merlin

Sad, but true - get used to it, though, because we are stuck with this for a long time.......

Bent is perfect for Pardew, we'll look for him every time we get the ball and we'll spend 4 days working on our defence. Bent will be a lazy but safe signing for a clueless manager as we'll be able to get goals and he'll not take up a great deal of our resources. We will continue to lag behind the rest of the Top 10 PL sides as along as Pardew is manager. You got this one spot on, Mick - as did Decky with his comment about Bent's injury record. I bet Lambert is rubbing his hands at the prospect of Pardew's - er, sorry - Kinnear's phone call..

Just look at our side in general, think about our players, think about our potential starting 11 even if we didn't sign anyone but kept everyone, how many teams would you swap it for? Norwich/Swansea/Southampton? (These are the ones everyone keeps banging on about). Last season was a complete write off, yes Pardew made a lot of mistakes last year, the players never had a run of confidence, we seem to brush of the fact we did have a lot injuries and the Europa league was a distraction regardless if different players played Thursday/Sunday, we brush this off as Pardew pointed this out to be a problem so we say it's an excuse. I don't see how anyone looking out our team strongly believes we won't be near top 10, personally i have no doubt we will be in it, i can't see us hitting the heights of 5th but with our team as it stands, it's still a f***ing good one nonetheless. Couple of signings would be nice to give us all a massive boost, we don’t expect anything from Man City so as long as we don’t get a tanking we have the fixtures to get off to a very good start then from there on anything is possible once good momentum and confidence is flowing. Look again at the sides you have quoted - yes, we may have better players but lets be honest - most of us would swap Pardew for at least 2 of those teams' manager. You can have all the decent players you want - and we are far from perfect throughout the side - but if you have a crap manager its just a waste of talent. Pardew is still here and even if he goes, we are unlikely to get a half-decent replacement unless Ashley has worked something out with, say, Poyet. Kinnear doesn't count.... We sacked Hughton and Pochettino has done f*** all as a manager as far as i'm concerned. Oh so he came in and played some pretty football when Adkins was sacked, got a few decent results and finished safely. Jury is still out on him, he's splashing the cash, just paid something like 13 million for a bloke from the SPL, lets all panic. Not saying Pardew is the one, like ive stated previously, i just don't trust Ashley to bring anyone else in who wouldn't cause this forum to go into meltdown (not that it takes much). I'm happy we have kept him on, im willing to write off last season, he's had one good/one bad and next season is where he should be evidently judged. Saying that, he could finish 5th again yet still people would say it's a fluke, or it's Pardew so we want him out. No matter what he does a section of fans will always hate him, each to their own. Pochettino came into a new league, couldn't speak the language and didn't have anything LIKE the budget Pardew had in January ; he took over from a manager who was popular with the fans and won them over by playing decent football - far better than that displayed by Pardew's teams. How you can say he has achieved f - all is beyond me...I notice you conveniently avoided talking about Laudrup...! I said we most people would probably take 2 of the managers, so Hughton doesn't count ; I thought that would be obvious. Also obvious is Pardew's previous CVs.....you seem quite prepared to view all that as an aberration and his one decent season with us(even though the football was largely poor)as a demo of his real ability. Sorry - I'm not buying that and I reckon most other fans won't either.

I suspect that around 55% of the fans - at least - share your views. Ashley is in for a shock when the 3 year ST period runs out unless he pulls off something spectacular before the season starts because I can see another wasted season if this squad is what the club intend to rely on until Christmas......MINUS Cabaye, of course....

Just look at our side in general, think about our players, think about our potential starting 11 even if we didn't sign anyone but kept everyone, how many teams would you swap it for? Norwich/Swansea/Southampton? (These are the ones everyone keeps banging on about). Last season was a complete write off, yes Pardew made a lot of mistakes last year, the players never had a run of confidence, we seem to brush of the fact we did have a lot injuries and the Europa league was a distraction regardless if different players played Thursday/Sunday, we brush this off as Pardew pointed this out to be a problem so we say it's an excuse. I don't see how anyone looking out our team strongly believes we won't be near top 10, personally i have no doubt we will be in it, i can't see us hitting the heights of 5th but with our team as it stands, it's still a f***ing good one nonetheless. Couple of signings would be nice to give us all a massive boost, we don’t expect anything from Man City so as long as we don’t get a tanking we have the fixtures to get off to a very good start then from there on anything is possible once good momentum and confidence is flowing. Look again at the sides you have quoted - yes, we may have better players but lets be honest - most of us would swap Pardew for at least 2 of those teams' manager. You can have all the decent players you want - and we are far from perfect throughout the side - but if you have a crap manager its just a waste of talent. Pardew is still here and even if he goes, we are unlikely to get a half-decent replacement unless Ashley has worked something out with, say, Poyet. Kinnear doesn't count....

Maybe - but that's the type of player the club will sign now...

....and that's something to be positive about..?

I think that comes down to the manager at the end of the day. We can blame the players to a certain point, but when the manager himself is publicly yearning for jumpers, tacklers and signings like Andy Carroll it's a clue to where his philosophy is firmly rooted. No doubt he is looking to change it on the surface, the question is, does he have any idea how to do it? This - absolutely. Pardew has to go before we will get a more fluid style of play.

The strikers of today are far better athletes; stronger and quicker. It's not about who likes elbowing defenders. Disagree - Shearer(before his injury at Goodison), your Brazilian namesake, further back, KK himself, Supermac, Mike Channon etc....and what about the likes of Milburn in the 50s..? Macdonald would leave ANY modern striker in the dust for pace, KK the majority of them and as for muscle, KK was built like a pocket battleship and Supermac was too strong for the majority of defenders.

Just confirms what many on here are already saying. He's a quality striker, but doesn't contribute much other than goals, so playing him and Cisse together would require a pretty astute manager. Pardew is not quite in that category...!

That or it shows how highly they rate the player that they still want to pursue him. You pays your money and takes your choice - or not, maybe....

Is this guy still here..?

The fact that NUFC now have to target a player who has already rejected them for a club now relegated and who faces a serious criminal charge which could side-line him for a couple of seasons shows how far the club has fallen. Just accepting the scraps now - the player is just using the club as a lifeboat.

No surprise here - what decent young player would join the shambles that is NUFC when he can go to one of the best-supported clubs in the best-run league in Europe ? NUFC are second rate at best under this administration and are basically a make-up-the-numbers club. Get used to it - for the foreseeable future. Still, who cares as long as a past-his-best former Mackem is still a possibility..?

Not quite right there - it is a requirement of EU membership that a country becomes a signatory of the ECHR...which, although slightly different, would still be used by Human Rights lawyers to enforce legislation similar to that which affected Mick's firm. Therefore it IS relevant to this discussion because on the face of it, the UK would have to leave the EU if it refused to comply....I bet they would soon back down if the UK called their bluff, though....

The club can't force players to learn English, the club would be much better off trying to encourage them rather than trying to force them to do something that they could refuse to do and the club would be able to do nothing about it. Having a clause in their contracts could make a difference as they would then have signed to say they will learn the language but I don't know how enforceable it would be. We had a number of foreign workers at work and had massive problems communicating and we wanted to force them to learn English. We contacted an employment lawyer who we work with and they told us to back off and if communication was that important to us a company then we would learn their language. I've never heard such ridiculous tripe in my life - if you go to a foreign country, the onus is on YOU to be able to do the job they require of you ; it may or may not require you to learn the language, but if it does, then if you take the job with that understanding, they are within their rights to fire you if you fail to do the job properly because you can't speak the language. Try going to France and trying to get a job in which it is vital to learn the language if you aren't proficient in French ; try it in ANY foreign country(where they have politicians with ba--s) and you'll be on your bike smartish. The sooner the UK leaves the EU and repeals the ridiculous Human Rights Act, the better - the whole thing is just a money-making racket for lawyers and if anyone on here knows anything about Shakespeare, they will remember that during a discussion about improving the lot of people, he said ' First, we have to kill all the lawyers..!' It really isn't a life or death issue if footballers are not proficient in the language of the country in which they play as long as they can use the basics during a game but as with any situation where people are in a foreign country, life is much easier if you CAN speak the language. There is no doubt that I would learn the local lingo if I lived in a country where it was necessary - I even brushed up my Spanish for a S.American trip 3 years ago and it was worth it. As for sodding lawyers telling me to 'back off' from instructing foreign workers to learn the language in order to do the job properly - good luck with THAT one because I just wouldn't employ any. Bastards.

Yes, know what you are getting at, but us old-timers have seen English(and other British)players with just as much passing skill as foreigners ; think Terry Hibbitt at Newcastle, could drop a long ball on a sixpence(watch his pass fpr Supermac's second against Burnley in the FA Cup Semi), Tony Currie, both long and short passing, Stan Bowles at QPR, Kenny Dalglish, Liam Brady and not forgetting George Best or our own Peter Beardsley...... Skill has gone out of British native players because it has been coached out and too many youngsters now don't practice at their game...too many other distractions.

Best of the lot was his assist to Ba against Arsenal. Sublime pass that was. This - absolutely. Best pass of the whole season, I reckon and he had to get some bend on it too in order to escape their CDs. Pity the lad doesn't seem to be able to play a full game at PL pace.

Its not just that we aren't successful in terms of silverware - the standard of football is dire and we are seen as also-rans ; fans will not want to see rubbish on the field or feel as if we have no chance of even getting near to a FA/Littlewoods Cup Final. Such things would be enough to bring fans back esp if we played attractive football. People are NOT going to stay on a waiting list if they are being viewed with contempt by the clubs management or watching the side lose to Sunderland, Liverpool and Arsenal whilst conceding shed-loads of goals....... Depends what your view of 'success' is.....

Absolutely not true, they make thick end of £20Mill more than us. Maybe we should charge Spurs-esque prices, that'd make everyone happy I'm sure. Yep - people seem to overlook how relatively 'cheap' our tickets are compared to most other clubs. They have to be or SJP would be like the SoL nowadays. Club has lost a s*** load of core supporters over the last 7- 8 years. Spurs can charge those prices considering they have a 25k waiting list. Tbhe cheap tickets are to offset the ridiculous decisions and the general disillusion of the fans. We make more out of our gate receipts than Spurs anyway. But as Neesy says they could change it and still pack it out, massive waiting list Oh no we don't. Most of the "fans" aren't members of message boards and the season ticket holders I know ain't disillusioned at all, it's all about the team on match-day and the social game-day stuff. Those 400 (or 0.77%) of the match-going fans don't represent the true feelings one way or the other. Your notion of cheap to offset disillusion is also a flawed argument, less tickets sold for more £££'s = more money than more cheaper tickets for less, see us and Spurs/Liverpool in graphs above. IF you're really disillusioned you wouldn't pay, what is, even at the current levels, to a lot of folk still a significant lump of money. It attracts day trippers and encourages those who would have perhaps not have bought a ticket due to their feelings towards Ashley/Club/Pardew. if you aren't too keen on NUFC at present and you can go to a game, the ticket is 15 compared to 40, you are more likely to buy that ticket If the product on the pitch is good, people would willingly pay more to watch it - it doesn't matter HOW badly you think about the people who are producing the product, there will always be plenty of people willing to buy it if its good - there is no nation on earth who should, in theory, hate the Germans more than anyone else but Israel....yet you go there, or watch film from there and you will see the roads full of Mercs and BMWs. Likewise people whose relatives were prisoners of the Japanese - they are quite prepared to buy Japanese cars/TVs/electrical goods because they are good and usually reliable. The same thing applies with football - if you price down the product, you then take less profit unless you can increase gates massively, which means you buy cheaper players and get more mediocre football as a result. There was a 20,000 waiting list in the mid-90s when our prices weren't that much different to other clubs....we are cheaper to watch now, but the waiting list has gone. Offer peanuts, get monkeys....

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/alan-pardew-voice-newcastle-united-4702880?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter Pardew has not exactly covered himself in glory when speaking to the fans - quite often, he makes things seem worse than they are - IF that is possible so this news is not exactly welcome. As far as Poyet is concerned, the jury is still out but I would take him instead of Pardew - immediately. We know just how bad Pardew is as a manager in today's PL and we will go nowhere with him in charge.

How can you compare results in the Premiership to results in the 2nd division? I’m sure that we were 18th in the league when Shearer was appointed and 18th after his last game. Exactly, and don't forget that it even took KK 8 games to sort us out after Allardyce had been fired. Keegan returned in January with half a season left - Shearer only had a couple of months and the damage was well and truly done by then. Not saying Shearer is going to be a top manager, but the period he had with us was not a fair guide of his abilities in that direction. Nobody is blemish-free, but for Kinnear to call Shearer a c--- is plainly pot and kettle if not worse.

Agree with most of your assessments on those players - the biggest disappointment is a toss up between Tiote and Cisse after brilliant starts by both. Nearly ALL the players have deteriorated over the past season and some of this HAS to be down to Pardew/Coaching staff and the way the players are used in their team system. Tiote, for example, was, as you say, excellent under Hughton, far better both on and off the ball - in fact, the mainspring behind our win at Everton in his first game. Cisse was a scoring sensation after signing in 2011/12 season and whilst I expected him to find it a bit tougher against now-aware defenders last time, he has been uncomfortable in the team set up. Maybe that applies to most of the players - I would dearly like to see how KK or SBR would have used these players but that is all theory. There are big questions about the management and coaching in my view.

This sounds a very likely scenario - if it turns out to have any foundation, we are in serious trouble. Should Pardew be able to get Kinnear onside as he did with Llambias, we could lose a very good scout and end up playing Wimbledon-style football for the foreseeable future. That will do wonders for ST sales...NOT.

absolutely this, and I disagree that Kinnear can appoint the next manager, that's ashleys remit no one else. I sincerely hope pardew goes and someone of some sort of calibre is appointed but this is nufc who of any calibre or common sense will want to work directly under uncle joe. What have we got now though? someone we got to 5th with I now back Pardew, as I dread what would happen if he goes In my opinion - and that of many others , I suspect - Pardew's managerial performance is the REASON all this has happened Bollocks. If it was all down to Pardew's performance last season, he simply would have been sacked and we'd have looked to have brought in a more adequate replacement. Instead we now still have him as boss, and both him and our brilliant chief scout have to report to some f***ing dinosaur who doesn't even know the players in our own team, let alone other leagues etc. I'm now in a horrible position where I want.. and have to back Pardew because if we narrowly avoided relgation with him here, we'll be relegated by March if Joke Kinnear takes over. Total and utter rubbish - Pardew has had the same record of second or third season syndrome with all of his clubs...in some cases, he got himself into situations OFF the field which brought him into conflict with his employers. We DON'T have to back Pardew - and most of us won't ; we will simply tolerate him because he is the only choice as manager until he either falls out with Kinnear/Ashley or produces another dire season of football and the fans REALLY get on his back. The only conceivable reason Ashley didn't fire him was that he was foolish enough to allow him to have an 8 year contract. Regardless of any Llambias shortcomings in the transfer market, the side should not have fallen away as badly as it did last season...look at the miserable performances after we had spent 30m....whose fault was that...? YOU back Pardew if you want - DON'T expect the rest of us to agree with you.