Unbelievable

Just saw this news. Fucking predictable cunts.

Just seen his latest rant. Urgh. All I can say is, seriously any fan putting another penny into his coffers, even the remainder of season ticket money, needs their head checked asap. Complete pisstake of a football club these days.

The great Gheorghe Hagi's 20 year old son Ianis has just scored for Genk with his first touch on his debut for the club.

PSV beating Basel in CL playoffs 3-2 with 2 goals in ET.

Our Chinese fans are holding up Ashley Out printouts. More fight in them than the average Newcastle based fan unfortunately.

Hmm, not sure about that offside call

Don’t encourage them!

Deserved

We want Ashley out sung loud and clear. Good

During the KK years, is he the sort of defender people would have been happy to have at Newcastle? Particularly 95-96? I've never really seen clips of him playing, so I've no idea if he'd have been a good fit for that side. As a manager I think he is rotten and he has shown himself to be incredibly disloyal so I now also dislike him as a man. But as a player, I thought he was an excellent defender. I detest manu, but in the early 90's him and Pallister were a phenomenal centre back pairing. Bruce used to take penalties as well (which was one thing I thought was great as it was a bit rare to have a central defender take them). If he had decided to come to us as a player, I would likely feel different about him. Doubt Rafa would have had him over Lascelles, Lejeune, Schar and Fernandez lke.

Ah man, it hurts just reading that. I guess it's a lot easier for us far away fans to get disenfranchised, but when the city is revibrating like days gone by and everybody talks about the day to day business of the club with pride and fondness I imagine it must be very hard for locals to resist getting drawn back in. My three match going mates from 2004-06 are still going and therefore maybe so would I if I still lived in the area, out of friendship, loyalty and plain old habit. They're all well in their fiftees now, and Ashley is ruining any chance they will ever have of seeing this club compete for trophies or at least try to, just like he is doing for thousands upon thousands of others. It's not often I wish misery on someone, but I hope Ashley rots in hell for what he's done and continue to do to us fans, all for a few million on top of the billions he already has. He's a fucking disgrace.

Good bump. I voted the top option and stand by it. Rafa was merely papering over the cracks and no matter how hard he tried he was never going to change Ashley's philosophy towards the running of this club. Interesting to contemplate where we would be now if not Rafa but Steve Bruce or someone of his ilk had taken over at the end of that relegation season.

All this Joe Kinnear talk has led me back to the Joe Kinnear Talksport interview when he was appointed Director of Football: Steve Bruce is a positively progressive appointment in comparison Mike Ashley man

I reckon so. That didn't have the hindsight of everything else for them to potentially learn from and a much stronger squad to think we could stay up. This is Ashley basically blowing his and the club's face off (PL survival, a competent manager, making any money) because doing that includes spiting its nose (the remaining fans that give a shit) completely agree, the kinnear/shearer/hughton period we were all putting it down to incompetence, innocent bad decisions etc. but this is just self-immolation Can’t say I agree like. After the Keegan safa when Kinnear got appointed I was genuinely shocked. Heck, I didn’t even know who Joe Kinnear was. So much shit has gone on since I have to say something like today’s news hardly registers anymore. I have long since given up any hope for this club under Ashley, and I actually applaud such catastrophic decisions now rather than wondering about why they get made. Let’s see how bad it can get before the fans that flock to St James’ no matter what finally have enough and stop supporting Ashley ruining this club they claim to love. can't agree with which bit? from the moment keegan went, it was very chaotic and marked the first series of wildcard decisions that ashley made imo...before that point he didn't do too much and we all thought it was a reaction to the keegan reaction, if you see what i mean 10 years later we can see that it's just the way the cunt operates Couldn't agree with Rafa leaving to be replaced by Bruce being "weirder" on the Mike Ashley scale of madness than Keegan's constructive dismissal followed by Joe fucking Kinnear taking over. I take Optimistic Nut's point that Kinnear was (supposed to be) a temporary appointment, but let's not forget that a month before that appointment Ashley was saying stuff like we were going to be competing the top four over time. Less than two weeks before that appointment Ashley came out and compared his vision of the club to Arsenal's. Yet who does he appoint? Someone I hadn't even heard of. Meanwhile, 11 years later we have been relegated twice and are now firmly a lower midfield club at best, fighting relegation every bloody season we aren't down already. We have had to endure Joe Kinnear, Alan Pardew, John Carver and Steve McClaren. Steve Bruce's appointment is just about as to be expected for this cunt's level of ambition. The weird thing was Rafa coming here three years and staying as long as he did. Let's not pretend bringing in a world class manager was the norm and we've suddenly gone into a completely different direction. this is why it's weirder on the scale for me he has history and hindsight on his side now and is still making batshit insane decisions Fair enough mate. Maybe I just find it less weird because I don't expect anything positive anymore when NUFC are concerned. If you would have asked me who Ashley would get to replace Rafa the likes of Allardyce and Bruce would have featured quite highly on my list of educated guesses.

I reckon so. That didn't have the hindsight of everything else for them to potentially learn from and a much stronger squad to think we could stay up. This is Ashley basically blowing his and the club's face off (PL survival, a competent manager, making any money) because doing that includes spiting its nose (the remaining fans that give a shit) completely agree, the kinnear/shearer/hughton period we were all putting it down to incompetence, innocent bad decisions etc. but this is just self-immolation Can’t say I agree like. After the Keegan safa when Kinnear got appointed I was genuinely shocked. Heck, I didn’t even know who Joe Kinnear was. So much shit has gone on since I have to say something like today’s news hardly registers anymore. I have long since given up any hope for this club under Ashley, and I actually applaud such catastrophic decisions now rather than wondering about why they get made. Let’s see how bad it can get before the fans that flock to St James’ no matter what finally have enough and stop supporting Ashley ruining this club they claim to love. can't agree with which bit? from the moment keegan went, it was very chaotic and marked the first series of wildcard decisions that ashley made imo...before that point he didn't do too much and we all thought it was a reaction to the keegan reaction, if you see what i mean 10 years later we can see that it's just the way the cunt operates Couldn't agree with Rafa leaving to be replaced by Bruce being "weirder" on the Mike Ashley scale of madness than Keegan's constructive dismissal followed by Joe fucking Kinnear taking over. I take Optimistic Nut's point that Kinnear was (supposed to be) a temporary appointment, but let's not forget that a month before that appointment Ashley was saying stuff like we were going to be competing the top four over time. Less than two weeks before that appointment Ashley came out and compared his vision of the club to Arsenal's. Yet who does he appoint? Someone I hadn't even heard of. Meanwhile, 11 years later we have been relegated twice and are now firmly a lower midfield club at best, fighting relegation every bloody season we aren't down already. We have had to endure Joe Kinnear, Alan Pardew, John Carver and Steve McClaren. Steve Bruce's appointment is just about as to be expected for this cunt's level of ambition. The weird thing was Rafa coming here three years and staying as long as he did. Let's not pretend bringing in a world class manager was the norm and we've suddenly gone into a completely different direction.

In fairness, that wasn't the point with Rafa leaving was it. Rather than having some DoF (who?) spend 36m on a striker he didn't fancy Rafa would have rightly wanted that 36m (and more) to spend how he saw fit, i.e. perhaps 16m on Rondon and 20m on another forward. Steve "head coach" Bruce will have no say in who comes and goes. This was and always will be the sticking point with Ashley. Players are just like sports merchandise to him, and the head coach no more than a manager in one of his shops. Welcome to SDFC.

Don't suppose he had 63 assists?

I reckon so. That didn't have the hindsight of everything else for them to potentially learn from and a much stronger squad to think we could stay up. This is Ashley basically blowing his and the club's face off (PL survival, a competent manager, making any money) because doing that includes spiting its nose (the remaining fans that give a shit) completely agree, the kinnear/shearer/hughton period we were all putting it down to incompetence, innocent bad decisions etc. but this is just self-immolation Can’t say I agree like. After the Keegan safa when Kinnear got appointed I was genuinely shocked. Heck, I didn’t even know who Joe Kinnear was. So much shit has gone on since I have to say something like today’s news hardly registers anymore. I have long since given up any hope for this club under Ashley, and I actually applaud such catastrophic decisions now rather than wondering about why they get made. Let’s see how bad it can get before the fans that flock to St James’ no matter what finally have enough and stop supporting Ashley ruining this club they claim to love.

Just when you think we couldn't possibly sink any lower

the word unnecessary is what i keep coming back to, every single time he does this shit it's just always so unnecessary Definitely. After all those years I still haven't made my mind up about whether it is due to some incredible level of incompetence or due to an unbelievable level of resentment about the Keegan fallout, but whatever it is, the end result as well as the consequence is exactly the same: Newcastle United fans should not support either such incompetence or such resentment. By doing so they are in fact endorsing it.

Well, you don't. Aye. Not difficult. "Why should I keep coming into your restaurant when every time I do, I watch the waiter pissing in my soup before he brings it over?"

"Head coach" says it all really. In the end we have gone from Kevin Keegan getting summoned for crunch talks for daring to suggest the head coach system and the limited funding would not result in competing with the top four or build a "team that will go all out to try to give Chelsea a walloping, that will try to stuff Tottenham and that will be brave and bold enough to attack Manchester United" to appointments of Joe Kinnear, Alan Shearer, Chris Hughton, Alan Pardew, John Carver and Steve McLaren. Then one day Rafael Benitez landed in their lap, a world class manager who was up for the challenge of helping Newcastle United reach its potential. Had Rafa not contacted Ashley himself he would never have even been considered, and if Rafa wasn't of the highest loyalty and professionalism he would have been long gone after being lied to and undermined for years. Rafa wasn't an Ashley appointment, he was his lottery ticket win, but after three years our luck has run out and we are back to the Mike Ashley way of running a football club (into the ground). Anyone still putting their hard earned cash in needs to get their head checked. Newcastle United as we know it died over 10 years ago and the bloke who killed it can still sit in the stands and go about his business with hardly a peep from his paying customers. It's a fucking travesty, it really is.