Minhosa

We should call neesy brains, Michael Nee brains.

Every time there is a fuck up like this, fewer and fewer players will want to come to Newcastle. Hope Graham Carr has some excellent but expensive free signings from Venezuela or Vietnam or somewhere obscure ready to sign on the dotted line because signing people from France and Spain will become difficult for fatso at this rate. Why would players from France and Spain be put of by the mental world of Joey Barton? Or the words of Enrique, Nolan or Carroll............... Yep. It's all Jb's fault.

And to top it off the players we have signed have very patchy injury histories (Cabaye aside).

Agree with this. What will be interesting will be his reaction when he starts getting shit off the fans.

Every cloud and all that

Don't think anyone can judge the harm the Hughton sacking has done (or otherwise) until this season tbh. The spirit of the squad in the first half of last season went a long way to keeping us up. That is where Prdew will have his work cut out for him and one reason I feel we may struggle.

There has been cynicism around for a few years now, the previous owners were hardly whiter than white. But I agree, we are reaching new heights these days. Agree with this. I despised Shepherd and for a long time could see the logic Ashley was applying and felt much of his approach was 'defensible', my attitude changed after the Carroll sale, the Hughton sacking, the Golfmag posts and the blatent lies and bullshit we get spoon fed from the club. I'd much prefer a honest line from the club - for sure it would upset a few but in the long term we'd all be better off for it.

What do you mean by "came from"? The £5.5m, where did that come from? I thought we were skint and it certainly didn't come from Ashley's pocket We're not so skint that we literally can't afford any outgoings. Surely that's obvious? WTF are you on about, weren't we struggling to break even? Yes, we're making a loss every season, but that doesn't mean we can't spend anything. A business can run in the red for a long time, increasing its debt to keep going. Otherwise we (and almost every other club) would have gone bust ages ago. So once again, where did the money come from? I suspect you know the answer but yet again you're squirming around the issue II wouldn't be surprised if the £5.5m that the club spent has since come out of the Carroll money. Of course it has, money that we weren't even certain to be getting, unless of course we knew full well Carroll was to be sold AC was being hawked around certain clubs in Jan, of that I have no doubt.

I think bringing in N'Zogbia and Sturridge would have given us a good chance of fighting for or qualifying for the UEFA and I think 35 million would have been enough to bring those two in. Do you think that's enough for Enrique just playing Europa League though? I think it's more about seeing the club progress, being part of a happy camp and being on the right deal tbh. Hence my earlier reply to you.

What's the Captain gonna say? 'We're a fucking selling club, everyone here knows he's only a window away from being fucked off to another club if the owners are happy with the bid, so morale is a bit shit'?

Fucking hope that's not true, given the absences, injuries and so on I was hoping we'd at least get some team bonding out of it. The thing is, for all of his flaws (and he had a fair fucking few) Nolan is a loss in terms of team spirit and togetherness. With Barton too perhaps not in the best of frames of mind and Coloccini not the most vocal of Captains, you have to look at who is going to generate a renewed team spirit. That, coupled with the recruitment of the frenchies, who NUFC has a history of disaster with in terms of morale etc I can see big issues this year for the club.

I love how criticising a player = supporting Ashley in your eyes. I condone his behaviour in the last x months, but he was saying the truth, the frustrating truth. With this "revelation" and, if results don't go our way in the coming season, Ashley will feel the heat more and more. The more pressure on Ashley and co, the better, imo. I still want them out badly, staying up last season was no reason to lighten the pressure on them, imo. Since the Champions League money became so big, Chelsea money, etc. we've tried the Shepherd "blow big money at players" approach, and it lead to lower mid-table mediocrity and a brush with relegation in 2007, we've now tried another approach and it's lead to pretty much the same but in 09 we weren't so lucky. Perhaps if we hadn't gone all out on approach 1, approach 2 wouldn't have been necessary. Least now we're stable, still capable of finishing top 8, and can attract the likes of Ben Arfa, Cabaye & Tiote. It's the replacing them WHEN they are sold that I worry about. It's all well and good spotting one Tiote but how do you replace them? And how do you ensure you don't get a flop? By the time MA's loans are paid down we'll have a team of freebies/clause breakers and fuck all to show for it.

I love how criticising a player = supporting Ashley in your eyes. I condone his behaviour in the last x months, but he was saying the truth, the frustrating truth. With this "revelation" and, if results don't go our way in the coming season, Ashley will feel the heat more and more. The more pressure on Ashley and co, the better, imo. I still want them out badly, staying up last season was no reason to lighten the pressure on them, imo. Yep - and more proof that PR-dew is a charlatan, which seems to have been overlooked.

Great post.

I was thinking more along the lines of him signing the contract, or handing in a transfer request, you know, the way things should be done. He's stooped to Ashley's levels and people are buying it purely down to their hatred of the board. Where has this reverence of the sanctity of professionalism in football come from? Any, more pertinently, why can Ashley lie and cheat, but Enrique has to suffer in silence before releasing a few discrete words in his memoirs aged 40. If he can change his situation now by going public, why wouldn't he? The whole, "I'll wait until we're safe" thing, even after the "no capital outlay, bring players through the ranks to sell, etc" not ring any bells? He knew when he made that remark what Ashley was like, yet still played us for fools himself. It was the middle of the season, what would you have had him say? Honestly. I've got a completely open mind. Tell me what he should have said. "I'll help the club survive in the Premier League, but ultimately I want to play for Spain and in the Champions League." Would many fans have blamed him (or the club) for this? I'd have said - hang on, we've got £35m that your gaffer has just committed to spanking on the first team, Jose lad. Hold your horses. Now, I'd say to him, do whats best for you because there is no way we'll see Top 6 in your career sunshine. Do you think £35m would break the top 5. Serious question. If we didn't sell anybody and added the players we have + a few others - Yes, I don't think it's unthinkable. I doubt we'd have a chance this year (with a change in system and new personnel) but the following year, I'd have us down as having a hope of top 6.

I was thinking more along the lines of him signing the contract, or handing in a transfer request, you know, the way things should be done. He's stooped to Ashley's levels and people are buying it purely down to their hatred of the board. Where has this reverence of the sanctity of professionalism in football come from? Any, more pertinently, why can Ashley lie and cheat, but Enrique has to suffer in silence before releasing a few discrete words in his memoirs aged 40. If he can change his situation now by going public, why wouldn't he? The whole, "I'll wait until we're safe" thing, even after the "no capital outlay, bring players through the ranks to sell, etc" not ring any bells? He knew when he made that remark what Ashley was like, yet still played us for fools himself. It was the middle of the season, what would you have had him say? Honestly. I've got a completely open mind. Tell me what he should have said. "I'll help the club survive in the Premier League, but ultimately I want to play for Spain and in the Champions League." Would many fans have blamed him (or the club) for this? I'd have said - hang on, we've got £35m that your gaffer has just committed to spanking on the first team, Jose lad. Hold your horses. Now, I'd say to him, do whats best for you because there is no way we'll see Top 6 in your career sunshine.

But neither to the people defending them, they just assume the worst because it's Ashley. ian, in your world are people ever held accountable for their actions or do you go on giving the benefit of the doubt until the end of time? people dont assume the worst because its ashley, they assume the club will do everything on the cheap because....the club are doing everything on the cheap. at what point do you notice this all tying in? Keegan, Hughton, Pardew, Carroll, nothing spent, Enrique.......... I know Ashley is a cunt etc etc, but every decision he makes isn't wrong by default. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

But neither to the people defending them, they just assume the worst because it's Ashley. ian, in your world are people ever held accountable for their actions or do you go on giving the benefit of the doubt until the end of time? people dont assume the worst because its ashley, they assume the club will do everything on the cheap because....the club are doing everything on the cheap. at what point do you notice this all tying in? Keegan, Hughton, Pardew, Carroll, nothing spent, Enrique.......... Ian W will have no wrong said about Ashley and Pardew and as he reads this will be smashing up his bedroom in anger as he probably wont be able to smash his office up as its wrecked from last week I should learn not to come on here unless we've signed a player. In which case Mike Ashley won't be mentioned except to say the player cost to little. FWIW I don't like Ashley at all, but in the case of Enrique the writing was on the wall for ages. He has become good enough to play for a more successful team at the same time his contract is ending. I just don't like players whinging about the club in public, that's all. The writing may have been on the wall but the reasons for him wanting to leave are whats interesting. Why does he feel he can't fulfill his ambition here? Where does he think the club are going under the current ownership. What impact have the recent sales had on morale. All answered today and to damning effect. Like it or not, as fans we benefit from his right to free speech, the club may not but for those few fans who seemingly think Ashley and DL are beacons of light and can do no wrong this is further evidence that they're a bunch of lying schemers with PR-dew included. It's good that they will start to see this ownership for what they are.

Gonna miss him. Will be a massive loss.

If the club are not looking after their best players why should the players have loyalty to the club? If they are lying to him, why should he allow them to do that? Especially in public?

Yeah - just a shame we didn't get "Reserve/Back Up" fullback Neil Taylor isn't it? I'm sure he wouldn't have started for us

And that will have no impact on the morale of the current squad when they realise they're in 'nowheresville' for the duration of their contract? Don't know what you're laughing at TBH. Laughing at you looking to brush over this as insignificant.

And that will have no impact on the morale of the current squad when they realise they're in 'nowheresville' for the duration of their contract?