merlin

I fall roughly into this category but there is little doubt that Hoddle would be a vast improvement over either Pardew(as manager) or Kinnear(as DOF). Hoddle tends to get a bit wound into the theoretical side of the game rather than the practical and you need both...wonder also about his motivational qualities, think KK and you can see what I mean but I would definitely be happier with Hoddle at the club in place of the idiots we have - or had - already.

Finney was a truly great player and was ahead of his time in many ways ; could use both feet almost equally well and was just as devastating when playing in the middle as well as on the wings. As has been said, Bill Shankly idolised him and its strange to think that he played alongside Finney for Preston because sadly, Finney has just passed away at the grand age of 91 whilst Shankly died at the relatively young age of 68 back in 1981. If England had a player like Finney now, he would be ranked alongside the likes of Messi & Co - shows how far we have fallen in producing top class players because Finney, Matthews, Mannion, Mortensen and Milburn would have been worth megabucks today...AND they would have been just as good because the modern players have much lighter kit to play in with better boots and lighter matchballs ; think how fast a modern ball would travel if Jackie caught it with one of his zero-backlift specials....! RIP Sir Tom.... a real gentleman too.

Tbh a couple of drawers in that run would have won us the title. But on the other hand it was a an all or nothing charge to the title I think we lost by 4 points. Mind Man Utd won something like 11 in 12 towards the end, keeping clean sheerts galore. I personally think everyone connected with the club just wilted a bit under the huge pressure of trying to win us that first title since '27, even KK himself. It stands out as our best ever season since '27 though in terms of the league or top division. If only we could snip two of the goals from the 5-0 and add them to that 0-1... That result will probably be regarded as the decider and it was, but more for them than us IMO. When they came away from SJP with that 1-0 win despite a battering all game, that galvanised them and gave them the belief that we were not this rampant runaway train and could be stopped. The result obviously hurt us, but I don't think mentally it had anywhere near as much as an impact on us as it did on them. The Liverpool defeat though... that killed us, especially the manager himself! Great game though This - had we beaten Man U as we totally deserved to on the balance of play and chances created they would have died after that. The Liverpool result wouldn't have mattered because Man U would never have caught us. It gave them real hope and began all the doubts that were to cost us the title.

Ask your mate if he thinks WHU, Charlton and Southampton fired him because their boards were 'too involved' in the team...? The trouble with many NUFC fans is that they see something in Pardew that 3 other decent clubs have not...or rather, maybe they DON'T see something that the 3 other clubs DID...!

Totally understandable views here - you are right in that far too many fans are cretins because they are still prepared to spend money - in some cases, on credit cards - to support a regime that is taking the p--- so badly that if they walked up to half these idiots face to face and said what they think of them, the fans would drop them there and then. Instead, these so-called 'fans' hide behind some stupid vision of gang loyalty, or keep going because they have nothing else in their drab lives and it gives them something to gripe about without doing anything to alter things. The club is almost at the point now where the bedrock of support it had nurtured since 1992 is about to crumble big-time and Ashley will achieve his aim of wrecking it for good. Unless action is taken to force the discontent on to the agenda of the media by a sustained boycott, nothing will be done unless Ashley has agreed to sell in summer and is just now asset stripping. I cannot blame HTT or anyone else for thinking as they do.

How do you know they don't have a similar opinion of you...?

That's the joy of having such a big squad...............oh wait. Actually pretty well stocked in his position Stocked with what? Kids? Dummett, Haidara are f***ing children and MYM's not a natural there. As opposed to the fully developed professional that is Santon? He may be fully developed and consider himself a professional - many of us just see him as a poor defender who plays on the left and can't cross with his left foot. Sell

...and what happens when he leaves at the end of the season..??

Just shows what a new manager could do...I wonder if..Oh, wait...!

This - it was clear to me from the recorded Foxtel coverage that the majority of players have either given up because they know the club is satisfied wit just staying in the PL or that they are not playing for Pardew....either way, its a terrible situation for a loan striker to be dropped in to because he will get very little support. If and when he leaves , he will take away some bad tales about NUFC unless things change pretty quickly and not many of us can see THAT happening.

Yes, this is true - more hammerings would mean more empty seats in the stadium and that is the one thing that will worry Ashley ; it will reflect on his tatty brand badly and also, eventually, the media will start questioning the club's policies and therefore, Ashley's competence as an owner. A pity we haven't got Liverpool or even the Mancs at SJP next....

Ultimately, as an outsider, you're 9th. Nobody is going to get sacked for getting you 9th. Not in modern football, with the lowered expectations it means for all but a handful of clubs. Er - remember a chap called Chris Hughton...?? We weren't far below 9th in December 2010, had beaten Sunderland 5-1 at SJP and then......

Robson was 70 years of age - if more people want to retain this failure at his age and after the series of humiliations that have been heaped on the club under his tenure then those fans deserve everything they are going to get. This club is heading for an extended period of mediocrity beyond anyone's worst nightmare.

Mostly this - all should be making occasional appearances throughout the PL season if they had anything. Our youth set up needs serious attention at all levels...

Funny how the likes of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor - and Don Revie - always envied us our fans' numbers and the backing they gave to NUFC....I think they could safely have lived with the so-called 'down side' because they produced successful teams and there would hardly have been any occasion when our fans would have cause for complaint if they had been watching Derby/Forest/Leeds when these guys were in charge... Strange how good management can make a difference, isn't it...

Nope. It really isn't odd at all It should probably be something like SOS in this case....sack of s--t...

I've been waiting to see how long it was before someone picked up on this...I noticed it too but I'm getting tired of saying that Santon is not a good defender so I wondered if anyone else had noticed Saturday's howler. He's not a decent PL LB and now it appears that he's not good in m/f either because his defensive frailties show up there too. In an ideal situation - i.e. with a decent owner/manager I would sell this guy in an instant because he is never going to do the job he is there for. Has decent skill on the ball but can't cross with his left foot to save his life...well done for picking it up BB...

The National journos are quite happy to see NUFC as a nothing club - it suits their metropolitan/mancunian agenda so they won't look at anything that shows Pardew for what he is.

Until the owner goes, nothing major will change but there is just a hope that a better manager might make things a bit more tolerable in the meantime....

That's a very fair summary....

I agree with all you've said but the likelihood of him going any time soon is remote. He suits Ashley's purpose and has almost achieved the stated aim of the board/owner which is PL safety...by default and mainly because we borrowed Remy and Cabaye decided to show prospective buying clubs what he could do. He has bought himself and Ashley time and only if a series of disastrous home defeats occur in succession is Ashley going to feel any need to fire him. I am still not convinced that Ashley will still own the club after the summer because everything that is happening now smacks of preparation for exit strategy and if he does go, Pardew's position is not going to be his problem unless any buyer insists he goes as part of the deal. If he stays, we will still have this con man as manager at the start of next season unless we fall away so badly in the next 3 months that attendances start to drop seriously. Ashley once again is paying for being a chancer...he gave Pardew an 8 year contract on the advice of Llambias and as with everything else he gets involved with, he hates to admit he was wrong and have to pay the guy out for getting rid of him. A look at Pardew's record in the past would have sent enough red flags to any club owner with half a brain, but we all know Ashley's record for taking chances...his 100m loss during the early days of the GFC was a gamble that failed and look what we could have done with THAT for the team. No, Pardew looks pretty safe for at least 3 months and probably longer.

Thing is, if he criticises he's unemployed. His need for employment obviously outweighs his self respect. Very true. Same goes for Peter Beardsley, who weirdly seems to have received some criticism on here of late. There's nothing 'weird' about it - I for one have criticised him for following the club line - its hardly as if he's on the bread-line - but I still gave him credit for being a great player, which he was. That doesn't make him an icon now......

They don't award silverware for that...its old hat now, we know it all and a fat lot of good its achieved...

John Anderson isn't worth listening to. He quite often wasn't worth watching either, but like Beardsley, he's joined the a---lickers group of former players so he gets a nice cushy little job with Radio Sunderland.

He is, as I expected, technically decent ; he is lacking in confidence but didn't hide at all despite his thankless task of being stranded on his own for long periods and he came back to help out the defence and m/f. Will undoubtedly benefit by having Remy to take some of the pressure off and I reckon that if he had a bit of coaching from the likes of Shearer at PL CF play, he would be an excellent acquisition. The problem is that the last bit is extremely unlikely to happen and also, de Jong might join Remy in thinking that he would do better elsewhere at the end of the season, which would be no surprise.