greydos

What, Mark Hughes who took Blackburn to 6th in the premier league playing attractive football on a budget of f*** all and signing and developing some superb players? And McClaren who's got unfashionable Twente 4 points clear of world renowned Ajax and 5 ahead of PSV in the Dutch league this season? Did Blackburn play attractive football though? Allardyce got Bolton to 5th didn't he? What's your point in that perspective? Either way, both of them managers did well over time at their club. Blackburn did when they came 6th imo, they had Bentley and MGP flying on the wings and Bellamy up top. They played some great stuff at times, I know it's a much derided line on this forum but I lived with a Rovers fan at the time and they played some cracking stuff. Also, I've mentioned it before, but his transfer record was astounding. Warnock, Bentley, Samba, Emerton, Nelson, MGP, McCarthy, Santa Cruz, Dunn all between £300k and £3.5m, mostly at the lower end of the spectrum. Just to be clear, I'm not criticising or even comparing to Hughton here, just pointing out that Phil is talking utter s*** in deriding Hughes like that. It's rather late and my memory's not at it's best but i'm quite sure MGP and Emerton were signed by Graeme Souness not Mark Hughes. According to Alan Oliver we were taking those 2 players for years but then Souness got them at Ewood and then left them to ruin us internally

We've moved on from Keegan before... and never achieved what he did. give him the chance, and some cash. And some talented well-scounted youngsters. He'll give us a team to be proud of. A team that performs for us. A proper, worthy, newcastle united team

Even if the situation, as it appears was/is exactly the same as when/why he left in the first place? Then he thinks more of his ego than he does of the club. Baggio emotions/feelings are things that come naturally and can be very hard to control. If KK was (rightly) p*ssed off about the situation at the club, wouldn't that have affected his relationship with the players and ability to motivate the club? Doubly so if he thought it was a long term problem. Therefore his leaving can be considered in the best interests of the club. It's certainly not the 'my ego' versus 'nufc's good' scenario that you're making out

Ashely needed the balls to back his system to work properly. If he wanted a DOF to scout young players with potential, then that's fine. Give KK the final say on ALL transfers. If the DOF finds young players with GENUINE potential, then obviously KK, or any manager, would say yes to them. However there's a huge difference between that and, letting the DOF pick the players for the manager. (Ashley hints that this was his intention in the statement by talking about the huge loss of money when new managers come in and so players chop and change. The constancy of a DOF means the players don't chop and change if the DOF's brought the players in.) This is wrong. Get the right manager, back him on players. Even if they can only be youngsters. Spend on a new young LB.

Zico sounds worryingly similar to Souness in a "i don't really do tactics i just tell players to play - good players always know what to do" type of way

And you know this how?

Does Chris Hughton staying mean he wasn't ''Keegan's man''?

Can´t really understand your fear of that! I really do admire wenger and what he´s done at arsenal. they play beautiful football have a young squad and dont pay silly wages like us and end up with overpaid useless players like smith. And he still buy "expensive" good attractive players nasri. can´t see there problem......though i know we are at least 5-10 years behind. Only Wenger is able to pull it off so successfully. If we do it, there's more chance we'll turn into.... (shudders)... Middlesboro!

Hiring Deschamps might just be enough to keep the players here. Apart from Shay, Owen and Harps as i think they'll likely leave.

The worrying thing about Ashley for me is how impulsive he seems. He bought the club in 3 days because it came available. He 'heard' KK would return so got it done in a flash. The man's the epitome of carpe diem which worries me because you don't know what he'll decide to do with the club. There are some seriously hard times ahead.

Oh yes it's the best thing in the world that the best goalscorer we've had since shearer will leave. I just hated Owen's goals that kept us up last season. Why didn't he **** off a year earlier, that way we wouldn't have needed to try and sell Sholla in order for him to find his level in the Championship.

I'll have a go.

KK had a 3 year contract. He was charged with the task of finishing off unfinished business by winning us a trophy in that period. A squad of promising players is very unlikely to win you a trophy. Like everything, there needs balance. KK was right to target more established players. The Board were wrong to take control over who came in.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/newcastle/article4678988.ece So, if this is true. What the hell should the owner and board have done then? Everyone has so far assumed that Keegan wasn't making unrealistic demands as far as targets go, well it turns out this might not have been the case, which is what I suspected to be honest. The owner clearly wanted a team of younger emerging players, and said this from the outset. What options did he have if Keegan then came in and started asking for these types? Discuss. This must have been going on for ages it look slike, as we all remember the Henry quotes! I am shocked they didn't part ways much earlier as they clearly should have. It's no wonder we had been linked with Marcelino so far back then, as the club was probably already making contingency plans. Absolute madness from both sides. Why would you believe the Times? KK said he wanted a left back as a priority, which celebrity left back you gonna tell me he wanted? Maldini? Carlos?

I can't imagine any of the better players will stay through this crap! The next manager would have to be of the ilk of Mourinho to make them think we're going places. All teams will be looking at our squad and taking their pick over who they want. Imagine this happened at a club like Everton. We'd be having a field day, bids for their players left right and centre (if we were a stable well run club)

It seems like HTT's pushing the 'it was KK unhappy with sales behind his back' angle because HTT's happy with the players we brought in. We don't know who KK was referring to but it's clearly the fact of a player coming in who he didn't want, and players not coming in who he did want if anything. The problem is Ashley's fault. Simple

Hire KK as DOF, and slowly let him take over first team affairs i say!!

The best players we've got will likely leave. It's all the board's fault. You bring in a manager, let him manage. We've got coaches to do coaching, bring in a manager to manage. This New Board sucks!! And whichever poster claims none of us had a problem with the current system until KK kicked off, that's BO**CKS!!!! I had problems with it all summer. It's just whenever i raised it people said i was a doomonger. Anyone who doesn't see this as being the fault of the board is in denial if you ask me. Even the board's statement tries to blame KK by saying they were willing to listen to further proposals. This board always tries to save face. Is constantly involved in PR. KK isn't, and if i have to choose whose view to believe, it's KK's every time.

Yeah petelockey i can see what you're saying there, Ashley did say that about Wise. But the thing is, if you remember the KK Milner interview before the Arsenal game (it can be found on the BBC website, the 9 minute long one), towards the end of the interview the journalists asked KK about Kamil Zayatte and whether he was training at the club. KK confirmed he had trained with us, and that he liked the look of him because he played more than one position. KK then said something along the lines of: "look i'm not saying anymore because it would be wrong to let Dennis and Jeff know what i think of the player through you lot, without speaking to them myself first" When he spoke the emphasis was on Wise. It seems he does have a big role to play in bringing in players. It was the same with KK's interview about Jonas, which is why everyone gave me so much stick. KK said Dennis called and told him "i got this player called spiderman in, he's great you'll have to check him out" an KK then said he checked him out and he seemed a good prospect. Points to the fact that Keegan has final say though, although that'll be ignored. The Zayatte quote does yeah. The spiderman one doesn't.

Yeah petelockey i can see what you're saying there, Ashley did say that about Wise. But the thing is, if you remember the KK Milner interview before the Arsenal game (it can be found on the BBC website, the 9 minute long one), towards the end of the interview the journalists asked KK about Kamil Zayatte and whether he was training at the club. KK confirmed he had trained with us, and that he liked the look of him because he played more than one position. KK then said something along the lines of: "look i'm not saying anymore because it would be wrong to let Dennis and Jeff know what i think of the player through you lot, without speaking to them myself first" When he spoke the emphasis was on Wise. It seems he does have a big role to play in bringing in players. It was the same with KK's interview about Jonas, which is why everyone gave me so much stick. KK said Dennis called and told him "i got this player called spiderman in, he's great you'll have to check him out" an KK then said he checked him out and he seemed a good prospect.

Good post. Up until a few days ago everyone on here seemed happy with the way it was going, of course we would have preferred to have spent more money and got cover for our fullbacks but one thing that wasn't in doubt was the quality of the players that had come into the club, so much so that people expect Xisco to be class just because of how good the others have been. Without this set up would we have known that Jonas was prepared to buy out his contract? Or would we have managed to not only find a bright young lad like Bassong but manage to get him here on a trial so the manager can get a good look at him? Someone has been on the ball behind the scenes to make these things happen and it would be a shame to lose that. The only good thing about getting rid of Wise would be an end to the constant media circus claiming everyone is stabbing each other in the back. there were plenty of people not happy with the way we were heading. a couple of posters, afar, unbelievable and me got a lot of criticism for highlighting concerns earlier in the window. i don't think Wise has anything to do with getting in Jonas or Bassong, that was probably more to do with the likes of Vetere & Fucillo (scouting) and Jiminez & Llambias (negotiations). There's no reason why the former two can't be retained as scouts as keegan has worked with scouts all his career. I'm not sure Keegan's ire is necessarily directed at the former two, more likely the latter two. while they got in a few players they also missed out on plenty more leaving us with a good number fewer than what we needed. i bet when they missed out on Modric, despite having the owner of his club and his agent in the city, that Keegan was pissed off but was given assurances that things would change. they didn't so Keegan got upset. though there could be more to it than that, or it could be different. The comment about the way it was going was in regards to the recruitment team and the standard of players we've pulled in, although feel free to give yourself another self congratulatory pat on the back for showing concern about not getting enough players in. that's not like you Baggio. disappointing that you resort to crap like this because you can't construct an adequate response. Because you misunderstood the point I was making? As I said, people were disappointed that we didn't strengthen further but nobody had a problem with the set up and the quality of player being brought in, it's only since Keegan threw his toys out of the pram that people seem outraged at the likes of Dennis Wise. i understood the point, it was just wrong. plenty of folks had complaints about the way the club was heading. the mistake you're making is assuming the issue is a matter of the quality of players brought in, i don't think anyone has said that. there were criticisms about keegan not being involved in negotiations, there were criticisms the club wasn't 'pushing the boat out' during negotiations, going that extra mile to secure quality players, there were criticisms over the length of time things were taking, there were criticisms over the amount of money spent and amount of top players brought in ( i think only Jonas and Coloccini are top quality players, Guthrie & Bassong might be in a few years but not now) about communication with the fans, about the kinds of players we'd missed out on and so on. you chose to ignore all that in order to underline a point. it's not self-congratulary to say this, it's stating the facts. JPD you got it absolutely right!! I got slated as a negative nit-picking idiot for merely suggesting it was "curious" that KK said in an interview Wise phoned him and told him he'd got this guy called spiderman IN. KK then said he went and looked him up and he seemed good. The problem i had was not the director of football and Vetere et al scouting players, it was the possibility that the guys were signed before KK okayed them. I think the main problem with NUFC at the moment is that Ashley's bought the club, seen that it was an unsuccesful business and thought, 'i know, i'm a successful businessman, i'll run NUFC like a business'. So he put men in charge of different areas of the company, just like he would any other business. But this is football. Yes it's a business, but one like no others. The characters involved were schooled a certain way. Whether it's sound business princples or not (in terms of pure business, not sports business) in football you HAVE to let one man take care of all the serious football-related matters if his short, 3 year contract, reputation and livelihood depends on it (not saying KK or any other manager's a pauper, merely making the point that you're not guaranteed a managerial job for as long as the company exists and has enough profit to employ you, unlike in a normal business). Please all ignore my post anyway, i'm an insane ranting doomonger

if Ashley tried to get involved in the sale of ANY player he did wrong. This is the manager's choice, and his alone. Ashley won't make the team good on the pitch, Keegan will, with Keegan's chosen tools. Regardless of whether fan X, Y or Z sees a need for a certain player or not. And regardless of whether Ashley agrees with that fan's opinion. Benitez won the champion's league with Djimi Traore and Vladimir Smicer, 2 truly woeful players. But they were useful in the match that got them the champion's league. Crap players do not ALWAYS give crap performances, sometimes they knock out a rare stellar one in a useful situation. I'm not using that as an argument to back keegan on smith, milner and barton. I'm merely saying that the best person, no sorry, the ONLY person who should judge whether a player is worth keeping at a club, especially our club, is KEVIN KEEGAN!! As for Kaka's OP, you prefer to keep Ashley's team because of 4 serious games and 6 pre-season friendlies (and the 4 signings didn't even play in all of these) as opposed to Keegan's 30 year history in football as twice European player of the year and the glorious manager that made us the best football playing club in England?! I always try to respect posters and their views and never try to offend anybody, so i'll merely say: Kaka, i think your view is mistaken.

As one of the vanguard who stuck by Keegan when the s*** was flying last season, nothing depresses me more than the thought he's gone. Unfortunately for all his virtues, KK is a man who wants his own way even when he is wrong sometimes. Wise and Co have done very well in the transfer market and they should be trusted to get on with it, and KK should stick to doing what he does best, coaching, motivating and leading his players. When you start questioning the guy who is bank-rolling the club or demanding certain players are kept you are stepping on serious toes. It would be great if all this could be smoothed over but with it becoming public, I don't think there's any chance. We all know how highly strung he is and how high maintenance he is too. He's stubborn, cantankerous and is emotionally up and down, that's the price you pay with KK though, he's worth the hassle. You do not sell players behind a manager's back though or try to, or make promises and break them, not with KK not with anyone, regardless of the setup. This if anything is the core issue I feel. Yes we had a good transfer window

That's one of the great things about the New Board, they keep our business out of the press

I love the New Board!! The New Board Rule!! I'm so glad Fat Freddy Fletcher and his well-intentioned backing of his managers stuff has gone. That was rubbish. I hated watching my team in the champion's league and uefa cup more seasons than not. I hated aspiration. I loathed having one of the world's most respected managers at the helm. I love mediocrity. I love low spending on transfers. I love screwing over a good manager. I love Mike Ashley!!