Parky

I will not relent till Liverpool is completely destroyed.

Always been too defensive and dour, that's difficult to sell if they are looking to the next level and branding and suchlike. I'd say this was as much a business descision as a football one.

Shit, he probably wanted Alan Smith. Santa Cruz apparently.

Mourinho quote about Benzema with Higuain being out... "Sometimes you need to go hunting and you don't have your dog, but you do have a cat," Mr. Mourinho said, turning zoological about Mr. Benzema's role. "So you take your cat hunting. It's better than hunting alone."

Gone then.

Be wrapped up soon. Surprised the yanks haven't canned the poor get already tbh. Probs analysing shortlist as we speak.

Be wrapped up soon.

Meddling agents again.

Hilarious reading. Still chatting about CL and shit....

A will earned victory and the heads only dropped for few mins after the equaliser.

One goal for me methinks. Hodgemong simply clueless.

Stunning victory.

Would like to see Routledge on to stretch their back four and keep them from pushing up.

Tiote is Megatron.

I've heard the Surprise Bar is better.

You can get lovely hand made shirts there up the hill a bit away from the port.

Yeah I was thinking that. Pardew is a bit Redknapp lite.

Yeah, good point. It's the sort of background that often makes for a good manager. But whatever your ability, you need the right opportunity. Everything is stacked against him. It looks to me like Ashley was only prepared to offer Hughton an extension of the short-term contract that he'd been under in the Championship. He felt he was still under trial. Hughton felt he deserved more, with justification. When Calderwood left and the issue of his successor arose, it brought to a head the issue of whether Ashley saw Hughton as the man for the long-term. It always brings me back to the issue of whether the owner of a football club can act with quite the sort of arbitrary authority of an owner of a retail chain. There's such a strong political element to a football club, which I don't think Ashley has come to terms with yet. That's why he needs a general manager with a football background to talk him through these situations IMO.

Probs opt for the Hughton comfort blanket.

I reckon Tintin would have you.

Reckon the pair of them woudl knock you spark out.

It's my guess that he's picked Pardew cause he sees him as a very similar character. Pardew blossomed late in the game (he was still a window cleaner when other players were at academies). He didn't start playing at a good level (Palace) till he was 25. Ashley sees him as someone (like himself) who has worked his way up and against the odds. I think this is at the root of why he has gone for Pardew. He feels they are both similar characters who have come through the hard knocks. Also casue he sees some of himself in Pardew he is no threat to his ego and also someone easier to read.

I don't think Ashley is acting out of spite, I think he's so arrogant that he thinks he can do no wrong and that will not be helped by having yes men around him, he's a prick either way. Picking through the fragments of his statements about the club, I still think Ashley's original plan was to run the club 'the fan's way': the man on the street and Mike working for good common sense against football's establishment. As we know, this fantasy went askew, cumulating in the Keegan departure. The only thing you can liken this trauma to is a break-up. A life changing, never gotten over, full on, Britney and Justin-type game changer. Until last week, I honestly thought that his goal would be, in the long term, to try and engineer a rapprochement and to get back onside with the fan-base. To try and heal the split and reconstitute his original fantasy. I can see now – after the events of last week - that something has gone horribly, twistedly wrong. The vicissitudes of his desire have turned in upon themselves, and his fantasy has morphed into a narcissistic complex where he will avenge himself on those who spurned him and those who doubted him. The fans have switched position and now it is him versus the establishment and the fans. For him to succeed despite them, in spite of them. If the other will not love him, they will be made to respect him – and, in his childish fantasy, how does he think he can do this? Through his possession of and manipulation of things. Make no mistake about it, this is the story of a love triangle between Ashley-Fans-Club. And when he bought into it, he didn't want to steal the club from the fans, but the fans from the club. Once Ashley lost the fans, he took the spiteful option of getting between them and the club. I'm still trying to figure this out, but what I'm starting to think the only way we have of fighting back is not to try and ruin Ashley's enjoyment of the club – which, despite what a lot of people say, does not seem to be financial. It is tied up to the relationship between Mike's-way-of-doing-things and the establishment's (or at least what he perceives as being 'The Establishment's' (and to this extent, deflating the club – through relegation of whatever else - doesn't change anything. It just means the bar will be lowered for whatever is considered success)) - but to reaffirm our enjoyment of the club without him. To leave him out of the game. Ideas of protests are all part of his new fantasy; what gets him hard is the idea of him and his little ideas about how things should be done being right, despite all of the naysayers. Every 'no' just adds to pleasure he thinks he will achieve when he is finally right. The guy is like a vampire of enjoyment. He sees it in us, in our relationship with the club, and he wants it for himself or he wants to destroy it. So taking our money out of the club is useful insofar as it introduces the real to his fantasy, working to destabilise it. But the real solution is to love Newcastle in ways which exclude him. Entirely. To leave him on the outside, looking in at the thing he will never possess. Whether that takes the form of groups of ex-season ticket holders colonising pubs on matchdays to watch the game on their own terms, or production of un-offical merchandise, or proliferation of supporters clubs and other community groups, whatever else, that might be the way to get rid of him. I'm not sure where the solution lies. But the problem isn't that we're confronted by some kind of Scrooge McDuck, a monster of capital. No, this man is Pepe Le Pew, Miss Piggy; an angry, deluded loser. We need to treat him as such. Mashleys first goal is stopping the club losing money and bringing financial stability (he's well on the way) to his investment (otherwise selling is a lot harder). With respect to this he is looking for a low maintenance squad that has enough about it to survive in the PL this season. The problem with this strategy is that it is high risk with no long term benefits as such (mainly if your rivals continue to spend, you continue to fall behind competitively). With guys like MA you have to look hard for clues and they tend to come in two forms: Ego defence (hiring and sacking KK, buying beers, wearing the Smith shirt). Business instinct (cutting costs, looking for players with contractual issues, re-writing the rulebook regarding managerial contracts and going against precedent). If I was a business competitor of MA I would always keep one eye on him, cause although he comes across as furtive and reckless he has a strong survival instinct and isn't interested in playing by the rules (he's laid waste to the sector in which he does his core business and made a lot of cash out of just being ultra destructive to his competition. These kinds of guys are always dangerous and when things go for them the are often unstoppable. But........What has happened here is that he has entered a buseiness arena (football) which he had no clue about (but shows of being a slow learner/stubborn). He made two catastrophic erros ie no due dilligance and underestimating how much football is a good will (customer led) market. That it thrives on expectation and is one of the sole outlets left in England of true male identification with himself, his surrounding and his peer groups. The latter is the hardest for Mashely to understand because he is a true loner, a renegade who has by his own guile made good. It is a real tragedy for our club that Ashley has the wrong character traits for football, but the right ones for pure business. He has failed to understand his public and this will be his ultimate downfall. Because he can't change.

If Carroll stays fit and eager we have every chance of staying up. Gosling and Bafra will be back end of Jan/early Feb. I also get the feeling Mashley will let Pardew buy a player if he finds the right one.