Unbelievable

We’re getting Steve Bruce!? Seriously..?

One of our greatest ever. Thanks for the fantastic memories Arjen

Their fans are special alright

Yep. Agreeing the headline fee is the easy part. It’s only when that is in place he starts shifting the goal posts.

Think only 3 or 4 people on here still think it’d going to happen to be fair I still there’s a fair chance Same man. Far more likely than Ashley staging an elaborate hoax, involving arabs and Companies House, that he didn't need to stage Yep, that’s full on tin foil hat territory Nobody actually believes that it's a hoax/setup etc, just that there's no way Ashley is going to sell. Exactly. Complete straw man. Over the 12 years of Ashley's ownership there have been numerous seriously interested parties, and they have all been disappointed in the end by Ashley moving the goal posts. Ashley or his PR goons don't have to create smoke and dagger scenarios of interest in the club to help alleviate the pressure on them, because the interest is genuine and has always been there. It suits them to keep the media and fans in awaited suspense while they obviously have no inclination whatsoever to go through with any sale, or at least not until somebody puts in an offer that is too good to refuse, because whilst this is the case they can get away with leeching the club for their own interests whilst simultaneously running it into the ground for everybody with a proper affinity towards it. Hopefully though this time he has dug himself into a hole he cannot get out of. If he pulls the plug then BZG need to hang him out to dry. Like he’ll give a fuck. As far as the fans are concerned there’s a decent minority who think Benítez is a mercenary. You can forget any big protest about 3-4 games in, as usual True. But if nothing else it will finallly destroy the myth that nobody has put in a proper bid. He won't be able to lie about that anymore. A myth that nobody has put a bid in? Serious bids have been going in this black hole of a club for a decade (!) now, i.e. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/8137156.stm Not long after of course those bids collapsed. Steve McMahon, a spokesman for one of the bidders had this to say at the time: 10 years and counting and we've seen the exact same act played out before us numerous times since. It's a piss take, it really is. And our fans just either forget or just don't particularly care as he gets away with it every single time.

Think only 3 or 4 people on here still think it’d going to happen to be fair I still there’s a fair chance Same man. Far more likely than Ashley staging an elaborate hoax, involving arabs and Companies House, that he didn't need to stage Yep, that’s full on tin foil hat territory Nobody actually believes that it's a hoax/setup etc, just that there's no way Ashley is going to sell. Exactly. Complete straw man. Over the 12 years of Ashley's ownership there have been numerous seriously interested parties, and they have all been disappointed in the end by Ashley moving the goal posts. Ashley or his PR goons don't have to create smoke and dagger scenarios of interest in the club to help alleviate the pressure on them, because the interest is genuine and has always been there. It suits them to keep the media and fans in awaited suspense while they obviously have no inclination whatsoever to go through with any sale, or at least not until somebody puts in an offer that is too good to refuse, because whilst this is the case they can get away with leeching the club for their own interests whilst simultaneously running it into the ground for everybody with a proper affinity towards it.

Always winter in your life. they are and will always be a shit club with shit fans. even when they were in the premier league for 10 years they regularly fucked off at half time if they were losing. Hounded every manager out. they have a couple f 2 bit chancers in charge now and they have not got any money to put in. they gambled on going up and 'flipping' the club to pay short. the gamble has failed hence having to get rid of players. You have got your head in the sand. If there is no takeover happening then believe me we are firmly on the path to becoming the exact same kind of club as them. This superiority complex that we have over them is currently based on fuck all. In 12 months its highly likely that we will be in the same division as them. Quite ironic that this board is full of people slagging off the people who continue to attend SJP for "not seeing the big picture". If you can't see where NUFC are headed and the fact that the Mackems have now bottomed out and can only start to go up then you are guilty of exactly the same small-mindedness. Two (three) very good posts above. The mackems are in a terrible mess mostly of their own making, but at least they had an honourable owner who held their hand up for their mistakes and gave up the club whilst taking no money out and footing most of the bill of their own failures. They are in the gutter but they can start looking up again. Meanwhile we are owned by an evil cunt who will happily destroy the club for his own benefit as he has done over the past 12 years and continue to leech it until he pops his clogs. By the time that happens we'll be lucky to be where the mackems are now, and we have much more frustration and anger to look forward to before we get there. Hell, by that time a large number of us may well not even be around anymore. This empty shell of a club could be the NUFC we know for the rest of our lives. Three years of Rafa working his magic may well have blinded a lot of fans, but before long we will be back to the dark days of someone like Pardew or Carver insulting our intelligence whilst stealing a living on our dime.

And so the exodus begins

That struck me as well. Just goes to show how far we are falling behind, not just in the PL, but compared to other clubs the world over

What a sad state of affairs man

Shame. I was hopeful Rafa might return under new ownership this month. Just fuck off Ashley man

BZG group may or may not release a statement this week, content unknown We'll know the content if there's no statement Cheers lads. Good to see club is on the up. Have we signed Rafa any new players yet?

Anything of note happening lads, or are you back to filling page after page with your favourite cookies?

Dunno, it pretty much says 'the owners have no ambition or vision'. He was hardly going to lay into him with emotive language, but that's subtly scathing. Exactly. It doesn’t leave much to our imagination as a fan base does it? Keegan, Shearer, Hughton and now Rafa. 12 years in and nothing much has changed. Everybody who continues putting their money in is assisting in the demolition of whatever remains of our club under this ownership.

It used to be the Ashley thread. Might as well change it back.

Same bloke

Good article that

I can understand young uns who may not have been around during the first 10 years of Ashley’s tenure being in shock, but any older fans? Howay man, this is text book Ashley, fucking text book. First KK, then Shearer, then Hughton, now Rafa. We can’t have someone decent and competent in charge of this club. Ashley will just lie to them and fuck them over until they fight their corner in the interest of the club and its fans, at which point the vindicative man child will put them in their place.

Feel sorry for you and don’t take this the wrong way, but apparently knowing full well the extent of Ashley’s cuntishness, why did you get drawn back in? Surely you must have know that yesterday’s events were bound to happen sooner or later? A leopard doesn’t change his spots, sadly. Also can’t quite understand your contempt for other fans who decide to still go considering your own earlier conscious decision to go back despite being apparently aware of the club’s predicament.

That article man

Good point. They have declined to comment on everything lately, so why the official confirmation now whilst they could have worked on some kind of plan for a week in relative peace and quiet. Together with the “and will not be” from the statement it smacks of Ashley pulling the plug in a huff at Rafa not moving from his demands. And rightly so. Hope they pannick and appoint some hopeless donkey and end up understanding how special Rafa was for keeping us up with relative ease on a shoestring budget. Fully expect Ashley to pull the plug on any takeover too, the little vindicative cunt.

"The saddest thing about Rafa is he has given people hope, because now they feel even worse"

Can't say I'm overly surprised Rafa has decided to walk once his deal runs out. I'm still, to this very day, more surprised that he even joined us in the first place. Back in March 2016 he took on a rudderless shambles of a club, apparently having approached the club himself as he considered us an interesting project. I remember all too well the elation a year and a bit earlier of Alan Pardew finally fucking off to Palace on the back of fierce supporter protests, followed by the disbelief and anguish at the appointment of the utterly clueless John fucking Carver almost taking us down. When that experiment predictably failed miserably, Ashley's next genius move was to appoint Steve McClaren who had failed almost everywhere he went for the best part of the preceeding decade. And lo and behold NUFC once again was nothing more than relegation fodder. Until March 11th 2016 when everything changed. What made Rafael Benitez knock Ashley's door down to come and manage this fucking tragic excuse of a football club? An owner who was well known to fuck over managers and players alike, whose only ambition was to hang on to the gravy train. He saw the potential that is here obviously, but most managers of his level and reputation would have given us a wide berth when contacted, let alone would have reached out to Ashley to act as a helping hand. Rafa has not put a foot wrong throughout these three years, taking and keeping the club in a league it had no business being in based on its mediocre squad, lack of inverstment and run down facilities. Perhaps he backed himself to be able to convince Ashley to loosen the purse strings, buy into his vision of what Newcastle United could become if it was allowed a modicum of backing from its owners, or even to be able to re-invest all the money the club could generate as a stand alone entity? Alas, Rafa was a fool for ever believing that he could change Mike Ashley's vision for the club. We are a glorified SD billboard and will remain so for however long he owns us. He will go down as the manager who came and gave us hope only to prove once and for all that the club is destined for never ending nothingness. Mike Ashley kept him sweet then fucked him over, like he always does. I admire Rafa's constraint in what must have been a very difficult final year for him, knowing that his dream would end in tears yet never skipping a beat in the name of professionalism. No more. Next week he is free of the shackles of Mike Ashley. We will never witness him taking off his glasses and stowing them away in his Newcastle United jacket ever again. I am as happy for him as I am sad for us who remain in the shadow of our dead football club. One day we may follow in his foot steps. In the meantime I dread to think who will replace him as our manager - a tumble down the leagues no doubt awaits unless... Nah, who are we kidding? This is Mike Ashley's Newcastle United Football Club.