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I realize it's extremely presumptuous of me to be making any comment about ST holders, but I have to say that it seems a bit silly to complain now that you were "conned" into buying a three-year ticket. You really should have only made that financial commitment if you were absolutely sure that you were going to attend NUFC matches for the next three years. No matter what. If you were only going to go if Keegan was here, or if you were only going to go if we were challenging for Europe... Well, you should've bought a one year ticket then. I mean, even ignoring for a moment that you can actually just have your ticket refunded if you really don't want it anymore. (That said, I do share your frustration. It's just that all this repetition is getting a bit silly.)

Did I misread or wasn't there a post a little while back confirming that you can cancel your three-year season ticket if you so desire?

On a completely unrelated note, Allardyce tried to buy Cho Jae-Jin, and that tells me all I need to know about his eye for a player.

It's called hindsight. The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure. Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer. whats your measurement for failure? I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes? Umm.... Yes? So a windows success or failure is based entirely on the completely unpredicatable nature of footballers? Surely there has to be some objective measure of a windows succes? Its a bit like saying appointing Wenger is only good appointment if he suceeds completely ignoring the merit of the appointment. The way i see it is that appointing Wenger will be a good appointment, full stop. By that line of reasoning there is no accountability for transfers, full stop. Because no one can predict whether a player can succeed or not. In reality, you expect the club to be able to make some sort of reasonable projection on a potential signings chance for success. The warning signs were clear for our signings that summer. Barton was facing a potential prison sentence. We payed City 5m. Alan Smith was coming of what was nearly a career-ending injury and had not been preforming consistently in the Premiership for nearly three years. We payed Man United 6m. David Rozhenal's physicality was always going to be an issue in the Prem. We payed PSG 3.5m. The fact that the worst case scenarios happened for all of those moves is irrelevant, as the manager's risk assessment itself was quite clearly flawed for all of them. To pick up on your analogy, would appointing Arsene Wenger be a good appointment? Probably, but not certainly. It's up to the board to assess the prevalent risk factors. Can Wenger succeed without the resources he has at Arsenal? Can he succeed within the system in place at the club? Would he be able to adapt to a move to Northeast England? Should Wenger come here and actually fail, it is fair for fans to assume that the board was probably negligent in their assessment of one or more risk factors. That would make that appointment a failure.

So people are still blaming all of this s*** on Shearer? Jesus christ, nobody even mentions him anymore. Man United still sing songs about Roy Keane. Is it killing their club? Get a grip! Are Roy Keane or Cantona or Solksjaer ever mentioned in line with the man united job when fergie hints at retirement? Are they f***. Shearer is, and its f***ing embarrasing. Until he has a little stint here, and fails, we can never truely be rid of it. So we've got Kinnear because people are worried that fans want Shearer? Absolute rubbish. Wtf, how does what i said amount to that? Shearer was a player for us, and great one. AMEN, let's put him to bed. Small time mentality. Well the main problem we're facing is nobody wants to manage the club. You've hinted that it's because of the shadow of Shearer (if that's not what you mean, what the hell do you mean?) No, i haven't. Never mentioned it infact. Not from the other managers angle either. He's not THAT influential anymore. However, it's embarassing that when the position for manager has come up, you get the feeling they seriously want him, Keegan practically begged him to come at some level. It's pathetic, he's an ex-player, let's leave it at that. TO move on, we need to get rid of that mentality, imo. You think there wouldn't be mongs asking for Keane at Man Utd if Ferguson were to retire? You can't just "erase" the influence of a legend ffs. It happens at any club. Shearer's "shadow" is just another one of a long line of excuses that have been used at this club for far too long.

Unless its to quell any questions incoming players might have. Who really wants to listen to what JFK has to say if he will only be in charge another 5 months. A wiser question would be, who would ever want to play for JFK period.

On the other hand, Spurs might sign players left right and centre and then get relegated. Splashing the cash doesn't mean survival. They also don't have a complete joke of a man for manager for the foreseeable future Debateable True. "Joke of a man who's completely unqualified to be managing in the Premiership" then.

On the other hand, Spurs might sign players left right and centre and then get relegated. Splashing the cash doesn't mean survival. They also don't have a complete joke of a man for manager for the foreseeable future

Never mind the anti-Ashley bandwagon, if this happens I'm jumping all the way onto NE5's bandwagon.

It's called hindsight. The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure. Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer. whats your measurement for failure? I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes? Umm.... Yes?

Wanting a manager that isn't a complete idiot is "special?"

I think he just doesn't give a toss anymore. He's completely lost any sort of love he had for the club and just wants to run it in the most frugal way possible until a buyer shows up. And I'd bet my life that the "Ashley will talk to the fans after the transfer window" was just more shit manufactured by Kinnear

Oh God, it's really happening isn't it.

A player's worth whatever his club is willing to sell him for.

I don't think I'll physically be able to stomach supporting a club that has Joe Kinnear as a long-term appointment.

If Kinnear does get a new contract, I'm going to abandon all reason and join the "Cockney Mafia Out!" Crowd. More likely, I'll just shoot myself.

Please no. Just no.

Agree with this. He is available and therefore we wouldn't have to pay over the odds to convince them to sell. If Pennant is available for 3m and we aren't at least trying to get him it can only go down as sheer idiocy imo. It's not as if Portsmouth is looking a more attractive destination at the moment either.

Swearing, no. I love the swearing. Name calling becomes a problem when people get used to just calling somebody a mong or whatnot instead of actually responding to their arguments.

Are we getting one of those?

I was actually waiting for that. Didn't think it'd be first post though

This is something I've been meaning to write for some time now. I realize that I'm not the most eloquent of posters on here, but I just ask that you take a moment to consider what I'm saying as opposed to immediately reaching for the mackems.gif smiley. Posting on these forums has always been something of a jarring experience for me culturally, as I'm used to being active on boards on which posters maintain a facade of decorum, and try not to be hostile/insulting to each other, even when they disagree. Now in some ways, I find it very refreshing that on this forum, when I think somebody's being a fucking stupid cunt, I actually get to call them a fucking stupid cunt. Football's a passionate topic, and this forum would be all the poorer if we were forced to all wear fake smiles on our faces and pat each other on the back while discussing it. That said, I think things have gone too far, particularly since the Keegan affair. With the club's declining fortunes putting everyone in a bad mood, I fear we've simply become a pack of confrontational dickheads. There are many posters on these boards who, when exposed to something they disagree with, simply , , or mackems.gif and seek to ridicule the OP instead of responding in any substantive manner. We've all been guilty of this at one time or another in recent months, myself included. I think the fact that this sort of problem is much more prevalent on the Football Board as opposed to General Chat makes it obvious that it's mostly the events at the club that are having a negative effect on our temperaments, rather than any sort of inherent problem. Yes, things have been really shit for the past few months. Yes, we're all in a terrible mood. Yes, sometimes people will just say something about Ashley/Keegan/Wise/Kinnear/Owen/Shepherd/N'Zogbia/Xisco/the Tea Lady that's so idiotic that you just want to reach into the monitor and smack them. But the more this forum drifts away from good natured disagreement and discourse towards a classless shouting match with the same people fighting about the same things and using the same insults, the poorer we all become. I think it would benefit all of us if we just took a nice, deep breath and tried to clean things up a bit. We're all people with strong opinions, so if nothing else, let's try to respect that about each other. I'm all for some friendly piss-talking, but we need to acknowledge when it's getting out of hand.

Oh come on now this is ridiculous. Blackburn are just as shit a side as we are. We've beaten better this season. I know Wednesday was traumatic... But cripes... Even Skirge thinks we're doomed

I expected to wake up to something like "Rennes management have laughed off the 'insulting" bid for Stephen M'Bia from Newcastle United," so I suppose this is better.

It's called hindsight. The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure. Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.