AyeDubbleYoo

He isn't going to say it was difficult to do any business, because we did loads of business.

There's no way we aren't playing Ba because of contract issues, the paranoia amongst fans is mental at times now. He's been dropped and subbed because he hasn't been playing well. Why does there have to be anything more than that?

I was thinking that as well, it seems to be the commonest thing in football to trot out the line that a player has "no end product" because he does a few things wrong. Football is a low percentage game when attacking, if it wasn't then games would end up 10-10.

Why are you picking on me? :-[

Mate, have you just signed up to whinge constantly? What's the point?

No, if anything we are attracting more exciting players than in recent years. £5 for Cabaye is better than £15m for Luque, or whatever it was. £9.5m, but what's the difference in £5.5m in misrepresenting the dealings of the previous board while defending the current. I honestly didn't know the figures, my point was that we're not attracting any worse players from abroad than in recent years really.

Well there's no point debating the rights and wrongs of the Hughton sacking, we all know he didn't really deserve to go. But I don't really see the harm it has done the club, there's no way you could argue that Hughton is proved to be a better manager than Pardew.

No, if anything we are attracting more exciting players than in recent years. £5 for Cabaye is better than £15m for Luque, or whatever it was.

Wow, your humour knows no bounds.

We did get a single striker in, the problem was we didn't get two.

Don't understand the enthusiasm for the press making a fool of our manager in public. What good can that do?

Don't feed us bullshit about getting players in 100% or key players staying then. He should shut his f***ing mouth. He may have been assured from the higher ups that we were getting players in, so he thought what he was saying could be true? Perhaps he shouldn't have said it, I don't know. That's not going to lose us points though is it. If you believe that we'll maintain this start then fair play to you, but I can see things turning very ugly this season. Players have come out saying that they've been treated like s*** by the boardroom, fans are sick of being lied to with apathy being set in, St. James Park is supposedly being used as a billboard and made to look ridiculous with the name of the club brought down... It doesn't take much for these things to snowball out of control. I can normally roll with the ridiculous punches that this regime has thrown out, but it's starting to wear a little too thin for me now. The stuff that's happening with SJP is a complete joke, making us a laughing stock, there's no two ways about that. I'm not a fan of Llambias or Ashley at all, but I just don't think Pardew has done anything wrong really. There's only so much he's able to do with the cretins above him, but as far as I can see he's doing it well. We've got a good new full back in, and still have Ben Arfa to come back, who'll most likely become one of our best players. I think we'll probably finish 9th-11th in the league, which wouldn't be a bad season, will probably depend on what happens in January though. i'll tell you what he did wrong. his phone rang.... someone told him that nufc were gonna push out chris hughton at the next opportunity and asked if he'd like to become the next person to pick the team, that he'd have no say on incomings or outgoings and that no matter what happened he wasnt allowed to question the running of the club in public in any way. then he said yes, i'd like to do that. he did that wrong. I'm sure that's exactly how the phone call went. neither of us knows, would you care to offer a more likely account of the negotiations? given what we were told by golfmag and what's actually been going on since he arrived. Given that most football managers are lined up before their predecessor is removed (and Pardew certainly was) and that no one is ever employed without agreeing to the conditions determined by their employers, what golf mag said was a bit like me saying that it's going to rain next month. Factually correct but hardly stellar insight. Agreed. It seemed worse because Ashley is a bastard and Hughton is a nice guy, but it's no more sinister than most managerial appointments other than that IMO.

It's too broad a question though, who knows? I'm not aware of anyone who hasn't criticised a lot of what Ashley has done. You could equally put it the other way round - what would Ashley have to do to make you think he was doing some things right? Buy one of the most exciting attacking midfielders in Europe? Sign a French league winner and one of the best defensive midfielders in the league? Get a promising young Italian international fullback from Inter Milan? Bounce back from a relegation, finish the season well and start the following season with some good results? Put our finances on a sounder footing? But I wouldn't ask it like that because I know it's not black and white. I'm not trying to speak up on Ashley's behalf, I'm trying to highlight that the situation at the club isn't as dire as some people think, and everything we do isn't bad or part of some evil plan to punish Geordies. Get a striker in as well, that'd at least shows he cares and does have a plan. We've had a decent window but we're relying on Shola,Lovercrap, Ba & Best. I like Best, I think he's seriously underrated by some on here, who knows with Ba atm. Shola is just Shola & Lovercrap shouldn't be anywhere near the team. I agree we should have got another striker, and that's a failure. As you said though, we've had a decent window.

Not really, it's definitely amateurish to try and hijack someone else's deal at the last minute like that. On the other hand if it had come off we would all be saying it was a brilliant transfer window. I believe we were trying to get another striker throughout the summer though, we just maybe weren't prepared to pay what it would have taken to get a high-quality one. We obviously should have signed another striker, but for whatever reason we didn't. I don't really know enough about the available players and what it would have taken to get them to know if that's right or wrong. What we do know is that we spent all summer chasing targets that weren't successful or encouraged. We also know we had the money to buy Brian Ruiz who was available but didn't enquire until it was far too late, when even a bid a few days earlier could have made all the difference. Some would say that was wilful incompetence and sadly I think it's hard to argue any differently after we've seen it happen so many times. Fair enough, I don't know enough about the goings-on to really disagree with that. We spent all summer chasing targets, and we happened not to get another striker in. That's a failing, obviously.

It's too broad a question though, who knows? I'm not aware of anyone who hasn't criticised a lot of what Ashley has done. You could equally put it the other way round - what would Ashley have to do to make you think he was doing some things right? Buy one of the most exciting attacking midfielders in Europe? Sign a French league winner and one of the best defensive midfielders in the league? Get a promising young Italian international fullback from Inter Milan? Bounce back from a relegation, finish the season well and start the following season with some good results? Put our finances on a sounder footing? But I wouldn't ask it like that because I know it's not black and white. I'm not trying to speak up on Ashley's behalf, I'm trying to highlight that the situation at the club isn't as dire as some people think, and everything we do isn't bad or part of some evil plan to punish Geordies.

The idea that the unbiased truth comes from Joey Barton is insane though, even people who hate Ashley in the extreme must be able to see that he has a load of self interest, bitterness and self importance motivating him to say these things.

Don't feed us bullshit about getting players in 100% or key players staying then. He should shut his f***ing mouth. You think people would be more positive if he just told it as it is? "I have no idea what MA and DL will do, but I hope they will provide another striker, I'm keeping my fingers crossed" Short answer: yes Long answer: At least we wouldnt have been decieved all summer waiting for a player that was never going to arrive. I don't think the player "was never going to arrive", he just didn't arrive in the end. Those are two very different things.

His opinion is a valid one. You may not like what he has to say but he's been closer to the regime than anyone on this board which gives his views some gravitas. I know his opinion is a valid one, I just don't agree with it. And whether he's close to the regime or not is irrelevant to my criticism, Barton should keep his mouth shut whether he's right or wrong. Where has keeping your mouth shut ever got you? I proudly participated in chants of SOUNESS OUT repeatedly at SJP and I'd like to think that helped to get him sacked. You're a fan of NUFC, that's fine. Barton is a professional footballer who plays for QPR. There's a lot of distance between those two. I'd disagree, I think Barton is a fan of NUFC too. Firstly, I still believe that players, while loyalty is dead, feel some sentiment for clubs they play for and probably want them to succeed if they aren't f***ed over by them. Secondly, I believe him when he says that he felt an affinity for the place, not least as he has become less of a volatile, crime-happy vagabond at NUFC, and likely (or so I would hope) appreciates our patience with him. If he appreciates our patience with him then why is he giving us a hard time? The same people who chose not to sack him when he went to prison are the people he's having a go at now. Anyway, pointless discussion really, I just think Barton is now a QPR player and should show some professionalism and mind his own business. Whether he has any affection for NUFC is beside the point. They never chose not to sack him, they've made previous attempts to flog him and done so in an overtly public manner, they just couldn't shift him, primarily as due to his past mistakes nobody say him as a risk worth taking, especially as he was basically still in/fresh out of jail. As soon as they finally found a willing bidder he was off. I opine that had any club come in with a serious bid in a window before this one it would have been made very clear to him that he was not wanted here. There's nothing unprofessional about what he's doing. He's a professional footballer, ergo perfectly entitled to criticise an unjust issue within his profession, that profession being football, especially about a professional football club for whom he exercised his professional skills. Sorry, that's nonsense, it's not professional to air your grievances in public. On the sacking thing I don't know, I'm pretty sure we could have terminated his contract if we had wanted. Anyway, that wasn't my argument, I was just responding to you saying we had shown patience with him, which we have.

With our history and following we should be able to compete with clubs like Chelsea and Man City in the transfer market. We would be able to if those clubs were spending anything like what they can afford. But the fact is they are spending the personal money of mega-rich benefactors.

His opinion is a valid one. You may not like what he has to say but he's been closer to the regime than anyone on this board which gives his views some gravitas. I know his opinion is a valid one, I just don't agree with it. And whether he's close to the regime or not is irrelevant to my criticism, Barton should keep his mouth shut whether he's right or wrong. Where has keeping your mouth shut ever got you? I proudly participated in chants of SOUNESS OUT repeatedly at SJP and I'd like to think that helped to get him sacked. You're a fan of NUFC, that's fine. Barton is a professional footballer who plays for QPR. There's a lot of distance between those two. I'd disagree, I think Barton is a fan of NUFC too. Firstly, I still believe that players, while loyalty is dead, feel some sentiment for clubs they play for and probably want them to succeed if they aren't fucked over by them. Secondly, I believe him when he says that he felt an affinity for the place, not least as he has become less of a volatile, crime-happy vagabond at NUFC, and likely (or so I would hope) appreciates our patience with him. If he appreciates our patience with him then why is he giving us a hard time? The same people who chose not to sack him when he went to prison are the people he's having a go at now. Anyway, pointless discussion really, I just think Barton is now a QPR player and should show some professionalism and mind his own business. Whether he has any affection for NUFC is beside the point.

Good post, the saddest bit about this period in the club's history is that it has got fans arguing about how they should support their own club. Hopefully once the window is behind us we can get on with getting behind the team - that's our job when all's said and done.

One person said it. I know, thanks for that.

Oh aye, that would really help us.

His opinion is a valid one. You may not like what he has to say but he's been closer to the regime than anyone on this board which gives his views some gravitas. I know his opinion is a valid one, I just don't agree with it. And whether he's close to the regime or not is irrelevant to my criticism, Barton should keep his mouth shut whether he's right or wrong. Where has keeping your mouth shut ever got you? I proudly participated in chants of SOUNESS OUT repeatedly at SJP and I'd like to think that helped to get him sacked. You're a fan of NUFC, that's fine. Barton is a professional footballer who plays for QPR. There's a lot of distance between those two.