Unbelievable

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..)

Another great post UV. Seems some want to have their cake and eat it too with regards to the finances from the previous regime.

This f***ing attitude pisses me off tbh, appeasors and appologists like you, people who try to talk as if they are the voice of reason, but really have no f***ing clue. Some of the crap you post, is mind boggingly niave. It's not too late to take a chance, there's 8 games left, bring a new guy in, get a honeymoon period of 2 or 3 wins, ala BSA at blackburn, Sbriga at the dirty mackems and many, many more examples, even Souness here !! And you're well on your way to getting out of this mess. The crime here is not to act and to sleepwalk into relegation, we are going down without a bloody fight atm. What the f*** are you talking about. If I remember rightly, Ian W was one of the few posters to keep his head and post some sense during the Keegan leaving debacle. He's right, it IS too late to appoint someone now, purely because no-one else would take the job just for 8 games, especially as they can't "win" a contract by keeping us up - because we've offered one to Kinnear already. You do know that a contract offered can be withdrawn at any time until it is agreed to (and signed by both parties), don't you?

Superb post UV. In general I don't have much of a problem with some financial prudence at a time like this and I accept some form of financial contraining was probably needed, but most importantly for me the little money available is not being spent will if it means us attracting lower echelon players and having them managed by the most mediocre stand in manager you could find if you tried. Whatever money we are saving by being prudent we are losing (and more!) by the God awful decision making on the footballing side of the business.

Some more reasonably realistic options: Adriaanse (will leave Salzburg sooner rather than later and will not be there next season anyway), Ketsbaia (has pratcically begged for the job), Ronald Koeman and Huub Stevens (both unemployed). There must be loads more for people who know other competitions and unemployed managers. Offer them a bonus to keep us up and the prospect of a contract extension in case they do and I'm sure we can find better than Hughton and Kinnear and the dooming prospect of relegation, if not this year then next...

At the end of the day Kinnear is our manager, Hughton is the man we are relying on to keep us up, Smith and Butt are mainstays in our team and we are not giving young players a fair chance.. That doesn't make any of this mess acceptable though, which is exactly what some of you are doing: accepting that this is the best we can hope for because in your minds none of this is going to change no matter how much we as fans complain about it. I think you are wrong: us fans are the 'customers' of this 'business'. Without us, there is no 'business'. It's up to Ashley to start proving he wants to provide a good quality 'service' or 'product' to us, or many of us will start to spend their money elsewhere to the detriment of the 'business'..

Well, that certainly makes me feel reassured..

:lol: @ this post Living up to your name I see, or do you care to comment on how these actions relate to our current plight and our ambitions to bring promising youngsters along..?

What a joke this club is becoming.. All this talk of emulating the Arsenal model, yet when a decent youngster comes by in a position where we don't have solid options we let him rot in the reserves or loan him out, instead of giving him the chance to prove what he can do.. And some fans don't question this mentality either, saying it's good for the lad to get some games under his belt and if not here then elsewhere. Of course it is good for him! But what about this relegation-threatened club pretending to be a nurturing ground for the world's football talent?! As with everything, actions speak louder than words, and Ashley & Co's actions continue to astound me..

I think everybody got it. The last thing we need however is fans defending the indefensible as far as this situation is concerned. It's not because we all know that those in charge won't change their views that we shouldn't be having a discussion about it, quite the opposite in fact. Last December I said I was willing to give Ashley a fair chance to turn this club around, but would still be critical if I perceived his decisions to be wrong. I believe this particular decision is as wrong as wrong can be and could prove very, very costly for this club, so I am not about to shut up about it because the people in charge won't listen to sense when it smacks them in the face.. Personally I think it should be very clear that the vast majority of fans disapprove of the decision making regarding our management position, and this defeatist attitude that it's too late to change things now is not the signal we should be sending out. It's not too late! Quite the opposite in fact: to not act now means leaving our destiny in incapable hands and spells almost certain disaster. It will only be too late when we are officially down, and Ashley shouldn't be allowed the excuse of a lack of time in the event it would happen.

he'll retreat to his mansion, won't see or hear a thing Au contraire, the Sun will publish pictures of him on the Copacabana beach drinking 100.00 pound bottles of champagne on the night we go down..

He's well and truely made his bed..

You think we'd be in this state if he'd have stayed? No, but then i'd say that if he'd not brought him back in the first place we'd not be where we are now. Still his own decision/fault either way though. True, but I reckon any manager of decent standing within the game would of ultimately been forced to go about it similar to Keegan and therefore we were always going to be in this state. Possibly, but again we're back to who did/said/promised/demanded etc what - all been done to death but resurrected many times. Until both sides have their say, we'll never know the true story. However and regardless of who started it, it all comes down to the fact that Ashley wanted KK and made the appointment, if he thought KK was his man he should have had the guts to follow it through. I don't go with the concensus that Ashley is out to intentionally f*** us over, I think he has a genuine want for us to do well, but he's surrounded himself with key personnel who don't really know what they're doing. Yeah? So why did Sportsdirect only pay NUFC something like £40k for what amounts to a blue chip sponsorship package at SJP? On the face of it, it looks like great business for Ashleys first love, but shocking business for NUFC. so why is he putting his cash in ? As its his club, he didn't have to put anything in to give one of his companies advertising space. *sorry, thats for Fading Star - picked the wrong 'quote'* so what? If its of no consequence then why did you bring it up in the first place? One could argue he should stop whinging about having to put millions in the club to keep it afloat whilst buying advertising space worth millions for free at the same time. It's not so much pertinent now, but it will become moreso when NR will be replaced by SD as our primary sponsor.

Dont believe that atall. Even they cannot be so moronic that they would choose Kinnear with much better options available. In reality, Llambias perception of "top managers" is probably different from ours. I wouldn't bet against it myself. Kinnear is probably much cheaper than most alternatives, which seems to be a prevalent theme in Ashley's regime so far..

Nonsense. Even Llambias himself let slip there are lots of top managers interested (his words, not mine) and we have specifically chosen Kinnear to be our manager.. We are still a big club in one of the biggest leagues in the world. There are loads of managers, English and foreign, who would love a crack at being the manager to turn us around. Ashley and his system are a hindrance of course, but we are still a very attractive proposition for many managers out there.

So would i. Did you also nearly qualify for the second round of the Champions League with close to a pub team? If you think that's enough proof to suggest him as an actual candidate, then fair enough. I totally disagree though. Well, you can only beat what's in front of you, can't you? Considering the (lack of) talent at his disposal what he (nearly) achieved is verging on the phenomenal. It's certainly better than what our current management team have mustered in the past decade. I wouldn't advocate giving him a five year deal, but a one year deal to see what he could do wouldn't hurt. What we know for certain is he will give us passion and some much needed positivity amongst the fans and the media. His continental roots and experience may give him an edge in this league, certainly compared to the usual suspects in Ashley´s book of attractive management material. Let´s face it, there will not be massive pressure on him; if he fails to secure our Premiership status it won't be seen as his fault, and we can start from the bottom up. If he does manage to keep us up (and I would think he would have more chance of doing that than the current muppets in charge), that should set us up for some positivity for next season. It certainly beats giving Kinnear a new two year deal if you ask me..

So would i. Did you also nearly qualify for the second round of the Champions League with close to a pub team?

Great finish

2-0 Rieira

Was it a goalmouth scramble resulting in bumbling the ball over the line? a goalmouth scramble resulting in hammering the ball over the line more like.

Kuyt 1-0

Still can't get over how this piece of absolute nonsense has been peddled constantly since the first half yesterday. what nonsense? It being the fifth of five pens he's taken for us with his right foot..