Colos Short and Curlies

Sticking at 1. Blind faith is all I have left

No, he'll probably be paid off because he took them to court and they want the episode behind them. If they reach a settlement it wouldn't be pretty callous of Keegan to then start attacking them. And it's not like we're not already pretty aware of what went on as it is. It'd just be one man's voice and we couldn't completely verify whether he was being totally honest or not (as if he wouldn't spin the information a little), which could then of course lead to further legal battles as Keegan would be seen as defaming them. But we're not aware at all. All we know is that KK felt that he couldn't work under the structure in the club and walked out. What we don't know is whether he knew about the structure all along and threw his toys out of the plan, the structure changed over his head and he had no input in the comings and goings of the club, or (most likely) something in the middle where circumstances changed to a degree whcih is anyones guess, an argument happened and KK quit under principle/spotting an opportunity to get out without penalty

Due to Keegan and the club being in 'talks' centering around exactly this, then yes for once I think you can take Llambias with a smaller dose of salt when he claims that Xisco was a KK buy (along with Xisco's quotes when he signed...)

One big difference between Arsenal and Villa. You are forced to enter the Carling/FA Cup. You strive all season to qualify for Europe, then do your best to get knocked out?!? I'm sure all Villa fans will be pleased with the team selection tonight when they finish fifth and get to watch the Waffa final from the comfort of their living rooms.

Steve Harper

Protesting without any idea of what might constitute a favourable outcome, in a situation where the owner has already tried to sell and found it impossible .... Moronic. We are responsible for the effort, not the outcome Please tell me that quote is not meant to make NUSC look good ? Makes them a total joke. It's nowt to do with NUSC. They kept reiterating it wasn't a protest. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck. It doesn't matter what it is quacking

Started at 1, staying at one. In we trust (to paraphrase the scousers)

Bassong should be left centre back. And Butt should be shot.

Mirror suggesting today that we will settle on around £4m for his signing

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... Even a "good manager" isn't necessarily the "right manager", which I suppose adds credence to NE5's "lottery" theory. Bit simplistic on the whole though, as usual. you mean "realistic", as usual. Which also, as usual, too many people fail to grasp. were you happy with the kinnear appointment ? hey getting a good manager is a lottery right,surely theres as much chance getting a s*** one to turn out good results as there is a good one turning out bad to your thinking or maybe you are piffling again in anattempt to detect any criticism from the your beloved fred ? (conversly it must work with players aswell...shevchenko,veron,woodgate at real,keane at liverpool......good players who didn't do it so surely it means it's pointless spending big as these players prove it works) i'll stop you in your tracks........."back your manager"............what with ? where was the money going to come from......at this point you mention the debt of others and as always i mention the debt of the top 4 is different to ours as they are making money aside from those with sugar daddies where as we have consistently made losses (not a good scenario when begging to the banks with few assets left to hock). look at the other clubs who,like us have lived beyond their means,they are all cutting right back and ask yourself what liverpools or arsenals spending would be like if they missed out on the champs league for 3 or 4 years ? often on here you have alluded to others having thir heads in the sand but it is clear the one one doing an ostrich is yourself in relation to the position fred left us in. silly. Especially when there are still people hell bent on defending Ashley to the bitter end, and I mean bitter end = relegation and with little chance of coming back. Pleased for you that you still appear to write off all those european qualifications and champions league appearances and the manner in which they were achieved. Still, nobody is "embarrassing us" any more, right ? BORING ! we've covered the euro qualifications to death as that has little to do with the position we were in spring 2007. defending ashley to the bitter end......like you defending fred ? i never mentioned being embarassed by fred's utterences. nice to see you keep your head in the sand re our position when fred left. you mentioned Shepherd, not me, with a silly childish comment. Yep, I will "defend" anybody who gave me the only 15 years out of 45 that tried to compete at the levels this club should always compete at, and thus gave me the best most consistent and highest league positions as a result. As I've said before. Then you should be happy that your season ticket money is going towards paying the bills he racked up in the process. The alternative is of course, only supporting the club when they are winning, as you did when the Halls and Shepherd took over [if you even did that] Was that the Hall/Shepherd era where we were nearly relegated from the 1st division? Or the Hall/Shepherd era where we were finishing 13th in the league despite the big spending? nah, the Hall/Shepherd who took over a club days from bankruptcy, getting 15000 gates and couldn't be sold for 1.25m quid, that became a club filling a 52000 all seater stadium, playing in the champions league, qualifying for europe more than anybody but 4 clubs, and was valued at anything between 100m and 200m quid. I am sorry you feel the need to scorn the big spending that did all of that, what a shame you would have preferred solvency and 2nd division obscurity instead of beating Barcelona and playing in the San Siro. You really are one blinkered old man aren't you. Who said I didn't appreciate the wonderful football we have experienced, but you paint the Hall/Shepherd days with such rose-tinted spectacles. You fail to see what it has cost this club to get these things. You know I wouldn't prefer to be in the 2nd division, but a happy medium of the club not being whored out to pay for the fabulous football we saw would have been nice, do you not think? As for the £100-£200 million quid. Are you happy that Sir John Hall and Fred Shepherd pocketed over £180 million between them when this club was sold, especially since Sir John Hall stood on the steps of St James when he first bought the club and stated he wasn't in it for the money! YEAH RIGHT! oh dear. Resorting to insults. How old are you ? I'm not old you daft bugger, and I'm in good health too. If you don't want to listen to others who have seen things [without meaning to sound patronising] then you really do have a serious problem, and are talking like a naive teenager. I don't believe you saw the mediocrity of the 1970's and 1980's if you think the souness, Roeder and Allardyce league positions were mediocre league positions. Sorry like, but I don't. I believed you at first but your own comments have gave me the impression I now have. I have no idea what makes you think I am happy with money going out of the club. All I have said is that the Halls and Shepherd are by far the best owners we have had in 50 years, in fact, the ONLY good owners in that time. To that extent, they deserved something, for the job they did and the initial risks they took, taking over the club in the state it was in. And don't compare the state of the club in 1991 to now, because believe me, it was miles apart. but we're in the same league position now as we were when shepherd left, so its not the league positions you care about? but how much money we spend? seems weird. I don't ever remember us being in such a relegation scrap under Shepherd's tenure though. point taken, but remember we're always only one or two results away from being out of it (just as much as the opposite is true i understand). but to criticise ashley on current league position while stating that the souness roeder allardyce finishes were not mediocre is hypocritical, whereas to criticise ashley on financial grounds is at best naive and at worst a blatant agenda. I really don't know how many times this has to be said. A board that backs their manager and shows ambition will always be better than one who choose not to. i agree, however i feel thats over simplifying the issue somewhat, dont you? in light of the clubs current financial status? You mean seeing 2 of our best players, one of whom has been a fabric of the club and couldn't wait to get away, and our captain to follow soon, is over-simplifying ? I don't think so. In fact, its frightening. no thats not what i mean because thats not what i said. i dont really think thats relevant to backing the manager? as it opens a whole load of other issues regarding whether jfk wanted given and n'zogbia to stay, what the club did to keep them etc, so lets not side track. i agree with you that boards should back their managers financially, but given the clubs finances at present, how should the board be providing more than they currently are? I'm not sure either, but maybe Shay Given could shed some light on it ? As well as Keegan and Owen ? Don't you find their actions tell you something ? i reckon they'd tell you they left cos the club aint going to be challenging anytime soon (and i would say it it was down to the financial mess we are in) you would say we should have kept on borrowing to keep these players ,cross your fingers and hope we find success before the banks say "no" or "err can we have our money back please" I understand what you and the others are saying. You wish we hadnt' played in the Champions League rather than aim for a relegation and solvency, and you think every club except us is successful, always appoint the right man, and make profits at the same time oh we know that trick,the one where you try to make out someone said something they didn't. what i am saying (and you well know it) is that after dropping out the champs league you can gamble a bit to get back in,but if you fail and you keep on gambling and failing.....you end up like all other gamblers who fail. still awaiting your answer by the way of where the money would come from year on year when making losses year on year and do you understand that you can't keep borrowing for ever. Simple difference is, I don't believe Ashley has a clue about football, or how to succeed, nor the desire to do what it takes even if this belief is incorrect. Whereas I have no doubt whatsoever that the Halls and Shepherd would have re-grouped and had another go, and probably had some success too. do you feel you can draw a fair comparison at this point? given that ashley has only had the club for a small fraction of time compared to the last lot? the challenges he faces are different to the ones they faced when taking over, wouldnt you say? Aye, Ashley is in a far better position. In some ways and in other ways not. The club is in far superior position now than it was in the early 90's. It's true that there are loads of things that are better about the club and the situation it finds itself in now than in the early 90s: Bigger, better SJP; better league position; better squad; higher profile; larger crowds; more TV money; more revenue full-stop; improved training facilities; and so-on. However there are a number of things about the club and the current situation that are worse: Bigger debt; higher supporter expectations (therefore increased demand for success, less patience, etc); huge wage bill; players are much more powerful when it comes to contracts, etc meaning it is harder to get rid of players you don't want and bring in players you do; hugely inflated transfer fees and player wages; bigger, stronger opposition, some with money's-no-object budgets; much less room for improvement, especially relative improvement compared to other Premiership clubs; the global "Credit Crunch"; a somewhat tarnished reputation; less obvious ways of improving things, and so-on. So, I don't think it's true that Ashley's in a far better position, some things are better, others are worse, which is easier or more difficult is hard to judge, the problems are different, but there are still problems. not a single thing is worse than in 1991. Nothing. Would you like offer some evidence or arguments to refute the points I made then? Because without that your statement has no validity. you've listed all the improvements yourself ! What else is there ? You can't call expectations and the other things you have listed as "worse" when they are all by-products of the huge improvements and comparative success ? The only thing I would pick out is "tarnished repuation", but to be honest, even that is nowhere near the appalling standing the club had in 1991. I asked you about the problems not the improvements, so will you address the ones I've highlighted below, please: I don't get you, as I said, most of them are by products of being more successul. Players being more powerful is a football problem, including transfer fees and wages. Do you think differently ? But as a football club, football's problems are our problems, are they not? When the Halls and Shepherd took over they had to deal with the external conditions also. Ashley did not take over a perfect club in a perfect market, did he. Therefore there were problems and issues that needed (and still need) to be dealt with, something you seem to be denying. As I said, the problems may not be the same, but there are still problems. To deny that is to deny the obvious and it only takes away from the valid points of your argument. I'm not denying anything. I can't see how you think we or anybody can address bigger issue football wide problems, unless you are advocating a maverick approach, and who is going to do that and run the risk of abject failure, because you must realise that if the big clubs adopt a hard line approach to wages, contracts, etc, the player will just go somewhere else. To slightly move this debate further, I don't know if it is possible to do anything about this, but in the UK at least, nothing would happen without the PFA urging its big hitters to exercise restraint - what I have in mind here is a wage cap of sorts where they would agree to donate money into a pool to look after football[ers] and therefore clubs further down the ladders ? Can't see it happening personally though. BUMP I answered him. Again Does he agree or not, and why You're right that we as an individual club cannot change the market conditions, but we do need to come up with a strategy to survive, if not thrive, within them, we cannot ignore them as we have tried to in the past, it won't work and we'll end up in serious financial trouble, we are pretty close to that at the moment in my view. I think that given where we find ourselves at present, both financially and in terms of the squad of players we have at the club, we need to have realistic expectations of where we go from here and how long that's going to take. I don't know if you agree, but I do not think that it is possible for us to make the jump from here to be challenging for honours, in one go, instead it will take a number of steps. You're right that the previous board were ambitious and they did manage to take us to the verge of being a successful club on a couple of occasions. However, a number of mistakes were made and a number of misfortunes befell the club and the combination of those set us back. Attempts were made to address this, but for various reasons those attempts failed to have a lasting effect and therefore we suffered the costs - particularly financially, but also in other ways - of those attempts, but did not reap the benefits. This went on for a number of years and sometimes we made a little progress and sometimes we didn't, but the net result was that we fell behind the group of clubs that are regularly challenging for honours. At some point between the present day and Robson's time the distance between us and the "big four" (for want of a better expression) became too large for us to address in one go. However our approach to trying to solve this did not change and we continued trying to do it by buying a couple of very expensive big-name players every once in a while, whilst neglecting a number of less glamorous areas that needed addressing. You can't win things and be consistently successful by adding one or two "mega-stars" to a dog-shit squad and each time you neglect improving the overall squad to finance the purchase of these players it becomes weaker and weaker, thereby making the likelihood of the tactic actually paying off, less and less. At the same time, our desperation to make that leap lead to the proportion of our transfer expenditure that we allocated to individual signings increasing dramatically, to the extent that we spend a club record fee on Michael Owen, when the money would have been much better spent on a number of "lesser" players filling the gaps in our squad that we so desperately needed to address. Also, if you add someone who's on huge wages to a squad then you end up paying everyone else more money too, as they see what the star is on and expect some of that too. In the end, you're paying extortionate money to shite players you can't get rid of because no-one else is stupid enough to offer them the same. Year after year, we have been paying out Champions' League transfer-fees and wages and have had a mid-table team on the pitch and the results, and therefore the income, to go with it. This is a situation that cannot go on indefinitely, as in a similar way to what I have said above regarding the squad, every year we reach financially for the Champions' League and fail to get there the gap between where we are and where we're trying to get to widens. I think Shepherd recognised this himself at various points. When under Robson we made the qualifying stages of the Champions' League, he made the - not unreasonable - assumption that we had a squad good enough to qualify and chose not to spend any money to improve it, only bringing in Bowyer on a free. I think he knew that sometimes when you achieve a higher level you need to take a bit of a breather, replenish your reserves and pay back some of what it cost you to get there. Unfortunately for him - and us - that turned out to be a mistake, a costly mistake from which we've never truly recovered. Ever since that, the general trend for NUFC has been downward and the financial state of the club has suffered accordingly, subsequently the challenge of bridging the gap has become harder and harder. This problem was exacerbated because, either through his own limited ability to come up with alternative approaches or a fear of fans' reaction should he fail to deliver a glamour signing, Fred's preferred tactic remained largely unchanged. His weakness for a big-name signing meant that, that was his favoured option, both in good times or bad, whether it was the right thing for the club or not and regardless of whether we could really afford it. He threw good money after bad and we ended up in the dire financial situation we find ourselves now. There comes a point both financially and in terms of the playing squad, when we have to realise that the gap is just too wide to jump and instead we need to aim to go part of the way, establish ourselves there and then attempt to bridge the remaining distance. We need to be aiming to build a squad capable of consistently finishing in the top half of the Premiership and challenging for a UEFA Cup place, then once we've done that we can start thinking about the Champions' League and perhaps winning things. Oh, and we need to make sure that we don't screw ourselves financially doing so. If we go out and buy a couple of Champions' League players to play with the rest of our bottom-half of the league squad then it's not going to work and we'll have wasted the Champions' League transfer fees and wages we'd have paid-out for the honour and all. We're not ready for Champions' League players yet, we need UEFA cup players and top-half of the Premiership players at the moment. As much as people will hate to admit it and undoubtedly I'll get shit for saying this, but it's the truth and although sometimes the truth hurts; it's still the truth. Far too many people seem to want us to go straight from where we are to the Champions' League in one fell swoop, well it ain't going to happen like that and if we keep kidding ourselves it is, then it'll never happen. When Ashley talks about the direction he wants to take the club, he seems to understand this, at least that's what I understand by the comparison to Villa, etc. Whether he's capable of pulling it off is another matter, but I'm willing to give him a while longer to find out. I never expected that there wouldn't be complications or teething troubles to start off with. I didn't expect them to be as big as they've turned out to be, but I don't think anyone really knew just how much of a financial mess the previous board had left behind and the credit crunch doesn't help matters either. I hope that Ashley hasn't made a Shepherd-esque error by assuming that we won't go down this season, in the same way that Fred assumed we'd reach the Champions' League. I honestly don't think we will, but I'm pretty sure I thought we'd beat Partizan at the time, too. Basically, we need to establish ourselves nearer to the top of the Premiership, walk before we can run, or whatever. If we continue to aim too high, we'll end up falling on our arse... ...again! I was scrolling up from the bottom of the page and could have sweared that was an HTT post!

No, I don't think Brown did a good job. I don't think Shepherd did either. Nor do I think frugality is the way to save the economy. We need to spend our way out of it. Now you see fundamnetally I agree that in both the economy and for the Toon that spending is needed for the long term good of both. However my view (again on both points) is that money should be directed at rebuilding infrastructure, be that roads, schools, hospitals, communications or the academy, buying younger players with room to develop and training facilities. Of course some money needs to be spent on the here and now, money in the pocket of the man on the street (interest rate cuts, VAT cuts (wrong move but its happened so I can include it..), or investment in the first team. If you can balance out the cost of improving the here and now with proceeds from clearing out the dross then its all good. I've said it before, but with the exception of Given we've replaced every player who has left the club with one of better quality or of a similar standard but at lower cost. That. Is. Good. Business. It could even be argued that we didn't need to replace Given directly anyway. The summer is pivotal, we're running out of dross with any sort of resale value and desperately need to improve the centre of midfield and in all likelyhood replace Owen. A Left Back would be nice to push Enrique on, unless one of the reserve players is ready to step up to provide this. That's because Keegan bought the good players even though he wasn't allowed to buy players so he was forced to leave because Dennis Wise wouldn't let him buy them...or something. My head starts spinning trying to work that one through!

Its hard to argue that NE5 is an intelligent bloke who wasn't sucked into the initial Ashley can do no wrong idea. However he (imo deliberately) has a one track argument which he knows a lot of people will bite to and is quite willing to throw the bait in there. Get him in the pub over a pint with a reasoned group of people and I'd stake a bit of cash on him being much more measured in his approach, whilst of course staying firmly in the Fred was overall a better chairman than Ashley has been so far camp. a fair assessment, as one or two people who DO post on here now and again would agree. I can only go off what I have read of what he has posted, and I think if NE5 would stop having a go at anyone who thinks that the old board wasn't fabulous and thinking that they must be Ashley sympathisers then I might be able to take his point of view more seriously. As with yourself I can only go on my experience with posting with NE5, I certainly don't agree that everything Fred did was wonderful, I also essentially endorse the idea of Ashley building the club from youth. I have always had decent postings with him, no low-blows, no mud slinging and plenty of differing views. If people didn't bite then they might find a better argument (not suggesting you bite btw, just a general observation of the board in general)

Because its pretty much impossible to do. To get people interested you need to have an angle, such as 'Ashley is the Devil and must be removed'. If you have an angle strong enough to get sufficient numbers involved this angle would typically have to be negative against the status quo, which then buts you a long way off being a supporters club and more a club championing change - big difference. The only way a supporters club could be stablished would for it to come from the club itself but encouraged to be independent of the management of the club and with a link to discussions with someone close to decision making. Its simple to build a small group, (well as simple as building a forum - of which I wouldn't know where to start!), there's plenty of small NUFC fan groups around. The fact that none have grown to a size where they could have influence supports my view

Its hard to argue that NE5 is an intelligent bloke who wasn't sucked into the initial Ashley can do no wrong idea. However he (imo deliberately) has a one track argument which he knows a lot of people will bite to and is quite willing to throw the bait in there. Get him in the pub over a pint with a reasoned group of people and I'd stake a bit of cash on him being much more measured in his approach, whilst of course staying firmly in the Fred was overall a better chairman than Ashley has been so far camp.

No, I don't think Brown did a good job. I don't think Shepherd did either. Nor do I think frugality is the way to save the economy. We need to spend our way out of it. Now you see fundamnetally I agree that in both the economy and for the Toon that spending is needed for the long term good of both. However my view (again on both points) is that money should be directed at rebuilding infrastructure, be that roads, schools, hospitals, communications or the academy, buying younger players with room to develop and training facilities. Of course some money needs to be spent on the here and now, money in the pocket of the man on the street (interest rate cuts, VAT cuts (wrong move but its happened so I can include it..), or investment in the first team. If you can balance out the cost of improving the here and now with proceeds from clearing out the dross then its all good. I've said it before, but with the exception of Given we've replaced every player who has left the club with one of better quality or of a similar standard but at lower cost. That. Is. Good. Business. It could even be argued that we didn't need to replace Given directly anyway. The summer is pivotal, we're running out of dross with any sort of resale value and desperately need to improve the centre of midfield and in all likelyhood replace Owen. A Left Back would be nice to push Enrique on, unless one of the reserve players is ready to step up to provide this.

Seeing how Ashley has legally signed a confirmation that he won't call in the loan within a 12 month period this won't happen in the short term

Question for Happy Face. Do you think Gordon Brown did a good job when he was in charge of the economy? Spend, Spend, Spend, Borrow, Spend, Borrow, Spend, Borrow, Spend (etc etc). Now the shit has hit the fan due a lack of foundation to the spending and we have to take a hit in terms of spending for a while. Its not pretty but we will come out of the other end in a better long term position than we went into it. Ring any bells closer to St James Park?

Yes, but what Happy Face has chosen not to relay is that they were not profits that stayed in the club as that graph doesn't take into account dividends paid out. "In the 9 years the club has been a PLC, a profit after dividends has been made only twice. In those two years the profit was £200,000, in the 7 other years the losses have totalled £62m." It wasn't intended as an approval of the previous owners who I gave plenty of shit for the money they took out of the club. So you were just throwing in a 'half truth' then?

And there is a world of difference between spending fuck all and spending £10m on a first choice centre back but recouping that money through selling players who don't want to play for the club. If we hadn't sold Milner, hadn't got £6m for Dyer, £7m for Parker, £4m (ish) for Emre, £6m for Zoggy etc etc, instead lets say like under the old board we got a couple of million each for them would you be more satisfied with the outgoings? We've essentially broken even in transfer windows pre January due to good negotiating in the sales of players - the vast majority of who most people were happy to see leave and even more happy with the fees we brought in. Is Colo better than Bramble? Bassong better than Rozenthal? Is Beye better than Carr? Jonas better than Milner? Of course I'd loved to see us bring in a pair of dynamic centre midfielders, you would have to be stupid not to. But in general our lack of spending has improved on what was there before

Could of got him in September had the protests not gone so well

nowt to say then ? Just joking man, I'm pretty bored, we all know spending money improves your chances of doing well, but it's not a given, you need the right manager, the right scouts and the right amount of money but you can do well without spending massive amount if you have the right manager e.g. Moyes and Everton. on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to get a decent manager, and it IS a lottery, and don't back him, he'll be off. Like Moyes, unless Everton are taken over or it all suddenly goes tits up for him. When you say "do well", how well do YOU want to do ? It's a lottery getting a good manager? No it's a skill, not an easy one but it is definately a skill. is it now ? We'll see how easily Arsenal replace Wenger and ManU replace Ferguson. Or Everton replace Moyes .......... Even a "good manager" isn't necessarily the "right manager", which I suppose adds credence to NE5's "lottery" theory. Bit simplistic on the whole though, as usual. you mean "realistic", as usual. Which also, as usual, too many people fail to grasp. were you happy with the kinnear appointment ? hey getting a good manager is a lottery right,surely theres as much chance getting a s*** one to turn out good results as there is a good one turning out bad to your thinking or maybe you are piffling again in anattempt to detect any criticism from the your beloved fred ? (conversly it must work with players aswell...shevchenko,veron,woodgate at real,keane at liverpool......good players who didn't do it so surely it means it's pointless spending big as these players prove it works) i'll stop you in your tracks........."back your manager"............what with ? where was the money going to come from......at this point you mention the debt of others and as always i mention the debt of the top 4 is different to ours as they are making money aside from those with sugar daddies where as we have consistently made losses (not a good scenario when begging to the banks with few assets left to hock). look at the other clubs who,like us have lived beyond their means,they are all cutting right back and ask yourself what liverpools or arsenals spending would be like if they missed out on the champs league for 3 or 4 years ? often on here you have alluded to others having thir heads in the sand but it is clear the one one doing an ostrich is yourself in relation to the position fred left us in. silly. Especially when there are still people hell bent on defending Ashley to the bitter end, and I mean bitter end = relegation and with little chance of coming back. Pleased for you that you still appear to write off all those european qualifications and champions league appearances and the manner in which they were achieved. Still, nobody is "embarrassing us" any more, right ? BORING ! we've covered the euro qualifications to death as that has little to do with the position we were in spring 2007. defending ashley to the bitter end......like you defending fred ? i never mentioned being embarassed by fred's utterences. nice to see you keep your head in the sand re our position when fred left. you mentioned Shepherd, not me, with a silly childish comment. Yep, I will "defend" anybody who gave me the only 15 years out of 45 that tried to compete at the levels this club should always compete at, and thus gave me the best most consistent and highest league positions as a result. As I've said before. Then you should be happy that your season ticket money is going towards paying the bills he racked up in the process. The alternative is of course, only supporting the club when they are winning, as you did when the Halls and Shepherd took over [if you even did that] Was that the Hall/Shepherd era where we were nearly relegated from the 1st division? Or the Hall/Shepherd era where we were finishing 13th in the league despite the big spending? nah, the Hall/Shepherd who took over a club days from bankruptcy, getting 15000 gates and couldn't be sold for 1.25m quid, that became a club filling a 52000 all seater stadium, playing in the champions league, qualifying for europe more than anybody but 4 clubs, and was valued at anything between 100m and 200m quid. I am sorry you feel the need to scorn the big spending that did all of that, what a shame you would have preferred solvency and 2nd division obscurity instead of beating Barcelona and playing in the San Siro. You really are one blinkered old man aren't you. Who said I didn't appreciate the wonderful football we have experienced, but you paint the Hall/Shepherd days with such rose-tinted spectacles. You fail to see what it has cost this club to get these things. You know I wouldn't prefer to be in the 2nd division, but a happy medium of the club not being whored out to pay for the fabulous football we saw would have been nice, do you not think? As for the £100-£200 million quid. Are you happy that Sir John Hall and Fred Shepherd pocketed over £180 million between them when this club was sold, especially since Sir John Hall stood on the steps of St James when he first bought the club and stated he wasn't in it for the money! YEAH RIGHT! oh dear. Resorting to insults. How old are you ? I'm not old you daft bugger, and I'm in good health too. If you don't want to listen to others who have seen things [without meaning to sound patronising] then you really do have a serious problem, and are talking like a naive teenager. I don't believe you saw the mediocrity of the 1970's and 1980's if you think the souness, Roeder and Allardyce league positions were mediocre league positions. Sorry like, but I don't. I believed you at first but your own comments have gave me the impression I now have. I have no idea what makes you think I am happy with money going out of the club. All I have said is that the Halls and Shepherd are by far the best owners we have had in 50 years, in fact, the ONLY good owners in that time. To that extent, they deserved something, for the job they did and the initial risks they took, taking over the club in the state it was in. And don't compare the state of the club in 1991 to now, because believe me, it was miles apart. but we're in the same league position now as we were when shepherd left, so its not the league positions you care about? but how much money we spend? seems weird. I don't ever remember us being in such a relegation scrap under Shepherd's tenure though. point taken, but remember we're always only one or two results away from being out of it (just as much as the opposite is true i understand). but to criticise ashley on current league position while stating that the souness roeder allardyce finishes were not mediocre is hypocritical, whereas to criticise ashley on financial grounds is at best naive and at worst a blatant agenda. I really don't know how many times this has to be said. A board that backs their manager and shows ambition will always be better than one who choose not to. Its nowt to do with any personal agenda, which is the problem most people have, not me. Interesting also, is that a lot of people were always harping on about the club not having a "plan", [other than the idea to bring good players to the club and keep the good players we already have] and are now moaning like nobodies business that they don't like the "plan". So if JFK asked for Lovenkrnads, Raylor, Nolan, Richardson and Johnson for whom bids were placed, did the board back their manager?

Watching the Spaniards knocking the ball around in the final third, can anyone have any real complaints if we concentrate our recruitment in Spain?

I know I have been championing him since the day KK walked/was sacked. Don't think there are any rumours, just a lot of people saying they would like him. Expect the press to pick up on this and start the rumours on Sunday

cont from above. You can do similar with all of those quotes. There is considerable time between most of the quotes and situations changed drastically in that time.

I'm just going to answer the first 'lie/half truth (again). Look at the dates. Quote 1 - summer 2007. Players bought: Beye, Smith, Cacapa, Geremi, Rozenthal, Viduka. All had vast experience in the Premier League/European competition therefore fit the clubs stance. At the time the club was crying out for a bit of experience. I'll grant you that Enrique was a curve ball. Fast forward one season (full of underachievement from Smith, Duff, Cacapa, Rozenthal, Emre, Viduka, Owen etc etc), bring in Wise et al. Fingers burnt, decide to go for young players who are hungry to develop. Signings last summer: Guthrie, Bassong, Xisco. Add to that supposed bids for Turan, Modric, That Swiss striker, Schweinsteiger. Players that fit the last quote perfectly. Colo brought experience, and was this summers Enrique esq curve ball, he's hardly geriatric though was he. Where's the contradiction? If anythign it shows qucik learning on the top brass's part that the old signings dd not represent value for money and di not improve the team as much as their fees/wages should ensure.