merlin

It does - but won't happen. Too much apathy...

Dream on - Ashley needs him to continue rubbing fans' noses in the dirt....

They defend them because not to do so would be to admit that you support a club whose owner/management take the p-ss and treat you like idiots....nobody wants to admit that unless they are prepared to face reality....many NUFC fans aren't.

You should be used to it by now....

Steady on, we beat a terrible Fulham team at home 1-0. It was a very minor improvement, the team on the pitch was forced on Pardew through injury. Yes it was a bit better, but we've got a long, long way to go. Totally agree - wait until we have to play better sides than this shower before falling for any hype... Far tougher tests lie ahead...many of them.

Agreed, but he was not tested - their forwards hardly got into the game. Lets see how Santon does when he is under pressure again before passing judgment - same applies to Debuchy.

A deserved win, the side at least showed some attacking enthusiasm, esp in the second half. There was also evidence of more movement off the ball. Fulham, though, were woeful - content to try to slow down the game and keep the ball to waste time and had it not been for HBA's great strike they would have got a point. Berbatov wasn't bothered and the rest of their forward line didn't look as if they were either. The guy who beavered away quietly yet was the spring board for most of our pressure was Anita - he mopped up many loose balls and tried to set up attacks with forward passes which could have caused them problems if we had forwards who could hold up the ball and had pace - the intro of Remy was a turning point because his pace gave them problems down the left. A result which at least temporarily removes some pressure, but with Norwich winning again, Palace turning over the Mackems as well as Cardiff getting a point from Everton, there can be no doubting that new blood is required to avoid getting pulled into a bottom 4 scrap. Better teams than Fulham have to be faced in the next couple of months and a better side than them would have got something at SJP today.

Its a great article, but nothing we don't already know. Unfortunately, the only thing which will bother Ashley is a major and sustained boycott of the club and its merchandise. As many fans have nothing else in their lives, this is sadly not going to happen, but there is NO way I would support this regime. As Wullie says, we must have some of the thickest fans in the game to keep buying shirts after the treatment they receive from the owner and his acolytes - you can almost hear Ashley sniggering all the way down the M1. I bet the Journal will get a testy phone call from Sports Direct, asking who wrote it - it was right on the mark and we can only hope that a buyer for the club arrives sooner rather than later because more windows like this will happen if not.

It seems to me that quite a few people couldn't care less if the whole side was composed of loan signings - such has been the success of Ashley/Kinnear/Pardew in lowering expectations. Convinced that if Pardew came out and said we belong in League 1, around 30% of the fans would accept it. Its really going to take something special to pull this club out of its long slow dive to total mediocrity.....we are potentially the new Sheffield Weds. # p*ss off! there are many many clubs in europe that do loan signings. Hernan crespo sis very well as a loan signing, as one example. Stop talking cluess s**** you utter bint. ...and you are one of those with your head where the sun don't shine. No wonder other clubs' fans think we are all as barmy as you...

I think there are obvious question marks about our youth set-up - there are no obvious real talents in the ranks who look as if they will make genuine PL class players and some of this is down to coaching standards, as well as questions about the calibre of youngsters we get from grass roots. Shepherd & Co neglected this area badly and KK was also guilty of a lack of interest in Juniors/Reserves, but nothing seems to have got much better under this regime - look at some of our results v the Mackems etc at this level... Regarding Vuckic, I am not convinced he will make it at PL level - he lacks pace, especially change of pace and although he is reasonable on the ball he gets caught in possession quite a bit. Like many at the club, he doesn't look first class, but then, the club itself is not first class or have lofty standards so maybe they are happy to toil along with him and some of the others in that category.

It seems to me that quite a few people couldn't care less if the whole side was composed of loan signings - such has been the success of Ashley/Kinnear/Pardew in lowering expectations. Convinced that if Pardew came out and said we belong in League 1, around 30% of the fans would accept it. Its really going to take something special to pull this club out of its long slow dive to total mediocrity.....we are potentially the new Sheffield Weds.

From what we've heard the main objective was to promote SD and in that it's been very successful. I guess so, but then again, what does £200m+ in marketing buy you? Sponsorship of the Premier League? Set up your own TV channel? Billboard advertising at every ground in the country? I still think Mike Ashley's original motivation was just to fulfill an ambition of owning a club, have some fun on the side, and then also to promote his goods overseas. Problem is that everything went to s*** so quickly. .....and whose fault was that..

Any decently run club the size of NUFC wouldn't have been in the position of scratching around trying to get a player on loan who made it transparently clear that he didn't want to be here last January. Unfortunately, NUFC is NOT run as it should be and in those circumstances probably the best they can do is to get hold of a player on a temporary basis who was comparatively successful during his permanent spell at SJP.No doubt the fans who were glad to see the back of him will welcome him back with open arms after another shambles of a transfer window. As has been said, beggars can't be choosers and NUFC are well and truly in the beggar category unless and until someone with enough dosh buys the club and invests in a proper manager and players. Why not give Ba a whirl ? They certainly don't look as if they have a chance of anyone better.....the only surprise to me would be Ba willing to play for Pardew's set up again.

This - if people do continue to drop their Season tickets and support falls, Pardew or JFK stay and the club goes down, he only has one season to protect the TV income....all highly possible right now.

What times, though. We were a big club that time. Well, we still are somehow, but not in the same way. No - compared to then, we are a WELL-SUPPORTED club, but not a big club. We have been run down until we are now just one of the teams that make up numbers although we shouldn't be. Blame Ashley & Co for that, although Shepherd was responsible for our lack of signings before that game.

Total rubbish - has he told you that..??

I think it's a trust problem. When Ashley has left people to their own devices it's come back to bite him in the arse in some way. - Allows Allardyce to sign players he wants, ends up stuck with utter rubbish on high wages - Lets Chris Mort set up a "system", ends up with the manager quitting (rightly) with the others in the system completely despised by the fans and s*** at their jobs - Gets Llambias to run the club, despised by the fans, extremely hesitant in the transfer market to the point that Ashley apparently has to step in to push through purchases in January, fails completely to increase non-football revenues & signs a sponsorship contract that pisses off everyone I don't know if Pardew was Ashley's mate before getting the job or Llambias' mate. If it was the latter then it's another reason that Ashley might not trust people to do their jobs, if it's the former then it's probably why he's still here despite being demonstrably out of his depth. For some bizarre reason it looks like he trusts JFK hence why he keeps turning to him despite him being a lunatic. Ultimately Ashley's either going to have to bite the bullet and find someone to run the club that he doesn't know and initially trust but who can actually do the job and who knows how football works or he's going to have to be a lot more hands-on in running the club. I think you're very close to the mark. Generally in his business dealings he works with people who he has known from the very start, or has known over time and promoted. It's clearly a fkn nightmare getting people in he feels comfortable with, and then when he does they turn out to have gained his trust by basically bullshitting just how good they are in a field he knows practically sod all about. I saw Sir John Hall on TV the other day for the unveiling of the gates & thought he's exactly what the club needs at this point, Ashley should beg him to come in and run things, then I realised that Ashley hates him and Shepherd for not disclosing some of the debts that needed to be repaid when the club was sold, etc. Sir John is 80 now and has Prostate cancer - there is NO way he could run the club now and after he stepped down as Chairman for health reasons in 1997, there were plenty of people who were prepared to rubbish his contribution by saying he only did it for the money..... Would YOU want all that again at 80....?? He was, and remains, the best Chairman/owner that NUFC have ever had and we will be lucky to get anyone similar in the foreseeable future. Remind me, who was it that sold the club to Ashley, and told us he was the best man for the job Sir John is many things, but being clairvoyant is not one of them - Ashley told him he wanted to make the club more appealing and with a wider world appeal...he's done that hasn't he....NOT. Ashley got the shares because SJH wouldn't sell to Shepherd - do you wish he had done that instead..?

I think it's a trust problem. When Ashley has left people to their own devices it's come back to bite him in the arse in some way. - Allows Allardyce to sign players he wants, ends up stuck with utter rubbish on high wages - Lets Chris Mort set up a "system", ends up with the manager quitting (rightly) with the others in the system completely despised by the fans and s*** at their jobs - Gets Llambias to run the club, despised by the fans, extremely hesitant in the transfer market to the point that Ashley apparently has to step in to push through purchases in January, fails completely to increase non-football revenues & signs a sponsorship contract that pisses off everyone I don't know if Pardew was Ashley's mate before getting the job or Llambias' mate. If it was the latter then it's another reason that Ashley might not trust people to do their jobs, if it's the former then it's probably why he's still here despite being demonstrably out of his depth. For some bizarre reason it looks like he trusts JFK hence why he keeps turning to him despite him being a lunatic. Ultimately Ashley's either going to have to bite the bullet and find someone to run the club that he doesn't know and initially trust but who can actually do the job and who knows how football works or he's going to have to be a lot more hands-on in running the club. I think you're very close to the mark. Generally in his business dealings he works with people who he has known from the very start, or has known over time and promoted. It's clearly a fkn nightmare getting people in he feels comfortable with, and then when he does they turn out to have gained his trust by basically bullshitting just how good they are in a field he knows practically sod all about. I saw Sir John Hall on TV the other day for the unveiling of the gates & thought he's exactly what the club needs at this point, Ashley should beg him to come in and run things, then I realised that Ashley hates him and Shepherd for not disclosing some of the debts that needed to be repaid when the club was sold, etc. Sir John is 80 now and has Prostate cancer - there is NO way he could run the club now and after he stepped down as Chairman for health reasons in 1997, there were plenty of people who were prepared to rubbish his contribution by saying he only did it for the money..... Would YOU want all that again at 80....?? He was, and remains, the best Chairman/owner that NUFC have ever had and we will be lucky to get anyone similar in the foreseeable future.

:lol: :lol: Who the f*** is this bullshit bingo c***? f*** off Jack Lacey-Hatton, you utter pleb. The Mag article you posted backs up my recent comments about modern NUFC fans' knowledge of football. The writer is typical of the lowered expectations brigade who have fallen for the club line 'we can't do any better than Pardew '....yadda yadda.....

James Perch He was so good that they sold him.....

I think the answer lies in Ashley's mentality ; he doesn't want to admit that his choices are wrong and he believes he is right because his model of running a business seems to work. What he fails to take into account is that running what is basically a discount sports business during times of economic hardship is a totally different ball game from running a top football club. Look at the Pound Shops(or their equivalent) - growing like wildfire because people buy cheap stuff when they are short of money, but many people wouldn't be seen dead there in good times. A club like NUFC, competing at the highest level, needs a good reputation in order to attract decent players and decent managers - our reputation was shot to ribbons after the KK walk out affair and got worse after relegation following Kinnear etc. It looked as if some damage had been repaired after promotion, but then Ashley fired Hughton and brought in Pardew, presumably on the say so of Llambias. Pardew looked decent for the first 18 months, as he always does with every club he has been manager, then, after Llambias persuaded Ashley to give him an 8 year contract, it all started going pear-shaped....... Ashley was forced to bring in more players in January to avoid relegation, but being someone who always wants to do his opposition down(ask Whelan..)couldn't bring himself to get rid of Pardew when we almost failed to stay up because to do so would have looked as if Pardew and Llambias had stitched him up with the 8 year deal meaning loads of compo for Pardew in the event of a sacking. He then brought back Kinnear to try to force Pardew's hand , but Pardew knows he will NEVER get a job like NUFC again and prefers to sit tight and pick up the money if and when he does the journey.....which he will in time. The absence of signings is another lever Ashley is using to try to force Pardew out but it won't work - the only real losers are the fans who have to watch the club stumble from one crisis to another while Ashley salves his bruised ego. I reckon Ashley is gambling that there is going to be enough in the side to stay up until someone else offers to buy the club and he can then get out without losing face or more money. Hard to see any other reason for the situation - most sensible people would cut their losses and get a better Manager/DOF but then, that would be with the aim of improving the club - Ashley has already decided that he is not interested in that, other than to protect his investment with the least possible outlay. He is, and always has been, a chancer and a loose cannon - its worked at Sports Direct, but it hasn't worked at NUFC - clearly.

Exactly this - Pardew spent much of last week-end bigging up City, saying they were on a different planet, yadda yadda yadda and the team goes into the game beaten before they started...Cardiff, on the other hand, a newly-promoted side with nowhere near as many expensively-assembled players, go out and set about City, ruffled them and came away with a deserved 3 points..... As Cardiff are one of the sides many on here are using as a reason why NUFC will survive because they are viewed as worse than us, what does all this make NUFC look like after we have played 2 games and haven't even looked like scoring..?? Pardew is a liability and needs to go - but so does Ashley.

Yep - the intelligentsia really are on forum boards....

Do they need an attendant at their hot dog stand..

its better than the alternative, unless you like the idea of JFK in charge and relegation OK, we'll keep Pardew and have relegation then...