Wallace

I have been just trying to write the exact same message but yours is much more eloquent that my effort.

No mention of the relegation battles, the record-breaking defeats, his derby record, his behaviour pitchside then?

Tickets went on sale earlier this week for some of the blocks that had been allocated to Palace fans.

I hope this isn't one of those occasion where it is a sell-out and the crowd are really up for it and then the team go and let everyone down.

No. The club are only penalised if 2 or more players fail a drugs test. It is assumed if it is a single player that he has probably acted without the club's knowledge. More than one player, then it could be down to the club.

Is it? Genuine question. Obviously there's going to be one or two, but as NJS implies, you can't just say there were 'loads' without a source and use that as some sort of excuse to point blame at the fans, unless it's an extremely large scale issue. It's similar to when the police tried to use alcohol as an excuse - yes you're going to have drunk people at a football match. How many of us that have travelled away can claim we've never gone into a ground at least fairly p*ssed? A minority I would imagine, but that's not the same as saying that if we'd been crushed to death at any of those matches, it would have been our fault. The police know some people at a football match will be drunk. It's part of the reason they are there, and they're supposed to deal with the issue in a sensible and fair manner. That goes for football matches in the same way it goes for concert, festivals, whatever. Thought the point in the David Conn article in the Guardian about local bins being half full, and mainly containing empty cans of Vimto was very pertinent. Whether there were ticketless fans present or not is not the point - it still comes down to inept policing on the day. The fans did not force the gate as was said at the time - it was the police decision to open it which led to the subsequent events.

It's not about him and he shouldn't be a distraction. Non stop support to the team and Rafa and forget about Pardew, don't waste your oxygen on him. Non-stop support for Rafa would be quite wounding for Pardew's ego.

Swansea came from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 at Stoke earlier this month.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-disaster-deadly-mistakes-and-lies-that-lasted-decades A long read but some shocking revelations in there.

If we get relegated and Rafa stays, I think the supporters will stay with the club - he leaves and we get some other hasbeen manager, the interest will drop. It would be in Ashley's interest to back him. NUFC needs Rafa more than Rafa needs NUFC.

This is what I have been saying. The players can no longer use the manager as the reason for their failings because the fans are 100% behind him. Makes a change from the recent charlatans we have had managing us in recent years. I just hope that is something that the board have also noted.

Poor old Pards if he wins the cup - he will have to play in Europe next season.

Lascelles didn't celebrate the first goal against Swansea and Cisse's celebration was quite muted as well. Lascelles said they hadn't won the game at that stage and I think the team's attitude is there's nothing to celebrate until they have at least won the game. Going overboard celebrating a goal only to then go on and lose the game would look daft with the situation we are in.

Me neither. If Rafa agrees to stay if we get relegated then by all means bring relegation on. I would have absoutely no doubts that Rafa would bring us back up straight away and would have cleared out all the players and staff that aren't good for the club. In a strange way, it might actually be beneficial for the big clear out if we were relegated, everything could be practically started again and done the right way from the start. If Rafa is going to leave if we're relegated though, then relegation can f*** off please. I think we'd be stuck down there for a long time. Can't bear to think who we would get if Rafa leaves. Whoever it is will feel like a massive come down and it will be a tough job for them as I think we will be constantly comparing them to what we could have had.

In the form table, Sunderland are 10, Norwich 12 and we are 13. Sunderland fixtures include Watford (16), Stoke (17) and Everton (19). The other thing to consider is regardless of whether teams are on the beach, clubs with players going to the Euros may well find those players unwilling to risk injury (Stoke perhaps).

Although extremely unlikely, if Norwich and Sunderland were to get maximum points that would take them to 43 points which could bring Everton and Watford and a few others back into it. Unfortunately Stoke are well and truly safe. Doesn't help us though as we need both to lose games to have a chance. I never understood our attitude to conceding goals - it seemed to be it didn't matter whether it was 1 or 5 but it could well come back to haunt us now.

Maybe - I just remember there being a lot of upset about Heighway leaving but it could well have been before Rafa's time there.

I've been getting that impression for a while. A lot are very confident and think survival is a foregone conclusion - even the players have that air about them as they keep going on about how experienced they are in this situation (wonder why they never start playing until the end of March each season). I am just hoping that will be their downfall as I have always thought they would stay up.

I think he played in a few positions at Ajax but I am sure that I read that Ajax like players to learn different positions which is why quite a few end up being quite versatile.

Wasn't it the Boot Room that was broken up and the likes of Steve Heighway binned that caused a lot of angst. Dalglish was praising Rafa this week for the work he did with the Academy there which is now starting to bear fruit. We are a different situation anyway - they were failing in comparision to the success they had achieved in the 80s but still doing better than most whilst we are a completely broken club that needs to be rebuilt from top to bottom.

Odd as the general impression was that he would stay regardless and I am sure I read something where he said he was really happy there. Unless of course, he is saying it as a way to motivate the players.

Still think Sunderland will stay up. They always seem to get away with it.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-need-new-leadership-11194209 Newcastle United need new leadership and new direction - enough is enough 08:00, 16 APR 2016 OPINION BY MARK DOUGLAS Newcastle United have been in a tailspin since 2014 and the Jonas Gutierrez tribunal was the latest ignominy the club has suffered Flanked by Keith Bishop on one side and Bob Moncur on the other, Lee Charnley marked his second anniversary as Managing Director of Newcastle United nursing that familiar sinking feeling. It was April 7, 2014 that Charnley was confirmed as United’s MD. Newcastle were ninth in the Premier League and about to visit Stoke City – one place and one point below them. The appointment was marked with a 1,491-word statement that signed off with a promise to make United “the best it can be, pound for pound”. Among the nuggets in that missive? “We will focus on identifying and recruiting young players whose best years are ahead of them, which in nearly all cases means players in their early to mid-20s and not beyond.” After the St Mary’s debacle, Newcastle were 19th. Stoke, by contrast, were 9th. 22 points separates the two sides now and in all likelihood the gulf will be a full division by the time the two sides kick off next season. The sheer speed of the decline on Charnley’s watch has been staggering. It has been a period of unprecedented fan protest, waste and consecutive defeats. United have been overtaken by nearly every side in the top division with the exception of Sunderland – under desperate stewardship themselves – and an Aston Villa that look an even bigger basket case than Newcastle. In 2014 United were battling in the middle tier of the Premier League, hoping to jostle their way to the front of a pack that included Everton, Stoke, Southampton and West Ham. Now they are light years behind most of them – and struggling to cling to the coat-tails of Swansea, Bournemouth, Watford and West Brom – who ran rings around them over Saido Berahino in January. An unnecessary relegation What is so galling about their predicament is that it is all so unnecessary. Newcastle could have saved themselves at countless junctures over the last two years – but a combination of severely flawed judgement and conceited stubbornness from the top have threatened to undermine their progress for a generation. Ultimately, someone must be held to account for that. Newcastle are in desperate need of a new direction. United fans are fed up of the humiliation – and there was plenty of that this week. On-the-field the Southampton display was a by-now familiar tale of incompetence and cowardliness from a group of half-interested players caught in the St James’ Park vortex of hope. Rafa Benitez is the latest man to try to arrest that and he has been shocked by what he has found. A club that appears on the surface a proud institution is so flawed that it has won just four of the 36 games it has played at all levels this season. The senior side is staffed by characters who have moved rookie Jamaal Lascelles to distraction. His extraordinary intervention on Saturday revealed the true state of a dressing room in disarray and desperately in need of fumigating. But the problems stem from the very top. The need for investment in the infrastructure has been plain for a long time. Plans to build a new “state-of-the-art” training facility were to be completed in “early 2016” according to Charnley’s opening statement. They have not even begun. The feeling of decline pervades everything – heavy defeats at under-21 and under-18 level over the weekend leave the club with a win ratio of 11% for the calendar year. The club’s local scouting network was described to me this week as “old school”. At first-team level recruitment has been exactly as Charnley said it would be – and the result has been two relegation fights. This one they won’t come out of, barring a Benitez-inspired miracle. How United could have done with someone with the heart, desire and courage of Jonas Gutierrez – but as the Argentinian was taking aim at Ashley it confirmed the long-held suspicion that there is a huge void between club management and at least some of the very senior players. Certainly the employment tribunal that delivered their judgement on Gutierrez this week reflected badly on Charnley. “At times,” it concluded. “(His evidence) appeared to be evasive and lacking in credibility.” Alan Pardew came off no better. He was a man backed to the hilt by Charnley. There is precious little to commend about the way United are run or conduct themselves. A season that began with the staggering decision to sign off on a preferred media partnership – a call that now look even more conceited in the context of their likely relegation – has been pockmarked by blunder after blunder. A succession of bad calls The decision to appoint Steve McClaren was the wrong one. The players signed in the summer were not the correct ones to refresh a squad among the worst in the league the year before. The call to stick with McClaren when on four separate occasions (after West Ham away, Crystal Palace away, at Christmas and after the Chelsea debacle) the case was already compelling to make a change was horrendous. Finally the flawed logic behind a January transfer window that left them without the centre-back and striker they desperately needed hammered the last nail in the coffin. United belatedly recognised the futility of what they have been doing for 24 months by appointing Benitez. But it looks to have been too late. Ambition and goodwill left town a long time ago. They are left calling for supporters to get behind them ahead of today’s D-Day against Swansea but that is one of the few constants at United. They were applauded off the field in defeat against Everton and Arsenal and after a point against Chelsea, Manchester United, Sunderland and Southampton. Support is not the problem. It is time for Newcastle to get real. Other clubs are using the vast influx of TV cash to strengthen their position for years to come; United have squandered theirs. It would be best if Mike Ashley left. Gutierrez’s emotional tweets aimed at the owner reflect the feelings of most supporters. But if he is to stay as he has threatened, he needs to convene a new board made up of the best people around. Newcastle need to stay up and must be desperate for Benitez to stay. But most of all, they desperately need a new direction and leadership.

I suspect the PR department's advice is often ignored. I often read articles by local journos in which they say the club were advised not to do something but then went ahead and did it anyway.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/article4732973.ece?shareToken=a7f67b79fafd36286263209b24a06620 0-8, 1-7, 1-6, 0-5, 0-4: Reasons for failure are there in black and white George Caulkin | Northern Sports Correspondent Last updated at 12:01AM, April 15 2016 If you thought Newcastle United were awful, take a look at their under-18s’ woeful results Games and hope are evaporating for Newcastle United, but Rafa Benítez has not given up, plunging himself into the minutiae of the club, encouraging cohesion among his players with double training sessions, asking questions of all other departments. The more he asks, the more dysfunction he finds. “There are so many things to improve,” an associate of the Spaniard said. Another insider described Newcastle in blunter terms. “It’s broken.” Benítez will exhort a fatigued support to make St James’ Park a raucous venue for Saturday’s match against Swansea City — a well the club have repeatedly drawn from in recent seasons — but the potential that drew him to Newcastle, as well as the promise of further investment and a decisive say in transfers, is balanced by unwelcome discoveries. Beneath the first-team, they are floundering. There is a contradiction at the heart of Newcastle, a club stripped back to the bone under Mike Ashley’s ownership, but who last week announced an annual £32.4 million profit after tax and who spent £80 million in the past two transfer windows, a higher net spend than any other English club, barring Manchester City. Self-sufficiency has been the touchstone of their model, but at what cost to the notion of sporting excellence? At moments such as this — Newcastle are second-bottom of the Barclays Premier League, six points adrift of safety — there is often a call to give the next generation a chance, but defeat is endemic on Tyneside. Benítez’s side have won two games in 2016; the club’s under-21 and under-18 teams have mustered a single victory each. Peter Beardsley’s under-21 side concluded their league campaign with a 4-1 home defeat by Brighton & Hove Albion, the only team below them in the table, on Monday night. Beneath the headline “No Future”, NUFC.com, the independent Newcastle website, reported that a season that “veered between average and pathetic came to a suitably rotten conclusion”. After the game, Beardsley said that his players needed to “get in the real world”. The under-18 side have not fared any better, conceding 78 goals in competitive matches, and losing 7-1 to Manchester United last weekend. They have also been beaten 8-0 by Everton, 5-0 by Blackburn Rovers and 4-0 by Derby County. There is a wide disconnect at Newcastle, except in one area, with NUFC.com highlighting the “losing culture that has come to characterise this football club”. Benítez has always favoured a “holistic approach” and has spoken to Beardsley, Joe Joyce, the academy manager, and Dave Watson, the youth coach. The under-21s have moved out of the Longbenton training centre into an adjacent complex, reducing clutter. “Recruitment — at all levels — is the underlying problem,” Benítez’s confidant said. “Even the greatest coach in the world won’t win with the worst players.” For two years, Newcastle have put plans to redevelop their training ground on hold because their league position has been precarious and their piecemeal facilities are badly outdated. “In terms of both infrastructure and people, investment has been the minimum required,” a former player said. As with other areas of the club, Newcastle employ some good people — “Joe Joyce is the best coach at the academy,” the insider said — but they are either over-worked, under-financed or have little football expertise above them. With Ashley taking a hands-off role, decision-making is left to Lee Charnley, the managing director; he, like everybody else, will be subjected to the owner’s annual audit of the club at the end of the season. Part of Newcastle’s failure is due to circumstances. There can be poor years in terms of talent, while the former player insists that the under-21 league is “false. It’s either kids who are not good enough to go on loan or seniors who don’t want to be there.” If there is a cohesive plan, it is barely discernible. “We wanted to get a particular style that was a Newcastle style,” Joyce said last year, but one long-time watcher cannot see anything “unless conceding goals early and often is a designated style.” While Middlesbrough’s academy continues to excel — they reached the last 16 of the Uefa Youth League, where they lost to Paris Saint-Germain — Newcastle have been left behind. Paul Dummett and Adam Armstrong, who is on-loan at Coventry City, have emerged in recent seasons, but otherwise the pickings are slender. “I know how much talent is out there,” a coach at another northeast club said. “It’s just not being seen or signed by Newcastle.” “We used to provide the backbone of Hartlepool and Darlington teams, now we don’t even do it with Gateshead,” the observer said. “Why would young players want to come here?” Newcastle have a policy of recruiting from a 30-mile radius, but deny this is due to cost. Benítez continues to behave as if he will be implementing change, but written into his three-year contract is a relegation get-out clause . Would he really agree to work in the Sky Bet Championship? “If they stay up, he’ll be asking the board how they can get into the Champions League,” his friend said. “That’s the level he wants to work at.” For a while, Newcastle’s recruitment model — young players of value, usually from abroad — brought praise, but Benítez’s arrival as manager rather than head coach is recognition that the experiment has failed. Team-building is abysmal. “We’re non-functional at all levels,” the observer said. “Rotten from bottom to top. The statistics don’t lie.” Whipping boys Among Newcastle Under 18s results this season have been some humiliating losses. Middlesbrough 4-1 Newcastle Liverpool 4-1 Newcastle Man City 6-1 Newcastle Blackburn 5-0 Newcastle Newcastle 0-8 Everton Newcastle 0-4 Derby Man Utd 7-1 Newcastle