tmonkey

Catermole has been awful.

Souness' appointment made us a national laughing stock. I remember this forum being sick to the hilt, phone ins with suicidal fans, other fans both IRL and online ROFLing their heads off, etc etc. EVERYONE who followed the game knew he was one big clown of a manager, a complete moron living off the reputation of being a great player. It was just another stunning example of how out of touch with the real footballing world Shepherd was. Only a complete moron or someone utterly ignorant of the current game would look at Souness' CV and say "hmmm, he's a pretty decent manager you know". s*** teams, s*** football, clueless manager, sacked a few times, lots of high profile/embarassing fallouts with talented players, so on and so forth, everyone knew what this guy was about - his Blackburn team were even two places below us at the time of Sir Bobby's dismissal, with the man himself being on the verge of the sack. What Shepherd was thinking, only he knows.

IMO Shepherd therefore needs to learn the following lessons from his mistakes as chairman last time round: 1) Appoint competent/professional board memebers who will be able to split the load of running a Premiership club between themselves. So much needs to be done to keep abreast with world football, there's no way Shepherd will be able to do everything. If we need a new manager, will Shepherd have a good working knowledge of the European game so as to be able to approach various managers both within England and foreign countries like Spain, Portugal, France, etc? And at the same time, if he's out looking for a manager, who deals with player transfers? Or with any other form of recruitment, coaching, technology, so on and so forth? All of the big clubs have decent sized boards and a structured management system that splits the numerous tasks up accordingly. We on the other hand had Shepherd, Douglas Hall who wasn't in the country most of the time, and a couple of siblings. And we wondered why everything was so slow under Shepherd? 2) Back the manager's judgement of the valuation of players the manager wants. Michael Carrick as an example would have been here the entire time had he done this. If Shepherd doesn't think a player is worth several million more, then he should bite his tongue and let the manager live and die by his signings. 3) Implement a professional world-wide scouting network and use that to sign players instead of using a few agents who offer us shit players (Shepherd and/or his son benefitted from these deals financially no doubt, this needs to stop as it's not in the interest of the club). 4) Recognise the need for a Premiership team to have a squad with good depth in order for it to compete. How many seasons did big weaknesses just continue to get ignored under Shepherd? He can blame the manager if he wants to, but I doubt that was the case with us, because it ties in with the next point.. 5) He needs to stop purchasing big-name has-beens to try to cover his own back. If fans were unhappy because the squad had gaping holes and nothing was being done about it, Shepherd's solution was to try to cover his back by doing something at the last minute that only made the situation worse, i.e go for a big name player past his best who's only reason for joining us is big wages. Maybe these trophy signings were down to point 1, in that Shepherd was often so slow to sign players that by the time the transfer deadline would come along he had little option/time but to do this? 6) Widen the manager recruitment criteria to include managers from foreign countries, at the very least Europe. If Shepherd doesn't do this, then if Shearer fails, most likely we'll be back to looking at appointing shit like Roeder, Allardyce and Souness again. There's no easy-option of a world class Geordie manager at the end of his career out there for Shepherd to appoint anymore. We need him to research managers in all the main European leagues, see who's capable of building a good squad, blooding youth, etc etc. When Arsenal went to Japan to approach Wenger, we went to the midlands to approach Dalglish, and shortly after London to approach Gullitt. When Liverpool went to Spain to approach Rafa, we went to Blackburn to speak to Souness. Shepherd needs to stop being so isolationist with respect to managers. 7) Show proper planning in replacing managers who have failed to deliver. We all know Shepherd showed bad timing on numerous occasions when getting rid of managers, with no planning involved (e.g. sack a manager on a Friday, then start the search for a new one on Monday and read through any applications that are submitted). Whenever a manager was sacked, we seemed to be the slowest club in the land to find a replacement. 8) Keep the debt within manageable levels and stop gambling the club's future by putting all our eggs in one basket. There's a fine line between ambition and stupidity, the big clubs can be ambitious because they can afford a £30m flop or two, we on the other hand never could and therefore were being stupid when we spent beyond our means on one player - which is partly why we've not won a trophy since 1995/96 when clubs that were below/around us at the time have won many. 9) Keep away from the media and only make sensible comments about the club, a match, the manager, etc etc. He needs to learn to keep his opinions to himself. Most other Premiership clubs over the past 15 years have not had a chairman like Shepherd who would put his foot in his mouth so regularly and so needlessly.

What is it he has to learn, Dave? That's a serious question and don't forget nobody can predict the future. What would you prefer? A Board that backs the manager or one that doesn't? Well I'm not going to list out all the things I think were mistakes, but generally I mean finding a more reasonable balance regarding the finances and the way he dealt with managerial appointments. I believe your question regarding backing a manager is far too simplistic - even if Ashley had spent more money his 'system' and the way he dealt with Keegan/Kinnear/Hughton etc was catastrophic. It's not just about money spent. Do you believe Shepherd made any mistakes? I remember you saying if Roeder was a failure then it was someone else's turn. I think his major mistake was not being prepared to change manager after we finished 3rd. I don't consider it a mistake to appoint a previously successful manager who is backed to the hilt but doesn't do the business at Newcastle. That's down to the manager. Souness wanted Anelka and Boa Morte, Shepherd bidded low for them, then bidded double on the players he wanted, Owen and Luque. Shepherd since Sir Bobby's latter years effectively turned into a s*** version of Real Madrid's President Fiorentino Perez, who buys and sells players based on his wants and not those of his managers. Except instead of the Zidane's, Figo's and Kaka's, we had the Owen's, Duff's and Luque's coming in. I think in a way Shepherd losing faith in Sir Bobby's judgement (iirc there were stories of Shepherd being unhappy with signings like Viana for £9m) was the turning point for Shepherd himself. Ever since that point he clearly didn't have much faith in the guys he appointed, and so trusted his judgement before theirs.

what's funny about that? The car crash bit? Even funnier is the £4m price. More like £10m, which breaks down as £4m for Taylor the defender (which is what he's worth) and £6m for him being an "England international centreback of the future".

Completely wrong we MA was offered 200m for the club last summer and turned it down. Nowt to do with FS. Who offered 200m? Even so, although that does weaken my case admittedly, I'm still referring to the specific time that Shepherd/Halls sold their shares. Whilst the likes of Villa, City, West Ham and Pompey were viewed as good investments and were acknolwedged as such in the media, we only had the likes of Belgravia and Ashley interested in us, even though we were a "bigger" (or more successful) club than that lot during the Premiership era (fanbase, stadium, recent success, revenues, general pulling power). Why? Because we'd probably have been viewed as too debt laden, too overpriced, and too difficult a job to manage for what we were. The amount of money it would have taken just to get rid of some of the dross would probably have bought these investors another Premiership football club, and the same applies for the debt that we had stocked up (as well as the interest rates payable) - and to top this of, like it or not, we had amassed a reputation as a horrible, joke of a club with fans that would give noone but their Messiah's a chance at managing the club effectively (because Shepherd kept appointing s*** managers then sacking them a few months after their first full summer transfer window). I'm sure investors will have taken this into account when overlooking us for the likes of Pompey.

The man is a thief. How much did he pocket from this club, from dividends declared during times of no transfer funds to all those dodgey deals involving purchasing players from agencies who he/his son held shares in? How much did his family make from transactions like the warehouse scam where the club was paying his brother millions over the years? If he's back, we'll see a return of this pilfering of the club. On top of the shit running of the club that saw the Halls being desperate to get out and whoring their shares to anyone who'd take them and no manager worth his salt wanting to take a job here. He ran the club into the ground both financially and amassed a shit squad full of big-name has beens on mammoth long term contracts, and got out before the shit truly hit the fan. Ashley has shown us that there can be worse than Shepherd, but given that the majority of other Premiership clubs have been run far better than us with far less embarassing press coverage, there's miles better than Shepherd out there. The fact that no decent buyer is remotely interested in us, despite our facilities, revenues and fanbase, is a legacy of Shepherd's mismanagement of this club. I hope he never returns.

Upson. Lescott is the better defender in the Premiership, but only in the Premiership imo. More of a bruiser/bully type who'll get caught out when ball watching by quick/intelligent movement. I reckon he's out of his depth at international level, which is what he's looked like in the few games hes played.

Jesus christ, those were all a f***ing disgrace......urgh, seriously, so badly and cheaply made....hopefully these mongs are ignored That third video reminded me of this scene from Step Brothers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPJG7r_hCKM

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us. I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC. oh thats how it works. all these billionaires etc have never made losses or stepped outside their speciality and f***ed up. Never said they haven't, nor have I implied anywhere that billionaires can't be good businessmen whilst still making susbstantial losses in alternative ventures. The point here is that it's quite possible that Ashley isn't good at business in general, but that he may be where he is because he stumbled upon something that noone else was doing within the sports retail market. It's also possible that Ashley is indeed a smart businessman and made his billion by being sharp/shrewd. I'm not saying he's either, just that I can see why some people might consider him to be "lucky". my own personal thoughts are that he is a clever businessman (not just a retailer) and he came into this (NUFC) not as a business venture 1100% but for the fun. didn't do his homework and found out it would cost him a lot more than he thought. That's fair enough, and it's a view I'd sometime agree with depending on what mood I was in. After all none of us know him or what he's like as an entrepreneur. Right now though, I can't look beyond Ashley buying this club without actually looking at the books to see what he was getting himself into. It's difficult to see how a competent businessman would do that. Why would anyone spend £130m buying a business without actually studying the accounts in depth? And if he was told by Hall, as per the rumours, that he had to buy the club within such a deadline that he could not perform due diligence, his business sense should have told him to drop it and look elsewhere straight away. As soon as someone imposed that sort of deadline on him, suspicions should have been raised to flashing red, wailing siren levels. Maybe it could be argued that he was passionate about buying the club and was prepared to accept the risk of a moderate adjustment on the fair values of assets/liabilities and amounts payable on demand, but even then it's still not all that impressive on his part, because the man had a limited budget that he was perpared to work with, and in light of this he should have checked to make sure that that budget and the corresponding plan wasn't going to be blown out of the window immediately after buying the club. Is this how he makes all of his business decisions? Using his "gut instinct"? Doesn't bode well for him in future ventures imo. Again though, it's quite possible that he was just unlucky with this one purchase, or that he's simply not suited to being involved with owning/running a football club.

Bit lame, but my favourite moment was at St James' when Andy O'Brien came storming in on the end of a cross beating several players to the ball, and headed it smack onto the crossbar like it had been volleyed at 60mph. Found it amusing purely because it was his own goal that O'Brien had headed the ball towards, with Shay Given rooted to the spot. Would have been a class own goal.

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us. I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC. oh thats how it works. all these billionaires etc have never made losses or stepped outside their speciality and f***ed up. Never said they haven't, nor have I implied anywhere that billionaires can't be good businessmen whilst still making susbstantial losses in alternative ventures. The point here is that it's quite possible that Ashley isn't good at business in general, but that he may be where he is because he stumbled upon something that noone else was doing within the sports retail market. It's also possible that Ashley is indeed a smart businessman and made his billion by being sharp/shrewd. I'm not saying he's either, just that I can see why some people might consider him to be "lucky".

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us. I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC.

£10m or a one-year loan...hmmm, difficult choice.

He melted like a chocolate c*** on the moon in the run in, was shocking the last few games. He was dropped by Shearer because apparently he has no end product whilst the alternatives were bursting with it, as evinced by the glut of goals we saw from the replacement in his wide berth. I don't blame him for being pissed off and looking disinterested.

We should ask for £10m as a minimum. He's a first team Argentinian international, a midfielder no less, so he should not be available for cheap.

Wales vs Ajerbaijan - Gunter has looked a pretty decent player so far, playing at left back.

One of the related videos: Description reads: " You couldn't make it up...Newcastle relegated on the final day of the season with a comical own goal. How the world laughs at the Geordie 'Nation', their deluded fans, their lazy overpaid players, their 'messiahs', etc etc etc ".

Dunno if we were watching the same game, I'd say it was the complete opposite. Ibrahimovic absolutely dominated the ManU defenders, sublime touch and linkup play which they couldn't prevent, with the downside being that he failed to convert the few chances he did manage to get on the end of. Eto'o on the other hand scored a relatively decent goal (Vidic sold himself cheaply imo) then did nothing for the rest of the game. To be fair to Eto'o, the tactics Guardiola employed had him effectively playing as a right winger for most of the match, and that would have caused his performance levels to drop, but even then I think Eto'o isn't the same player he was a few years ago, which is understandable given the several lengthy injuries he's had. Although his stats are still impressive and he's still a good forward, for me there's this nagging suspicion that Barca could, and should, be doing better. I think it's time to move him on, especially with the likes of Villa and (if true) Ibrahimovic available, good goalscorers who have considerably better all round play than Eto'o. In fact, the tactic used by Barca in the CL final points to why Barca really could do with signing Ibrahimovic to replace Eto'o. Et'o was played out wide because Guardiola wanted someone central who could get the ball to stick to him, which is something Messi is good at. I'd say that Ibrahimovic is better than Messi at that aspect of the game given that it's tied in to his natural position, so Barca having him up front and Messi out wide would probably increase their dominance of possession even more.

"Holy shit" if that actually happens. Noone will be able to get the ball off them with him up front.

LOL at Arteta to Spurs. Out of interest, and with all due respect, has there been a serious bid for Arteta from a bigger club yet, i.e. a top end CL one? Or is he a highlights player or something, i.e. blows hot and cold and looks good only when you see him having a good game? Has there been any real interest in him from the elites? Always thought he was underrated and should be playing for someone like Real Madrid. Maybe not world class or a true international calibre player, but at club level he has that mix of technical ability and workrate (from what I've seen, and compared to the likes of Deco anyway) that would make him a good squad midfielder to have for a CL club.

Although it's extremely unlikely, I'd honestly like ManU to come in for Owen, and for Owen to regain some form for both club and country in time for the 2010 World Cup. With all due respect, it'd be a shame if England went to the 2010 World Cup with Bent, Defoe, Crouch, Ashton, etc, as the only options to call upon when a goal is desperately needed. Owen could still have something to offer as a sub in those situations. Hence, ManU are the only sort of team I can see him having any kind of success for now. He's too slow to make use of sporadic service from a team like Everton or Villa, he needs to be playing for a team that can essentially carry him for 90 minutes (i.e. be able to play effectively with 10 men) whilst at the same time being able to carve the opposition open at will so that he'll get a few chances in the box. And he needs to be at a club that will bench him more often than not so that he minimises the risk of injury - much like his time at Madrid. He won't fit into Liverpool or Chelsea's systems (or even Man City's for that matter assuming they switch to a 4-3-3), he's wont fit into Arsenal's pass-and-move playing style, he's too much of a luxury for anyone below the top four, and so that leaves only one club that could realistically get the best out of what he is now. Given ManU and Ferguson's successful use of Solskjaer, it's possible that Owen could see a rejuvination of some sorts in that super-sub role. Looking back at his time here, he's been a waste of space bar the few months in midfield, an awful signing in terms of the money spent and the sacrifices made, and a dishonourable, sneaky toerag because of the episode where he and his agents, after 1.5 years of being injured and 15 games during the 2 years since his £17m transfer, decided to thank us for our money and support by whoring him out in order to activate his £9m release clause (how unfortunate for us that everyone stayed well clear). But he's still a former world class striker, and imo it's always a shame for the game itself to see players of that ilk looking finished and dejected long before their time is up. So when he leaves, I'll consider him a bit of a c*** based on his tenure here and the general arrogance he consistently seemed to display in thinking he was too good/big for us, but will wish him well for the future and hope that he regains some form/fitness with whoever lands him. As for us, I hope we learn our lesson from this. Never sign someone like Owen at such high stakes when they not only have a history of injuries and are clearly past their best due to a change in athleticism, but the player himself thinks he's bigger than the club - which he never was. Even when Owen was at his very best, a 17/18 year old speed demon tearing old, slow centrebacks apart, he wasn't better than Andy Cole, Sir Les, or Shearer in his first season here were - their form for us was better than what he showed for Liverpool. So for him to think he was too good for us by the time he had become a shadow of his former self and had just spent the year on Madrid's bench was an insult that should have seen us lose interest immediately. We're a bigger club than he gave us credit for, we've had better strikers in the past, and as soon as he said he was only interested in the top four, we should have called him up privately and told him to go f*** himself because he's not that great. We sold ourselves short by acting like small-fry, like a desperate ex who can't for the life of them see all the fish in the sea, hooked on this one person who doesn't want us, tipping over ourselves and our balance sheet in order to land this "dream signing", when we should have said "meh, we've had better", and moved on to talent that actually wanted to play for us.

Bassong/Taylor/Beye in defence, Gibson/Guthrie in midfield, leaving just a mobile striker up front (Beckford?). That would be an extremely strong spine for the Championship if we could somehow make these signings/keep these players. And it's been proven time and time again how a strong spine is the key to success - would actually start to believe that we really could bounce straight back up with that core. Here's hoping, although right now I would be amazed if Ashley/Llambias & Co were actually doing anything other than continuing to be right incompetent prats.

That was the main reason for him not doing it often enough imo. We've had a donkey of a midfield for the past few years, who too often have been hoofing it to Martins thinking that because he has pace in his locker he'll use it as effectively as Usain Bolt. We've all seen how rarely he'll use his pace well, so why haven't his teammates been adjusting their passing range to adapt to this flaw? Because they're shit, no-talent cloggers who only know how to launch the ball with no accuracy when under the slightest bit of pressure. Looking back at Martins' tenure here, his best form for us came when he had Dyer just behind him. I quite clearly remember the affect Dyer's role change had both on the team and on Martins' performance levels - Dyer sort of forced the team to play through him, on the deck, and as a result Martins saw the ball being played into his feet more regularly in more advanced positions. And although his flaws were still present, in this system he was starting to look pretty dangerous/lethal. If a Premiership team can play him in a similar role, I think they'll be pretty pleased with the £8-10m they'll have spent on him. I say Fulham would be a good club for him because they play on the deck to a degree, and with Murphy pulling the strings just behind the striker in the same way Dyer was for us, he'd see alot more of the ball at his feet in those advanced positions. The other reason why he's not been as effective as he could have been is Viduka or Owen's presence in attack. When either of them have started up front, Martins has felt the need to either drop slightly deeper, or go wider, than normal, as both Owen and Viduka when playing up front have tended to prefer that central role. This effectively takes Martins away from being found in that situation where he's right up against the centreback with the ball at his feet, and were he'll cause problems because of the aforementioned ability. On top of this, I think there's a mental/confidence issue with Martins (slightly similar to what Heskey had at Leicester/Liverpool). If he's not the main striker in the team, the main "man", his performances seem to suffer - maybe this was part of the reason why he performed better with Sibierski/Dyer? All in all, he's clearly a flawed player, no denying that, but he's a useful one for certain mid table sides.