afar

If we could be certain of Ashley selling up if we got relegation, I would and probably most sane people on here, pray for relegation. Unfortunately there is not, and he'll expect to bounce back up again, should it happen. The only real hope we have of Ashley going is a wealthy buyer giving him the price he wants, that buyer won't offer the price for a championship club.

Sunderland only need 5 pts to catch us, we only have a +2 advantage over them in GD and if they catch us in points, it's highly unlikely we would still be ahead in GD.

I watched the build up to the game on Canadian TV today, Danny Dichio and Craig Forrest are the "experts" they wheel out each week. According to them protesting again was a bit ridiculous, we don't like Ashley because he's from the south, Dichio knows this from personal experience, and the owner has spent a lot of money on wages, it's his club, he can do with it what he likes. You have to laugh really.

Again, the home support just keeps failing us, "oh we are winning the game no need to stand up now", deserved what we got. The crowd is pathetic and media outlets like the Chronicle and NUFC.COM, play a big part in that apathetic approach. They are in positions where they can influence and promote groups like ashleyout.com. But they continue to refuse to do anything other than sit on the bloody. Neither has the clubs interest at heart, that's clear.

Why are people handing over the leaflets ? They don't have any legal right whatsover to confiscate them, if everyone just said no, what are they going to do throw people out of the ground. Firstly you are not missing anything by being kicked out and secondly the press would love a story about being kicked out the ground for having a leaflet.

I think we are going down, for the first time this season, I think it's a reality. Don't see us getting another point this season, and pretty sure Sunderland will get at least 5 points to overtake us. Ashley has to react soon surely, he can't keep the kit boy in charge any longer or he risks losing all that money.

That's another thing that makes me not want a McLaren appointment. British managers are so tainted with jobs for the boys. Carver shouldn't even be on the coaching staff let alone the top job.

From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Derby_County_F.C._season Players transferred in Date Pos. Name Previous club Fee Ref. 10 June 2014 MF Kosovo Alban Bunjaku Spain Sevilla Free [40] 25 June 2014 DF United States Zak Whitbread England Leicester City Free [30] 1 July 2014 GK England Jonathan Mitchell England Newcastle United Free [38] 1 July 2014 FW Brazil Alefe Santos England Bristol Rovers Free [41] 10 July 2014 DF England Cyrus Christie England Coventry City Undisclosed1 [42] 18 July 2014 MF Spain Iván Calero Spain Atlético Madrid Free [43] 19 July 2014 MF England George Thorne England West Bromwich Albion Undisclosed [49] 1 August 2014 FW England Shaquille McDonald England York City Free [50] 1 September 2014 MF Germany Tom Koblenz Germany Hoffenheim Free [66] 1 January 2015 DF England Ryan Shotton England Stoke City Undisclosed [77] 12 January 2015 DF Sweden Isak Ssewankambo Netherlands NAC Breda Free [79] 15 January 2015 DF England Stephen Warnock England Leeds United Undisclosed [80] 16 January 2015 DF Spain Raúl Albentosa Spain SD Eibar Undisclosed [81] Players loaned in Date from Pos. Name From Date to Ref. 4 August 2014 FW Republic of Ireland Leon Best England Blackburn Rovers 6 January 20152 [51][107] 6 August 2014 MF Spain Omar Mascarell Spain Real Madrid 2 May 2015 [52] 25 August 2014 DF England Ryan Shotton England Stoke City 31 December 20143 [58] 29 August 2014 FW England Jordon Ibe England Liverpool 15 January 20154 [59][89] 20 October 2014 GK England Jack Butland England Stoke City 27 November 20145 [71][108] 2 January 2015 FW England Darren Bent England Aston Villa 2 May 2015 [78] 2 February 2015 FW England Tom Ince England Hull City 2 May 2015 [94] 2 February 2015 MF England Jesse Lingard England Manchester United 2 May 2015 [96] So they have Darren Bent (who we were linked with over the summer and is surely good enough to score a few in that league), Leon Best, Jack Butland Tom Ince, had Jordan Ibe (while they were doing well), some real Madrid kid and ManUre kid. To go along with there current squad which includes Will Hughes. Remember the level we are talking about here, that squad should be competing close to the top. I think even John Carver would keep that squad in that division, and that is saying a lot.

It's not an easy league to get out of. Particularly this season. I think SM would be able to get us Europa League football on regular basis, provided he is adequately backed. No it's not. Look at the list of managers who've done it: Pardew, Hughton, Mick McMackem (about 50 times), Nigel Pearson, Steve Bruce, Sean Dyche, Paul Jewel, Roy bloody Keane, for christ sake I could go on. Look back at our season down there, Shola Ameobi ffs was knocking in goals for fun before he got injured and then even Marlon Harewood got us a few. It's not that tough a league for a manager of any quality, and managers of better than completely crap ability tend to get their teams up. If you can't get a team out of that division, you're not good enough. Don't care what he did some 10 years ago at Boro or one season in Holland, his current CV, is no better than the likes of those managers currently ahead of him in that league and below us in ours.

Such a wasted opportunity if they appoint either Mclaren or Carver. FFS, McLaren can't even get a team out of the Championship, how is that any kind of a job reference. Carver's record speaks for itself, the guy should be nowhere near this football club.

No way in hell Carver is better than Shearer.

I think he does, there's certainly no evidence of anything productive coming from him.

This used to be my favourite thread on these boards. However nowadays it's seems kinda irrelevant.

I was watching F1 this weekend and they mentioned in the commentary a quote from Fangio that Mercedes were trying to employ of winning the race in the slowest possible time. I couldn't help but think of how much it relates to Mike Ashley's philosophy with us but naturally remove any notions of winning: "Staying in the PL with the minimum amount of cash outlay" I think every year he's trying to push this window as much as he can.

I don't see that at all tbh. I think he's done the maths (or rather, had the maths done for him) and decided to ride it out with Johnny Tenlicks. To bring in a Venables/JFK or whoever, with a handful of games to go, would be a risk in itself. Will be really interesting to see how it pans out. That said, a draw out of the next couple of games would render the discussion pretty much pointless as that could be enough. He'll be banking on new manager bounce, it happens all the time, even Sunderland got it, we only need one win to assure our status, new manager bounce would do that. If we get sucked in we'll have the worst goal difference of everyone down there (when you factor in improvements to other teams and derogation of our own), if the Mackems, Hull and Leicester get a win 4 points (Leicester of course would be taking 3 off of us), from the next couple of games, they are just one win away from jumping us. He's literally got to act if that's the case, unless he doesn't care as much about the PL pay day as we think he does.

At some point Ashley may get twitchy, there is a definite possibility that we could be sucked in to the relegation battle. That's huge for him. The last time we got close to it, he went out and spent money, which as we know is crazy stuff for him. Lose the next two games and I think he might have to act, and the only thing he can do is replace Carver, would not surprise me at all if he "augmented" the coaching staff with an experienced (ie. too long in the tooth ala JFK) appointment on a temp basis until the end of the season, if we lose the next two.

Klopp is not going to go to a title winning side like City IMO, he seems to be more of a Kevin Keegan figure who is more renowned for entertainment than trophies. That said, he'll get better offers than us. If we were the old Newcastle aiming for the skies like under Sir John Hall it would be a different matter though. Not to lay any blame on you but Hall is one son of a bitch. He did admit he knew full well Ashley wanted to suck the life out of the club yet sold it to him anyway! Massive t*** Hall, acts like a poor geordie but loves money more than anything! Tbf what he admitted was he knew that Ashley wanted the club to promote Sports Direct. No one could have envisioned what Ashley would have done to get there though, we all assumed it was great thing to be taken over by a billionaire and surely the best promotion for his product was a successful team on the field ! Having said that, Hall was desperate to get out o at the time, he'd tried to sell his interest before to other groups, so even with the benefit of hindsight he might very well not have changed his mind and still sold to Ashley.

That's a great piece, thanks for linking it. The Chronicle should do the same, weren't they pally with Michael Martin at on time ? It needs to be in print for the rank and file who still buy newspapers to read.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02np1fr#auto That's totalsport btw. FFs, I'm only about 10 mins into this and there's a freakin idiot "Richard" calling in and whining on and on about Sissoko. FFS all the troubles we have the club Sissoko's form or performance is so far from what we should be complaining about it's ridiculous. What do these people think when they call, "ooh i've got a chance to talk about the toon on the radio, let me rip into Sissoko, that'll fix all our problems".

Worst player on the pitch last night. I was of the thinking maybe bringing him back on a cheap contract would be a wise move for squad filling. But the guy is an awful RB, he's better in midfield, but if he's in the squad he's regarded as back up for RB. Which leaves us woefully short when he has to fill that role.

It really doesn't look like we will win another game this season, but I think it would be highly unlikely that we don't pick up another point or 2. There's enough teams and points between us and the bottom 3 to save us this year. But there won't be much of a gap come the end of the season, that's for sure.

should have scored, Abeid.

It's really amazing how many clear pens we've had turned down recently.

No longer working for NCJ. Yep, clearly the writers there are told to tow the party line, that doesn't excuse the retardedness shown by Ryder though

Very harsh for the work they put in but they should be more proactive in promoting change The "work" they put in is handsomely rewarded with hits and advertising plastered all over the front page. They ceased to be hobbyist's a long time a go.