merlin

'You can fool some of the people ALL of the time , ALL of the people SOME of the time...' etc. etc. The Danny Kaye song about the 'Emperor's new clothes' comes to mind....

Not acceptable but how can a manager be judged on 6 games. Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't David Moyes's Everton bottom around this time last year, he managed to turn things round when given the chance. If we are still aorund the bottom 3 in mid-Feburary then that is the time to hit the panic button. How many teams have escaped relegation after being in the bottom 3 at Christmas....??

You've had your answer......!!!!

Couldn't agree more - only at NUFC.....

If you don't like the way football is going(and who could blame you?), you have the perfect reason for boycotting it - esp SJP, to make your point ; nothing will change if you just keep handing the money over..

Contracts are not worth the paper they are written on - all this does is enable the club to get a decent fee for him without being pressured into selling cheaply in case he comes close to walking out on a Bosman.. Unless there are huge changes at the club by Christmas, I think it highly likely that the lad will go to Arsenal in Jan.

Yes, this is the ONE benefit of our current situation - send him to Chelsea when they fire Mourinho...PLEASE!!!!

Not much makes me laugh more than your ill thought out posts...... Souness is the only predictable duff manager appointed by Fred. Given that enough people are crying in their Ready Brek that we didn't get O'Neill, I'd like you to tell me how appointing 3 managers in a row with CV's ranging from fantastic to good, all better than O'Neills incidentally, can possibly be justification for your tripe I've quoted. I suppose if Fred appointed YOUR first choice it would still be down to Fred if that manager was backed but failed? Nowt to do with the manager himself getting it wrong, which if the man has a superb track record can't be predicted. You should stick to the ID Card thread. Although you don't understand that subject you seem to understand even less about football. Thanks Not true, Souness previous record far superior to Roeder, so he was not the only duff appointment. If the man in charge appoints a succession of what turn out to be unsuccessful Managers then the buck stops with him. Your dislike of O'Neil is a joke. He has taken more or less the poor squad that he was left, without any transfer activity to speak of and they are unbeaten. If MON is over-rated then what is 16th place Roeder. Roeder and Shepherd had the whole of the summer to form a strong squad and address our defensive frailties, they failed miserably, knowing full well that a busy campaign was ahead. Instead we had last minute purchases,one of whom has not figured at all, Bernard, and one on loan that he is only now about to play. Roeder is now complaining that his squad is stretched. Whose fault is that. Try as you may to absolve them from blame, we are in the curent situation due to Shepherd and Roeder who inherited the squad from Souness and then had the whole summer to strengthen and failed. Says it all, Fox, says it all.....

I agree - you have to remember, though, that Kiwis put up with being piddled about ; their Govt is a disaster, and to show how effective they are, ask him how many Kiwis leave for Australia !!?? They have more job opportunities and pay less Tax. After their Budget speech last year(which gave them NO Tax relief), the Oppostion Treasurer stood up & said 'The PM & Treasurer think there's a place for Tax cuts - its called Australia..!!' Priceless, and even more of their youngsters are either heading here to Oz or to the UK. So don't be surprised that he puts up with the Shepherd regime at NUFC`- its just like home....!!

Agree totally - Shepherd must go before ANY major decisions are taken about the future Coaching/Management of the club ; it is a waste of time & money to bring people in now unless the current regime are NOT going to sell - in that case, they are going to have an unhappy set of fans, and a battle of attrition .......

55,000+ posts and an IQ of a measly 5, this woeful inadequacy making him post more and more as a kind of antidote for it! Sad b***ard! The whole site is a joke - juveniles by the sound of them ; not worth a light...

I am no hypocrite(as I once said in a dfferent thread on this board..!!), so whilst I admire what Sir John did for the club(AND count him as a not close, but personal friend), I must disagree with his views about Shepherd - if indeed this is what he DID say. Whatever friendship I had for someone would not make me defend them in an issue like this if I could see they were clearly wrong ; Shepherd's rewards for running the club are unquestionably excessive when balanced against his decision-making as Chairman, and that is above all the reason why the club is in its current position. The sums of money spent on sub-standard players is the fault of both bad management and , we are led to believe, other connections with the club - some of which may appear questionable - all of these matters are the responsibility of the Chairman , either in the appointment of the manager, or on control of the club's affairs as 'Chief Executive' ; the Buck stops at the Chairman's office...

Roeder resign ? Not a chance ; would YOU if there was a big fat compo cheque at stake...?

You seem to have forgotten Bryan Robson..........a geordie. it frightens me to death thinking of where FF could lead us next Especially now his number 2 is already here! Seriously though, Shepherd wouldn't f*cking dare go down the Robson/Bruce/O'Leary route. And who else is going to take the job?

Hate to say it? Sven is by far the best manager we have any hope of getting. Dohhhhh !!!!!

Shepherd Out......!!!!!

Relegation VERY possible - form disastrous, difficult fixtures ahead, with serious consequences for morale if next 2 games are defeats. Watch this space...

Roeder should not have been appointed - Shepherd went for quick , cheap fix & failed - AGAIN. Just Roeder leaving will not cure the problem - they BOTH need to go , and QUICKLY. The club needs new direction on & off the field, with a totally professional & focussed approach. Problem is , time is against us - Christmas may be too late if results go badly over the next few weeks. Things need to happen, and fast....

Naah, we aren't going to get relegated, there is still Charlton, Fulham, Sheff United and Watford worse than us. No way will Charlton, Sheff Utd or Watford finish above us. Would you put money on the current side being able to go to ANY of those 3 and pick up 3 points in a relegation scrap....

Unlikely, in my opinion, but if he does its in the fans' own hands to screw him up - total boycott needed, let his investment go down & down - just as he will take the Club down & down.

Fred to 'eat Humble Pie..' Love it, Love it - after all, the rest of the Pies have already gone, so Humble Pie is fine - any port in a storm..!! Seriously, people defending Roeder - you despair at times. Its no wonder FS gets away with everything he has done in the past few years..

Action is needed, not words - only thing he understands is empty seats & empty Club Shops - would be great, but it aint going to happen yet ; too many fans just go to games for something to do/get away from wife/shopping/DIY or whatever. A better idea would be to get hold of the Belgravia group's spokesperson, and send them a large petition asking them to go ahead with the takeover to remove Shepherd & save the Club - that kind of thing would get into the press(the Belgravia guys themselves would want to put pressure on the Board too). We don't know if they would be the complete answer, but they can't be any worse than what has happened over the past few years. The Club is in freefall, and a laughing stock.

I've had my say on all this stuff - my opinion about it all is clear, and if the results continue to go as they did yesterday, there will be unremitting pressure on the Board & manager, and quite deservedly. The buck stops with them, but they gat paid for it - the fans are the ones suffering. Others have their view - that is their right - but it sure as hell won't change mine. Talking about the past is irrelevant to our current status, and unless there are big changes soon , Shepherd & Co will join the elite ranks of Directors who have succeeded in relegating a great Club. No more comments from me on this thread.

I would think that somebody who was heavily involved with the magpie group and played an active part in getting rid of the old board has a lot of valid points to make on the subject of the board. I would say his opinion is more valid than both of ours although it doesn't stop either of us having an opinion. I would also think most people realise we could get worse than we've got as chairman, we just don't automatically think it will happen and hope this isn’t the case. A lot of people can also see how we’ve gone backwards under Shepherd although we have no divine right to do better than we are. You can knock the old board as much as you want, it’s easy. But, I don’t see anything in Shepherd to make me think he’s doing any better than they did or would have done better than them if he was in the same position. The old board didn’t become shit over night, it was a combination of a lot of mistakes by a lot of people and it just snowballed. McKeag seems to get most of the blame, I hated him more than any other chairman at the time because I was looking at the current situation, at that time, and blamed him for everything. In reality it was something that happened and part of the reason was the state of football in this country, you can ignore this is you want but I would just say look at attendance figures for football in general, they were crap at most grounds. That didn’t really pick up until Sky came on the scene and pumped more money into football than ever before. I’m not trying to defend the board of old, they were crap and made mistakes. The only chairman of old that Shepherd might have been better than is Westwood because Freddy might have splashed more cash after the Fairs Cup win, then again he might not have, we’ll never know. What I do know is that Shepherd couldn’t have spent money at that time if the club didn’t have it, the banks would not have allowed it. He’s got no record of appointing managers who have been a success so I have no reason to think he would have done any better on that score than the old boards. What has he done that suggests he would have done better back then? It’s also a serious question because I don’t see anything on his CV that gives me any confidence that things would have been better back then, under him. Yes, they were crap, so is he. I have no personal reason to dislike Shepherd other than what he's done to our club. Where we were the day he took over and where we have been for far too much of his chairmanship and that's down to him for appointing the wrong people and backing failures, he did that, not us. We now appear to be strapped for cash, the reason is his two mistakes, appointing shit then backing it with far too much money, it was doomed the day Souness was appointed, Shepherd got one of his top two priorities wrong when he appointed Souness then got the second priority, the clubs finances wrong by backing Souness with mega sums of money. Sorry about the rant, I'm not sure where that came from. Good post Mick - agree with most of your summary. Fact that I was involved in Magpie Group does NOT give me a divine right to be right ! Football is a game of opinions , and every fan is entitled to their own. Having experienced the whole thing back in the late 80s'early 90s does give me an insight into certain aspects of the club which some fans may not have(as well as some knowledge of the characters), but most supporters know that the club is in need of refreshing and dynamic Direction. All the playing problems stem from this, and a new approach, with more honest & above-board running of the Club is desperately required. One thing I DO know, which many will not - on the eve of our first game of 92/93(Promotion season), Sir John had a look round SJP in the late afternoon - he found that many of the seats were covered in dust following painting/decorating . Everyone had gone home , so he and Lady Mae spent several hours arranging and assisting for the cleaning of these prior to the next day. He told us about this himself on the day of the match(v Southend), and how annoyed they'd been with the ground management for not checking. Can you see this happening today.....!!

Good post, Fox - I reckon this is dragging on for too long. For what its worth, Hamman(the only one worth commenting on , since he departed in the last 10 years) said, after he left , that ; 'The Board was average, so the Club was average' , but confirmed that he had actually enjoyed living in the NE and travelling round the area. He didn't get on with Gullit, either. The others departed over 10 years ago - Gazza was the last local lad of any significance to leave, and that was in 1988. Personally, I think we should only be considering events that happened since the Hall/Shepherd takeover in 1992. Every supporter wants the club to WIN THINGS - at least, that should be the object of the exercise, as it is only by doing that that the club will develop as it should. Not being funny, but if you are so sure it is right not to consider Boards of pre-1992 do you believe it is impossible that a replacement for the current Board could be like those of pre-1992 going back decades? That's a serious question. It IS a serious question, and one deserving of an honest answer. Firstly, the reason not to get involved with stuff that happened prior to 1992 is that there are quite a few who read the board that weren't very old when the Pop Robson or Waddle/Beardsley stuff happened(its nearly 20 years since even Beardsley left for Liverpool). Those of us who are well into middle-age know all about it , and can remember the facts. Secondly - I DON'T know if any person/Group replacing the current Board will be like the pre-1992 outfit ; how can I, I'm not a Crystal-ball reader - however, the Boards of pre-92 vintage were, in the main, family Dynasties. Even though we are, on the face of it, a PLC, in reality we are now once again a Family dynastic Club ; all very well IF the top man at the time is capable & ambitious FOR THE CLUB , but its a lottery in that respect. My judgement that a change of ownership/Direction is necessary is based on events of past 3 years(in the main), and if a TRULY ambitious Group takes over, we can do much better than this. In addition, a business-minded organisation would want to make the club more successful in order to maximise its potential - without Football success, the club is not really doing that. Hope that answers your question.