was here was to bully the youngsters and kiss arse of senior players.

lets hope we stay up first Maybe Kev just looked at what players we had, and what the teams below us had about them, and decided we had good enough players to stay up quite easily. So he decided to do a clear out in summer, and buy players then when they aren't at an extra premium. Not very exciting, and very frustrating for us as we chug along to 14th or 15th, but sensible. Honestly the relegation hysteria compared to the results we have had is ridiculous. If he had good players available in jan but decided to wait for really good players in summer all power to him. If he had of signed a couple, climbed up to tenth and then stayed tenth next year he'd probably get the sack. If he comes 15th this year and comes 6th or 7th next year it'll be far better for all concerned. Dear God...that's just far too boring and sensible. What the hell are you thinking man? Let's work ourselves into a lather about hypothetical stuff we can't substantiate instead. Like Keegan possibly being denied funds. Or Ashley selling up to Tesco's perhaps. With Wise being appointed surely Keegan's days are numbered!! I hope we don't hear you moaning on about the clubs plight if we lose a few more games and are staring straight at the bottom places in time to come ........ As you are clearly happy with the decision to go with what we have. I am happy to leave these decisions to our Board and Manager yes. It obviously escapes you that we are talking about their judgement here [and maybe lack of football savvy in the case of the owners] As I said, I don't expect to see you complaining if we continue to slide down towards a relegation scrap, as you are happy with the decision. We are already in a relegation scrap of sorts, my only concern is that we get through this season as it was written off long ago. I am happy to back the judgement of Ashley, Mort and Keegan - if it goes tits up I'll hold my hands up and say I was wrong. If we end up spending big next summer and we start heading in the right direction then I hope you'll do the same. I'm backing my gut instinct - what's yours?

lets hope we stay up first Maybe Kev just looked at what players we had, and what the teams below us had about them, and decided we had good enough players to stay up quite easily. So he decided to do a clear out in summer, and buy players then when they aren't at an extra premium. Not very exciting, and very frustrating for us as we chug along to 14th or 15th, but sensible. Honestly the relegation hysteria compared to the results we have had is ridiculous. If he had good players available in jan but decided to wait for really good players in summer all power to him. If he had of signed a couple, climbed up to tenth and then stayed tenth next year he'd probably get the sack. If he comes 15th this year and comes 6th or 7th next year it'll be far better for all concerned. Dear God...that's just far too boring and sensible. What the hell are you thinking man? Let's work ourselves into a lather about hypothetical stuff we can't substantiate instead. Like Keegan possibly being denied funds. Or Ashley selling up to Tesco's perhaps. With Wise being appointed surely Keegan's days are numbered!! I hope we don't hear you moaning on about the clubs plight if we lose a few more games and are staring straight at the bottom places in time to come ........ As you are clearly happy with the decision to go with what we have. I am happy to leave these decisions to our Board and Manager yes.

lets hope we stay up first Maybe Kev just looked at what players we had, and what the teams below us had about them, and decided we had good enough players to stay up quite easily. So he decided to do a clear out in summer, and buy players then when they aren't at an extra premium. Not very exciting, and very frustrating for us as we chug along to 14th or 15th, but sensible. Honestly the relegation hysteria compared to the results we have had is ridiculous. If he had good players available in jan but decided to wait for really good players in summer all power to him. If he had of signed a couple, climbed up to tenth and then stayed tenth next year he'd probably get the sack. If he comes 15th this year and comes 6th or 7th next year it'll be far better for all concerned. Dear God...that's just far too boring and sensible. What the hell are you thinking man? Let's work ourselves into a lather about hypothetical stuff we can't substantiate instead. Like Keegan possibly being denied funds. Or Ashley selling up to Tesco's perhaps. With Wise being appointed surely Keegan's days are numbered!!

Perhaps he would have bought MF targets in the Jan window...No one can really know. What became pretty obvious was that Allardyce simply did not have the confidence of Ashley/Mort. For a man who built his career on results football, the results started indifferently and were headed south at an alarming rate. He may have had targets but he didn't have the backing to buy them, and he can only blame himself for that. He tried to impose a tactical system with players it clearly didn't work with. Unless he was going to buy 11 new players it was irrelevant. A couple of midfielders would not have changed the fact our entire strikeforce was utterly unsuited to Allardyce's tactics. It would not have changed the fact that our midfielders were by ability, fitness and temperament all unsuitable to his defensive flooding tactics. All we can know is that Allardyce simply failed to come to grips with the players he had to use. So all we were left with was Bolton. The prospect, that given time, and money, he may well turn us into another Bolton, with perhaps slightly better results. No-one here wants to become Bolton. We certainely don't want to risk being relegated trying. So he got booted, and rightly so. At the time I thought 'may as well give him til summer' but in retrospect it was the right thing to do. Allardyce never showed he could adapt tactics, or change in any way to suit far higher expectations and far different playing staff. In short, we do know. We know he wasn't good enough. How would they know shit from shat? in fairness, they got that one right - Allardyce was crap. I'm only really arguing the timing anyway. What were the alternatives? When do you think was the best time to get rid? Summer or straight away as I've said earlier. But in all honesty these things are always problematic and hard to judge. Sacking Sam straight away would have been political dynamite and just the sort of rash decision you are now accusing the board of. In the summer would have meant another season wasted which Mort has already said, hence my remark that the timing was 'perfect' which you ridiculed at the time but when you think about it wasn't as stupid as you made out.

as good a reason as any to leave him out the starting line up

I think the fact he's taking the Ireland job tells it's own story - obviously not in demand at club level any more, at least not for the big jobs.

It's not his reputation, it's the fact he's a stupid cunt with no self control.

Exactly. I'm just glad Ashley timed the sacking of Big Sam so perfectly. Now Keegan will know exactly which players need replacing by the summer instead of finding out next season. Great work by our board. That's got to be the dumbest statement in this thread. No I think he got it just right for the reasons mentioned. You could always put an alternative view to enlighten me though. Try reading the thread. It was in light of the thread I put the view it was perfect timing.

Can de Oirish?