AyeDubbleYoo

No chance.

If actions speak louder than words let's wait to see what the actions are.

Dunno I'm not privy to the boardroom but I guess we can assume it was to reduce operating costs, make the club leaner and self sufficient, reduce the age of the playing personnel and stop dishing out Freddie pensions to past their sell buy date superstars. Like I said a broadly unpopular plan but a plan nonetheless. There again if we listen to the many of the opinionated "superior" fans who create websites or publish fanzines it was to single handedly destroy the heritage of Newcastle United, make himself rich at our expense and take us into the 4th division or whatever it's called nowadays. I guess we can take our pick.

I was responding to someone questioning why we can't do what Fulham do. I wasn't saying my ultimate ambition is to be like Fulham. But then you proabably knew that.

Cabaye, Marveaux, Tiote and Ben Arfa have the potential to be sold for a lot more than what we paid for them.... Well if he keeps pocketing the money and doesn't reinvest it, the quicker he fucks off. By "keeps pocketing the money" do you mean putting large amounts of his own cash into the club, and taking nothing out?

Ba is clearly our number one striker. And presumably HBA is his preferred partner.

I've always said this. He doesn't lack the desire for success, he's just not prepared to subsidise us to make it happen faster. So he's trying to do it by getting good deals and playing hardball over wages - like he has done all his life. Whether it will work or not, or you agree with it, is another question but I don't think you can say he's happy for us to finish 4th bottom every season. Seems he would rather see us finish as high as possible, but only under the financial conditions he's prepared to accept.

We could easily do what Fulham have done if we continue to make the signings we are now. I don't want a Jacko statue outside SJP mind.

On a day-to-day basis Pardew probably really likes his job though. When the transfer window is closed he will be able to get on with his job of managing the team for another few months.

Is that okay in your opinion? Well I always struggle with this question, it's hard to say how much is right or wrong for us to pay for a player. In this instance though, we have known about the need for a LB for a long time, and also don't have the excuse of having a number of poor players on the books already (like we do at CF for example). So in this case I think we need to admit that we're desperate for a LB and pay some decent money to get one. There is no other option for me, starting the season without a senior LB would be indefensible. If that means we get ripped off by 2 or 3 million then in this case we need to swallow it as an unavoidable cost of avoiding half a season without a LB.

I don't think many people loved the Shepherd regime and are only criticising Ashley in comparison, there are many real reasons to criticise him. On the other hand though, reckless overspending is a lot more exciting and easy to support than reckless underspending. My main criticism of Shepherd is the amount of personal gain he made and the fact he created the conditions for Ashley to come in and have to cut costs.

I'm pretty sure the club are just as desperate to get a LB in as the fans are, they just might not be prepared to pay proper money for one. Still think we'll get one in, any other outcome is madness.

Of course, and particularly at Newcastle we have a recent history of success bought of the back of unsustainable spending, which didn't lead to us becoming an established top 4 club. So the shock here is particularly jarring I reckon. Everton have been told they can't lend any more money and have signed nobody, I'm sure we'll more clubs cutting back in the same way we are.

I agree, although Shola could still do an OK job as he loves playing Sunderland. Would like to see a 4-4-1-1 still though, with someone like Obertan linking the attacks. The two up front had no support at the start of the Arsenal game.

If there were any billionaire spendaholics looking to buy us, Ashley would be gone already. I doubt he will manage to sell the club for at least the next five years or so. Not until the global economy recovers significantly anyway. There's no profit to be made out of NUFC at the moment, we're only worth buying as a plaything.

Who are these two dudes? Haven't heard about them.

Would be interesting to know what questions he was asked to prompt those quotes.

It's always going to be traumatic when a lot of players who aren't prepared to operate under our new wage structure leave to be replaced by those who are. It doesn't mean the whole idea is totally wrong. Carroll was a major loss, but the bid was insane, and IMO Enrique was always likely to leave anyway. Most people on here were admitting that months ago IIRC. Only Nolan was a real surprise, and I can see why he wan't to secure his future with the current state of his legs and lungs.

What if it was? What if Enrique is an ambitious guy? I have no doubt that lack of ambition and the sale of influental players had a big part in him opting to leave. Maybe, that doesn't mean those sales were necessarily wrong. At the end of the day both of us are drawing different conclusions from the same evidence, so it's pointless arguing about it. Being an ambitious guy means you're likely to leave your current employer if something better comes up, that's just a fact of life.

Mediocampistas is an awesome word.

FM in a suit, that's impressive.

Spot on Cronky, absolutely right. I don't blame players got looking for a better deal elsewhere, but trying to make it into some moral issue is taking it too far.

Everything will calm down once the window closes I reckon, unless we don't get a LB in.

f*** off man, if you don't want to have a discussion don't come on a forum. I just don't want to read the same delusional crap on every page in every topic, man. As I said, don't come on a forum.

But it can't be as black and white as that. He's probably working to sway Ashley and do the best job he can under the circumstances. Most managers do that with their owners to some degree, and most managers say a load of things to the media that end up not being true. The other day someone posted three links... Fergie saying Ronaldo wasn't leaving, Hodgson saying Torres wasn't leaving, Wenger saying he expects Nasri and Fabregas to stay. This thing about him being a liar is massively overstated IMO, every manager does it.