merlin

Default setting if you are a fan of NUFC...

...and that is why he won't fire McClaren ; it shows his culpability.

Now at a firm 9 and will go to 10 if the next 2 games are lost...this has been coming for a long time and its no surprise that the club are where they are apart from the fact that McClaren must have almost zero motivational powers to get such awful performances from players who should at least be capable of finishing 14th. Charnley reminded me of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burnt when they showed him during the game yesterday.......

Why? Hope is right no other premier league club would have McClaren peeling oranges. He's slammed us for weeks and it's tedious. Similar to Luke Edwards he blatantly has a gripe with the club and he jumps on anything he can. It's also massively unprofessional ranting like some little mug at a press conference like the idiots they get on Sky Sports News. More importantly we need to win and I really really don't want to go down. If we lose today it's curtains regardless of whether they sack him. The Telegraph seem to have better sources as well and according to them there doesn't seem any desire for Charnley to sack him. You are either very good at irony, or need to take a deep breath and smell the coffee...but thanks for the laugh anyway..!

We had 18 days to replace the useless t*** and allow the new guy time to bond/work with the squad. Perfect opportunity and our clueless owners and his minions couldn't or wouldn't see it. This - totally. They did nowt when they should have acted, but the reason is probably that to fire McDuff would have triggered a dismissal of Charnley...Ashley would see it as a failure on Charney's behalf by appointing McDuff in the first place and Ashley would NOT be happy to pay any compo due, so Charnley ducked the issue. Lose today and he will not be able to do so again.......the fun will really begin.

NO - only Ashley needs a slap...he appointed the dumbos classed as 'directors', who in turn appointed poor managers ; he also relies on speculative foreign buys to do an immediate job in the PL and this policy was never going to work. The manager and players are only there because of the failings of those who recruited them...and that goes right to the top.

As I keep saying - NOBODY has a divine right to remain in the PL...if you mismanage a club, you end up with failure - end of.

That is the most accurate observation of the day....

Swansea showing good escape form now - fail to beat Bournemouth and its a rock-solid 9. Looking bleak and nothing less than the club deserve.

Ashley is now getting his come-uppance ; he has appointed useless and unqualified people in top positions, scraped around the bargain-basement of managers after firing one who got us promoted and had just had the biggest win over our Derby rivals in years, penny-pinched on players until he is desperate, used the club purely as an ad board for SD and insulted the fans time after time....he was happy as a pig in s---e thinking he was going to wallow in all that lovely TV cash next season but now that dream is slipping slowly and inexorably away and he DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT...that as much as anything, will be tormenting his smug self-confidence for the first time in his life and he is in a huge cleft stick. We may be suffering as fans but the one consolation is knowing that he is cra--ing himself over what to do...or not.. Enjoy !

This, absolutely - if McClaren is going to be sacked, now is the only possible time if a newcomer is to have ANY hope of keeping the club in the PL....my view is that Ashley will bottle it and McClaren will take the club down.

Not even going to post a comment on this rubbish...had my say on the Relegationometer thread - and that is where we are heading now.

Sunderland are starting to put fighting results together...witness today and v Liverpool last week. I expected that and I also expect that they will survive under Allardyce. Their results are a marked contrast to ours - we scrape a 1-0 v WBA and think the corner's been turned whereas they fight back from 2-0 down at Anfield and beat Man U at the Stad of S in successive weeks. We then get thumped at Chelsea(how we could have done with Hiddink for 3 months..)smashing our GD into the bargain and only Stoke's win at Bournemouth offered much consolation. Playing Aarons at LB has been a disaster for both club and player and by April 30, Charnley could be heading for the sack. All his fault in that he chose McBlunder as manager and ducked out of buying a decent striker in the summer as well as addressing the LB position last month. Lose our next game and I will be back to a 9...

There are no words to adequately describe how this guy is so out of his depth. Directly responsible for much of our plight by his useless decisions.

Definitely one of the best attacking m/fielders I have ever seen in a B&W shirt - more pace than Beardsley over the first 5 yards and a wand of a right foot. Only played 38 games for us after being signed by Joe Harvey in late 71 and directly responsible for our climb away from relegation after his signing. His quickness and skill on the ball were always going to make him a target for the hatchet men of the era(he had already had an Achilles tendon replaced in a ground-breaking op before he joined us) and after tormenting the Palace defence down there, he was well and truly whacked by Mel Blyth, their clumsy hard man defender. Cruciate ligament wrecked and in those days it was curtains although he tried a few times to come back. I have said before that if Green had been available, we certainly wouldn't have lost(or at least, so easily)at Wembley v Liverpool in 74 because his play was so infectious and inspiring that he would have lifted the side who played well below their capabilities on the day. Great player who still loves NUFC.

Everton now appear to be the latest club being subject of a US takeover according to today's news...200m is the figure quoted as what they have to pay...can anyone imagine what our beloved owner might have asked them for had they tried to buy us...? Twice that amount is my best guess and at 200m they have got a better buy with Everton.

He will feel well at home because many of his team-mates are also homers as we've seen too often this season.

Pardew is simply running to past form - look at his record as a manager. No surprise although I still think they will finish top 12 - THIS season.....!

Mitrovic had a decent game yesterday - his assets are his ability to cause defenders physical problems by his strength on the ball and his lay-off play, which is good for a big man without much pace and that is his biggest weakness - pace. If you haven't got it, you won't ever have it but he COULD use experience to learn how to get into good positions to score...its a pity Shearer wasn't able to give him some coaching on CF play because he too had to do that after his injury in 97. Mitrovic is unlikely ever to get you more than 10-15 goals a season but he is a good target man for players like Perez(or Berahino..!)to play off. He is still young enough to improve.

Deserved win against a side who seem to be the W Mids equivalent of NUFC....only try at home and useless away. WBA deserved nothing from the game but could easily have snatched a point late on due to our wasteful finishing but also, it has to be said, not enough really clear chances. Plenty of possession and crosses into the box from the wings but we are heavily reliant in Shelvey to produce a killer pass through the middle in order to score ; our last two home games have proved that. Apart from making a fantastic stop from Mitrovic(which he should have buried) their keeper didn't have many direct shots to save...most were blocked by WBA defenders. Contrast this with Leicester's second goal at Man C, where a piece of individual skill on the ball created a clear chance inside the box and we have nobody with the exception of Perez who is capable of that...Remy also did this. The general play was decent though and Townsend had a much better game than at Everton although much of our possession was the result of WBA being unable to keep the ball and our m/f closing them down quickly - I agree with those who say that Tiote and Shelvey seem to be the best m/f pairing. Tiote had a fairly good game overall and its a pity this guy hasn't got the temperament to go with his footballing ability. A sobering result was the Mackems getting a point at Anfield, something we look unlikely to do ; they have a manager well versed in keeping teams up and we cannot rely on them getting too many bad results to aid our escape bid. Despite appearing dead a couple of weeks ago, Villa now seem to be getting their act together under Garde and we cannot afford to slip up many more times. The performance as much as the result at Chelsea will tell us if we do have a realistic chance of beating the drop - we are hardly likely to win but if we have another disappearing act away from SJP the signs will not be good. Of all the managers fighting the drop, ours inspires the least confidence...

I'm not digging at you personally like, but it's really beginning to irritate me now reading and hearing this stupid phrase over and over again. Ambition with regards to what exactly? 'Showing ambition' is appointing and listening to a knowledgeable, clued up director / board of directors and going after a good / successful manager that could potentially win you something. Showing ambition is not appointing the reserve team secretary, Alan Carr's f***ing dad and an old, useless puppet of an ex-player and vehemently going after Steve f***ing McClaren. Not once, not twice but three times? Don't get me started on the likes of John Carver being given the reigns. 'Showing ambition' is going after players and building a solid team that can win you games. Showing ambition is not getting mostly medicore, half arsed players that don't fit or belong in your team and putting them on 5 and 6 year contracts, in the blind hope that they do well so you can make more money. On a similar note, forcing out and giving away arguably one of your best players and then spending circa £40m trying to replace said player by signing a Ligue 1 flop of the season (who knocked the club back previously), another who was either not interested, not tried or frankly not good enough and then a Spurs cast off who's barely done anything of note nor turned out this season? That's not ambition, it's f***ing stupidity. What's worse, they're only a handful of examples over his 8 year tenure. 8 years. You think Ashley has somehow just now decided he wants to be ambitious with the club? You don't think being on the verge of falling off the gravy train in 18th place is reason enough they are pissing all the club generated revenue up the wall? The whole thing is a massive gamble. Kinnear was a gamble. Carver was a gamble. McClaren and this transfer window will be this years gamble. There's no ambition or plan here aside from propping up the league for the benefit of Sports Direct. Brutally accurate. ..and totally correct - great post JS.

...and in 1992, KK was announced as manager today. I got a tip-off a few hours before it came out and later discovered that some individual(probably a 'Board' member..!)had tried to place a huge bet on KK getting the job with a Morpeth bookie. When they found out how much he wanted to put on, they reduced the odds to 4/1......

Spending big is not the same as spending well....and in my view they only get 6/10 for that....

Don't hold your breath on a replacement unless we lose 0-5 v WBA...

If that happens the club is going down under the present management.