merlin

Talented sports people - esp footballers - are produced in areas of deprivation....past history tells you that. The NE is nowhere near as hard a place to earn a living - or live on benefits - as it used to be. Workers had either the shipyards, mines or heavy industry to choose from and football was a good escape from all that. The maximum wage also meant that there was no advantage in leaving the area for other clubs. Jackie Milburn was a miner before he signed professional terms for Newcastle. The whole way of living is different now - people move away far more readily, kids do not play as much sport in their spare time(too busy on computers etc)and there is less competitive culture in school sport. Brazil used to produce the world's best players and lots of them, but rising living standards and poaching by foreign clubs has reduced the quality of players they have now. If you are going to quote France as producing young players, don't - most of their youngsters come from ethnic groups that usually have poorer families, so the same principle stands. Only Germany of the wealthy countries produces decent young players with any regularity and that is because their whole system is better controlled and run. Their players have a better attitude too...KK once told me that.

Good players on paper because they're French internationals, that's all. + 2 Argentineans, 1 Ivorian, 2 Dutch, 2 English (3 if we signed ince or Sinclair), 1 Senegalese, 1 Italian... Come on when have we had any depth at the back? Our glory years under Sir Bobby had Shola and Lua Lua as 3rd/4th choice, players like McClen, Brittain etc.. were getting games. This potential squad could be the best I remember anyway, even if it is a bunch of French and on paper Good as Sir Bob's spell at the club was, you cannot say it was our 'glory years'....under KK and SJH we finished second in the PL twice and were a far bigger threat to Man U than under SBR and Shepherd. We had a better squad and played better football. Even the KK era was hardly our glory years...we won the FA Cup 3 times in the 1950s.....

This is a good post - sums up the whole situation perfectly. The club will not improve until a) it gets an owner who is prepared to invest in it properly and b) employs a proven or very promising manager with a good record. May be some time happening....

Pardew is a tactical genius, a master at getting the best out of his players, and a man you could trust with your life....can't imagine why other clubs let him go..

No - against FA rules.

thats your opinion but ... Pardew got a clean sweep of the 'Manager of the Year' awards 12 months before ... and Ashley probably realises he didn't fund (aside from Anita) transfers last summer, so, since we weren't relegated, is willing to give him another chance to prove himself. Pardew had a disappointing season and didn't meet his targets. He overachieved on his targets the previous year, giving himself a little extra breathing space. If he had got us relegated he deserved to be sacked. Since he didn't (just...) he deserves another shot, but if Oct/Nov we really look like its another season of battling relegation, I'm expect Ashley will sack him There has to be a little loyalty, a little long-term thinking and continuity ... Or, we are like Chelsea (the most successful Premiership club in the last 10 years) changing manager every season. Ok by me, if we invest in bringing in managers that are probably in the top 5 (or at least 10) in the world, as Chelsea tend to (not always with Grant and Di Matteo, I admit) You're off your rocker if you're being serious there like. Not much wrong with that IMO, Pardew earned a bit of leeway because of his previous good season. Don't see how that's crazy at all. So you think that's OK, but that we should ignore his previous record of flopping at other clubs...? Seems a bit selective to me.....

We're already offering more than I'd ever expect us to in this situation. Who knows what we value him at but personally I'd value him at 10m Euro's if he had a lengthy contract. So I expected us to offer no more than 6m Euro's given he's only got one year left and is agitating for a move here. I think 8m is such a good offer, they want 10m btw. From the little I have seen of this guy and bearing in mind age, contract length etc, I would agree with this. The very fact that the club have - as usual these days - left things to the last minute and limited their choices so much shows that the increase in the offer was made in some desperation.

What was very interesting is that Liverpool played Melbourne Victory a day ago at the MCG - they had a crowd of 95,000 to watch, which is twice their capacity at Anfield..... We can make disparaging comments about them, but with interest like that around the world, they are the ones having the last laugh..... With a board/owner like ours we are light-years behind them, let alone the Top 4..

Amusing to note that whilst NUFC fans are debating about a friendly against a mediocre team from a country that is financially bust and from where we are unlikely to gain any merchandise sales or new fans, Man U and Liverpool have been over in Australia and S.E.Asia - where the fans will be getting better incomes/spending power etc - and playing friendlies to cement their already wide fan-bases in these areas. Just illustrates the thinking and lack of investment from the top in NUFC......Kinnear probably doesn't even know where S.E.Asia is....

Still - he got one 'over the line'.....!

I said this same thing a few weeks ago Mick - things going from bad to worse but at least we had hope in those days ; none now because there are very few men capable of buying out Ashley and even fewer who want to. This could drag on for years....

'They've given us something to think about...' Just as Sunderland, Liverpool and Man City did before them.....

Saw him once playing for France - underwhelmed frankly, looked a bit cumbersome but probably the best NUFC can get in his position. Upgrade on Shola but will not get as many goals as Cisse would in a better organized side.

It's only got so many good players. Sooner or later you end up scraping the barrell when other teams beat you to the good stuff. Spain? Holland? Belgium? Germany? South America? Balkan countries? why can't we expand our market, there's talent to be found everywhere as teams like Udinese prove by leaving no stone unturned. And with the TV money English clubs have an advantage over more or less everybody. If we've got more scouts then why aren't the finding other players? Why do we keep going back to one small shortlist of Ligue 1 players that have contracts situations we can exploit? Agree with this - penny-pinching probably to blame again.. France have won the WC ONCE - in their own country, just like England....

Its when the likes of Liverpool start to do it that its time to worry. Oh, wait........

If so, who would blame him for that ?

There are a surprising number of people who seem to think that Pardew is suddenly going to metamorphose into a top class manager, despite all the evidence to the contrary on his CV and they are basing their views of a much better performance next season on that. I find this staggering because we have not even improved on the squad we had last season as well as looking likely to lose some of our better players. The optimism displayed by some is entirely without foundation - there is very little happening at the club that is positive.

This - a right-footed LB who looks good going forward but actually creates very little when supporting the attack. Defensive limitations exposed is several games, Saints at SJP springs to mind.. The top Italian teams rarely make mistakes by selling good players to English clubs, especially defenders and they weren't happy with Santon as a LB. Haidara will be a far better player in that position when he has played as often in the PL as Santon has. Full backs are first and foremost defenders - end of. Attacking skills are a bonus.

I sort of agree but it's all relative. I mean, Swansea and Norwich are arguably progressing more - but they also have pretty much the exact ambition we do, to stay PL teams. Do you think they'll be risking their stability on a push for the Champions League any time soon? I don't. I find this jealously of those clubs from NUFC fans hard to come to terms with. All they've done is sign a couple of promising players, like everyone does at some point. We have a team packed with players they would take in a second. ...managed by a disaster of a manager who, despite all the January outlay in influx of these 'players other clubs would take in a second', struggled to avoid relegation until the last day of the season.. And you wonder why NUFC fans are jealous of the likes of Swansea.. At least they won some silverware last season...something that has been beyond our 'giant' of a club for over 40 years. Get real for heaven's sake...

Agree with this - there are far too many NUFC fans who will ignore anything the club(i.e. owner etc) does as long as they can still get into SJP once a fortnight. Nothing will change as long as this happens. More indignities lie ahead.

Pardew as well, probably.....he's a slow learner..!

Ashley has NOT succeeded in creating low expectations and apathy among all fans - I am certainly not satisfied with either his running of the club apart from keeping the club debt free by his loan, or his selection of staff to run the playing side. I suspect that the majority of younger fans have fallen for his plan because they have not seen much better from the club and they are the ones prepared to turn a blind eye to what is happening because they are blindly loyal to the club. Ashley will reap the whirlwind of what he has sown if the club have another bad season ; you will see ST sales drop dramatically next summer if this happens again because those middle-aged and older fans will lose patience and only go to selected matches. Don't think it couldn't happen - ST sales were down to 20,000 before SJH and KK took over..... We've been in the bottom half or the Championship 7 of the last 9 seasons since SBR was sacked from his position. Newcastle as a lower tier club is nothing new to anyone. Season ticket sales will drop if the team is poor, but can you really see people leaving en masse if the team is still in the Premiership? A few seasons in the lower divisions would probably half it though. Were you following the club in the 80s or early 90s ? What about 15 years ago ? The history of NUFC did not begin after SBR was sacked. Didn't you read my comment about younger fans propping the club up ? The reason NUFC has so many fans is BECAUSE it used to be a club playing attractive football and has a great history. Had the club always been as big a joke as it is now, we would probably be getting around 25,000 at best. Sheffield Weds and Wolves were once great clubs and well supported......

That's the worrying thing. Loads of bullshit coming from Kinnear and Pardew - nothing from the owner, bodies being shipped out and no-one coming in. It's hard to see anything beyond a relegation fight, at this moment in time. The club is dying again, IMO. Not far off from what happened when KK walked. If you are talking about when KK walked in 2008, then you are spot on, although I think its even worse now because everyone in football has Ashley weighed up and not many decent managers would work for him whereas had he made a decent effort in 2008 there was still a chance of getting a half-decent replacement. No chance now, and unless the club is sold, the fans have little to look forward to in the foreseeable future. Its even worse than when KK left as a player and then Arthur Cox resigned because the board wouldn't let him spend on new players just after we got promoted in 1984 - at least we had Beardsley and Waddle, with Gazza coming through then....we have nothing like that base now although a good manager could do far better with this squad than Pardew.

Ashley has NOT succeeded in creating low expectations and apathy among all fans - I am certainly not satisfied with either his running of the club apart from keeping the club debt free by his loan, or his selection of staff to run the playing side. I suspect that the majority of younger fans have fallen for his plan because they have not seen much better from the club and they are the ones prepared to turn a blind eye to what is happening because they are blindly loyal to the club. Ashley will reap the whirlwind of what he has sown if the club have another bad season ; you will see ST sales drop dramatically next summer if this happens again because those middle-aged and older fans will lose patience and only go to selected matches. Don't think it couldn't happen - ST sales were down to 20,000 before SJH and KK took over.....

What does that even mean? You mean the people who didn't rate his managerial record, disliked his style of football and saw it as completely unsustainable and inevitably saw his shortcomings brought to light. Proper "hipster" that, judging someone on their managerial ability Well im guessing we all pretty much looked in disgust when Pardew was announced and he admitted himself he had the fans to win over. He won me over and a fair few more but you still had that certain section that even after a 5th place finish wasn't good enough and we were still s*** and Pardew needed to go, so you're never going to win them ones over. However the people who enjoyed the success of a 5th place finished, looked forward to Europe and generally felt excited to push on but only to be let down by a horrific season, now seemingly hate Pardew again like he first arrived. Those are the fans that i'm not sure will fall in the same trap again if he does have another successful season. Holding hands up and saying Pards has done well for a second time isn't something i can see fans doing easily. I think everyone enjoyed finishing 5th and I don't think anyone denied he'd done well overall. But some people could still see the problems coming, that's all. There were certain warning signs that season of what a clueless coward the man is (wolves 2:2 was a prime example*). But yeah the people he did win over completely will be harder to win over a second time, and with good reason. * 2-1 obviously but without an incorrect decision they would have equalised. Equally other games he set up lead to better than expected results that season, due to his more defensive mentality & our strength upfront. We were very hard to beat. It really depends on whatever narrative people have about something. If you're looking to dislike pardew he will give you the reasons to do so, from a balanced pov he has good & bad points. Hard to beat.. Did you go to Siberia when the Liverpool, Sunderland and Man C debacles occurred ?? If you want a balanced point of view, look at his CV....