merlin

So we've gone from having a fat & useless chairman to having a fat & clinically insane chairman. Great. He's not our chairman tbh. ....BUT - he pays the piper, therefore calls the tune - Brown isn't the Chancellor any more, but do you believe he has no say in Policy!!

Yes - spot Robster. I agree, I knew when Cantona sneaked that goal at the Gallowgate end we were stuffed ; the team had played them off the park in the first half, they hardly got a kick - a half-time of 3-0 wouldn't have been out of place. You just knew that goal, coming against the run of play, would give Man U hope for the rest of the season and that it would deflate both NUFC and the fans - doubts started to creep in and we were never to be so convincing again that season. We might have stuffed them 5-0 next season, but it really meant nothing compared to what even a 1-0 win in March 96 would have given us.

There will be plenty of these reports over the next few weeks, esp if we keep turning in sub-standard performances/results. It goes without saying that Ashley will not be happy with the dross currently being dished-up, whether people walk out after 11 mins or not...BUT - he is unlikely to allow the club to fall into the same state of chaos as Shepherd did and fire the manager in mid-season although I CAN see him taking action if this season turns into a wash-out by the end. Hughes is an intriguing name to enter the equation - he has done a great job at Blackburn and will soon be ready to move on - the questions are whether he sees SJP as a suitable destination when Old T is likely to beckon in a few years...also, whether he would take on the 'poisoned chalice' after seeing what has happened here in the past. Of all the decent candidates, he is probably the most likely one to take the job if offered - Mourinho MIGHT, but he may hang on for a London Club ; no guarantees that Ramos will do the trick at Spurs. Most top foreign coaches would not be interested in my opinion.

Saw the start of the game, then went to bed - we are now 9 hours in front of UK due to Daylight Saving last week-end, and the writing was on the wall by 12.10 midnight our time...... Unlike some eternal optimists who thought our next lot of fixtures were relatively easy, I was unsurprised by this defeat, although the size of it WAS a shock - I saw Pompey play at Chelsea earlier in the season, and thought they looked a decent side, unlucky to lose by 1 goal.... Last night, they finished the game as a contest within 10 minutes of kick-off and each of the 2 goals was a peach - Harper had NO chance with either of them, and the second was a good example of SUCCESSFUL 'Long Ball tactics - a shrewd, well-weighted pass that put the forward in with an equal chance against the defender(UNLIKE our hopeful punts upfield in the general direction of the opposition goal) ; Pompey also displayed some excellent passing and possession at speed, something I have been complaining about since it is almost absent from Newcastle's performances - we can't keep the ball OR pass it properly to save our lives.. I say again, as I did after the last 2 away defeats - there is something wrong with the coaching and training. There is obviously NO emphasis on fast, passing possession, simply a hit & hope long ball policy. The shape of the side continues to baffle me, with players continually played out of position, AND beginning to look demoralised and fed up with the situation.... As for what can be done - well , the answer is VERY LITTLE ; we are going to go to the SOS next week under huge pressure - whilst anything is possible in these games, I think that most sensible fans will believe we now go there as underdogs, a situation which hasn't occurred for many years, but I for one will not be surprised if they turn us over, although a heavy defeat would really set the alarm bells ringing. I cannot believe that the manager will be sacked unless things get really bad, i.e.we drop into the bottom 4 by Christmas - there simply isn't another option available to the club at present... Ashley is too shrewd not to realise how difficult it will be to try to get a decent replacement before the season's end , and we are probably No 1 on the 'List to Avoid' of Top-Class managers due to our wonderful record in that dept over the past 4 years...SO - its likely to be the status quo for the foreseeable future. As I said before after other defeats - its not the actual DEFEAT that is so bad - its the MANNER of them, and many more will result in a loss of morale amongst the players. There is ONE nagging fear at the back of my mind regarding personnel - that is, maybe the Man City fans were partly right in their warnings about Barton and his influence OFF the field - the last 2 performances, when he was a starting part of the side, have been lacking in any spirit whatsoever.... These are bad days, and its batten-down-the-hatches time.

That's the whole problem Mick - he shouldn't have been dropped in the first place. Given has hardly covered himself in glory since he got back into the side and Harper must feel that whatever he does, he will be out again when Given is fit Hardly going to fill him full of confidence, is it !? Harper being dropped along with Geremi being made skipper were 2 of Allardyce's worst decisions in my opinion - neither has been to the benefit of the team or team spirit.

Correction, Chez, it was an Australian COMPANY(Multiplex) - the problems were caused by; 1.Constant requests for changes in design etc by the stadium owners 2.Problems with the workforce - initially, Cleveland Bridge workers went on strike. There were no problems building the Olympic Stadium in Sydney and as I said, it was finished On TIME & ON BUDGET...wonder why !!?? We had a house built here during 2006 and despite a housing/construction boom in the area(nr Perth) at the time, it was done on the button and with no problems - we didn't even find any cracks after 6 months, so the quality of build is generally good and fast.

England WON'T get the WC - my money is on either Brazil or Australia in 2018. Even if England DID get it, the record of Newcastle Council in helping NUFC is not exactly brilliant, is it ? They dragged their feet over the Leazes Park project, which would have given us a bigger & better stadium than Man U at the time, and by doing so allowed the Brains Dept(i.e., one John Prescott, better known as 'Chipolata' allegedly.!!)to stymie the whole thing. It cost the club(and Ashley, in the end)millions by having to re-develop SJP into the lob-sided thing it is now. Sorry about that guys - I actually meant to put China & Australia, NOT Brazil(always think about Brazil when the WCs mentioned..!!). As for gggg's comments about Australia - you're wrong. Apart from the Olympic Stadium(built, may I remind you, ON TIME and to BUDGET, unlike Wembley!), there is the Aussie Stadium in Sydney, and the MCG and Telstra Dome in Melbourne...these all have capacity well above 40,000.. You will find that the other cities would have stadiums either re-modelled or newly-built to accommodate the WC if awarded - they don't hang around over here if things like that are on the table and FOOTBALL is a rapidly-growing sport among youngsters. This is a wealthy country whose Economy is growing at twice the rate of the UK - also Blatter has let it be known that he would support an Aussie bid as it would encourage the sport in this country. I notice that Hiddink wasn't in a great hurry to take the England job after he had finished his contract with Australia.....

A lot of good points, Allardyce has had relative success playing that way and he aint going to change. He's so similar in his outlook to Houllier it's uncanny, but a couple of words of warning from someone that had to put up with 3 years of this type of football: It can bring success in the cups because Owen and Martins are good enough to put away the one good chance in a game that comes their way - the problem is keeping those two happy especially because they ARE going to be fed on scraps and without stirring I can see Big Sam selling one or both in Jan to bring in a striker that more fulfills what he's looking for in a player, hold up play, hard work and strength. The problem in the league that Liverpool found was that against the better teams we would just give so much possesion to them that it was absolutely soul destroying watching us hang on sometimes. Against the weaker teams again, you'll give away so much possesion that you'll be able to see their confidence grow during the match because they'll know that if they score one then they're unlikely to lose the match. I've a bit of a soft spot for the toon due to a girl a met at uni and to be honest, I think you deserve better than what you've had to put up with in terms of Shepherd/souness and Roeder - but in Sam Allardyce all I see is a one dimensional bluffer that loves appearing on telly with his mates whereby they all sit round telling him what a genius he is for having bluetooth headsets whilst he hawks himself for the England job that my nan has as much chance of getting as he has. Some excellent points - the final paragraph was a gem !

I don't know what right the government thinks it has to comment on whether salaries are obscene or not - and indeed, what there is to gain from targetting particular clubs or individuals? Why can't they keep their nose out of it all? Not like they'd DREAM of commenting on City Banker's bonuses or salaries is it? It strikes me that MPs should keep their sleek traps shut when it comes to criticizing others' salaries - footballers are certainly overpaid in most cases, but so are MPs - they don't do the job they are supposed to do(i.e. their constituents wishes), merely toe the Party line, get stacks of holidays & expenses(NO TAX if they are Euro-MPs), and rubber-stamp directives from Brussels whilst raising their own pensions JUST before the House breaks for Summer(no debate then of course..!)as everyone else's pension gets hammered....STILL happy to be preached at by these hypocrites!!??

England WON'T get the WC - my money is on either Brazil or Australia in 2018. Even if England DID get it, the record of Newcastle Council in helping NUFC is not exactly brilliant, is it ? They dragged their feet over the Leazes Park project, which would have given us a bigger & better stadium than Man U at the time, and by doing so allowed the Brains Dept(i.e., one John Prescott, better known as 'Chipolata' allegedly.!!)to stymie the whole thing. It cost the club(and Ashley, in the end)millions by having to re-develop SJP into the lob-sided thing it is now.

Agreed - even if Platini had his way(which he won't - the big clubs are too powerful), Wenger would STILL be a great manager & work the system to his advantage - unlike NUFC, whose Academy side, run by Kenny Wharton, is currently a disgrace...

Cannot believe you think these fixtures are , quote, 'an easy run'.... On our current away form, I would doubt we are capable of getting any sort of result at Blackburn, who could well beat us heavily ; the mackems will be well up for this game - its their Cup Final this season - and if we perform anything like as badly as at Reading, Derby, or Man City, we will lose. Of the other away games, only Fulham looks a place where we might get something - Wigan's physical approach will not be to our defence's liking and a point is the most likely outcome. We will not find it easy to beat Pompey or Liverpool at SJP, and you seem to have forgotten what happened against Brum last year...!! As for Arsenal, it will be a huge shock if we beat them - they are the best side in the league this year and have already beaten us easily with a team basically made up of kids.. My estimate of points , being as realistic as possible, from the fixtures you mention are 7 from the homw games and 4 from the away ones - that gives us 11 from possible 27, and that is fairly optimistic on our current away form. Our home form is OK, but I don't think we would have found it as easy to beat Spurs had they not been in the middle of a managerial crisis.

Says it all I reckon - there's going to be some unhappy weel-ends in store...

No-one would give a toss about 'Tactics' IF - IF the team won away from SJP regularly - they don't, so people try to find out why.... We appreciate 3 points - how they come away from SJP matters not a jot, but they are NOT coming...

You need progression - Youth to Reserves THEN to behind/doors friendlies etc.. The system was responsible for Man U's 10 years of success by having a crop all at the same time - this doesn't happen very often, but you SHOULD be able to bring one or two through every couple of years IF - and its a big IF - your Academy set-up is well organized ; we also need an Overseas Academy.... but that is in the future

...And this after all the talk about 'Emu Oil' and 'players being brought up the the fitness standard I require'....! If the players were as fit as Allardyce says he wanted them to be, the second-half performances SHOULD - repeat SHOULD - be what gives them an edge over opponents ; as it is, we were definitely second best in all aspects of the second half at Reading, Derby AND Arsenal... Something doesn't add up here - the season is already more than 2 months old, so new fitness regimes should be showing fruit by now...

Reading Fan is spot on with his/her comments - the players DO seem to lack spirit away from SJP and that, coupled with the lack of cohesion/decent passing & possession indicates to me that something is wrong on the coaching side. Without harking back(ONCE AGAIN !!) to the past too much, our best passing games were played under KK & SBR - both of these managers gave ample credit to their coaches ; with KK was Fazackerly(now at Man City, so is there a connection with their form this season..!!??) and with SBR was John Carver.. There gave been adverse comments by Boro fans about Steve Round following his spell at their place, and I am uncertain how much influence Pearson has under the new regime.. What IS certain is that the away performances ARE unsatisfactory, no matter how anyone tries to dress them up and the fact that an away side's fab can see our deficiencies better than some of our own speaks volumes...!

All this about KK is totally pointless - HE'S GONE ! Get Over It !!! He did a great job in the 5 years he was at SJP and we all owe him a vote of thanks for pulling us out of the crap ; BUT - he got rid of the Reserves, simply because the League told him he had to play at least 6 Reserve games at SJP, and also downgraded the Juniors ; he simply wasn't interested in young players' development, despite being at a small club himself until joining Liverpool. To me , this is short-sighted & petty - it wasn't until KD took over that we re-started the Reserve & Junior sides. I have had people say to me that it was 'revolutionary thinking' to scrap Reserves etc., but this is total rubbish - Have Arsenal, under probably the best manager in Britain, EVER scrapped their Reserves? And compare Wenger's interest in young players to that shown by KK..... Are you going to tell me that KK was as good as Wenger, because I'll just laugh at you - the facts tell us differently... Did Man U ever consider scrapping their Reserves/Juniors? Or Liverpool ? Let's get it right - KK was a great manager FOR US FOR 5 YEARS ; As for the stuff about the PLC, there is SOME truth in it, but only SOME ; has being a PLC ever stopped Man U from being a Top club or buying players ? Of course not.. KK is now just as much history to NUFC as Supermac, Jackie Milburn, Joe Harvey et al are - its time to move on guys. This thread is titled Mike Ashley - like it or lump it, he is the present and (hopefully!) the future of this club along with those he appoints.

After watching this abysmal performance, its hard to imagine where the next away win will come from . We were playing a team who, although not favourites for relegation, should be beatable by a team which has ambitions of playing European football next season(who knows ? maybe Allardyce DOESN'T expect to be qualifying for Europe this season..!??). Instead, Reading BY FAR deserved the win - we were so bad that I cannot remember their keeper making a decent save with the exception of Zog's long-distance effort late in the match, and a dive at Owen's feet which produced(pointless) claims for a pen. Let's just think about this - we go to a side who have cost much less to assemble, one that is happy to remain in the PL, and basically think ourselves lucky to come away with a 1 goal defeat...... Is this where we should be ? I don't think so.... As I said after the Derby game, you don't mind losing so much when the side has given it everything and forced the opposition keeper into great saves, has hit the woodwork and attacked with any serious intent ; NONE of these things happened, either yesterday or at Derby. The reasons ? VERY poor team selection yesterday - dropping Zog & Milner surrendered the initiative straight away and gave Reading a psychological boost before the game even started ;- probably to accommodate - Barton - may not be match-fit, but on yesterday's performance looks no better than a tidy midfield player who can make simple passes(which some of his colleagues can't!) - I expected more threat from him in support of the forwards - never materialised ; Long Ball tactics - when we had 2 small strikers - this meant that around 70% of forward balls to Owen & Martins were gobbled up by Reading defenders and the pressure came back immediately on to our midfield & back 4 ; Hurried and sloppy passing in midfield - as usual, far too many passes to a man being marked, resulting in loss of possession ; Owen looked disinterested - I have supported him when people got on his back, but clearly something is wrong here - he could just as easily have been the one to go when Martins went off - perhaps he is getting p-----ed off about the style of play away from home as it must be soul-destroying as a striker ; GEREMI - said before that Allardyce rushed into making him captain - and shouldn't have done so.. He was poor again yesterday, and slows our counter-attacking down hugely by his deliberate sideways & backwards passing which, although necessary sometimes, is happening too much. He lacks pace and this obsession with giving him all the deadballs to take is now ridiculous.. Because he is Captain, the manager is reluctant to drop him.. EMRE - said before he needs to improve away from SJP and this was another glaring example of his lack of influence in these games - spends too much time pretending to be injured instead of getting on with the game. Even Capaca had an attack of the wobblies when he misdirected a pass to Given... the whole team looked disjointed and played as if they wouldn't create a decent chance if the game went on until Christmas. I don't think that even the most blinkered fan on here thought we would be able to go to places like L/Pool, Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea or even Everton etc expecting 3 points(or even 1) - but to go to Derby and Reading and be basically outplayed for all bar a 15 min spell in the first half is scraping the barrel . I cannot believe that Ashley will find any more repeats of these debacles acceptable, but those calling for Allardyce's head are unlikely to get their wish ; much as we find these performances a pain, the club will have to live with the situation for some time, probably at least until the end of the season. We have hired & fired too many managers in recent years to do so again without losing total credibility - MA was landed with the managerial situation prior to his taking over, and all he can do is to live with it for now - the decline of the club over the past 4 years has left us with a bitter legacy which is not going to be ended soon ; defeat at Sunderland looms as a very large possibility, simply because we handle high-tempo pressure from opposing teams very badly. Jones will have a field-day against our back 4 on yesterday's showing. We will not get the players to alter this for some time,and one has to question the whole attitude of the current players in away fixtures , something which has been a blight on Newcastle sides for many years with the exception of KK's time here. Very, very disappointing....

It'll have to be. We'll be lucky even to draw at Sunderland - they will get into us just like Reading and Derby did, and the team can't handle it - the long balls chucked up to small strikers simply mean that the pressure comes straight back on to the back four ; the midfield aren't good enough to keep possession either - Emre is hopeless away from SJP, spends too much time feigning injury. If anyone is hoping that a win at the Mackems' is going to turn the away form round, I wouldn't hold your breath...

Agreed, this will tell us a hell of a lot more than the Spurs game. This type of game has been a sewn-on loss or if we were lucky, draw in previous years. The ability to pick up wins in games like this will be the difference between 6th-10th and 5th-6th IMO This is spot-on - we need to win this match(and others like it) if we are to entertain any thoughts of finishing higher than 9th or 10th ; as danswan says, results at places like Reading mean the difference between also-rans and UEFA Cup football next season.. We could perhaps expect the odd blip at places like Derby when the team was just beginning to bed in, but I believe we should be able to get something at Reading ; failure to do so will mean just as many questions about the current team's attitude to Away games as have been levelled at Newcastle sides during many of the past 40 years. The ability to dig out results even when playing badly away from home is what separates top sides from the rest...we shall see...

I've said before - he lacks pace, and for someone of his age, he should have enough to make up for lack of experience ; I don't even think he can match Capaca for pace, and he is 31 - also, Capaca reads the game far better, so he looks 3 times the player. Taylor also fouls people after getting himself into difficult situations by poor anticipation - this can be costly, both in terms of conceding goals, and getting himself sent off - we don't need those risks with the squad we currently have.

Agreed, Mick - we need to improve drastically in away games, but with Capaca & Faye in the middle I expect a better showing at Reading than Man City ; if we lose here, its a bad sign - this is a team we should be beating if we want to progress beyond mid-table.

To answer the question about what would have happened if Green had stayed injury-free, obviously we cannot tell for certain, but I am sure we would at least have given Liverpool a MUCH tougher game at Wembley in 74 - I saw Green play for Scotland against England in 71 and he was the only Scottish player who really kept them in it... Had he been fit in 76, I reckon we would have beaten Man City in the LCF, and maybe reached the FA Cup Final that year too - he would have been an enormous influence on what was already a decent side apart from Central defence. Its all speculation - maybe he would have been sold to Liverpool by our so-ambitious Board of Directors to pay for a new Hot-Dog stand....!! Also, I agree that none of the current NUFC team would get into my team of all-time greats and only a couple would get into a team from the late 60s to mid-70s....you can guess who they might be...!!

Green compared with Viana !!? You clearly never DID see him play.. Viana was NEVER in anything like Green's class, in any area of the game. As SBR saw fit to pay 8.5m for Viana, my estimate of 30m for Green is about right....!