Wallace

I think it is from French calendar called "Dieux du stade" which features French athletes in such poses.

There was a period a couple of years ago when we were regularly linked with a manager in Spain. I can't remember who it was. Could we look abroad? However, I imagine JFK's knowledge of foreign managers is non-existent.

Well an Arsenal mate of mine who does know people at Arsenal insisted at the time that it was Kinnear who was briefing the media about the bid when people were saying it was poor from Arsenal to go public when we were about to play City. I guess when Kinnear is involved nothing is as it would appear and as that has been Newcastle anyway for the last few years, I guess things are even more complicated now. Past experience makes me question the Club's version on everything.

I would agree that he will probably not be happy at Sunderland for long. Apparently in his previous jobs, he has always spoken of how ambitious he is and keeping an eye out for the next career move which has alienated supporters. If he does well, he will move on as soon as he can.

Could possibly help us if we are still interested in signing Tom Ince.

I seem to remember that West Brom fans were not impressed with Di Matteo at the end and were pleased he was sacked. And they say he just let the Chelsea players get on with it.

Typically two opposing viewpoints in the local papers today. The Journal reckons that Kinnear has no interest in the manager's job and is supportive of Pardew's need for a strong physical goal-scoring centre-half whereas The Chronicle reckons that Kinnear will be the next manager.

True, it also didn't look full at Everton away which is very rare for us. I know people who wanted tickets and the club said it sold out. They must have rejected the full allocation early on and to hell with anyone else wanting tickets. They definitely took the lower allocation. However, there were tons of empty spaces in the away end so we either didn't sell all the tickets or people decided not to bother coming.

There were people at the game last night who have been sympathetic to Pardew but after that first half performance, any sympathy had gone. The fans are definitely on the turn now.

This is what I don't get about Ashley. Everyone says we could we a real force if managed correctly but that Ashley seems happy to let it all slip away. I keep saying it but the longer he stays, the more damaged the club becomes. I get that he wants the club to be self-sufficient, I get the transfer policy but I don't get why he is happy for the club to sink into terminal decline. I know he probably thinks he knows best but he must hear of all this criticism which is coming from all areas - it is not just the fans, it is ex-players, experienced football people, the media. I wonder if he ever thinks "they have a point". He may not care about NUFC but does he not even care that he is damaging his investment. And all that free publicity will not be as effective if we get relegated.

Considering it is accepted that we will not pay compensation for a manager, then the choice of out of work managers is incredibly depressing. The fact that Pulis is available fills me with fear because the oft repeated statement that a team has never been relegated under his management, would be something that would appeal to Ashley with his limited ambition of just staying in the Premier League. However, it would be a disastrous decision that would kill the support and our players are totally unsuited for his style of play so it would require a huge overhaul in the playing staff. I would hope (but would not expect) that Ashley would realise that we need a coach who has a history of developing players. We have good players - all of whom seem to be regressing rather than improving. He needs to understand that long-term it will be more financially beneficial to him to invest good money in a manager if he wants to increase the value of players because at the moment, our players will not attain the prices Ashley wants for them. Thinking about who Kinnear would recommend as he seems to be the only person that Ashley trusts is also alarming as he is so old-school. Maybe Hoddle with the Spurs connections but would he want to work under this regime and surely he would want a reasonable salary?

The galling thing in all of this is that the club cite their poor commercial revenue as one of the reasons why we can't compete but it is their choice that the revenue is so low. It doesn't take a marketing genius to see where we are falling short.

It seems like a lot of fans starting to follow us because of Shearer. I have a relative in a a village in Norfolk and about 10 years ago, loads of the kids in his village supported Newcastle and I could only think it was down to Shearer. It shows how having an iconic player at a club can help build the profile and supporter base.

But football is about winning things. Everyone mocks us because it is so long since we won a trophy and no-one is going to look back and give out plaudits because we made x amount of revenue each year. Players also want to win things so where is the motivation for them other than trying to secure a contract at a more ambitious club. Just aiming for survival each year and hoping for a top 10 finish at best will create more apathy towards the club and hasten its downfall. What is there to get excited about? Hope we might be able to raise our game on occasion to beat the bigger clubs only to fail to beat a newly promoted club the next week. Players and supporters need to be allowed to dream and this club under Ashley seems determined to not even allow us that.

It also highlights the misinformation and all the contradictions coming out of the club. - Can't afford players because it will mean using our overdraft but in that meeting, they say the finances are healthy. - Main priority to hold on to existing players rather than buy but spent all Summer going on about how they want to buy x players. - No revenue from Sports Direct but their advertising is only present to fill boardings that would otherwise be blank! - Heard before that they perceive the Cups to be a nuisance but they say they wil be used to utilise the squad when Pardew says he wants to play the strongest team.

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/sport/sport-opinion/agenda-north-east-football-lurch-6086408? The Agenda: Why does North East football lurch from crisis to crisis? 24 Sep 2013 14:15 | By Mark Douglas There's never a dull moment with North East football teams but why do they always seem to be in crisis? North East football’s ability to pass crises among its two biggest clubs like a hot potato knows no bounds. After a summer bemoaning the appointment of a Director of Football at St James’ Park who seemed ill suited to the role, Sunderland have taken on the baton with the sacking of the combustible Di Canio after just five months in charge. Last week Alan Pardew bemoaned the “extremes” of the media covering Newcastle United, reckoning the collective coverage was either soaring skywards or plummeting down towards earth. There is, perhaps, something to be said for a reassessment of our reaction to the fluctuations of fortune over the course of a football season. Gary Neville penned a national newspaper column on Arsene Wenger last season which should be a must-read for anyone with an interest in the national game. He wrote: “The speed at which the football media operate today is like a blender which is constantly having food chucked into it and chopped into a thousand pieces but never has any end product. “There’s never any substance at the end of the process. Or it’s like a sausage machine which just churns out more mincemeat rather than sausages.” Neville’s column was not meant as an assassination of the media that now employ him. He goes on to say he believes there is a public thirst for the “frenzy” which follows a good win or a damaging defeat. He has a good point either way and it is probably this Pardew was talking about. What the Newcastle manager does not factor in, however, is every event at St James’ Park is now coloured by Mike Ashley’s mismanagement of the club. That probably sounds extreme but it is a fact patience has been spread more thinly because the owner has created a club which does little to nurse its foundations. To borrow Neville’s analogy, Ashley tips stadium renaming, Joe Kinnear’s appointment, the lack of recruitment and a steady decline in the team’s fortunes into a blender and Newcastle supporters are expected to swallow whatever comes out. As witnessed by the attendance on Saturday, United fans are in no mood to abandon an entity which means so much to them - but if gates are holding up it is other things which suffer. People are less patient. The result of being misled is that they are less inclined to accept explanations which might be proferred in good faith and any dispatch from the club is treated with suspicion. Defeats like Saturdays, where mistakes were made and Newcastle’s lack of defensive shape was exposed, become more trying. When a club is run properly and its public are listened to, the whole process becomes less “extreme” (Pardew’s words, not mine). If Newcastle United’s supporters felt there was a proper plan being implemented by people who understood the club’s rich history and had a track record of success there would be a much more secure foundation for progress and success. Instead, United’s supporters are left trying to trickily traverse a third way - supporting the team while decrying the regime. It is not easy and it doesn’t take much – a poor defeat, the failure to land players during the summer window – for that fragile consensus to be broken. The contention of those of us who witness the way North East football works is not that the clubs themselves are destined to keep lurching from crisis to crisis because of something ingrained in the DNA. It is that until there is a proper understanding of what makes them tick from the people in charge there is bound to be further bumps along the road. Unfortunately, there appears to be less room for people like Niall Quinn in the game these days. Quinn was not perfect as chairman of the Black Cats: he made mistakes and called things poorly on the odd occasion - but his legacy at the Black Cats was an overwhelmingly positive one and his place as one of the most important figures in the club’s history has been secured by his time in the boardroom. In short, Quinn ‘got it’. He had lived and breathed the club as a player and understood its culture, its quirks and the demands of its public. When he took decisions those things came into play and a trust flourished that gave Sunderland a foundation to build. That they are now an established Premier League club is in no small part down to his own efforts. Ellis Short wears ‘FTM’ badges and drinks in the city but the greatest gift he could give to the people of Sunderland is to start communicating with them to explain the direction of the club again. The decision to employ Di Canio was dropped on the Black Cats and left to others to explain. To be honest, there didn’t seem like a proper explanation an,d given the pace with which it unravelled, it is not stretching logic to assert Short made a mistake. Two years ago, North East football was at the foothills. A tempestuous derby at St James’ Park had finished 1-1 but Newcastle were battling for the Champions League places while Sunderland had an FA Cup quarter-final that looked winnable. Both teams were brimming with talent. Since then, we’ve had Di Canio, Kinnear, Wonga and investment in transfers which has been dwarfed in other regions. It is little surprise the region’s football clubs feel depressed. It wouldn’t take much to put both of them back on track. This morning, however, it feels further away than ever.

Talksport Ah whey, ignore what I said. TBF McLeish did say it during an interview with them.

Quite possibly as this guy is supposedly Sky's new North East reporter. Keith Downie (@SkySports_Keith)

An article in The Journal this morning said the following: "... the club's Academy remains in a sort of purgatory at the moment, playing in the elite level with no sign of the Category One status that club insiders insist is on its way."

Biggest selling in the last 3 years, I saw that reported in the paper but I wondered if this is the club being a little economic with the truth. The shirt went on sale very late - (I think) just a couple of days before the first home game. There would be a lot of people who would want the shirt for the first game so that would have condensed sales into just a couple of days and maybe that is why it was such a successful launch. If the shirt had gone on sale a few weeks earlier, the same number of people would have bought the shirt but over a longer period. I am probably completely wrong but because of the controversy of the sponsor, it is in the club's interest to promote a positive image of the sales. And the club have learnt to say things that are true but omit key facts which change the overall story.

And if he wants that move then he is going to have to perform so hopefully that means NUFC get to have a good season.

I was talking to a couple last week - not NUFC fans but cricket lovers. They apparently had ordered some England stuff from the ECB and it came from Sports Direct along with one of those huge mugs much to their disgust.

I don't think the France team had anything to do with it either. I do think he did not expect to be dropped from the French team and that would have been a shock and it may also affect his thinking about a potential move. If indeed (and I am sceptical) the reports about Arsenal baulking at paying more than £10m for a "squad" player are true and that is something Cabaye is aware of then he would have to choose his next club carefully if he wants to be part of the French squad. He only needs to look at what has happened to Ba since he left for bigger things. January buys often seem to be a reaction to how the team is performing at the time so by the time Summer comes along, such buys are often discarded by the bigger clubs. The World Cup will surely have a bearing on any potential moves for our players. This could well be Cabaye's only chance to play in a World Cup and at the moment there are 5+ players in our team who could be in that squad. If our teams gels and Ben Arfa, Remy, Cabaye and Sissoko build up a good understanding between them and score goals they will all have to be seriously considered by Deschamps. If any of them move in January then they don't play then their chances of selection will be affected. Going back to Cabaye, I have always been of the opinion that he is an ambitious guy and despite other managers saying they always knew about him, no other club seemingly ever made a bid for him when he was at Lille. I think he saw us as a platform to attract the bigger clubs. If you look at his website, a couple of the articles by other players say they rate him so highly that they expect him to be playing for one of the major clubs within a couple of years. I guess he probably agreed with those sentiments.

Would agree with that and he worked very hard. I certainly think his involvement contributed to the overall improvement in the style of play.

I thought it was a penalty at the time. Also think that Ben Arfa has a tendency to try and stay on his feet so it is likely to be a penalty if he goes down.