merlin

Exactly, and notice how Howard Webb used the 4th official to change his decision in the Confed Cup match between Brazil & Egypt last night - Egyptian defender used his arm to clear Brazilian shot off the line & Webb originally awarded a corner to Brazil ; after huge protests from the Brazilians, he was told by the 4th official(over his head-phones) that a pen was the correct decision, and AWARDED one - DESPITE use of replays being supposedly against FIFA rules....! I have always thought that the 4th official SHOULD be used to clear up things like this ; defying technology when it can prevent injustices is simply playing into the hands of fixers.....

THIS..

SJH did champion Martinez as a potentially good choice for manager after Fat Sam was sacked. That suggests to me that his knowledge of football is miles better than either Ashley or Shepherd. Whether he's a hypocrite, I don't know, I can't say I blame him for wanting to take the money the mess Shepherd was creating at the time. Definitely the most intelligent Chairman I've seen in charge at Newcastle though. He also wanted SBR after KK resigned in 97 - had SBR come then, I reckon we would have won several trophies in the following years.. He also agreed to sign Shearer - I saw on here a few days ago that one poster had credited Shepherd with Shearer coming to the club - this was rubbish ; Shepherd didn't talk over as Chairman until Dec 97. NOBODY could blame Sir John for selling his shares - he came to the club as a catalyst for change and DID that - health reasons led him to step down as Chairman, and by the time Ashley wanted to buy the club, Sir John was 74 years old...people ought to remember this, because everyone on here will probably face old age at some stage. He did almost what he set out to do(we didn't win the title, which was what he wanted) at a time when nobody else would take on McKeag & Co - grow up and accept the facts instead of acting like spoilt kids who had their toys taken away ; ANYONE would have sold at his age, and being told by the buyer that they wanted the best for the club - it seems some on here would have preferred it if Shepherd had taken total control....

NO - absolutely NOT ; finished with the club if he gets back in ANY executive position whatsoever... Even serving hot dogs is too good for him...

Agree totally - don't give a damn whether Shearer talks with him or not ; would rather have a different manager under more credible ownership than have Shepherd just because Shearer would accept him.

Sounds about the most accurate news from the club in months...!

Business success involves a hell of a lot of luck. Being in the right place at the right time with the right people around you can make even a complete moron a lot of money. With us, Ashley seemed to be content to rely on his luck rather than good management and his luck just ran out. The situation reminds me a bit of what happened with Alan Sugar a few years ago, when he bought Spurs. He ended up having to sack Terry Venables, who was the fans' favourite, and found himself out of control of his own business. Like Ashley, he was glad to get out in the end. The only criterion for success in a business is making money. With a football club, success is trophies and there's a degree of customer involvement and interest in decisions which would normally be entirely up to an owner. True. Tbh I can understand people thinking that Ashley is deliberately running the club down because his decision making is so catastrophic that it seems inconceivable that he thinks he is doing the right things. But he is a trader and a chancer who got lucky in a market he understands. He thinks that means he has ability to run something else which he doesn't understand and like others before him (Sugar being one as you say) he is very wrong. People like Ashley are used to making decisions in their own time and in their own way, those that work for him know that and set things up around him accordingly. But in a business like a football club decisions are absolutely time critical and success depends upon the assets of the club being moulded into a cohesive unit (and not being viewed as a potential profitable resale). Ashley, though rich, isn't really very clever at all and I have thought since the word go that he was completely out of his depth owning a Premiership club. I'd kind of agree with your conclusion that there's a different skill-set needed to run a football club, when compared with running a business, and that Ashley has fallen short. I don't think it's the time pressure factor that's significant though, and I wouldn't say that Ashley has necessarily been lucky in his business life, any more than Sugar was lucky. In business, they each saw opportunities neglected by other people and went for it hell for leather. The problem with a football club is that it is only partly a business. The other part is a kind of community institution in which the fans have a big influence, and in that respect it's like running a public service. The strain in running a public service is that you have the press, the government and the public on your back, demanding that you run things in a certain way, and you're not your own master. So a lot of what you would like to do has to be weighed up and compromises reached. So you get the worst of both worlds - you have to pick up the tab at the end of the day, but you don't get the free hand that you would get in business. Like you said, maybe Ashley just doesn't have the kind of brain that can anticipate that kind of difficulty and deal with it. He's also used to shunning the limelight, and may not have the kind of thick skin you need in that very public position. I didn't like Shepherd, but he did have the hide of a rhino when the criticism started flying. Strictly in the world of business, appointing Wise and Keegan together might have made a lot of sense. Keegan would produce an entertaining product for the customers and Wise would look after the long-term strategy and the finances. But in practice, that was a disaster. Keegan is more than an employee - he's a public figure with a lot of support and he wasn't averse to using that status to try to get what he wanted, despite what may have been written into his contract. Ashley has not been in control since that point, because he was never going to win a PR battle with Keegan. It's just not a situation that occurs in the business world. Great response bobyule. Just a couple of points of clarification: I don't know so much about Sugar but I think Ashley was lucky. The flotation valuation of Sports Direct was way in excess of reality as subsequent results have shown (pre recession too) and he coined nearly a £billion in cash on the back of that. Also my point about decisions in football being time critical was more to do with planning the timing of decisions so that they are made at the best time for the club, given that there is a clear cut season, transfer window, pre season training etc. The timing and significance of these is known well in advance. And if you do have an unexpected event (e.g KK departure and JFK illness) mid season it becomes a matter of urgency to sort something out quickly. The run of results under Hughton's stewardship post KK where we lost to Hull and Paul Ince's Blackburn at home was a case in point. Your second para on the difference between a football club and other businesses is about as good an analysis as I've ever read tbh. Each of Ashleys shops make around £15-18k a day on a weekend your looking at over £20k a day and a replica shirt release day the shop in that area can make around £10k from the shirt sales alone. That's not luck. He has been able to make loads of money before the shops were floated from hard work hunting for grey market merchandise to flog in this country for dirt cheap then buying out companies to allow him to produce stock for next to noubt and sell it for huge profits. This is not luck. Missed the point. Trousering a £billion of cash when floating a business at £3 a share when it is worth less than half that is luck. Added to which, his decision-making since has been unbelievable - and not just in the football world ; would anyone with an ounce of nous have invested 100m in Bradford & Bingley just when the whole Sub-prime debacle was being revealed...? I rest my case. Many on here slag off SJH for being a 'money-grabber', yet with both MetroCentre and NUFC he 'saw an opportunity and took it, what's lucky about that'....!?? Noticeably, Sir John has NOT lost money subsequently as Ashley has - even Cameron Hall was messed-up by DH after SJH had retired.... No, Ashley HAS been lucky - Branson had a similar start in business, but unlike our dear owner, he weathered recessions and built a massive empire - anyone see the difference, I wonder..!?

Would this mean a sale is close though, because surely the longer he remains in charge without sorting anything out, the more it will cost him? It doesn't seem to bother him though. How can it? Otherwise he wouldn't be doing everything exactly the opposite of what he should be doing. Then again, he could just be a complete dipshit chancer who got extremely lucky in past business dealings and now is getting found out for the fuckwit he really is. Your last paragraph has it - I've been saying this for months...

Well done - beat me to it..!

Martins = crap - under WHATEVER management..

This - On the button...

This - unless there are huge changes at all levels of the club by the end of June, next season will be a complete write-off ; any longer delay and we could be looking at a second relegation.

A good summing-up - get him gone for anything upwards of 5m.

The fact that a club like the Hammers, whose fanbase is much smaller than NUFC's has been sold before us indicates how badly Newcastle are rated, both in the UK and Internationally - the fact that they are in London is nothing to do with it, because it simply means they have more close competition ; and, they have NEVER been as big a club as Arsenal or Spurs even back in the 60s. Those who still think NUFC is a big club are getting a real wake-up call now....

This - the club is just a joke and a person with Shearer's standing in the game will not want to put up with this mad-house for much longer ; also doubt he would return under Shepherd - in fact, I'd be disappointed with him if he did.

What say does Shearer have in the matter? IF he had a say in the matter, and lets hope he will, very soon Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the club sold Bassong before we even have a manager. Yes - spot-on Dave.

Neither club is anywhere NEAR the 'grander scheme of things' but they are closer to it for the foreseeable future than we are...Nothing stays the same forever and you can never be complacent ; if the responses to articles in a French footy mag are supposed to back the theory of our eternal superiority, then it smacks of straw-grabbing... We cannot even use trophies as evidence because ;- 1.They have won more League titles than us, and the last one was more recently 2.They were the last NE side to win the FA Cup(1973) 3.Even the dreaded Smogs have boasting rights over being the last NE club to win a meaningful domestic trophy(even if our 'fans' try to deride it). All we have to boast about during the last 20 years are 2 near-misses in both Prem and FA Cup(although we were never at the races in EITHER Cup Final), and a few goes at the CL - now light years away in terms of our being able to challenge the Top 4 again. Bragging Rights in the NE is small beer in the eyes of the rest of football.

No, YOU get a grip - we are talking FOOTBALL CLUBS here, not cities ; nobody disputes that Sunderland is an inferior CITY to Newcastle, but what difference does THAT make in the football world ? Liverpool is ALSO an inferior city to Newcastle in some ways, but they still have a team world's apart from NUFC...they also won the 'City of Culture' thing, mainly because Blair's wife comes from there, so don't quote THAT as a guideline ; no, they are going to be the No 1 team in the NE for at least 1 year and probably more, so as I said - DIG YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND ; NUFC has lived in cloud cuckoo land for far too long and its about time our fans started facing the realities of life now that we have been relegated. Thank your lucky stars that one Brian Clough(who used to play for them), never became their manager or our record over the past 40 years would look distinctly ragged against what they would have achieved under him....... They continue to bask in the glory of a 36 point season - 2 more than us and about twice their usual PL total - and seeing us go down. Let them enjoy the moment but whatever they proclaim that will continue to be the height of their ambition. Bruce is not a great manager - if he was he'd be at a big club by now - and whatever they're saying right now his Geordie credentials will weigh heavily against him once it starts going wrong - another Lawrie Macmenemie perhaps ? He has a big, overpaid underperforming squad to sort out (sounds familiar ?) and despite newspaper talk of "big signings" Sunderland will remain a particularly unattractive option for any decent player in a finacially competitive market. Right now the their target/ambition is exactly the same as ours, i.e to be playing in the PL the season after next. If we're no longer competing for a top of the table place and Europe and if our status has sunk to being a club who merely want to be in the PL next year we may as well take a step back and rebuild. Granted they'll get a bit more TV cash in the meantime but despite the "new order" we'll still have higher attendances and a lot more media coverage. That's the way it will alway's be, they know it and so does Steve Bruce and everyone else in football. Unless NUFC is sold quickly, and to a determined and clever owner, I am willing to bet that, by the end of next season, our attendances will be worse than theirs - i think you are underestimating the degree of anger and disillusion among our fans. If we struggle in the first few months of the season and have not been sold, OR the new owners do not invest quickly, the gates will start to drop rapidly. Nobody knows exactly how well Bruce will so, OR what sort of signings he might make - all of that will determine how well they do and what sort of crowds they will get...you are judging things from how the clubs have performed over the past 20 years ; all of that is now in the melting pot.. Nothing stays the same, and we are not talking about a club like, say, Leeds who were never going to attract really big crowds because Rugby is a more popular game in W.Yorks - Sunderland DO have the capacity to draw large crowds on a regular basis IF , for example, they managed to get into the UEFA Cup for a couple of seasons. At present, they are in a far better situation and with more chance of Prem respectability than NUFC, and until Newcastle is back in the Prem(OR Bruce fails spectacularly, which not many on here would put money on), you can forget all the historical stuff...and as for 'more media coverage', just see how much more money they will get by being on Sky next season....it also seems to me that 'everyone else in football' was secretly quite pleased to see NUFC go down..! Your reply is crammed with supposition all assuming a best case scenario for them and a worst case for us. It's highly unlikely. No decent player with options will go there and Bruce is not a top manager, their ambition will merely be survival. Let's face it in a hovvel like Sunderland, where I believe no member of their playing or management staff will lower themselves to reside, it's always going to be an uphill battle to attract decent people. UEFA cup - now you are getting carried away and I'm not sure what your point about "'everyone else in football' was secretly quite pleased to see NUFC go down..! " has to do with this particular discussion. P.S. Which rugby league team ever had a higher attendance than Leeds United - even when they are in the 3rd division ? No, my reply is NOT crammed with supposition - my reply laid out a scenario that is certainly possible in the current circumstances ; however much you hate to admit it, the fact of the matter is that S'Land will CERTAINLY finish higher than NUFC next season - even if we get promoted, which looks as likely as winning the FA Cup right now.. They WILL get more money from TV than we will, they have a new owner who looks as if he will invest in the team(then again, to be fair, so did Ashley...), and they have a manager who has achieved a reasonable degree of success at clubs who have far less going for them than EITHER NUFC or the Mackems..only a fool would rule out the chance that he might just have more success at a club with a bigger fan base and not having to sell to balance the books ; you have no more reason to believe he will fail than I have to say he will be a success, but the facts certainly do NOT lean to any view that he WILL fail.. As for the UEFA Cup, they are unlikely to achieve that in the next season, but, if they make progress under Bruce. I wouldn't rule them out as possible Top 7 material the following year if he is allowed to make further signings - NOBODY can rule that out, after all, there were plenty on here scoffing at MON being appointed to the Villa job, but he has achieved exactly that, and S/Land could draw just as big(or larger)crowds than Villa. Do you believe that any of the top Prem clubs would have expected NUFC to be in the Top 3 the season after Promotion ? As you should remember, that is what happened - its unlikely ever to happen again, but it shows that a properly-managed club with ambitious management and Directors CAN go places..the fact that Sunderland is not as nice as Newcastle has nothing to do with it... Sheff Weds & Wolves used to be giants of the game - as did Notts Forest and Derby under Clough ; before Clough arrived at Derby, they were a Second Div backwater, well below the likes of Sheff Weds and Wolves in the pecking order, but they left them standing and although they are in the Fizzy now, they have been better than Sheff Weds ever since, so do not think that clubs with big histories and nice cities are always the most successful - they aren't. My point about 'everyone else in football' was in answer to the point YOU made assuming that everyone else in the game shared your opinion about NUFC always going to be a bigger club than Sunderland - Personally, I don't think the majority of fans give a toss about that and think that BOTH NE clubs are rubbish(which, frankly, they ARE right now), but there were certainly PLENTY of fans of other teams who were DELIGHTED to see us go down, and Richard Scudamore, CE of the Prem, said they wouldn't miss us - interpret THAT as you will.... The point about Leeds was that, even if people don't go to games, they still have a greater interest in RL than Football - the only other deduction to be made is that they don;t care EITHER way, and that still proves my point about the Mackems having more potential than Leeds - even Don Revie thought that. I have always wanted NUFC to be a club deserving of its supporters - that is, one of the Top 5 in England,but I have never been so blind as to see that if we ever lost the plot, the Mackems always had the support potential to be a successful club, even in the days when we were competing with Man U for the title - complacency is a dangerous and stupid mindset in every walk of life, and especially in football. We will see what happens over the next 2 years.....

No, YOU get a grip - we are talking FOOTBALL CLUBS here, not cities ; nobody disputes that Sunderland is an inferior CITY to Newcastle, but what difference does THAT make in the football world ? Liverpool is ALSO an inferior city to Newcastle in some ways, but they still have a team world's apart from NUFC...they also won the 'City of Culture' thing, mainly because Blair's wife comes from there, so don't quote THAT as a guideline ; no, they are going to be the No 1 team in the NE for at least 1 year and probably more, so as I said - DIG YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND ; NUFC has lived in cloud cuckoo land for far too long and its about time our fans started facing the realities of life now that we have been relegated. Thank your lucky stars that one Brian Clough(who used to play for them), never became their manager or our record over the past 40 years would look distinctly ragged against what they would have achieved under him....... They continue to bask in the glory of a 36 point season - 2 more than us and about twice their usual PL total - and seeing us go down. Let them enjoy the moment but whatever they proclaim that will continue to be the height of their ambition. Bruce is not a great manager - if he was he'd be at a big club by now - and whatever they're saying right now his Geordie credentials will weigh heavily against him once it starts going wrong - another Lawrie Macmenemie perhaps ? He has a big, overpaid underperforming squad to sort out (sounds familiar ?) and despite newspaper talk of "big signings" Sunderland will remain a particularly unattractive option for any decent player in a finacially competitive market. Right now the their target/ambition is exactly the same as ours, i.e to be playing in the PL the season after next. If we're no longer competing for a top of the table place and Europe and if our status has sunk to being a club who merely want to be in the PL next year we may as well take a step back and rebuild. Granted they'll get a bit more TV cash in the meantime but despite the "new order" we'll still have higher attendances and a lot more media coverage. That's the way it will alway's be, they know it and so does Steve Bruce and everyone else in football. Unless NUFC is sold quickly, and to a determined and clever owner, I am willing to bet that, by the end of next season, our attendances will be worse than theirs - i think you are underestimating the degree of anger and disillusion among our fans. If we struggle in the first few months of the season and have not been sold, OR the new owners do not invest quickly, the gates will start to drop rapidly. Nobody knows exactly how well Bruce will so, OR what sort of signings he might make - all of that will determine how well they do and what sort of crowds they will get...you are judging things from how the clubs have performed over the past 20 years ; all of that is now in the melting pot.. Nothing stays the same, and we are not talking about a club like, say, Leeds who were never going to attract really big crowds because Rugby is a more popular game in W.Yorks - Sunderland DO have the capacity to draw large crowds on a regular basis IF , for example, they managed to get into the UEFA Cup for a couple of seasons. At present, they are in a far better situation and with more chance of Prem respectability than NUFC, and until Newcastle is back in the Prem(OR Bruce fails spectacularly, which not many on here would put money on), you can forget all the historical stuff...and as for 'more media coverage', just see how much more money they will get by being on Sky next season....it also seems to me that 'everyone else in football' was secretly quite pleased to see NUFC go down..!

Alternatively it could be that we've not had a solid midfield in 5 years & end up inviting pressure on our defence leading to more & more last ditch tackles, etc. When a striker makes a mistake it doesn't usually get punished too badly, but when a defender makes an error it usually leads to an opposing player being put through on goal. You can get away sometimes, but constant pressure means more potential mistakes and when you have players like Titus did I leave the iron on? Bramble in your defence those mistakes get magnified more often. Bramble has looked alright this season because he's not been put under that pressure since the Wigan midfield has been capable of keeping hold of the ball when required and offering an outlet when necessary. He's still made the same mistakes, it just hasn't happened as often. How often this season did our defenders clear the ball to the midfield only to see it fly right back at our defence because the midfield wasn't there? Too often our players were sitting so deeply they could be classed as defenders or alternatively they'd find a warm spot on the pitch and stay there despite being marked by a defender twice their size. It's why Jonas was important to the team this season, he was actually capable of running with the ball and alleviating pressure, it would have worked better if the rest of the midfield had thought about trying to keep up with him to offer an outlet for him when he got into trouble, but too often they were still wandering around the centre of defence 50 yards away from the ball. It winds me up no end when the media go on about our frail defence. It isn't really that bad, the problem is in the midfield and has been in the midfield since Speed left. Couldnt agree more, especially the point about Jonas. Yes, exactly right.

June 2009 - Sunderland appoint a solid, dependable, experienced manager from the north east. They have a billionaire owner who seems to have bitten the bug and is prepared to spend heavily Thye are in the premiership June 2009 Newcastle have no manager We have an owner who wants out We are in the championship Remember this month people, every dog has its day and Sunderland are currently basking in the warm rays of their good fortune. We will return, the issues will be resolved and the cream always secures the top of the crop. You have summed up the situation well, but a word of caution - unless 'the issues' are resolved QUICKLY and CORRECTLY, there is absolutely NO guarantee that we will be a more successful club than the Mackems in the next 3 years at least...it is true that every dog has its day, but the question is, how long will that 'day' be ? NUFC have been top dogs in the NE for most of the past 20 years, thanks largely to SJH, KK and on the Mackem side, Bob Murray and his bad decisions...let us hope that the boot is not on the other foot for as long !

No, YOU get a grip - we are talking FOOTBALL CLUBS here, not cities ; nobody disputes that Sunderland is an inferior CITY to Newcastle, but what difference does THAT make in the football world ? Liverpool is ALSO an inferior city to Newcastle in some ways, but they still have a team world's apart from NUFC...they also won the 'City of Culture' thing, mainly because Blair's wife comes from there, so don't quote THAT as a guideline ; no, they are going to be the No 1 team in the NE for at least 1 year and probably more, so as I said - DIG YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND ; NUFC has lived in cloud cuckoo land for far too long and its about time our fans started facing the realities of life now that we have been relegated. Thank your lucky stars that one Brian Clough(who used to play for them), never became their manager or our record over the past 40 years would look distinctly ragged against what they would have achieved under him.......

You may not(and indeed ARE not)inferior to them, but your football club certainly IS right now - AND for the foreseeable future - even Shearer said that 'they'd have their day ' after they gave him an award on his last game at SOS.. Sorry, but you are going to have to get used to it - I reckon that Bruce will do a decent, if unspectacular, job there, and until NUFC has new owners/manager AND stability, we will be second best.. What is worse is that the longer NUFC remains down, and the better the Mackems do, we will see youngsters in the NE begin to follow them as the default choice, just as they did with us when KK was here. Its not pretty, but its what NUFC fans will have to live with for at least 2 years if not longer. Heads out of the sand pls guys.....

Whoa mate, that is ridiculously pessimistic... chin up fella. No, 2Sheds is right - look back at history ; relegated 1978, not back up until 1984...relegated again 1989,didn't return until 1993 AND we had a far better squad when KK took over in 92 than we do now..

I absolutely agree on all counts. What puts all this into perspective is that Everton DOUBLED NUFC's turnover in the figures released today - even Fulham and Wigan did better than NUFC....a sobering lesson for those still claiming that NUFC are 'a big club'.. we finished TWELFTH in Prem t/over.... I plumped for 3+ years in the Fizzy - an unless a really decent takeover happens quickly, I stand by that.