Wandy

Wonder how the SJP atmosphere will be affected by the ballot system... will it likely mean there will be different people in each area for most matches? Or has it been like that anyway with the old system?

6 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

Yep. Ginola for us in his two seasons had 19 goals and assists in 5195 minutes. Works out at 1 goal involvement every 273 minutes.

 

ASM has 30 goals and assists over 8067 minutes, works out 1 goal involvement per 268 minutes.

 

Marginal but still fewer.

Interesting. But for me Ginola was twice as good as ASM, as a player to actually watch anyway.

1 minute ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Players like ASM are very useful for lower half table sides, as a team set up to counter loves having an ASM.  Watching him run at a panicking, back-pedalling defence was always great fun. He can ‘dance’, and those players are always fun to watch.  

 

But he isn’t a top level player, and now we are a very good side and as teams sit off us, his usefulness diminishes.  And then frustration kicks in, as he sets off on runs from the middle of the pitch into a bank of eight defenders.  The player he reminds me most of when he does that is Ketsbaia - ASM is a more talented dribbler, but the outcome was usually the same. 

 

I do think that sometimes the idea of ASM outweighs the actuality.  

Your last sentence nails it. People imagine him becoming the player that he never will be.

1 minute ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

Clearly not given ASM averaged a goal or assist in fewer minutes for us than Ginola did for us. 

I'd actually find that hard to believe, but whatever. David Ginola in his first few months at NUFC is still the most exciting player I have ever seen at the club. And after those months passed he merely went from magical to "just" fantastic.

1 minute ago, Pata said:

 

He posted his best per 90 numbers this season, only behind Wilson and Isak in the team.

That doesnt say much for his previous seasons then tbh.

I go off what my eyes see anyway, rather than stats, and the only thing of note he did last season was the Man City performance and the goal at Wolves. Everything else I just found immensely frustrating and a general disappointment.

1 minute ago, gdm said:

It’s wild to me how people can’t understand why people are so attached to Maxi. Him and Wilson was practically the only good thing about the Bruce era. 

I understand the sentimental aspect of it completely. The lad was a beacon of hope in a time of utter gloom, but as the team has got better he has got worse.

It's the wailing that we have made a huge mistake and have somehow let a top class player go that I have an issue with....not neceessarily on here, but on social media in general. But the simple truth is that he isnt good enough to make the next step up.

1 hour ago, TheBrownBottle said:

I’m not gatekeeping - I’m also expressing an opinion.  And that opinion is that some of the stuff I’ve seen around ASM’s departure is just odd to me.  This isn’t a player who scored in every round of the cup being dropped for the final - it’s a player who scored one goal last season having his apparent destiny snatched away.  Fucking hell man, ASM isn’t even close to the best NUFC players I’ve seen who didn’t play CL football.  

You'd think we weren letting peak David Ginola go, the way some have reacted. 

3 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Always the same posters.

Couldn't agree more.

14 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

Maxi wasn't going to start for us, period. 

The elevation of his productivity is insane. Bloke spent more time on his arse than anything else. Canny dribbler but, then again, so am I on a night out. 

Get over yourselves ffs ?????

In my 40 years of following NUFC he's one of the most overrated players I've encountered in a B&W shirt. The hysteria over this is absolutely mental. The gif below pretty much sums him up. Lots of fluff but not much end product.

2 minutes ago, brummie said:

What are your ticket prices like for next year? Not season tickets, one off matches?

 

Ours are horrific.

 

A seat anywhere on the Holte End for a 'category A' match = £63. Category B = £46. There are only two categories and Cat A now covers half the fucking league.

 

My seat for cat A = £68 and no concessions, so £68 for a kid to sit there.

 

There's 30,000 on the season ticket waiting list apparently so limited match day tickets, but fuck me, that's a lot of money for 90 minutes entertainment.

Wow, that is outrageous.

22 minutes ago, Stifler said:

I thought the Glazers had decided not to sell?

Nobody knows. There are rumours of that but nothing confirmed. Personally I think there will be an announcement quite soon that the Qataris have got them.

The Man Utd takeover thread on Red Cafe is uncannily similar to ours was when everyone was going stir crazy. Hacks writing bullshit clickbait articles, Twitter bullshitters claiming to be ITK and lots of plane-spotting.

Hopefully it takes the full 18 months like ours did, and they also get their "Saudis pull out"  meltdown moment when all bidders seem to withdraw from the process, leaving the Glazers seemingly still there. 

The Saudis aren't going anywhere, by the way, regardless of whether their league becomes the Super League. If all they wanted was to create a Super League then there was absolutely no need to buy NUFC.

They want to own & influence as much of the west's treasures as possible, it's all part of their long term power-play. They have got their feet under the table now after a long slog and they won't give it up for a long time now. The EPL will always be one of the top leagues in the world and being a big player in it just gives them more power & influence.

25 minutes ago, KaKa said:

 

Yeah, I think it's probably for the best for English football as I think most of you feel this way. It's part of the reason I don't think black players should play for England because I think deep down you guys don't really want it, but just aren't being honest about that.

 

I think things are getting so divisive now we'll eventually see most players of African origin in the Saudi/Middle Eastern leagues leagues and Europe will go back to having mostly Caucasian players.

Hahaha, dear God.   Got to be one of the worst lines ever seen on this forum.

2 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

I interpreted that survey as 95% of the fans desperately wanted Ashley out, the Saudi bid was the only game in town. People were outside SJP on 7th October 2021 to celebrate Ashley going. Demand for tickets is as high as it is because Ashley is out and we're good again, not because the Saudis are here. IMO any new owner with ambition could've done what's happened at the club so far; we've spent within our means in terms of FFP.

I'm sorry, but you are in denial. Yeah, people celebrated the departure of Ashley. But more significantly, they celebrated the arrival of vast wealth. 

Demand for tickets is high because of what the Saudis are (hopefully) going to do for the club. It's also delusional to suggest that any owner could deliver the club & stadium infrastructure that the Saudis have planned.

Yes, Ashley could probably have delivered a similar season to the one we have just had. He could not have provided what is to come under the Saudis though. THAT is why people celebrated in 2021, and that is why the majority of the fanbase don't give a monkeys about the ownership either.

4 hours ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

Literally all of them.  That's why relying on anecdotes from your own bubble is unreliable.

It's hardly a bubble. About 95% of people backed the takeover in that survey when the Saudis were trying to get the club. There is already an astronomical amount of people wanting to get back into SJP. We could sell out a 75k stadium right now, and probably even more.

The bubble is the tiny minority who don't want the Saudis here.

I'd wager that when these people say they are uncomfortable with the ownership, what they mean is that they are uncomfortable with all of the negative reaction that comes from the media & other fanbases. But they say they are "uncomfortable" with the ownership, simply to save face.

If people were truly uncomfortable then they simply would stop their usual support of the club until a new ownership came along, it's that simple. My opinion.

Personally, not only am I delighted that these people own us, I also get an extra buzz from the insincere wailing from the media & other fanbases about it all. It's the icing on the cake.

No NUFC fan should feel guilt or discomfort at our ownership. Look at Man Utd fans, begging for the Qataris to take them over. And they haven't even gone 70 years without a trophy either.

23 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

You love doing this

 

With all of the surveys that have been going around our fanbase about it, we'll probably know for sure soon enough. 

Ask yourself this. How many people in the outside world have you encountered who say they are uncomfortable with the ownership?

34 minutes ago, Scoot said:

I'm going to be brutally honest here. I didn't pay any attention to middle Eastern human rights before we were taken over by PIF and I haven't since they took over us. I probably won't in the future either. I know it sounds incredibly selfish but I'm really not that arsed about it as I have no connection to it. 

 

I'm purely in it for the football and if PIF want to invest in my club and make us great, that's fine with me. If Saudi Arabia are going to play and international match at St James' Park which could benefit the club in the long run, that's fine with me too.

 

I'm not going to go all mackem here and pretend I know anything about what happens in the middle east. 

 

That's my stance on the whole thing. If that makes me bad, then I apologise!

You basically just spoke for 99% of the fanbase.

We are in a partnership with the country of Saudi Arabia. They provide us with the funding to rebuild our football club and we provide them with the exposure to help them build a sporting empire, and thus increase their overall power & influence within the western world.

I don't have a problem with that at all. Having away kits that mimic the Saudi national team's, and hosting international games that feature their national team, is a very small concession to make.

This thread is not an accurate reflection of the overall fanbase. The vast majority are not uncomfortable with these people as club custodians. In fact they very much want them to be here.

I don't know why any NUFC fan goes on there to have a sensible debate about us as they simply are not capable of it.

Just log on, then cram into every post as much mockery and piss-taking of them as possible, until the inevitable petty ban drops down on you.

Seeing the way he speaks now, it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that he wasn't that bad for us. But the simple fact is that, if Eddie Howe had those players in 2011/12 he'd have got that team into the top 4 in that season, and top 6 for any season after that.

It will be Rigg. Not that surprised he hasn't come here because he'd be miles off a starting place. We could have bought him and loaned him out though.

Their hatred of the Saudis is based on thinly-veiled racism. They've now got a problem with Yasir Al-Rumayyan being addressed as "Your Excellency" by the NUFC interviewer, even though that's his title. You just know that these fuckers are itching to let loose and say that all Saudis are "dirty arabs" or suchlike.

1 hour ago, et tu brute said:

Looks like the PIF one been deleted as I can't see it.

They've blended it into the main thread on Parsnip.

I'm genuinely intrugued to see how this lot will react if we start winning stuff. David Attenborough will need to do a documentary on it. 

Someone I know went to our game at Spurs and wasn't impressed with the noise.

One thing that perplexes me about that place is that it hasnt even got a roof that gives decent cover from the rain. It's like they designed it as if it was situated in Spain.

If we get a new stadium then it had better have a proper roof, ie one that goes all the way up to the pitch and also keeps the sound locked in.