merlin

It was never as bad as when they pulled the Leazes down the same season we were relegated, I'm sure we'd have came back up sooner if the Leazes had not been pulled down, the noise would have made a difference. I had mates who even stopped going because of it. They pulled it down because Westwood & Co were sick of the abuse they were getting...!!

We should be looking for the NEXT Henry, not the one who is past his 30th Birthday, but its a good thing that KK is prepared to aim high when the time comes to make top signings - the problem is that players also want to aim high so its necessary to get some success first if you want the best....as has been said, Arsenal are not missing him, they have got Adebayor doing the biz instead ; AND he's better in the air.... Having said that, I'm sure KK was just using Henry as an example.

They were talking about this on Channel 7's Sunrise programme this morning here in Australia - apparently, because of the strong Sky TV links here, Australia is one of the first countries where this is likely to happen. There wouldn't be any shortage of support for Prem sides in the big cities as there are many fans of the Prem over here(they had 55,000 in Melbourne for the A League Play off between Sydney 7 Melbourne 2 years ago, and over 50,000 at this weeks' International v Qatar).Incidentally, more & more Brits are coming to live in Oz - 23,000 alone last year with more expected this year...... As Midds says, if the money is being offered,it will happen - I think this is a SKY initiative because, as I said earlier in the year, they are fearful of losing income with the Economic downturn(people scrapping PPV and Subs), so this is a way of raising more money. Domestic fans are only there to provide jam now - the bread & butter comes from SKY, and the one who pays the piper calls the tune....

Have to agree NE5 - Gillespie was a far better winger in terms of pace and crossing ability although he never really reached his full potential ; could have been a great player even up to a couple of years ago but got too interested in off-field activities... Milner has a more powerful shot when he chooses to use it, but I think that he too has stalled in his career development. Its interesting that he did so well at Villa when he was there and whether that tells you he needs a move to get him going again, I don't know - maybe he just responded better to O'Leary ; these things happen, but one thing is certain - he isn't doing the business in the wing position for us right now.

You just have to look at why Juve were relegated recently if you doubt that refs can be manipulated..there have been other scandals i.e.in Germany about supposed 'fixed' results involving players and I have been told FOR DEFINITE by someone who was a well-respected coach in the Game in the 70s that teams in the English league DID throw games if they weren't either in danger of relegation or likely to win something... Favours were done, so if you want to believe everything is always whiter than white in Football's garden, go ahead and believe it...!!

You have to wonder about the character of a player that employs a snake like Willy McKay as his agent. A great point and very relevant - would not be surprised to see him go, is always looking miserable and is, to me, a classic case of square peg in round hole - we are never going to keep some foreigners and I think French players are particularly suited to living in London or Manchester rather than say, here or Liverpool(more cosmopolitan cities whereas N.Europeans settle OK in most areas ; Hamman actually liked living in the NE, it was just Gullit & the Board that p'd him off. Even Ginola didn't last too long,Robert did OK, but he was not typically French - came from one of their colonial islands, which makes him as different as Aussies or Kiwis are from Brits ; talk same language, have different lifestyle, attitude to life etc.

had a s**** manager...simple as that. If that is true(and it is in part), how come Davies started to play well for Allardyce when he joined Bolton and he was crap before ? I hope KK DOES play Martins and then we'll soon know if your theory is right.... It should be very interesting because if KK does NOT rate Martins after playing him a few times, he will drop him and will you then say we've STILL got a s--- manager !??

Got it in one...

As the Quote icon didn't work, let me add to the a/m posting by saying that, apart from Beye and maybe Faye, I WOULD include the African players - would NOT have kept Emre and also have doubts about Given as a first-teamer now(OK for squad).

Apart from Beye and possibly Faye, I would DEFINITLEY include the African players....except that I wouldn't have included Emre in the 'keep' equation and there are big question marks over Given now, certainly as a first-teamer. Can't include the African players.

That alone shows what a state we are in...

Your last question is the right one.....!

People should do some research on the famous Lobo-Solti case which was investigated by the famous Sunday Times Football correspondent, Brian Glanville.This concerned some incredible happenings during the 2 European Cup Games between Juventus and Derby County when Clough was in charge in 1973. The stuff Glanville uncovered by talking to the Ref, the Portuguese Lobo was absolutely mind-blowing... Do not doubt anything in Football..

I've said all along that I don't think even Allardyce would have taken us down. I'm just generally worried I suppose. I agree with your first post on this, but its not Allardyce OR KK who can or can't take us down - its the players, and they look very capable of that achievement , if nothing else, which is why you started the thread isn't it..!!??

Agree with most of this, although Beye is not for the long term(5 years) ; Like you, I'm not yet sure about Enrique in the Prem, but thought he was missed against Boro. Rest are mediocre at best apart from the ones you mentioned who have had injuries... Too many now either too stale or past sell-by date - KK has a HUGE rebuilding job to do...

OK - The Ref was crap, and I still think we have been on the end of a number of highly questionable decisions this season.....maybe we have made some high-powered enemies at the FA ; think about it. However - This team is very poor indeed - anyone doubting it needs their eyes testing. Boro WERE the better side in all but goals ; they are not a GOOD side, but they are workmanlike, and look more certain to be in the Prem than we do at this point in time..for those who persist in grasping at straws, and say we are in a similar position to Spurs, get real ; Spurs were light-years ahead of us in their game against Man U, light-years...now they DO look like a good side, but then Ramos already had some of the raw material available - KK has a load of absolute DROSS to sort out. Please stop bleating on about 'when the Africans come back'...if Martins was like Berbatov or Faye like Woody I might agree. The only one who may make any difference is Beye at RB. We don't HAVE a TEAM - they are a collection of misfits, other clubs' cast-offs and players reaching the end of the line(Butt is declining so fast it isn't true, and must be dropped but there is no class replacement). Both Cacapa and Taylor looked uncertain compared to Huth and Wheater - and Huth is no race horse.. People who have slagged off Enrique must now be eating their words because although he isn't perfect he is a far better LB than Zog, and the side looks unbalanced without him. Incredibly, nearly all of Owen's goals have come from headers - once the weakest part of his game as a striker and this is because he still has the predatory instinct to be in the right place, but he has no chance on the deck because the movement/passing is not good enough to take defenders off him. Even he is now a shadow of the player he was..... We have played worse than this but not much - there is no real improvement from earlier matches except that the ball is not being humped unto the air as much, but the passing from midfield is still awful and predictable. Contrary to the views of some, I don't think we created much - Owen's wrongly-disallowed goal was the result of a bad goalkeeping error and apart from the goal we hardly had a direct shot ; it took until 44 mins for Smith to hit the first shot at Schwartzer and that was way out...how many times did we really threaten their goal ? The Home games against Reading, Mackems, Blackburn are now 'must wins', and we somehow have to put in a couple of disciplined performances away from SJP to try to get a couple of points.We are VERY lucky that Derby, Reading and Fulham have been so poor, for had there been less of a gap we would have been in really serious trouble - Brum and Wigan look like scraping some points together and our friends from Wearside will not give up until its certain they are down - even they looked better than us against Liverpool.. Assuming we scrape 40-41 points - not easy with our fixtures - KK can then begin the long process of sorting the collective bungling of the past 4 years out, and it will be a really difficult task - the last remaining colour in his hair will surely be gone by then !! I will be surprised if even 4 of this side are in the first team within 2 years.

The more we see of Ramos's organisation, the more we realise where we might have been now if Jol had gone at the start of the season. The best Spurs performance I've seen in years, everyone leaner, fitter, playing with a purpose, extremely optimistic about the future. Unlike most on the Spurs' forums, I thought Clattenburg did well, as you say, it could have got well out of hand with a different ref. I thought Nani was fortunate to stay on the pitch but, apart from that, no real complaints. We got pulverised for 20 minutes by the best attacking team of the big 4 and very nearly held out. A lot to be encouraged by. Agreed - Spurs deserved to win and its interesting to see how Man Ure implode when they are put under REAL pressure at both the back and front ; 6 yellow cards and a fine for them shows the desperation. I was disappointed they managed to sneak an equalizer at the death. Ramos has made his players fitter mentally and physically - Malbranque looks a different player in a few weeks, but they ALL worked so hard which is why they were able to match Man Ure - Fergie has always placed great store on attacking AND defending AS A TEAM, which is where NUFC's Prima Donnas of past years let the club down - the current side are basically either too old to play a high pressure game, or just too lazy.. Well done ! Quite happy to give credit where it is due, esp when Man U have been the ones discomforted!!

I have expressed some of my views about this on the Shearer thread, but I will add this; - Whether KK does the business or not in terms of bringing success to the club , his first job, much like the start of his first spell as manager, is to keep the club in the Division. Those too young to remember the situation at the time should be reminded that his initial contract was only from 3 Feb(yes, its 16 years ago today..)until the end of season 91/92. None of us know what would have happened if the club had gone down..he might have gone, Sir John might have gone - no-one knows. Thank fully, it wasn't put to the test and the rest is history. We have to remember that KK was in a fairly unique position when we won promotion to the Prem in 92/93 because he and the Board had a common aim to spend the club to the top which they began to do in 94/95.At that time, no other club was spending as much money and even Alex Ferguson got twitchy about KK's spending(it hardly seems credible today, but its true). Fergie feared that Man U's PLC status would restrict their ability to compete with Newcastle, but after we hit the high point with Shearer's signing, it started to go downhill...KK left before both he and the fans could tell if he could do the job under the new regime, but no-one really knows if the PLC is the only reson he decided to go, and he will not have told the full story in his book either.... This time, he has far more competition from other clubs, NUFC is not viewed favourably by prospective signings, unlike in the 90s and the Youth system has suddenly become all-important after being downgraded under KK in 1996 - it has also been badly run by the previous regime.. I hope that KKs comments about young players indicate that he has learned a few lessons since the last time and REALLY hope he will be a success - but I think , as some have said, the definition of success will be qualifying for Europe rather than challenging for the title. We don't yet know how the economic downturn will affect Prem clubs ; it may be that some find it harder to attract crowds due to people spending less money - we also don't know if the rising cost of living will cost Sky a large number of customers and therefore, less money to plough into the Prem with resultant belt-tightening for some clubs. If that does happen, NUFC are in a good position to benefit as we have a very loyal fanbase -- we will see. The best we can currently hope for is that he can replicate MON and get us into a similar position to Villa within 2 years, but it will be a tough shout - they had plenty of good youngsters for MON to draw on and, although some on here don't like to accept it, MON has a better record at different clubs AND is a better tactician...that, though, is our realistic benchmark for the next few years...assuming we win this afternoon...!!

Totally agree.

Isn't that what some people claimed about Martins..!??

Robson had the same problem and got us into the CL. Yes but the club hadn't sunk to its current depths when SBR came in - it was only 2 years after we finished second in the Prem...

That's one of the worst yet. Christ, will it ever stop? It really is unbelievable. Many people just moan about things but take no action to sort them out - the answer is clear ; get your news online(or preferably, via the Blogs because you will actually get the truth instead of Govt propaganda a la' the BBC or unresearched crap like the MSM - you will then be able to get a further step down the road to putting these prats out of work where they deserve to be - the Market Rules ; no customers, no business....

Good post. Didnt we do something similar that 1 summer when all we got in was Bowyer on a free. Im sure it was the year finished 4th or 3rd. Signed Bowyer in the summer, got knocked out of the CL qualifying round by Partizan and ended up 5th. Start of the club's decline in 2003..

There is much in this post that I agree with - you are quite right in that NUFC is no longer the draw for players that it used to be, and I doubt that those days will return unless Ashley DOES sanction big spending on the RIGHT players ; nobody wants to see the club ripped off as it was under Shepherd. I also agree that other clubs that were way behind have now overhauled us and it will take an almighty effort by all concerned to change this. I am frankly astonished at the over-the-top optimism and attitude of many fans who think it will all be OK just because KK is back and Ashley has money ; LOTS of Directors now have money and even against clubs like Villa or Man C we have a geographical disadvantage. Up until the end of last season, I still thought it possible for NUFC to challenge the top 4 within a couple of years - I now do not believe this possible and we face a real fight even to construct a team capable of obtaining regular UEFA Cup football ; Allardyce proved a bigger disaster than many(including me)thought he could be and on top of the last few years of fiasco which have turned the club into a laughing stock, this has set us back by a huge amount now ; KK will be realizing just how difficult his job now is, because I honestly believe that he has had a shock by the events of the Jan window, particularly by Woodgate's refusal - I would love to be a fly on the wall of his office when he talks to Terry Mac for one.... All at the club will now be realizing that the only way for the club to make real and concrete progress in the years ahead is to build a side virtually from scratch with young players added to the odd decent purchase - we are just not going to be able to get the best ready-made stars to join NUFC when we compete with the Top 4 plus some of the wannabees.... Shearer is, in my view , quite right to take a step back from things right now - I always thought he should manage elsewhere first in order to prove himself and there is nothing in his reported interview where he has said the wrong thing in my book ; there could well be more turmoil ahead and he is quite correct in his assessment of both his and KK's personalities - I just don't think they would gel as a team as both need to be the boss ; nothing wrong with admitting that, but Shearer now needs to go and prove himself as one.. It is VITAL that we beat Boro tomorrow in order that the club can start to progress and make plans for next season ; relegation would set us back years, and maybe irreversibly.

The difference is that we don't have anyone remotely as good as Berbatov or Keane up front, and that is before you look at the rest of the team....