ianovthetoon

If Sir John Hall wants to help get our club back on track, the first thing he should do is use his majority shareholding, canvass a few smaller shareholders and force a vote of no confidence in Freddie Shepherd as chairman. Not only would this get rid of the root of most of what is wrong at this club, it would likely make a takeover a lot easier to go through as he would be less likely to stay on.

A lot is regularly made of the money which is being siphoned from the club by the Shepherd family, and indeed Douglas Hall. If John Hall wants to give this club something back before he sells up and takes his millions, then it would be the opportunity to allow this club to progress. Yes I stood on the terraces when we were looking relegation in the face, I  realise we are a million miles from being in that state again, but surely after sustaining a place in the top 20 richest clubs in the world for many years, we need to start putting this wealth and status to good use. We have one of the largest wage bills in the premiership, now in most other businesses this means we should have one of the best workforces(ie teams) in the league

To try and illustrate why I think we have a terrible management team liken us to any other business. You wouldn't assemble a talented workforce then put the tea lady in charge of them. In sorts that is what we have done. We have a squad of some of the best players in world football, and put a man in charge of them whose previous experiences led to relegation on all 3 occasions, and whose tactical nous has come under scrutiny, and clearly is unable to motivate them to want to succeed here.

To add to that, the man making the decisions above Glenn Roeder, has shown that he knows very little about running a football club. The man who controls the purse strings, who seems to think he must be a good chairman just because he throws countless amounts of money at managers to buy midfielders and centre forwards. With the financial resources this club has we should be capable of mounting a serious challenge on the top 5 or 6 every season(I'm not saying guarantee to finish in these places as that would be disrespectful to the jobs done by other teams), and to at least give 100 percent effort in competitions that are winnable instead of doing the hard work only to throw it all away.

Yes Shepherd gives the manager money, but does he ensure that this money is spent wisely? I think not. Yes, we all have these adrenaline rushes when we sign the Michael Owens of this world but unless these players want to come here to win and not pick up obscene amounts of money they are not what is required. Shepherd clearly isn't up to making sure that the club's money is spent wisely.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that at some point in the near future the Halls will sell their shares. The worst case scenario is that the Shepherd family would somehow finance such a deal, no doubt by securing it on the assets of the football club. In this instance we would probably spend most of the next 10 years or so hovering between 8th and 15th in the table, making the odd trophy signing to guarantee season ticket revenues. As a private venture this would give the Shepherds far more wealth from the club than they already take. 

Obviously the Halls will be wanting the best price possible for their shares, as would the Shepherds if they sold out too, but surely if the club is looking back towards the higher echelons of English football they would get more money for their shares. This is why I suspect the Halls will eventually sell out to Shepherd, because as things stand that we aren't going to be a viable investment to anyone at the price they are looking for. But if John Hall was as true a fan as he says he is, he would ensure that the words Shepherd and majority shareholder were never associated with this club, this is why he must canvass to have Shepherd removed as soon as possible

It's just as well there are worse teams than us in this league. Given the additional money available to clubs next year through television revenue if we keep Roeder I'd put my house on us going down. There is one word that describes every part of this club at the moment - inadequate.

What would make complete sense is for FFS to fire Roeder after the last game of the season irrespective of where we finish in the league. That way we could have a new man in by the time pre season training starts so he can mould the team to his style etc. We have never appointed a manager during pre season in recent times, instead they are allowed to start several games into the season with no transfer window to fall back on, then expect them to get the best out of players they don't neccesarily rate and write the season off as a transitional phase. We have fallen too far behind the top 4 already we can't afford to keep faith with a manager who quite simply isn't good enough to take the team where we aspire to be. Shepherd then needs to take advice from Bobby Robson about who he thinks is good enough to manage this club. He may have fired Robson but they are still clearly in touch as Robson is often seen on TV at NUFC games next to Shepherd. And I really think Shepherd could do no worse than ask the guy's advice. After all he did see the potential in Mourinho as a coach

I have it on good authority(A friend of mine works for adidas and is responsible for providing replica kit to premier league teams) that the new top is one of the best yet. She wouldn't divulge any info on it's design but i managed to get it out of her that it isn't based on any of the current adidas kit ie liverpool chelsea real madrid etc and is a unique design, as soon as i get more info out of her i'll let you know

In terms of long term investment, Newcastle would have to be a sound bet. Fair enough, it would take a substantial initial investment to sort out the playing side of the club, but with a huge fan base, much of it relatively untapped because of the cost of following football these days, a successful Newcastle United would be a licence to print money. If you go look at the catchment area we have - the city itself, Gateshead, North Tyneside, Northumberland, much of South Tyneside and Washington along with parts of Durham and Teeside, there are not many places in the UK with such a huge area to call on. We are also popular in other parts of the UK, I have visited most of the country through work and rarely fail to spot a few people wearing our colours. It is inevitable that sometime in the near future clubs are going to be allowed to negotiate their own Television deals, the sums of money likely to figure in that will be obscene.  A lot is said about our debt, but most of that is self financed from future season ticket sales and is manageable so that should not be off putting.  And as much as it pains me to say it, should the mackems have some sort of relative success from Niall Quinn and his consortium, the peanuts he shelled out for the club will more than likely be an astute piece of business. Never mind him telling the press and the media it's because he loves the club, its because he knows if he gets the Mackems in the premier ship and out of the bottom five he will guarantee himself 48000 inbreeds at every home game and many more buying shitty Lonsdale Tops so they can look really daft in the Metrocentre on a Saturday afternoon

May I suggest a few choruses of Bye Bye Freddie to the tune of the Bay City Rollers Bye Bye Baby at tomorows game to celebrate, whilst adding in a few Freddie Give us a waves  :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

To the tune of winter wonderland

Theres only one Nicky Butt

One Nicky Butt

He's pulled his finger out and upped his game

Nicky is a geordie once again

:roll: :roll: :lol:

The appointment of Dalglish has to be the main factor where the decline started. He had won the League at his previous two clubs - Liverpool and Blackburn, but had also taken a lot of criticism for it too. It was argued in the press that he inherited a championship winning team at Liverpool, whereas he bought success at Blackburn. If he had only improved the team where it needed improving, ie in Defence who knows what would have happened, maybe we would have moved on to bigger and better things, but Dalglish purposely dismantled the side so if he had succeeded it would have been HIS side that had done it, not the one he inherited from Keegan, because unfortunately for him, that is what the papers would have said

There's  a couple of ways Belgravia can bring extra cash into the St James' Park Coffers:

1.  The renaming of St James Park, however steeped in tradition would be one way of bringing in an initial lump sum of money. It might prove unpopular in some quarters but would it be a price worth paying if that money was put straight into team strengthening. Arsenal got quite a big wedge upfront from Emirates for the stadium naming rights.  If they came in and gave Roeder (or whoever they replace him with) the 25 million that has been suggested in many quarters for team strengthening in January, it's not beyond reason to think a similar amount of money could be ploughed straight into the coffers in time for the summer transfer window even if it means playing at "The Rock" or whatever. With that sort of money, plus whatever they budget to spend anyway, with the right man buying the players, we should be there or there abouts again. Plus the SJH and Milburn Stands could be auctioned off to the highest bidder as well

2.    The creation of a Newcastle TV station. The operators of the current Newcastle World site, premium TV are a part of NTL, who have just merged with Telewest, who provide the Cable Network in the North East, and obviously nationally now. Cable Television is a lot more amenable to most people compared to the internet, so a monthly subscription channel similar to MUTV would attract a lot of interest. All friendly/reserve perhaps even academy games could be shown live, whilst the club could have the fallback of televising UEFA cup games should they not be taken up by one of the mainstream channels. Add to that interviews, classic games from the past, it wouldn't be too bad a station to have. Then when premiership clubs get to negotiate their own TV deals the basic framework would be in place to show these games too.

At the end of the day if they are gonna splash out many millions of pounds in acquiring the club everything will have been thought out. They will have an idea who they want to run the club. Don't forget there will be other jobs they will want filled too, such as chairman, chief executive and the like, so I'm pretty sure that once it's all official we will have a much better idea of what their plans are

we should send Rossi back to Man U , and get Alan Smith. Plus when it goes to looking for Strikers we need to make sure that they arewn't cup tied as we are likely to be playing in the knock out rounds of the UEFA cup

A good one from the promotion season when we played Brentford and their Physio came on to the pitch "Theres only one Jimmy Saville" One of the funniest things I've seen at SJP

Roeder has to be the man to take over as caretaker  :lol: :lol:

The nail has ben firmly hit on the head, Freddie Shepherd ISN'T seriously rich. The question then must be how would he fund a takeover. As the club has long term debts secured against future ticket sales, that route is out of the question, so perhaps he has his own backers, maybe they have a few quid and would be pro active in taking the club forward. It's a possibility

I was sitting trying to come up with the names of a couple of wealthy geordies who had the financial clout to invest in the club. One or two sprang to mind.

The first is Graham Wylie, worth an estimated £200million who was the co-founder of Sage, and owns a number of race horses. I'm sure I read somewhere a while back that he has a box at St James, and he has been a success in other businesses so maybe he could consider splashing his cash on the toon. A guy like that would IMO be similar to Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough, so you never know

Another is Frank Williams worth approx £145million, born in Jarrow and apparently a Newcastle Fan. Had relative success with the Williams formula 1 team so you never know

And just cos he's minted, I ain't got a clue what he thinks about football, the Duke of Northumberland!

Can anyone think of some more?

The thing is, the longer things continue to go against us in the league, Shepherd will inevitably have no option but to get rid of GR. Obviously there will be many arguments over who should replace him and we will no doubt end up with someone just as bad. FFS said when Souness went that he would take time to make the right choice for the club. Once again he hasn't. It is inconceivable that Shepherd is going to walk away from the club so maybe a campaign of sorts can be mounted to persuade him to take advice from people better equipped to recruit a new manager ie a cerain Mr Shearer. It's highly unlikely he will want teh poisoned chalice but he would certainly have a better idea of who is required to get us out of the mess that Freddie has helped to create. Its all fair and well being a fan of the club and thinking you know what is best for the future, but if you have no idea about the playing side(which freddie obviously hasn't) how can you decide what is required

Apparently he was seen snipering between Gateshead Greggs and Wilkinsons about 12. Maybe he was meeting Sven in the Traf the sad pie eating tw*t

If we signed him he probably wouldn't get a game till next season cos Roeder would want to get him fit. At least Bernard would have a training partner

OWEN HARGREAVES will get his dream move to Manchester United in January — if Bayern Munich land Newcastle midfielder Emre.

 

Sources claim the Turkish international is desperate to join the Germans, after Emre revealed Bayern made an £8million move for him during the summer.

 

Emre’s claim puts the pressure on at St James’s Park and should he get his wish, England star Hargo (left) will be Old Trafford bound.

 

The midfield ace is recuperating from a broken leg but is set to return to training in a fortnight’s time.

 

United boss Alex Ferguson has the funds to finance a £14m swoop and Hargo has made no secret of his desire to join the Premiership leaders.

 

The Canadian-born star almost went on strike in a bid to move in August but backed down after a public slanging match with the Bayern board.

 

Emre did not expect to be fighting a relegation battle when he joined Newcastle in July 2005 for £6m from Inter Milan.

 

And he could be helped in his search for a move because Toon will have to sell to finance any recruitment during the January transfer window.

 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2002390000-2006500755,00.html

 

 

If players like Emre and the like were playing to their full potential we wouldn't be in a relegation battle. It always amuses me when the press speculate on who is going where because things aren't going their way. At the end of the day we have a squad allegedly oozing with world class who are paid a lot of money to play at their best at all times, but if they seemingly can't be arsed it just goes to show their commitment to the club when times are hard. Maybe Glenn Roeder isn't up to the job in hand but he would be helped immensely if some of these "superstars" started earning their 50k a week

The one thing that strikes me about all of the last few managerial appointments is that it's always claimed that the club have been inundated with applications for the job. As these people are showing a desire to manage the club, you would think they would at least be given the chance to put their case to the board as to how they would approach the job. I know they probably get the odd fruit loop sending their CV in cos they did well on a computer game but surely there must be some feasible names in there too. Freddie is obviously incapabable of appointing the right man, so surely if he delegated this job to someone else, be it a specialist recruitment company to provide a shortlist, or maybe if he employed someone to do the job he is currently trying to do, that of Chief Executive. At the end of the day Roman Abramovich didn't choose Mourinho it was Peter Kenyon

hey u lot u r supposed 2 be newcastle supporters so quit moaning  blueupset.gif and start supporting them! we WILL get thru this and we WON'T get relegated :chick:

The trouble is we probably won't get relegated for being too good , rather that there are far worse teams than us in the division

In most people's opinion the current squad is without doubt (on paper) good enough for the top half of the Premiership at least. Therefore it is evident Roeder is unable to mould these players into a decent team, the proof is there in front of everyone the league table does not lie. If results don't go our way in the next two league games(Sheff Uth H, Citeh A) he has to go, no doubt about it. Even if they brought Venables in till the end of the season(as 'boro did a few years ago) to ensure we stay in the division it would give us a bit time to take stock, get someone(apart from Shepherd) to headhunt a good manager who can take the club forward and build from there. If the unthinkable happened and we were relegated, I fear it would be years before we returned to the premiership, and even longer to re establish ourselves as one of the top clubs in the country if ever. We could potentially be in a worse state than Leeds if we went down, as the debt which paid for the ground is secured against season ticket sales. Would we sell 45,000 season tickets in the championship? I think not

Anyone who thinks FFS would be gone in the event of relegation would be wrong IMO. As the value of the clubs shares plummeted I'm in no doubt he would try and buy all the shares himself as they would be so cheap, then he would provide enough money to get us back up again then be happy finishing outside the bottom three so he could keep the big money from sky for himself as there would be no dividends to pay out and he'd be making himself a few bob more than he his already

...now on. Poor team, poor performance. Relegation battle is now all go!

 

If Sheff Utd win next week, you'd better believe it...!!

If Sheff United win next week, Roeder's position would become untenable, having failed to beat two of the relegation favourites at home in succesion.