Mick

Dalglish had a good CV but he left Liverpool because the pressure of Heysel had got to him, I don't blame him for that, he left Blackburn because he didn't want to be involved in the day to day running of the club. Newcastle isn't the best place for anybody who can't take pressure, he seemed to openly cope with the pressure but didn't do a very good job. I personally didn't want him because of the style of play he seemed to favour, Dalglish the manager seemed to want football played differently to Dalglish the player. I also felt that Dalglish had been partly to blame for the situation Liverpool found themselves in later with Souness, Dalglish left a team that was past it's sell by date, Souness replaced them with rubbish. Liverpool had been fairly well known for selling players just before they started going down hill, Dalglish didn’t do that. Gullit was sacked at Chelsea, he won the Cup while manager but that was basically his CV. He was sacked and left with a reputation as somebody who had a massive ego, somebody who couldn't work with so called star players, he came here and did the same. I don't think many people were surprised when he left Newcastle, the only surprise was that he jumped before he was pushed. Strangely, I was reasonably happy when Gullit was appointed because I was sick of the crap football played under Dalglish, I suppose I fell for the idea of sexy football.

up until appointing Souness they were doing OK ? Correct mate ? Which is what seems to be is what is being said. Nobody defends the appointment of Souness, but like all bad appointments you can't put them right quickly, especially in football if you consider anything other than winning one of the 2 major trophies to be failure. If they have taken the club as far as they can, then they will go. But replacing them with better could prove pretty difficult and if they are replaced with worse, then that would be disastrous. It could easily happen. I realise some are prepared to take the chance on that, but there are lots of people who think such a thing is impossible, but it isn't. There are loads of clubs who have replaced directors and ended up with worse. Do you want a board of directors who don't back their managers or take risks on the clubs potential support again ? You said: "up until appointing Souness they were doing OK ? Here's the figures, what do you think? 1996-1997 2nd(Sir John & Shepherd). 1997-1998 13th. 1998-1999 13th. 1999-2000 11th. 2000-2001 11th. 2001-2002 4th. 2002-2003 3rd. 2003-2004 5th. 2004-2005 14th(Souness).

It doesn't matter what you think of who is to blame for our current situation, if you could go back in time to make sure we didn't end up where we are now, when would you go back to and what would you do? I'd go back the the time Keegan left the club, I'd contact Bobby Robson and ask him to come to Newcastle when his contract with Barcelona expired, I'd ask Keegan to stay on until that time, if he said no I'd appoint a caretaker, problem solved.

Ok, Shearer really is Mary Poppins, we're mugs for buying the clubs shirts and your lass is a dog. Once again, why not reply to the whole post in context. What do you think of buying those players, or is it unambitious Quite simply, if the board say they are ambitious then that will be fact.

Talk about clutching at straws. You're now defending the appointment of Souness, another sign of desperation from the Shepherd apologist. The record of Souness has been done a million times, you've done it yourself so I'll not spend any more time on that one. In fact everything you've mentioned has been done a million times. I'm not defending anything. Least of all the appointment of Souness. The one thing you have got right is when you agreed with me that he should never have got the time and money he did. I just think that you are a whinger who will moan at whatever they do when it doesn't suit you, with the same unrealistic outlook that all bandwagon jumpers have. What is your opinions on all the managers I mentioned, that you conveniently forget to mention ? You cannot say that I am an apologist for / and defending anyone when you continue to fail to respond to posts in full. See the bit in bold where you didn't defend the appointment of Souness. I've responded to every point you make, ask your brother to find the posts where he mentioned Liverpool and Arsenal failing when they appointed the managers you've mentioned although he didn't mention Joe Fagan or question George Graham, at least I don't remember that happening. I'm not wasting my time looking for the posts just so that I can prove I've actually covered what you demand. I've posted my thoughts on Dalglish and Gullit, go and find them if you're interested.

Ok, Shearer really is Mary Poppins, we're mugs for buying the clubs shirts and your lass is a dog.

Talk about clutching at straws. You're now defending the appointment of Souness, another sign of desperation from the Shepherd apologist. The record of Souness has been done a million times, you've done it yourself so I'll not spend any more time on that one. In fact everything you've mentioned has been done a million times.

Dyer, Milner and Nobby have all played left wing, even when just switching position during games. I'm sure Milner played as many games for Leeds on the left as he did on the right, we even signed him because of his form for Leeds. I would think Milner has played more on the left wing than Duff has at the back.

Any self-respecting person wouldn't have been sacked, they would have resigned. I've got a three hour drive tonight, if I knock somebody down and kill then and it's my fault I'll rightly do time for it, I would expect nothing else. Even if I didn't go out of my way to do it, I'd still be held responsible for my actions. I do a job which is very important to the company who employs me, if I screw up the way our Chairman did when appointing Souness, I'd resign before I was sacked, I would expect the sack, again quite rightly. We are all responsible for our actions, no matter if things happen that weren't intended. My employer is in the top 3 in the world at what we do, if my actions took us to 14th I'd be sacked without a single complaint from me.

I agree with most of that.

In an ideal world neither would I, if the circumstances were right to spend such vast sums on one player but you have to admit they were not right, the circumstances. I liken Owen's signing exactly to that of Boumsong - a panic signing. I see no difference between signing Boumsong at an inflated price to replace one player than doing the exact same with Owen to replace Shearer. At least we had the money to spend on Boumsong because of the money we got for Woodgate, and he wanted to join us and never had an injury record. Owen, we didn't have the money, he didn't want to join us and he is injury prone. If you were Chairman and you didn't have the money, the player didn't want to join, the player had a dodgy record of injuries, and there were other areas to strengthen first and foremost, would you sign him? Honestly? I can't think of one Chairman other than our own who would, Liverpool pulled out at 8m. Even the way we went about it was madness, they offer 8m, the player says he would only join us on loan and doesn't want to join us full-time, so what do we do? We offer 17m. Madness and it is that wrecklessness that is costing us big time and why so many have zero faith in the board. Agreed, Shepherd giving Souness the money to spend on those players was almost as crazy as the decision to appoint him.

I shouldn't have to tell a £multi-million business how to vet a players injury record, it wouldn't say he would be out for a year but it would have told them that he would miss a lot of games, obviously they didn't do that.

of course, getting another board who lack ambition like the old one, is impossible and simply will not happen to us No board with ambition would employ Souness and Roeder. You'll now come out with Liverpool employing Souness so I'll just remind you that Liverpool employed Souness after he'd been a success at Rangers, we employed him after he'd been a failure at Liverpool and beyond.

This isn't an easy one to answer, if shelling £15 million for Shearer was the reason for splitting up the team that Keegan built then yes it was a mistake. However, the reason for splitting up the team might have had more to do with floating the club, we'll never know.

a long term replacement for Alan Shearer is ill judged ? Who else would you say was capable of filling his boots ? Owen has spent more time in the treatment room since he's been here than Dyer - FACT.

The club was roughly £3 million is debt when Sir John took over, we were close to going out of business. Sir John was on holiday and Douglas rang him to get him to stump up some cash, which he eventually did. We are not as close to going out of business now but we are going in the right direction for that to happen.

I didn't say that I knew he would be injured at the World Cup, I said he had a history of hamstring problems, did you miss what I said or do you disagree that he's had hamstring problems since early in his career?

You are missing the point, we signed a player for £17 million and he's hardly played for us, it doesn't matter how good he is when fit, if he's not playing then he's a waste of resources. Owen has a history of injuries, the fact that it wasn't a repeat of his usual dodgy hamstrings makes no difference, dodgy hamstring or knee injury results in the same outcome. Woodgate was the best defender I've ever seen play for us, we did well to sell him as he hardly played, the same goes for Owen.

You're asking that question to the wrong person, he didn't appoint him or give him around £50 million to spend.

I wouldn't go as far as that although it did make our chances a lot slimmer, no wonder Roeder is struggling.

It was two years earlier that the coaches windows were put out, we hardly had any supporters at the games, less that 500 I would guess, that's when they bricked us all game. We also beat them that day, Varadi scored three which pissed them off.

Was it the supporters coaches opposite the main stand that had the windows put out?

Beardsley scored when I went, we won 2-0 with Keegan getting the other, it was probably the same game. How did you get down?

I've been, I spent the full game with my back against the wall at the back of our end while Welsh tossers spent 90 minutes throwing rocks off peoples heads from a bastard tree camp. When an old bloke complained to the police he was told to stand at the back to avoid them. We came out of the ground to find the buses had windows put out and they were parked in a field opposite the main entrance, we were bricked as we walked to the train station. We were ambushed half way to the station, we stood our ground and the cowards ran away and started throwing bricks again from a distance. Yellow bastards.

You could never claim Shepherd was stupid, he could see right through it.