Chris_R

You don't know the half of it, mate. Whilst I don't know him well, I have met him and chatted to him. Whilst pleasant enough, he struck me as the kind of chap who could be outwitted by a mushroom.

Clark was a decent enough player, but he lacks the brains to be a good manager. He doesn't strike me as having much intellect at all to be honest.

If they wanted him as manager, which everyone seems to think was NUFC's wet dream, they'll have asked his opinion or at the very least listened whilst he voiced it. As I say, the other 2 may have outvoted him, but he will have had his say.

Yes he does. He's part of a 3-man team that identify players. Charnley, Carr and Carver. That's how it worked with Pardew, that's how it'll work now and that's how it'll work going forward. The head coach WILL have a say, maybe not the biggest say, but he'll have a say on who comes in, who goes out and who is retained. No way Alan Pardew wanted rid of Nolan & Barton. No way Carver wanted rid of these two either. I'm not sure what your point is. As I said: The head coach is part of a 3 man team that decide who stays, goes and is offered a new contract. He is part of that team, but perhaps doesn't have the biggest say. He DOES have a say though, but even in an egalitarian system, 2 will always outvote 1.

Yes he does. He's part of a 3-man team that identify players. Charnley, Carr and Carver. That's how it worked with Pardew, that's how it'll work now and that's how it'll work going forward. The head coach WILL have a say, maybe not the biggest say, but he'll have a say on who comes in, who goes out and who is retained.

This, entirely. It's a manager's job to do this, I've done it countless times to staff. It's not nice, but there's no way on Earth that I'd phone someone to do it. You get them in, sit them down and have the decency to do it face to face. Carver might have been told to do this, which is quite right, but I can't imagine for a single moment that he was told to just ring them up and use only one phonecall to do it, and that there was no other way he was allowed to tell them. The man's a fucking idiot. I hope they sack him by sending the cunt a text.

A lot of our problems may be that so many players just don't want to play. Tweaks become weeks out, a slight knock means a month or 2 on the sidelines. At many other clubs, the same players would barely miss a day's training with the exact same problems. It's like finding a company with a horrific sick rate. It's often not the staff being actually any more ill than at other companies, but just that the job and/or working environment royally suck ass and that people would rather sack it off. Of course they shouldn't, but that's human nature. This is not to say Derek Wright is a great physio, by the way. Just that there are doubtless other issues at play too.

We've needed a manager since December. If he appointed someone today he'd still be taking his time. Now he's not taking his time, he's taking the piss.

It's the hope that kills you.

Incomming!

And that's the reason they're NOT announcing he won't get the job, so that more people are happy when McClaren does get the job.

I've very little interest in McClaren getting the job. It reeks of doing the absolute bare minimum, as always, and it'll be utterly underwhelming.

I agree. It'd be nice to have a rich sugar-daddy owner but ultimately I think we should be run at a profit. All clubs should. Ashley should make money from owning us, as every club owner should. However try to pinch every penny possible, have no ambition and fail to recognise that the manager is the single most important individual at a football club and consistently refuse to pick a competent one. You want Ashley to make money from owning us? WTF? Tell me one reason why the club shouldn't be a not for profit? All clubs should be run at a profit. They're businesses, and running at a profit is what stops them going under. Every club in every league of every country should, ideally, be run at a profit. They're not, and that's why the likes of Chelsea, Man City and PSG have ruined football for 95% of teams. From a selfish, trophy-wanting perspective I'd love someone to come and spunk money at us, sure, but that doesn't change it being fundamentally wrong. Me saying Ashley should make money from us doesn't mean I'm pro-Ashley. I'm categorically not. And saying he should make money from us does NOT mean I think he should milk us dry for every penny he can whilst hawking his tatty chav clothes shop all around the place for free. He can make 1p per year and still be, as I suggest he should, running the club at a profit.

I think we're in a Mexican standoff with Derby. We want McClaren, they don't. They know if they sack him, they have to pay him compensation. We know that unless we wait for them to sack him, we'll have to pay them. Sadly it might be a while before either side blinks and it'd not surprise me if as soon as we either confirm Carver or appoint someone different, Derby almost immediately sack McClaren.

I agree. It'd be nice to have a rich sugar-daddy owner but ultimately I think we should be run at a profit. All clubs should. Ashley should make money from owning us, as every club owner should. However try to pinch every penny possible, have no ambition and fail to recognise that the manager is the single most important individual at a football club and consistently refuse to pick a competent one.

Clearly Ashley is rattled by the AO campaign, otherwise there's not a hope in hell he'd have broken his lifetime media silence by giving an interview to Sky Sports. It's quite mad to state that him doing that proves he doesn't care, it's quite the reverse. He's a precious little so-and-so, seems really quite fragile emotionally from the few bits we've seen of him. Spits his dummy out really easily and is massively prone to huffs and petulance. He has made a rod for his own back by speaking out. Yes, it buys him a little time in some respects because he's made some promises but now those promises have to be kept. Previously, there were no promises, nothing to hold him to because all we got was silence which made it hard to say he was failing. We could disagree with how he was running the club, but we couldn't say he was failing as he was seemingly achieving everything that he personally wanted. Now there are metrics against which he can be judged which we agree on as common aims: Investment, an attempt to be a good competitive club, even the talk of trophies. If his aim is to continue doing what he's done for the last 8 years, I'd say this statement is a massive fuck-up by him. This statement is only a good move if he genuinely does want to change, but that in itself doesn't convince me that those are his intentions because he's got an absolute mountain of bad work to undo before I'll be even remotely convinced. My position is that I'm still "out" and it's business as usual for me until he actually does things that bring me back into the fold. My expectations of that happening are perhaps now slightly raised, but still phenomenally close to zero.

Things like this show that we're getting to him. It's great, carry on.

Yes, every question seemed like it was scripted and Ashley knew what was going to be asked. The answers were similarly scripted and he sounded like a man trying to remember his lines at times rather than a man speaking freely and honestly. I'd love him to change his behaviour with us, but I'm only interested in actions, not words.

Derby would be mad to sack him before Sunday with us seemingly so desperate to take him on. The sensible move is to keep him on and see if we'll offer compensation, and then only sack him on Monday (if indeed that's what they want to do) after our fate is decided.

Well we're used to being managed by a number 2.....

I could barely give a shit about what happens at the weekend. If the club don't care and the players don't care, why should I care? Let them get on with the mess they've made, either get out of it or don't, it's frankly none of my concern. I'll watch from afar on a Sky feed I've not paid for with dispassionate interest, because to be fair I am interested in what happens - how can I not be? - But I'm not investing a single shred of emotion, effort, passion or money into what happens because they've got precisely no intention of giving anything in that regard back to me. Relationships need to be 2-way. This one hasn't been for years and anyone who continues to hope for improvement has the worst case of battered wife syndrome imagineable.

So glad we binned this lazy turd off so that we can give some real grafters a chance. Just look how well we've done without him, it's a joy to behold. So proud.

Not once would it ever cross my mind to write anything remotely serious on anything other than a computer. What the fuck do they take us for?

Since when is it illegal to make a phonecall? Utter fucking melts.