Dr Venkman

You're wrong. Fine. You don't often get to change people's opinions on internet forums. It's my opinion and I have tried to explain it, can't do much more. I'm just totally baffled by it tbh, you're even drawing a distinction between what he's done to SJP and TV advertising, it is TV advertising.

You're wrong.

So tell us what effect it has had? Do you think more people go into Ashley's stores because of that? Most people who offer an opinion on it think it was cheap, tacky and denigrated a great football club. Just because someone has a different opinion to you doesn't mean they are "fucking crackers" btw. Yes, and more people have visited sportsdirect.com and sportsdirect.fr as a result as well.

No-one's denying that. A few have already said you can't quantify how much Ashley owning NUFC will have benefitted SD, and they're correct. But to think that this level of exposure (NUFC has been directly associated with SD for five years) in the premier league will only have a negligible affect on brand awareness is mental, imo. Bear in mind that a football club is the perfect vehicle for a tacky sportswear shop as well.

I'm only speaking from a personal point of view but I don't watch a match in our stadium and see their signs and suddenly think 'I must pick those cheap shin pads up next time I'm passing SD', in the same way I don't think 'I must change to Barclays Bank' every time I hear about the Premiership or neck a can of Carling every time I hear about the 'Carling Cup'. Perhaps it's part of a wider SD campaign (?) but I think it's affect would be negligible in terms of the bigger picture footfall numbers. That business, in the midst of a recession, was only ever going to grow and rapidly at that. A blind man could see it. Cheap stuff when people have less money, during Olympic time etc. I don't think a boat load of banners at the ground had any bearing on that. You don't understand advertising.

Honestly man, we've got a team full of French players and French SD adverts on the billboards at games and people think he just changed the name of the stadium, covered the gallowgate roof, ruined the Newcastle United sign and has countless (unless you're Dave) SD billboards in the ground.......for the craic.

Can someone post Sir John Halls quote about why Ashley bought the club?

I don't know how typical I am but I had never heard of Sports Direct until Ashley bought the club. Me neither. But at that time Sports Direct was recently floated, underperforming company. Since then Ashley has virtually eliminated all competition in its market place and is several times the size it was in 2007. The debate here is how much NUFC has played a part in that. I think that his involvement in the club and his brazen attempts to promote SD through it are generally viewed negatively and have done nothing to contribute to where SD is today. The growth of SD has come due to factors other than Ashley's involvement with us imo. You think the level of exposure a premier league club has given SD over 5 years has done nothing to increase SD business? Seriously?

Eh? Pardew talks about luck and magic all the time

Great response in terms of results since the derby, credit due

You honestly don't think Ashley's been trying to lower expectations for years?

Stop doing it then Honestly, man, you're taking forum policing to a new level.

This sort of stuff is amusing as well. We're simply discussing his comments, no-one pores, trawls or dissects. He says stuff, it's very easy to get access to it, we talk about it because he's the manager of the club. It's hardly Wikileaks.

Spot-on as ever. This stuff's creeped in more and more since he's realised he can say it, get away with it and have it as yet another widely believed reason why he's battling adversity and doing a smashing job in the circumstances. That's a stretch, like. What's the aim of it then? Now that he's realised he can 'get away with it'. Why is he doing it? Is there an objective to it all? Guarding himself against criticism isn't he? The same reason that he gets his excuses in early, we heard about tiredness before the Chelsea game but not afterwards because we won. He's done a good job of lowering expectations, this is the next step. If our already low expectations (say, beating the worst team in the league) aren't met then we're still not allowed to be affected by it, and we're definitely not justified in criticising him or the team. He mentioned tiredness directly after a 120 minute game against Man City, didn't he? Not in the build up to the Chelsea game. He may not have mentioned tiredness after the game, but I remember Gouffran doing so. I don't know, this kind of dissection feels very womblemaster to me. What about the second half of my post? You asked what the aim of his comments were, that's my take on it.

The board isn't a representative sample of the fans, but you know that.

Spot-on as ever. This stuff's creeped in more and more since he's realised he can say it, get away with it and have it as yet another widely believed reason why he's battling adversity and doing a smashing job in the circumstances. That's a stretch, like. What's the aim of it then? Now that he's realised he can 'get away with it'. Why is he doing it? Is there an objective to it all? Guarding himself against criticism isn't he? The same reason that he gets his excuses in early, we heard about tiredness before the Chelsea game but not afterwards because we won. He's done a good job of lowering expectations, this is the next step. If our already low expectations (say, beating the worst team in the league) aren't met then we're still not allowed to be affected by it, and we're definitely not justified in criticising him or the team.

Class

That's a belter.

Yeah, when I go to buy some cans I take a picture of an empty fridge with me, just in case the lad serving me doubts that I need any.

Remember the time HappyFace's homemade statistics/source had a non-integer for goals scored or sommat That's nowt, he posted a set of stats that 'explained' why Pardew kept playing Jonas on the wing I never like. I posted a set of stats that showed which players were playing when we conceded most or least. Whatever inferences were taken from that were opinion. Stats prove nothing, they only support an argument. You posted a set of numbers that made it 'clear to see the value he places in Jonas'. Every single person on this forum (and most at the match) could have told you that without a list of numbers, months before you made that post.

I reckon that's true over a short period of time, or a specific incident. Watching a team for an entire season though, year on year, allows for a more accurate perception and less cognitive bias as the evidence is spread out. Provided of course that you witness the events with close enough attention to whatever it is you're looking at. Add in the fact that there's LOADS of eyewitnesses as well.

Remember the time HappyFace's homemade statistics/source had a non-integer for goals scored or sommat That's nowt, he posted a set of stats that 'explained' why Pardew kept playing Jonas on the wing