AyeDubbleYoo

Who sent death threats to Ashley's family, cretin? To be fair, he did say at the time he was 'advised he would be assaulted' and it was unsafe to attend games. Whether or not their were actually death threats, dazza's point is the same.

I know what you mean, but public reaction is fickle, especially in football... if you have a strong vision you can ride it out in the belief that the fans will see you were right in the end. I do think our fans are our biggest strength and weakness though, we do turn on our own players/club too easily sometimes. On the other hand, we've had plenty to get pissed off about recently!

Hopefully some of the better Championship players will see us as a decent bet for a route into the Prem. Also, I'm excited about the idea of some of our younger players finally getting a run of games. Lua Lua springs to mind.

They must share some of the blame, I agree, but Ashley should have been tough enough to stick to his guns despite the protests.

What are you on about for fuck sake It's like saying it was Shearer's job to transorm a bunch of dead donkeys into race horses. Jose Mourinho would not have kept us up in the time he had. I disagree Fair enough.

I'm sounding like a complete football snob here but I honestly don't pay any attention to the second tier normally. The only clubs I really know are the ones that used to be in the Premiership. How much do you know about it? Do you already know the size of the task awaiting us, or will you have to do some serious research before next season?

What are you on about for fuck sake It's like saying it was Shearer's job to transorm a bunch of dead donkeys into race horses. Jose Mourinho would not have kept us up in the time he had.

I should have said that. I'm out of this thread, nothing to be gained here.

Ian has tickets to ashleyworld just off Trafalgar falls. I've never said Ashley has been a good owner, but people seem to forget how much we hated Freddy Shepherd and wanted rid of him. I won't post again on this for a few days, because obviously everyone wants to get stuff off their chest (which is fine, I do too) - but I still think Ashley's failings are inexperience and naivety about football, not greed and self interest like some people try to claim. He was trying to make the club sustainable, he just erred too far on the side of caution. And appointing Keegan was done to gain him fan-love, he was obviously not the right man for the system Ashley had in mind. Can you run that 'system' by me one more time? No, you know very well what I'm talking about. It's like that bit in Apocalypse Now.... "Who's in charge here"? "Ain't you"? Sorry I've seen no sign of any kind of system whatsoever. Every PL club buys some youth players, they don't go around calling it a system. Nothing I can argue with there Parky. I know it should have been a normal state of affairs, but it wasn't with us.

But can you not see where he was coming from? Newcastle had a recent history full of record-breaking transfer fees wasted on sub-standard players. The spending worked at the beginning of the Shepherd era, but by the end it had us well and truly in the shit. I know Ashley cut spending too much, there's no arguing about that. Some people seem to think I love Ashley, all I'm saying is that I can understand some of his motives - and they aren't as evil as is suggested.

Unnecessarily personal mate, everyone is gutted about what happened. By the way, we were heading towards the bottom of the league even under Shepherd, and doing critical damage to our finances at the same time. How many people were crying out for another Albert Luque in the transfer window? Stop whinging. What was it you were doing in that first post then? (That's a rhetorical question BTW)

Ian has tickets to ashleyworld just off Trafalgar falls. I've never said Ashley has been a good owner, but people seem to forget how much we hated Freddy Shepherd and wanted rid of him. I won't post again on this for a few days, because obviously everyone wants to get stuff off their chest (which is fine, I do too) - but I still think Ashley's failings are inexperience and naivety about football, not greed and self interest like some people try to claim. He was trying to make the club sustainable, he just erred too far on the side of caution. And appointing Keegan was done to gain him fan-love, he was obviously not the right man for the system Ashley had in mind. Can you run that 'system' by me one more time? No, you know very well what I'm talking about.

It doesn't make sense to consider the situation we were in before Ashley took over? He didn't take a top 4 side and turn them into shit, this has been a slow death that started under Shepherd. But yes, Ashley has failed, I've never argued otherwise.

Ian has tickets to ashleyworld just off Trafalgar falls. I've never said Ashley has been a good owner, but people seem to forget how much we hated Freddy Shepherd and wanted rid of him. I won't post again on this for a few days, because obviously everyone wants to get stuff off their chest (which is fine, I do too) - but I still think Ashley's failings are inexperience and naivety about football, not greed and self interest like some people try to claim. He was trying to make the club sustainable, he just erred too far on the side of caution. And appointing Keegan was done to gain him fan-love, he was obviously not the right man for the system Ashley had in mind.

Unnecessarily personal mate, everyone is gutted about what happened. By the way, we were heading towards the bottom of the league even under Shepherd, and doing critical damage to our finances at the same time. How many people were crying out for another Albert Luque in the transfer window?

Nolan has been a disgrace... but then we should never have signed him so it's not all his fault.

Getting relegated will certainly improve them. Have an award for the most obvious and pointless response. Hindsight's a wonderful thing, all I'm saying is that if the finances really were as bad as it seems then it is understandable that he didn't sanction any more spending. With the players we had, nobody honestly thought we would go down at the start of the season. How about in January when we were dropping like a stone? Aye, it was looking slightly more likely then, but still remote. Don't want to go back into the Ashley debate anyway really, the end result speaks for itself... but it is difficult to do any decent business in January.

We could have conceded at least 2 more as well though.

Getting relegated will certainly improve them. Have an award for the most obvious and pointless response. Hindsight's a wonderful thing, all I'm saying is that if the finances really were as bad as it seems then it is understandable that he didn't sanction any more spending. With the players we had, nobody honestly thought we would go down at the start of the season.

A lot will probably have automatic release clauses anyway won't they? So they won't need a transfer request.

My thoughts exactly, the most frustrating thing was how everything was falling into place for us to stay up, and had been for weeks.

Beye Enrique Bassong Taylor Guthrie Martins Carroll Jonas ...and the youngsters e.g. Ranger If the Duke was under contract then I he might do a decent job, but since he's out just let him leave. To be honest, the more important question is who will stay that we desperately want out of the club. That list will be longer.

Nobody knows any facts about the Keegan debacle, except that he ended up leaving. To say Ashley should have 'chosen' Wise is stupid, and is also forgetting all of the other factors (e.g. the horrible state of the club's finances) that were in play at the time.

At least he moves and tries things. Trying and being shit is better than not trying at all. Exactly... Jonas has been 'awful' this season compared to other teams' normal midfielders, but compared to Butt, Nolan and Guthrie he's been world class.

I honestly don't feel as bad as I thought I would, probably because we so clearly deserved to go down. It will really hit home when next season starts though.