Lotus

I'd be more curious to know which clubs run at a loss WITH debt.

oh dear, I remember people saying that people like me were talking nonsense when we said Ashley was turning the club into a 2nd rate selling club again, and heading for relegation through selling players and looking for cheap replacements. When exactly do you think we will match the european qualifications that we have seen for the last 15 years, under Ashleys strategy ? stretch the question further and ask if fred would have matched the european qualifications we've seen for the last 15years ? would he have just spent the banks money to try and emulate it ? Lets go back to the appointment of Allardyce, and the point made by HTT, when he said that it was thought to be a good appointment at the time of someone waiting for a big job, coupled with the fact that his track record suggested he could build a pretty good side with little money. Whether he could make the top 4 is arguable, and we won't now know, but it suggested that the Halls and Shepherd were aware of this need, in the short term. I'm pretty sure that their ultimate ambitions would have remained as high as they always were, which are much higher than Ashleys, and I'm also pretty sure that at the current moment in time, they wouldn't be sitting back and watching the team heading for relegation and try to reverse it. Mind, the amount of u-turns by people who urged them to keep spending, and backed Souness in his spending spree, but now say how wrong it was, is quite amazing. i'd reckon ashleys ambition was to do aswell as possible without running up massive debt.........your way sees everton of having a lack of ambition, a lack that sees them regularly finish well clear off ambitious freds outfit. Everton are just the team doing the best for the moment of a whole load of clubs that don't have the big ambition that they should. Thats all, nothing more and nothing less. If you are saying you would swap their last decade for ours, then I wouldn't agree, and if you are saying what they have done in the past decade is good enough for you, then thats up to you. It;s this mistaken idea that you and others have that everybody else has done things better than us, and the grass is always greener. despite results to the contrary which is pretty daft like. You thought the grass was greener when the Halls and Shepherd ran the club and now they have gone, we are sinking like a stone. Has Shay Given gone yet ? All we need is Ashleys mouthpiece to come out again and say its "good business", and I'm sure a lot of gullible people will swallow it whole. i'd swap their last 5 years for ours. as for sinking like a stone i'll claim you are LYING if you think it's only since fred left. I'm not talking about the last 5 years, I'm talking about the entire tenure of the chairman you are slating, not part of it. Do you still think having an owner who runs the club down is no different to having an owner(s) who have ambition and have shown it ? Amazing. We were careful with our spending when Bobby 1st took over, then we started spending more after a coulpe of seasons iirc. Well, if you are saying you expect Mike Ashley to show ambition in a year or two, then feel free. I'll be surprised though. But he may also have to, when we are down a league, crowds are 20,000 and the penny drops with most of the daft posters who still back him, as well as himself. Do you expect an owner of Newcastle Utd to have to support the club out of his own money? If so, when did you change your mind? Do you think that a club such as Newcastle Utd should be self sufficient? If so, how do you think that could be achieved? do you think it is possible to be successful without taking risks, or to rephrase it, how much scope in football is there for teams to be successful and make profits ? Or do you sit back and accept mediocrity and possibly small profits ?? Which would you prefer, attempting to be successful or not ? I think you have to take calculated risks. Tbh, i'm not sure how profitable an EPL club is so i don't know the answer. Other peolpe seem to suggest you don't buy an EPL club to make a lot of money. I would prefer attampting to be successful but i wouldn't want to confuse ability with ambition. Now answer my questions. exactly. I also don't think anybody buys a football club to make money, unless they see it as an asset stripping exercise in the short term and sell as quickly as possible, because absolute self sufficiency and success is something not too many clubs have managed to do. As you said, you've got to take risks, and you have to be prepared to take losses, or you are in the wrong game. Why do people persist in thinking its the same as running a High Street business, when anything outside the top 3 or 4 is "failure". That pretty much answers what you ask as best as possible. All good. I'm curious for view on something though. We seem to be well in the red and the Owner is propping us up. It's reasonable to assume that we'll have to stay within our budget for the short term until the we're closer to being self sufficient. But how do you think we could operate more within our means?

oh dear, I remember people saying that people like me were talking nonsense when we said Ashley was turning the club into a 2nd rate selling club again, and heading for relegation through selling players and looking for cheap replacements. When exactly do you think we will match the european qualifications that we have seen for the last 15 years, under Ashleys strategy ? stretch the question further and ask if fred would have matched the european qualifications we've seen for the last 15years ? would he have just spent the banks money to try and emulate it ? Lets go back to the appointment of Allardyce, and the point made by HTT, when he said that it was thought to be a good appointment at the time of someone waiting for a big job, coupled with the fact that his track record suggested he could build a pretty good side with little money. Whether he could make the top 4 is arguable, and we won't now know, but it suggested that the Halls and Shepherd were aware of this need, in the short term. I'm pretty sure that their ultimate ambitions would have remained as high as they always were, which are much higher than Ashleys, and I'm also pretty sure that at the current moment in time, they wouldn't be sitting back and watching the team heading for relegation and try to reverse it. Mind, the amount of u-turns by people who urged them to keep spending, and backed Souness in his spending spree, but now say how wrong it was, is quite amazing. i'd reckon ashleys ambition was to do aswell as possible without running up massive debt.........your way sees everton of having a lack of ambition, a lack that sees them regularly finish well clear off ambitious freds outfit. Everton are just the team doing the best for the moment of a whole load of clubs that don't have the big ambition that they should. Thats all, nothing more and nothing less. If you are saying you would swap their last decade for ours, then I wouldn't agree, and if you are saying what they have done in the past decade is good enough for you, then thats up to you. It;s this mistaken idea that you and others have that everybody else has done things better than us, and the grass is always greener. despite results to the contrary which is pretty daft like. You thought the grass was greener when the Halls and Shepherd ran the club and now they have gone, we are sinking like a stone. Has Shay Given gone yet ? All we need is Ashleys mouthpiece to come out again and say its "good business", and I'm sure a lot of gullible people will swallow it whole. i'd swap their last 5 years for ours. as for sinking like a stone i'll claim you are LYING if you think it's only since fred left. I'm not talking about the last 5 years, I'm talking about the entire tenure of the chairman you are slating, not part of it. Do you still think having an owner who runs the club down is no different to having an owner(s) who have ambition and have shown it ? Amazing. We were careful with our spending when Bobby 1st took over, then we started spending more after a coulpe of seasons iirc. Well, if you are saying you expect Mike Ashley to show ambition in a year or two, then feel free. I'll be surprised though. But he may also have to, when we are down a league, crowds are 20,000 and the penny drops with most of the daft posters who still back him, as well as himself. Do you expect an owner of Newcastle Utd to have to support the club out of his own money? If so, when did you change your mind? Do you think that a club such as Newcastle Utd should be self sufficient? If so, how do you think that could be achieved? do you think it is possible to be successful without taking risks, or to rephrase it, how much scope in football is there for teams to be successful and make profits ? Or do you sit back and accept mediocrity and possibly small profits ?? Which would you prefer, attempting to be successful or not ? I think you have to take calculated risks. Tbh, i'm not sure how profitable an EPL club is so i don't know the answer. Other peolpe seem to suggest you don't buy an EPL club to make a lot of money. I would prefer attampting to be successful but i wouldn't want to confuse ability with ambition. Now answer my questions. ?

oh dear, I remember people saying that people like me were talking nonsense when we said Ashley was turning the club into a 2nd rate selling club again, and heading for relegation through selling players and looking for cheap replacements. When exactly do you think we will match the european qualifications that we have seen for the last 15 years, under Ashleys strategy ? stretch the question further and ask if fred would have matched the european qualifications we've seen for the last 15years ? would he have just spent the banks money to try and emulate it ? Lets go back to the appointment of Allardyce, and the point made by HTT, when he said that it was thought to be a good appointment at the time of someone waiting for a big job, coupled with the fact that his track record suggested he could build a pretty good side with little money. Whether he could make the top 4 is arguable, and we won't now know, but it suggested that the Halls and Shepherd were aware of this need, in the short term. I'm pretty sure that their ultimate ambitions would have remained as high as they always were, which are much higher than Ashleys, and I'm also pretty sure that at the current moment in time, they wouldn't be sitting back and watching the team heading for relegation and try to reverse it. Mind, the amount of u-turns by people who urged them to keep spending, and backed Souness in his spending spree, but now say how wrong it was, is quite amazing. i'd reckon ashleys ambition was to do aswell as possible without running up massive debt.........your way sees everton of having a lack of ambition, a lack that sees them regularly finish well clear off ambitious freds outfit. Everton are just the team doing the best for the moment of a whole load of clubs that don't have the big ambition that they should. Thats all, nothing more and nothing less. If you are saying you would swap their last decade for ours, then I wouldn't agree, and if you are saying what they have done in the past decade is good enough for you, then thats up to you. It;s this mistaken idea that you and others have that everybody else has done things better than us, and the grass is always greener. despite results to the contrary which is pretty daft like. You thought the grass was greener when the Halls and Shepherd ran the club and now they have gone, we are sinking like a stone. Has Shay Given gone yet ? All we need is Ashleys mouthpiece to come out again and say its "good business", and I'm sure a lot of gullible people will swallow it whole. i'd swap their last 5 years for ours. as for sinking like a stone i'll claim you are LYING if you think it's only since fred left. I'm not talking about the last 5 years, I'm talking about the entire tenure of the chairman you are slating, not part of it. Do you still think having an owner who runs the club down is no different to having an owner(s) who have ambition and have shown it ? Amazing. We were careful with our spending when Bobby 1st took over, then we started spending more after a coulpe of seasons iirc. Well, if you are saying you expect Mike Ashley to show ambition in a year or two, then feel free. I'll be surprised though. But he may also have to, when we are down a league, crowds are 20,000 and the penny drops with most of the daft posters who still back him, as well as himself. Do you expect an owner of Newcastle Utd to have to support the club out of his own money? If so, when did you change your mind? Do you think that a club such as Newcastle Utd should be self sufficient? If so, how do you think that could be achieved? do you think it is possible to be successful without taking risks, or to rephrase it, how much scope in football is there for teams to be successful and make profits ? Or do you sit back and accept mediocrity and possibly small profits ?? Which would you prefer, attempting to be successful or not ? I think you have to take calculated risks. Tbh, i'm not sure how profitable an EPL club is so i don't know the answer. Other peolpe seem to suggest you don't buy an EPL club to make a lot of money. I would prefer attampting to be successful but i wouldn't want to confuse ability with ambition. Now answer my questions.

oh dear, I remember people saying that people like me were talking nonsense when we said Ashley was turning the club into a 2nd rate selling club again, and heading for relegation through selling players and looking for cheap replacements. When exactly do you think we will match the european qualifications that we have seen for the last 15 years, under Ashleys strategy ? stretch the question further and ask if fred would have matched the european qualifications we've seen for the last 15years ? would he have just spent the banks money to try and emulate it ? Lets go back to the appointment of Allardyce, and the point made by HTT, when he said that it was thought to be a good appointment at the time of someone waiting for a big job, coupled with the fact that his track record suggested he could build a pretty good side with little money. Whether he could make the top 4 is arguable, and we won't now know, but it suggested that the Halls and Shepherd were aware of this need, in the short term. I'm pretty sure that their ultimate ambitions would have remained as high as they always were, which are much higher than Ashleys, and I'm also pretty sure that at the current moment in time, they wouldn't be sitting back and watching the team heading for relegation and try to reverse it. Mind, the amount of u-turns by people who urged them to keep spending, and backed Souness in his spending spree, but now say how wrong it was, is quite amazing. i'd reckon ashleys ambition was to do aswell as possible without running up massive debt.........your way sees everton of having a lack of ambition, a lack that sees them regularly finish well clear off ambitious freds outfit. Everton are just the team doing the best for the moment of a whole load of clubs that don't have the big ambition that they should. Thats all, nothing more and nothing less. If you are saying you would swap their last decade for ours, then I wouldn't agree, and if you are saying what they have done in the past decade is good enough for you, then thats up to you. It;s this mistaken idea that you and others have that everybody else has done things better than us, and the grass is always greener. despite results to the contrary which is pretty daft like. You thought the grass was greener when the Halls and Shepherd ran the club and now they have gone, we are sinking like a stone. Has Shay Given gone yet ? All we need is Ashleys mouthpiece to come out again and say its "good business", and I'm sure a lot of gullible people will swallow it whole. i'd swap their last 5 years for ours. as for sinking like a stone i'll claim you are LYING if you think it's only since fred left. I'm not talking about the last 5 years, I'm talking about the entire tenure of the chairman you are slating, not part of it. Do you still think having an owner who runs the club down is no different to having an owner(s) who have ambition and have shown it ? Amazing. We were careful with our spending when Bobby 1st took over, then we started spending more after a coulpe of seasons iirc. Well, if you are saying you expect Mike Ashley to show ambition in a year or two, then feel free. I'll be surprised though. But he may also have to, when we are down a league, crowds are 20,000 and the penny drops with most of the daft posters who still back him, as well as himself. Do you expect an owner of Newcastle Utd to have to support the club out of his own money? If so, when did you change your mind? Do you think that a club such as Newcastle Utd should be self sufficient? If so, how do you think that could be achieved?

oh dear, I remember people saying that people like me were talking nonsense when we said Ashley was turning the club into a 2nd rate selling club again, and heading for relegation through selling players and looking for cheap replacements. When exactly do you think we will match the european qualifications that we have seen for the last 15 years, under Ashleys strategy ? stretch the question further and ask if fred would have matched the european qualifications we've seen for the last 15years ? would he have just spent the banks money to try and emulate it ? Lets go back to the appointment of Allardyce, and the point made by HTT, when he said that it was thought to be a good appointment at the time of someone waiting for a big job, coupled with the fact that his track record suggested he could build a pretty good side with little money. Whether he could make the top 4 is arguable, and we won't now know, but it suggested that the Halls and Shepherd were aware of this need, in the short term. I'm pretty sure that their ultimate ambitions would have remained as high as they always were, which are much higher than Ashleys, and I'm also pretty sure that at the current moment in time, they wouldn't be sitting back and watching the team heading for relegation and try to reverse it. Mind, the amount of u-turns by people who urged them to keep spending, and backed Souness in his spending spree, but now say how wrong it was, is quite amazing. i'd reckon ashleys ambition was to do aswell as possible without running up massive debt.........your way sees everton of having a lack of ambition, a lack that sees them regularly finish well clear off ambitious freds outfit. Everton are just the team doing the best for the moment of a whole load of clubs that don't have the big ambition that they should. Thats all, nothing more and nothing less. If you are saying you would swap their last decade for ours, then I wouldn't agree, and if you are saying what they have done in the past decade is good enough for you, then thats up to you. It;s this mistaken idea that you and others have that everybody else has done things better than us, and the grass is always greener. despite results to the contrary which is pretty daft like. You thought the grass was greener when the Halls and Shepherd ran the club and now they have gone, we are sinking like a stone. Has Shay Given gone yet ? All we need is Ashleys mouthpiece to come out again and say its "good business", and I'm sure a lot of gullible people will swallow it whole. i'd swap their last 5 years for ours. as for sinking like a stone i'll claim you are LYING if you think it's only since fred left. I'm not talking about the last 5 years, I'm talking about the entire tenure of the chairman you are slating, not part of it. Do you still think having an owner who runs the club down is no different to having an owner(s) who have ambition and have shown it ? Amazing. We were careful with our spending when Bobby 1st took over, then we started spending more after a coulpe of seasons iirc.

forget about football ? haha, it IS football. If anything, it nails the daft theory that any old successful businessman can come into football and be a success, something else numerous people said when they were slating the fat b****** for only running a club that qualified regularly for europe, and not splashing cash whenever we lost a game, ironically. football is a business first now, it has to be with the money involved so i ask where was ur darling freddy going to find his 100 million which needed paying back NE5 will NEVER answer that question because a) he has no idea. b) he knows full well that we would have struggled to pay it back, and could have gone into administration had the creditors come calling. Yes NE5, football is about football first, no doubt about that and I agree. But you also have to have some kind of business sense. You can't simply spend more than you have, as then you would be knee-deep in it. if NE5 ran this football club we would be like leeds now nah, its Mike Ashley, and we will soon be back to where the Halls and Shepherd saved it. FWIW, I was one of the few people on here who said that the fat b****** couldn't carry on splashing cash whenever the team lost a game. Thats quite a lot of u-turns ........ like I said, any old stick will do. Care to tell me yet when or how Mike Ashley will attempt to match the european qualifications of the old board, or are you going to be happy supporting a selling club sitting in the bottom half of the league and making a profit for the next 10 years instead . By the way, I take it you have missed my posts where I pointed out how well Bob Murray ran the mackems, like a business. Ashley could get us back to regular European football by being either lucky or smart enough to employ a manager who's up to it and then let him go about his work with the best budget the club can afford. The old board were lucky with Keegan, unlucky (and premature) with Dalgleish, stupid with Gullit, lucky SBR was available and smart enough to get him, monumentally f**king stupid with Sounes and Roeder. I won't include Allardyce because ownership changed so soon after his appointment. I'm sorry, but I just dont' think it is possible to equal the regular european qualifications of the old board by running the club in the way that Ashley has done and looks like continuing ie without major expenditure, just like they did, and that goes for any club. You've said before that you don't expect an owner to put his hand in his own pocket to run the club. I agree, a club our size shouldn't need that. All i want, and i believe all you want, is that the Board let the club spend the money it generates. They need to be smart or lucky to get the right man to do the best with whatever he has available to him. This latest set of accounts seems to have put a different light on it. It seems as if we're well in the red. If so, we still need to appointment a good manager, let him run a tight ship for a season or 2 (just like SBR when he first came) and then start punching our weight when the debt is more manageable. If they do that then we have a chance of competing with the likes of Villa, Liverpool and Arsenal the way we used to. Chelsea, Man City and Man U are in a different financial league tbh. Whether this lot are competent or lucky enough for that to happen, we'll see. FWIW, they need to change that stupid system for a start. I'm all for Wise bringing in promising bairns and scouting players or whatever but only the man who picks the team should decide who's signed or sold.

forget about football ? haha, it IS football. If anything, it nails the daft theory that any old successful businessman can come into football and be a success, something else numerous people said when they were slating the fat b****** for only running a club that qualified regularly for europe, and not splashing cash whenever we lost a game, ironically. football is a business first now, it has to be with the money involved so i ask where was ur darling freddy going to find his 100 million which needed paying back NE5 will NEVER answer that question because a) he has no idea. b) he knows full well that we would have struggled to pay it back, and could have gone into administration had the creditors come calling. Yes NE5, football is about football first, no doubt about that and I agree. But you also have to have some kind of business sense. You can't simply spend more than you have, as then you would be knee-deep in it. if NE5 ran this football club we would be like leeds now nah, its Mike Ashley, and we will soon be back to where the Halls and Shepherd saved it. FWIW, I was one of the few people on here who said that the fat b****** couldn't carry on splashing cash whenever the team lost a game. Thats quite a lot of u-turns ........ like I said, any old stick will do. Care to tell me yet when or how Mike Ashley will attempt to match the european qualifications of the old board, or are you going to be happy supporting a selling club sitting in the bottom half of the league and making a profit for the next 10 years instead . By the way, I take it you have missed my posts where I pointed out how well Bob Murray ran the mackems, like a business. Ashley could get us back to regular European football by being either lucky or smart enough to employ a manager who's up to it and then let him go about his work with the best budget the club can afford. The old board were lucky with Keegan, unlucky (and premature) with Dalgleish, stupid with Gullit, lucky SBR was available and smart enough to get him, monumentally f**king stupid with Sounes and Roeder. I won't include Allardyce because ownership changed so soon after his appointment.

losers attitude, and back to the days of being 2nd raters. It's an attitude of someone accepting the current financial position at the club, something which you don't as you've avoided the thread about the clubs latest set of accounts like the plague. like I said, wait until you've had a dose of 2nd division football and sub 30,000 crowds for a few years and see what that does for the finances, unless you stupidly think all the successful clubs also have bulging bank acconts. Get another owner like your man Ashley to succeed him [easily possible, or worse] and the european qualifications, capacity stadiums, England players will be a golden era to you and others. You certainly won't bother yourself travelling to games when Bristol City are on a par with Newcastle. Then again, you won't admit your DOF bollocks has been proved to be exactly that ie propelling us the way of Leeds. I don't think all clubs have bulging bank accounts but when you hardly spend any money on transfers and the club is still losing money then it's clear that something is seriously wrong, you seem to struggle to get your head around this though for some reason and think the club has a bottomless pit of money. I don't, but I know what it takes to get relegated. And the results of it. I don't suppose you do, as you don't even think a manager has the right to manage the club in the way he sees fit. You're right about something being seriously wrong though, myself and two or three others have been telling you that for the last 18 months. I think I've been telling you there is something wrong with the finances at the club for a lot longer than that, yet you've always trotted out the same line about all clubs having debt etc while ignoring the reasons for these clubs being in debt in the first place. You do realise that Ashley has had to guarantee to support us financially otherwise we would be in administration? The thing is I know you realise this but you're such an idiot that you won't admit what a mess we're in, thinking that if we keep spending money (even if we haven't got any) that everything will be ok. ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal are also in serious debt, so according to you they must in real s*** street and their supporters must therefore be devastated. Other than that, I'm not interested in your opinions. Also, only idiots still appear to think Ashleys setup will bring success to Newcastle and continuing with this DOF bollocks is a good idea. I guess being in debt is fine as long as you can afford the repayments, like a mortgage. Problems start when you can't afford the repayments and/or what you owe is more than the worth of your asset. We seem to be operating at a loss (if this is all true), does it register with you what that actually means?

I think it's a bluff to try and persuade players to sign.

Righto, AC weren't so interested in Garry and Kaka poncing around the world in a lear jet, raising awareness about carbon emissions, they wanted to talk about the transfer fee.....the Milanese eh? No humanity.......

Signing 4 blinding players would do the trick. A CB, 2 CM's and a CF of serious quality would make the rest bloom. Won't happen though.

f***ing hell, what a mentalist beats me why so many people read the s**** that she puts out, never mind the rag full stop I bet you were enjoying it until you got to this bit though: I do remember some people claiming that Phil Gartside was a good chairman. Don't really know where they got the idea from, probably on account of the fact that Allardyce did a great job at Bolton, who then promoted Sammy Lee, like lots of other chairman who appoint number 2's into the number 1. I don't get it, what's Gartside got to do with that article? It also has to be said, SA did wonders at Bolton and if one half of a season he had a bad run is all she can mock him for then SHE'S scraping the barrell. He was f**king shocking here, like. Can't argue with that!

It’s a fear shared by many. Our home form against the other relegation candidates has been s****. Home and away we’ve only beaten one of the clubs who people seem conceived are worse than us? If we’re not well clear of the relegation zone by the time we go to WHL anything can happen. Wonder goals, flukey goals, dodgy pens, sleepy linesmen, injury problems, flared tempers. Surviving the relegation run in is a question of nerve. It's a pressure cooker and I can’t see NUFC being up to the challenge - both supporters and players are already battered and bruised by this seasons events. Clubs like Stoke and Hull have a far better sense of purpose and direction, and a far greater strength of unity. NUFC is on it’s knees. Having three or four top quality players is our one advantage. How many of them will still be here next month remains to be seen. This is also spot-on - you just have to look at Stoke's battling effort to get a point from Liverpool to see the difference ; they are making up for supposed 'lack of quality' by fighting for their lives, a quality that NUFC clearly don't possess . People talk about WBA being 'already gone' but in many games they have actually played better passing football than NUFC ; back in 1986, we were in danger of relegation but Paul Goddard, never a recognised prolific goal-scorer, went on a scoring run from about Feb which saved our bacon...Goddard was, however, a very good player - we have nobody in that mould now, and if WBA were to unearth someone who can get goals better than their current squad, they will be able to mount a recovery ; Bolton have a record of escaping in the past and Wigan are picking up results... Its going to be tough unless the team is strengthened considerably... Is your head that far up your arse you cant remember Chelsea away? And is yours so far up your own(not uncommon for you either..)that you don't remember Liverpool at home, or have you just discovered selective memory loss...? You said a battling effort to get a point was a quality we dont possess. I never said falling apart and playing like s*** was a quality we did not possess. Not like you to lose the train of logic. The difference is that when Stoke played us at SJP, they battled right to the end and got a point - people keep saying that they have so-called 'inferior' players to us, but that means nothing unless so-called 'superiority' is combined with determination and organization ; they HAVE battled better than us , and OK, we had a poor side out against Liverpool, but nobody can deny that Stoke gave them a MUCH tougher game at the Britannia then we did at SJP ; they tried to win the game right to the end, even if it wasn't pretty to watch, and those qualities are the ones that will keep you up in a tight battle. Did anyone really expect us to surrender 1-5 at home, even with some first-teamers missing? The above comments can also be applied to clubs like Wigan and Fulham... In any case, a club like NUFC should NOT have such a thin, threadbare squad - that is why I am so annoyed at the policy(or lack of it) that the club has adopted. But you surely dont deny that going to Chelsea and sealing a draw away from home demonstrates the squad has the sort of battling qualities that Stoke displayed at home against Liverpool? I can point at Stoke's 5-0 demolition at Old Trafford to make a point that there squad is s*** and they cant battle the way we do, hence demonstrating the complete futility of highlighting one game to make a general point about the abilities and characteristics of a squad. The loss against Liverpool was particularly distressing for me since i'd given up my usual seat to accomodate someone who hadnt been for a few years and bought two extra tickets as xmas presents, ended up sitting next to someone who clearly had learning difficulities as he spent the entire match informing me that his "mam is cooking him roast potatoes at 4" and "he was having chicken for his dinner on new years" and other such pearls of footballing wisdom. Tbf i don't think it was our qualities that preserved a point at Chelsea, it was more our good luck and their lack of finishing. Could easily have been a Liverpool score line.

Don't see how it would suit us, Shorey's crap.

I don't like him saying it publicly but i can't disagree with his sentiment. The club is hardly 'going places' is it?

4 foot 6.

He's no Billy Davis, is he NG?

Qualify, err............. any of that please.

How does Mort rate as a 'Credible Chairman'? He's done the job for, what, 6 months? not actually sure i said he was did i? i liked the way he went about his job, seemed to realise people like keegan knew more about football than he does...he's also not a buffoon like shepherd or a probable c*** like llamblias he'd do for me, what's you problem? who would you choose? I hate being the guy who just shoots down down other peoples ideas without actually mentioning a realistic alternative, but i couldn't name anyone tbh!!! I'd just want someone with a record if having done the job successfully before.

How does Mort rate as a 'Credible Chairman'? He's done the job for, what, 6 months?

Communication to the fans is a very important thing though when running a football club. Off the top of my head he sacked Allardyce, was the man who brought Keegan back, was fighting Keegan's corner in his battle with this within, brokered that meeting after the Chelsea game to resolve all apparent teething problems at the time. Plus we actually appeared stable and looked like we might go somewhere, although I do believe the manager we had was the reason behind this. Then look at what happened when he went. I really don't believe it was Mort's decision to sack Allardyce or hire KK. I think it was Ashley's decision and that he was getting advice from elsewhere. My opinion anyway!

Ashley's policies are unlikely to change just because Mort comes back. Apart from talking to the fans what else did he actually do? Is it because he seems a nice bloke?

no ambition ? Villa bigger and more ambitious than Newcastle ? Well, they acted it in the past, but not since 1992 they haven't been, until now that is. They've spent more than most teams in the Prem this year. It's going well for them an'll. Still think O'Neill's a uselss leprechaun?

Sell Taylor for stupid money and buy David Villa. Asif...