Unbelievable

Bassong looks a class above already. Glad he's back..

Worried by this lineup..

What I don't understand is our loyalty to Kinnear. We got him in on a one month basis, which was then extended for another month and ultimately until the end of the season, which was already quite unbelievably stupid.. For some stupendously stupid reason they than proceeded to offer him another multi-year contract, which has not been agreed to yet by Kinnear. It is there to be withdrawn. We owe Kinnear nothing, zilch, not a thing. He already got more out of us than he deserved, and it's not like he has done well enough to deserve the contract extensions he has been getting. On top of that he is a health hazard waiting to happen. Why do we keep being so loyal to him? What has he got over us? Why not withdraw the contract offer, thank him for coming in to help us out when we were in the shit, let Shearer take care of the end of the season and look at the manager situation in the summer, keeping our options open. Personally, I don't want Kinnear anywhere near this club next season; he's done nothing to deserve any such loyalty from the club and it will in all probability cause him further health problems if he does stay on. Just when you think the board are making the right decisions they come out and fuck it up again. Every single time. Kinnear better not be our manager for next season or there will be hell on.

Yay! Now let's get the Smoggies and the Mackems relegated and go into the summer with something to look forward to.

Picked up a nice 1,5 mill salary nevertheless..

I'm thoroughly amazed Ashley seems to have seen the light at last. Didn't think he had it in him. Now let's kick on from here.

Wow

Holland 3-0 up at HT. 5 wins from 5. SA here we come!

Steve Bruce will be crying himself to sleep tonight..

Hope this one works out. Fat Mike certainly knows how to sell them season tickets by building up hope. Hope he doesn´t ruin another club legend´s reputation though, or he will be running out of get out of jail cards..

I concur. If it's true they deserve credit for this move, even if it's a bit late.

IF this is true might as well appoint him for the next 3 seasons..

Wish Shearer would put on his own boots to keep us up. Would offer us more than Ameobi does..

Little pressure on him? People will cling onto the hope of him being our saviour. There will be huge pressure, even if people won't blame him personally should he fail.. Anyway, I find it hard to believe none of his BBC buddies would have heard about this story first.. Edit: BBC now reporting. Maybe there is some legs in this after all..?!

So are any of the other media reporting this yet? If not, that increases the chances of it being some prank where Sky is being set up by a club insider or they are doing the joking themselves..

Cos he knows he could potentially do something about us dropping out of the premiership?? It's a month too late, if it happens. Could be setting himself up for a huge fall if we do go down. Ashley must really be desperate to win the fans back over. If it's true, I hope he can turn it around. I just don't have a good feeling about it at all. The thing is though, if we go down then it's a good time for him to take the reins anyway. Shearer has come out before and said he would never work for Ashley under his system didn't he..? Can't see it happening lads..

Fully looking forward to a press release on .cock in the morning telling us it is a FACT that it is April 1st..

What a cruel joke on Newcastle fans when we're already down and out on the ground..

Yep, and I don't think Owen played in as good a Newcastle side as what Shearer did, so it's a shocking comparison tbh. I'm sure if Owen, even today, had Robert, Bellamy, Solano, Speed & Dyer around him, he'd still easily get 15-20 a season while fit. Stick Shearer in this team, and he'd struggle to 10. The current Owen compared to Shearer at his best for us? No chance.

Don't want to contemplate the prospect yet... Lalalalalalalalala

Well, with Kinnear, Ashley's hands might be tied, as he may not be able to find someone better to manage the team. For all we know, and I sincerely hope, he may already have someone lined up for next season who would come in provided we stay up. Keegan was always going to end in tears. That is some assumption though, and directly contradicts what Llambias has claimed. It is quite clear that Kinnear is their man by choice if you ask me.

I would argue hanging onto Kinnear at all costs is proving to be a much more costly mistake than appointing Keegan ever was.

We didn't qualify for the CL though did we. Arguably in part due to spending the Summer budget early and buying Woodgate we had our highest finish under Robson and finished in a CL qualifying round position, but by no means were we guaranteed the money from getting into the CL proper. We lost out in a 2 legged game, didn't qualify, and didn't get the cash bonus that would have paid for the players you are suggesting we bought. Anyone who goes on about not spending that Summer is advocating being far more reckless with the clubs finances than the old board is ever accused of being. What you are saying is that we should have gambled money that the club couldn't budget for without the CL money in the hope that the player(s) bought with that money would make a significant difference in their first couple of competitive games for us (ie would be the difference between losing the tie with the existing established players and winning it with the new one's involvement). That's a ridiculous risk to take. Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when it's combined with the surety that doing something differently would have had a positive outcome - if only we'd bought unidentified player X he'd have stopped the Partizan goal/scored the home equaliser/scored the pen that Shearer or Dyer or Woodgate or Hughes missed. Bollocks. New players not fully integrated are as likely to cost you a game as win you one. The hilarious irony is that had we spent more money that Summer in the assumption that we were going to qualify, and had we still lost that tie, you and those like you would be slating the old board (not the manager who would have chosen the player btw, but the board) for spending that money before we were guaranteed the income. What was the official line from Shepherd though? "keeping our powder dry" is what I remember. Nowt about waiting to see if we got into the CL proper, and more of an indication that a crocked Woodgate was the final piece of SBR's jigsaw - a complete and competitive squad with enough depth to cover for injuries, loss of form and suspensions, and push on for successive top 4 finishes regardless of the Partizan game. Risky business? damn right it was, as the squad was nowhere near complete to be competitive. Good post though it is, I can also look at things from the above perspective and critique as I wish. Oh, also, was Shepherd thinking that a reactive appointment like Souness was worth "backing" with 50m quid? Did he really think Souness had the credentials and quality to finish in the top 4? IMO he spent the 50m to pacify the criticism he got for the whole Rooney saga, sale of Woodgate and for undermining Sir Bobby. If I were chairman and truly believed that Souness was worth backing with 50m, I wouldn't have sacked him when Shepherd did, and I would have stuck by him. THAT is what backing a manager really means. You do not back a manager with an obscene amount of money, then sack him a year later for anything other than gross misconduct or breach of contract. No, you back a manager by allowing him to build his own team within pre-set financial constraints. Hanging onto an underperforming manager at the expense of the club itself and its followers is an entirely different thing and coincidentally is what we are currently witnessing. Can you build a team in one and a half seasons? Shepherd backed a manager who had a history of heart problems, a reputation for being confrontational, and paid a fee to sign him on from a club that was bottom of the table. He gave Souness the 50m to spend in the hope that we'd win the Carling cup as he'd done with Blackburn. It was Shepherd's last call, hoping he'd go out all guns blazing. Shepherd had no intention of backing Souness to build a team. He wanted to live the pipe dream of being the one to win that elusive trophy for NUFC. Don't get me wrong. I can clearly see Shepherd's mistakes. Just how can you blame him for being ambitious and wanting to win throphies with NUFC is beyond me though. Shepherd bit off more than he could chew in the end, but he got very close to reaching the level we aspire to. Unfortunately, we are now stuck with his predecesor who also bit off much more than he can chew and it looks like he doesn't even have the ambition or nouse to get us where we should be aiming for. You can call a club like us winning something a pipe dream as much as you like, but the harsh fact is that for a club of our size and potential, winning trophies should be part of the game. Right now, it feels like we are much further removed from that aim than we have been for a while.

We didn't qualify for the CL though did we. Arguably in part due to spending the Summer budget early and buying Woodgate we had our highest finish under Robson and finished in a CL qualifying round position, but by no means were we guaranteed the money from getting into the CL proper. We lost out in a 2 legged game, didn't qualify, and didn't get the cash bonus that would have paid for the players you are suggesting we bought. Anyone who goes on about not spending that Summer is advocating being far more reckless with the clubs finances than the old board is ever accused of being. What you are saying is that we should have gambled money that the club couldn't budget for without the CL money in the hope that the player(s) bought with that money would make a significant difference in their first couple of competitive games for us (ie would be the difference between losing the tie with the existing established players and winning it with the new one's involvement). That's a ridiculous risk to take. Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when it's combined with the surety that doing something differently would have had a positive outcome - if only we'd bought unidentified player X he'd have stopped the Partizan goal/scored the home equaliser/scored the pen that Shearer or Dyer or Woodgate or Hughes missed. Bollocks. New players not fully integrated are as likely to cost you a game as win you one. The hilarious irony is that had we spent more money that Summer in the assumption that we were going to qualify, and had we still lost that tie, you and those like you would be slating the old board (not the manager who would have chosen the player btw, but the board) for spending that money before we were guaranteed the income. What was the official line from Shepherd though? "keeping our powder dry" is what I remember. Nowt about waiting to see if we got into the CL proper, and more of an indication that a crocked Woodgate was the final piece of SBR's jigsaw - a complete and competitive squad with enough depth to cover for injuries, loss of form and suspensions, and push on for successive top 4 finishes regardless of the Partizan game. Risky business? damn right it was, as the squad was nowhere near complete to be competitive. Good post though it is, I can also look at things from the above perspective and critique as I wish. Oh, also, was Shepherd thinking that a reactive appointment like Souness was worth "backing" with 50m quid? Did he really think Souness had the credentials and quality to finish in the top 4? IMO he spent the 50m to pacify the criticism he got for the whole Rooney saga, sale of Woodgate and for undermining Sir Bobby. If I were chairman and truly believed that Souness was worth backing with 50m, I wouldn't have sacked him when Shepherd did, and I would have stuck by him. THAT is what backing a manager really means. You do not back a manager with an obscene amount of money, then sack him a year later for anything other than gross misconduct or breach of contract. No, you back a manager by allowing him to build his own team within pre-set financial constraints. Hanging onto an underperforming manager at the expense of the club itself and its followers is an entirely different thing and coincidentally is what we are currently witnessing.

What you are saying is in hindsight we know they did it at the wrong time. Perhaps they had stretched as far as they could financially to get us into the CL qualifying round that year, and only found money available for further investment later, at which time they made it available to the manager, which is all they could do. Of course, in hindsight we now that manager more or less squandered the 50 million, much to our detriment. This also partly explains our current predicament. What you fail to see however is that the old board backed their managers when they could and maybe even a little too much in hindsight. What we are witnessing now is the exact opposite: we are at the brink of relegation due to a lack of backing their choice of manager (and that's not even taking into account that their eye for a good manager seems even worse than Shepherd's..)