AyeDubbleYoo

Right now, I would love to guarantee first place. Hopefully I won't still be saying that at Christmas.

Interesting point, it was probably the era of Vieira, Petit, Keane and Makelele that did it, everyone wanted a classly player in the middle who could break up the play. It is quite fashionable though, how many premier league teams have a true holding player I wonder? I don't think in their primes Keane and Vieira were holding midfielders though. Are there any then? Even if they weren't 100%, I can see why they were labelled as such, protecting the back 4 and getting a foot in all over the place. You're right though, they did get up and down the pitch a lot.

Interesting point, it was probably the era of Vieira, Petit, Keane and Makelele that did it, everyone wanted a classly player in the middle who could break up the play. It is quite fashionable though, how many premier league teams have a true holding player I wonder?

Not sure, what you really need in the holding role is to be able to get around the pitch. You also need someone else in midfield who will do a bit of attacking. Butt is so sluggish around the pitch, and conservative in possession, that I'm not sure he can cut it there anymore. I really wanted us to get Muamba when he went to Bolton, would have been ideal IMO.

Can't see us getting anything out of this one unless Joe is a bigger arse-kicker than anyone on the planet. We need Beye, Martins and Jonas back to have even a half-decent team.

What are Ian Harte and Thomas Brolin up to these days?

Makes you wonder who is really in charge of what players can and can't do. I mean, I can't see Newcastle saying "here's an idea Mark, head over to Australia for a few weeks and get sorted". Surely we would rather have him treated here where we can keep an eye on him. Even if he's just watching training and giving Xisco a few pointers, while he's on the payroll he should be around the club.

Obviously I'm contractually required to hate Roy Keane because he's mackem manager, but can't deny he's done a decent enough job so far, albeit spending quite a bit of money.

I don't really blame him personally, he's been unfit and overweight for a while now, it's just irritating that we ended up signing him - more so because if he could keep himself fit he would be really useful for us.

The way I basically see it is - we can only achieve negative and harmful outcomes by the sort of emotional reaction that we've seen in last few weeks, both for the actual position of the club and the reputation of the fans. So the only way we can do any good is to just support whoever is here, or keep quiet. Yes, that means being 'shitted on' once in a while, but there's no other way.

We may as well forget that Viduka is a Newcastle player.

That's in the rules/mission statement you posted earlier, so it looks like it has been decided.

Don't have anything against Crazy Joe. If nothing else a new, experienced head might just be able to say the right things to get us out of this shit.

I believe he bought the club as a plaything so he could have a bit of fun and go to matches etc. Then he thought he could continue running it cheaply by implementing his recruitment system, a need compounded by the extra debt he discovered after not completing his due diligence properly. He then brought back the wrong manager to fit into the system, maybe because he was naive about Keegan and what he meant to people here. Keegan then walks, the chaos ensues, and Ashley bottles out very easily when he realises it won't be fun anymore. I was a fan of Ashley, but the way he caved in and put the club up for sale brings him down in my estimations. If he really thought owning a football club was just going to be a pie, pint and popular decisions he was an idiot. That's his biggest problem IMO.

'Fans' having a poll to decide who our worst player is when we're in the shit is a little bit embarassing to be honest.

Er, no - his decision has caused the results IMO... we'd still be doing alright if he hadn't walked away. I would get behind him if he returned, but for me the recent incidents have soured my love for Keegan permanently. He'll never mean the same to me after this as he did before, and that's maybe the saddest thing about the whole debacle.

I agree, we get the club we deserve sometimes. The OP has a point obviously, the fans aren't 'to blame' as such, but we've certainly led to the escalation of what might have been managed as a minor incident into a complete disaster for the club.

Just want any kind of result from any game of football, the sooner the better please.

You seriously think he wrote it himself? I don't know, I haven't heard anyone doubting it until now. Even if he didn't, that's all the more reason to think what I was implying, that he might decide to hang on after all.

The original 'I got the message, I'm selling' statement is looking more like an emotional and instinctive reaction to the protests and the general hatred directed towards him. Nobody is immune to that kind of reaction.

Aye, I agree with you in principle, I would love to see us competing fully as well. Maybe the Man City and Leeds examples are extremes. Hopefully the new owners can find a way to do a reasonable amount of speculating without putting the club in jeopardy. Then with a bit of luck maybe we can do something. Obviously the easiest way is if they have infinite personal wealth to subsidise us with!

Sorry, I could only support Newcastle since I was born, can't do any better than that I'm afraid. I'll try to rephrase it differently. Why should one of the biggest clubs in the country EVER be "patient". Shouldn't we ALWAYS be expecting to challenge and show the ambition to challenge on that very basis ? Don't you think that we understand that this "planning" and "patience" is absolutely no guarantee of anything ? Do you understand that lots of other clubs are attempting to preach "patience" that might get in the way of our own hopes too ? In football........things change quickly, often and unexpectedly all the time....today and the immediate future, is ALL that matters. Get the supporters in, and if you are a big club, keep them in. Yeah, I completely agree that we are one of the bigger clubs and we should be challenging. If we've got the financial clout to go out and get the big players then we should do it. But surely everyone would think like that? Any owner would go out and get the best players if it was possible and sustainable to do so, wouldn't they? I don't think you'll find many people disagreeing with you on that point, I certainly don't. All I would say is that 'today and the immediate future is all that matters' is a bit worrying, what about the Leeds situation, where you're financed up to the hilt so that one failure to qualify for the champions league leads to meltdown?

Sorry, I could only support Newcastle since I was born, can't do any better than that I'm afraid.

haha. go and look up when we last won something son. Is that not half the problem though? I mean, the fact that we have been rubbish for ages doesn't mean we should suddenly expect to be great. Just the opposite, it means we should be prepared for a steady period of rebuilding and progress, from the situation we find outselves in now. But somehow we aren't, the longer we go without winning something the worse it gets, particularly now when a large proportion of our fans only remember us being top 6 material. People like you but there are plenty of us who go back a lot longer. I know there are, what's your point?

haha. go and look up when we last won something son. Is that not half the problem though? I mean, the fact that we have been rubbish for ages doesn't mean we should suddenly expect to be great. Just the opposite, it means we should be prepared for a steady period of rebuilding and progress, from the situation we find outselves in now. But somehow we aren't, the longer we go without winning something the worse it gets, particularly now when a large proportion of our fans only remember us being top 6 material.