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I suppose the argument against would be more powerful if he was signing for a Premier League club and getting massive media exposure, but it's Oldham ffs. Let him earn his wage.

This is it for me. As for the idea that he's being hounded from every job opportunity because of how he phrases things is fucking ludicrous tbh. Saying "my infidelity" is stupid but it's not the reason he's being hunted down at every opportunity. He's at the centre of a massive witch hunt, there's nothing else to it. Every single interview I hear about the case involving someone from a group that campaigns against rape and violence against women etc specifically refers to the fact that he's shown no remorse or made any sort of apology. It's almost always the first thing they say in response to the question about whether he should be given a second chance. Like it or not, there are clearly a lot of emotions riding on what he has said since being convicted. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the people who are trying to stop him from playing football. The law has established a sentence to fit the crime: if a person has served his time, that should be the end of it. I don't want to live in a society where certain crimes force people to become "untouchables" living on the margins of society for the rest of their lives. If he wants to claim that he was innocent, that's his right. If he wants to act like a complete knobhead, that's his right as well. If anyone should have a say in whether he gets to sign for Oldham or not, it should probably be the Oldham fans.

People's reaction to the law is that they usually want to overpunish people who've committed crimes that they would never be in a position to commit, and underpunish people who've committed crimes that they could see themselves doing on a bad day. The reaction to Ched Evans is a textbook example of this, unfortunately. I do think he should be allowed to play football, but casting doubts upon a jury verdict based on hearsay and conjecture is rarely useful. The mongs going a step further and harassing the victim are just beyond help.

I wonder which West Asian team is going to crush my dreams this year. As long as it's not fucking Japan.

I had assumed it was all political but what do you mean via logistical issues? Lots of middle eastern countries won't issue visas to Israeli nationals.

It should actually be a profit of nearer 60 million if you add the extra 50 to the 10 million profit we made the year before, assuming all else being equal. All in that f***ing fat slug's bank account, along with the wonga and merchandising money. Never to be see again. Net profit on transfers in the summer, also, despite this 'Newcastle spend big on nine new players bollocks'; if you seriously think the amounts paid for Riviere and Cabella were £6.5m and £12m then you need your head looked at. None of that has anything to do with our next accounts though. As for the rest if he has took that money out then it will be shown against his loan, not that i think it will be. You think he can't hide that money? Any of our money he steals from the club in exchange for dud performances? I have no idea why anyone goes anymore. Hurt to give up my ST of 20 years but, my God, it has been liberating. I don't think he can. That's kind of the point of accounts.

We might even try, but we'll want him for nowt if we do Right. Carr will give Ashley a list, Ashley's minions will then proceed to offer all of the candidates the chance to come work in England for the lowest wages in the entire league.

The one thing I think we can all agree on is that this is so tragic because it's eminently possible that we'll never see a player of his natural ability play for us again in our lifetimes. It was a truly unique set of circumstances that allowed us to get this guy. It's such a bleeding shame that the gamble didn't pay off because it could have been beautiful

It's not that we can't get him. It's that we won't try.

Sir Alex was subltly good at ruining players by beating the creativity out of them.

Football is a simple game made complicated by f***ers like this relying on stats etc while as you say ignoring the passing etc. Watch a few of our games and the cause of our problems are evident, we have very little width, s*** concentration, very little movement / disrupting shape of opposition, certain players with a lack of technical ability such as Williamson, Dummett, Tiote, Gouffran, Riviere. From a tactical point of view we don't have support for the front man / closer support when players on the ball and don't compact when the opposition have the ball, in addition our high pressing is garbage. We did in the past press high up and forced mistakes - not all the time but quite a few times it was effective, now we run around like headless chickens. The cliche "football is a simple game" is simply not true. If anything it's too complex for analytics. Twenty-two players on a wide pitch in a contstant state of movement, instantaneous transition between defense and attack, an incredibly diversity of inteterdependent actions that are near-impossible to turn into discrete datapoints... One of the reasons advanced statistics haven't made much headway in the game yet is because it's so hard to develop powerful model. In reality the sort of statistics that are in widespread use by todays clubs are remarkably simple. (e.g. Passing percentages, distance covered, heat maps) there is no reason whatsoever for traditionalist fans to fear these things like they're some sort of inscrutable black magic that is ruining the purity of the game. None of this has anything to do with Carver of course. He's just stupid.

I'm a rational poster. I've just rationally decided that everything that can go wrong at NUFC will go wrong forever.

Every season for his club is dead until the owner changes anyway. Now that I think about it, maybe a Carver appointment would be the impetus the fans need to really turn on Ashley.

We disagree I suppose.

Well, what are you even arguing for man? You're basically suggesting that his personality or attitude has a lot to do with it as if that's in any way more important than what he does come the weekend. It's not, at the other end of the scale you have people like Shola Ameobi, zero talent, total commitment and attitude yet produces exactly fuck all and carves out a career for himself here because the coaches invest more in what players can do in training and what their attitude is than what they do on the pitch. It's utter nonsense. Ben Arfa by most accounts might be a bit of a nutcase, but that's nowhere near as important as being a very good at your job. Is it genuinely too much to ask that you be good at your job and also not be a nutcase? Is it genuinely too much to ask that you be good at your job FULL STOP! We have had players for years and years that are shit at their jobs, yet that's less relevant than someone being a bit of a dick but being very good at their job? Howeh! He wouldn't have even been here if he wasn't a bit of a nutcase, we all knew that. People go on like we've consistently had better players over the years when we all know that we absolutely haven't. So just because Shola Ameobi exists Ben Arfa is immune from any criticism about allowing his immense talent to go to waste? I just don't get it. I agree that he wouldn't have been here in the first place if he wasn't a known troublemaker I suppose.

Well, what are you even arguing for man? You're basically suggesting that his personality or attitude has a lot to do with it as if that's in any way more important than what he does come the weekend. It's not, at the other end of the scale you have people like Shola Ameobi, zero talent, total commitment and attitude yet produces exactly fuck all and carves out a career for himself here because the coaches invest more in what players can do in training and what their attitude is than what they do on the pitch. It's utter nonsense. Ben Arfa by most accounts might be a bit of a nutcase, but that's nowhere near as important as being a very good at your job. Is it genuinely too much to ask that you be good at your job and also not be a nutcase?

I mean obviously if you choose to ignore every other part of his career, choose the one year he was playing very well for us, then conclude that that's the real Ben Arfa and everything else is Pardew's fault... Well, there's really no arguing against that.

I just don't get this need to pin the blame entirely on one side or another. Obviously we won't know exactly how much responsibility each side holds for things breaking down but I'm pretty sure it isn't 100% to 0%. Pardew's a shit manager but it really can't be denied that Ben Arfa has his own issues. His record shows a consistent pattern of interpersonal difficulties that have limited his success at every club he's been at. The likes of Tevez or Mascherano seem to have done just fine for themselves despite having been "Pardewed" for a period of time. (And by all accounts both of them are pretty intense headcases as well)

Seeing as the odds are based on how much us people who know nothing are putting on its largely pointless. Remember Scott Sinclair being 1/5 to join us last year Probably the only reason Carver's odds are as short as they are is because a bunch of pessimists like myself have lobbed on some bets to soften the blow when it inevitably happens.

Ben Arfa has fallen out with managers other than Pardew. Players who barely have a fifth of Ben Arfa's talent have done well under Pardew. Pardew is shit, but it's very naive to believe that Ben Arfa would have thrived under any decent manager. He's far from blameless in any of this.

It's fucking amazing how ridiculously fucking shit we are at bringing up youth prospects. Andy Carroll and Paul Dummett are probably the two best players who've come up as part of our reserve setup in the past ten years.

Obviously I'll love him forever for the Bolton and Blackburn goals, but he could have easily been so much more if he got his head together.

There's a huge difference between having fantastic talent and being a fantastic player and Ben Arfa is the text book example unfortunately. Didn't help that he had Pardew for a manager, but at some point he has to stand up and accept responsibility for what his career has become.

I suspect Ashley thinks that the manger is basically irrelevant in his model for NUFC. Any old average-to-shit manager could avoid relegation with Newcastle most years, just off the quality of players we usually attract. (Just ask Alan Pardew) It would take a greater manager to get the players we have to over-preform and get us higher up the table, but that's not what the ownership wants. If so, why pay anyone respectable when you can have someone desperate willing to take orders and work on a cheap contract? Imagine for a moment that we got someone like Rafa Benitez in. Where would he take the current squad? Probably up to about 5th~7th at best. Where does that leave Ashley? With more expectation from the fans to spend more money and push on to 4th, and saddled with Europa League football that he most certainly does not want. I suspect Ashley has learned his lesson from the season we fluked 5th. A taste of success can be dangerous for brewing discontent when it isn't expanded upon in following years. If that's the case, why not have John Carver instead? He's cheaper and will never kick up a fuss about transfer funds or control. He will have us in the 10th~15th range most years while feeding the fans shit about how it's impossible to compete at a higher level. The TV money keeps flowing in and we run at a profit without the need for significant reinvestment. If things start going tits up, Ashley can always grudgingly authorize 10~20m of spending to bail us out in January. Guess who wins again.

I think there's no way he would have consented to resting players for Leicester if he didn't know he already had the job