mrmojorisin75

thought harper had refused the offer ages ago? said he never played enough games to warrant one...or did i imagine that?

On his own, not a chance. On his own its pretty much what you would call the ultimate "trophy" signing. Their ticket sales etc would go through the roof, naturally and rightly so. But what really matters is they follow it up with 2 or 3 really top quality younger signings. Such as Bentley, for one. Persuading one or two players like Hart, Richards, Dunne and Johnson to sign longer deals. Now THAT would really convince me. As for Newcastle United, and people saying that our new way of searching for bargains and kids is the way to go Would anybody on this message board not be delighted if Newcastle United did the above ? Your point in bold is excellent Dave we kind of discussed this on another thread but never got down to brass tacks regarding ambition for NUFC - what do you think is a realistic summer ambition for us? as you say here man city already have a better squad than us so if they sign ronaldinho and YOU still reckon they need another 3-4 bentley-esque signings, what is realistic for us this summer? given the amount of players we need rid of 'cause they're s***, plus the ones we've already let go we would need some amount of rebuilding huh? suppose i'm trying to pin you down on details that i might not get, but in your posts there's always an undercurrent of impatience, if you like; if we're ambitious enough to crack the top four we'll spend money and that's about it...do you think we could have a such a summer to leave us in a position to have a go at the top four next season? if not when do you think we should be aiming for that by? i'm genuinely interested mind, this is not a fishing expedition 'cause i reckon we agree on the basics - buying the best players makes the best teams! for my part i honestly, honestly think it would take an investment of 100m+ to get us anywhere near europe again and as that's never happened in football apart from the one obvious exception & consider it unrealistic for us, or indeed anyone else...as for 2-3 consecutive 50m spending summers that's a different matter - it's what i think we should be expecting a minimum personally if you consider nothing else bar the increased TV revenue each club gets, spending anything less than that is akin to f***ing the fans over IMO

Needs a holiday after having 3 years off. If that was me i'd be at every game, working 24-7 to better the club, SBR style. OR more realistically when the season finishes work to get one or two KEY signings made then take a relaxing holiday before completing the squad building late june to early july you'll not talk any sense into these people TT - we've done the same thing year in year out in the transfer market so why could we/would we possibly do anything different given our prior "successes"? it's ostrich time...the "look at you panicking 'cause we've not signed anyone on 9th june" brigade will say the same thing until the last day of transfer window guaranteed...at 23:58 august 31st they'll be saying "there's still time man" not one of the people ridiculing you/me or whoever, not a single one, can offer me a satisfactory answer for us not making sure a signing or two is in the bag early on - tells it's own story....

Not sure i have read somewhere that we will Then we sack him and make him pay £5.8m. That will teach the tosser. He's made a massive effort since coming out of the clinic but we've got to look after the club, and getting our coin back would be the best thing for the club imo. how can we make him pay us 5.8m dude? put a gun to his head? think the mutu ruling was down to the fact that after his ban he went to juve for nowt when chelski still held his registration wasn't it? so they're effectively making him pay back the fee chelski should have got from juve if we sack barton any fee would come from his next club as we would have the registration

fucken hell man, this forums always extremes...why does it have to be so black and white (ahem)? can't someone extol the virtue of identifying transfer targets early in the season and securing them before a major tournament (when prices traditionally go up for players) without being compared to a kid pissing his pants? obviously not i'd like someone to disagree with me that what i've just suggested is a bad idea in any way shape or form, 'cause you'll instantly be condemning yourself as a twat for my part i think we've got plenty of time but would have liked to see a big move for a playmaker in the bag, then sit the euros out and make our moves in july...as it is we look like we'll be making most of our moves in july and that's OK as long as it's early, the closer it gets to august the more detrimental the effect will be on our pre-season plans

you beat me to it!!! i was mentally writing the call out on that one when i read your post!!

jesus christ man, never mind the better player - if we got an offer of 10m then sell him and worst case scenario play the zog on the other side cutting, or lua lua worst case for 10m we could get a lot better than milner, as much as i like the kid I meant I'd worry about replacing him for a similar price with too similar a player, quality-wise. nah, keegan could rustle up a better winger than milner for 10m surely? any names in mind bar SWP? A lot of average players are being touted for inflated prices because of the market no, but then i never knew much about ginola or gillespie either before keegan signed them

if we're keeping him i'd give him a shot behind the strikers pre-season i remember one pre-season he did and looked good coming in late, scored a few that summer 'cause we had no strikers or summat...he's not good enough as a winger but a change of role might help him utilise his energy and shooting ability a lot better?

jesus christ man, never mind the better player - if we got an offer of 10m then sell him and worst case scenario play the zog on the other side cutting, or lua lua worst case for 10m we could get a lot better than milner, as much as i like the kid I meant I'd worry about replacing him for a similar price with too similar a player, quality-wise. nah, keegan could rustle up a better winger than milner for 10m surely?

jesus christ man, never mind the better player - if we got an offer of 10m then sell him and worst case scenario play the zog on the other side cutting, or lua lua worst case for 10m we could get a lot better than milner, as much as i like the kid

reminds me of the old seth johnson story when he signed for leeds...the agent and SJ went in with a figure in mind and ridsdale swanned in and offered them double or something without even asking!!!! they laughed their way out of the place apparently but then ridsdale denied, be a pity if it wasn't true

there was also that time against everton (iirc) when he went in hard as nails and got wiped out, then wandered about trying to play on as his teeth were falling out and that swings and roundabouts anyone watch much of him at west ham? wonder how he's getting on...

quick reply, but if we had won just one Cup Final, by virtue of playing the smoggies instead of the premiership champions, would your perspective of the Halls and Shepherd be different ? And yet, the Champions League is supposed to be the be all and end all these days ? Leeds fans were in their element during those European Cup semi final days etc, they would hardly have been anything else. The ones I know were anyway. They also condemn Ridsdale for BORROWING money to buy too many players. They know they aren't big enough for that, they certainly know they don't have the support of Newcastle. As for Everton, its taken them 6 years (SIX) to get to 5th in the league, at least 4 of those were watching Allardyce type stuff, and we already know the answer to the question would we really want to watch that for 4 years. And they aren't challenging their neighbours, nothing like it, and when they upgrade their wooden delapitated stadium, they will be in debt Maybe it won't stop them from winning a cup or two though, just like the current top 4 clubs though Anyway mate, your're cherry picking, the vast majority of clubs aren't successful because they don't spend money, not vice versa, I held up the mackems as an example. They are a big club too you know ? I'M cherry picking, ME?? masterful, masterful mate it's taken liverpool over a decade of big spending to scrape 4th every year mate, and everton making 5th in SIX years (i'll ignore that 4th place they had just in homage to you) is considered bad by you? don't bother wheeling out the cup wins 'cause i know already amazing...i was always under the impression you had unrealistic ambitions for the club and you've just confirmed them, just how much bigger than leeds do you actually think we are? if you think under the old board or new NUFC getting back to anywhere near the top 4-5 by spending big alone then you are severely deluded, it's unsustainable for a club our size in the current circumstances of the 2008 EPL we had 80m of debt did we not? and we'd have needed to increase that debt significantly to even come close to the top five, but yeah EVERTON are the mugs err.......Liverpool have been winning trophies since 1958, when Shankly took over as manager. During that time, they have ALWAYS set high standards of footballer, and paid the money when they wanted the absolute top player. As UV has also said, loads of clubs are run like Everton, and get precisely nowhere, so you are cherry picking. Would you really swap our last decade - and a further 5 if you like - with Evertons ? I think we are a canny bit bigger than Leeds. We always were, until Don Revie took them over at the same time as McKeag, Westwood etc ran us into the ground for 40 years taking us in the opposite direction. Also - they were massively in debt and that is WITHOUT doing anything to their council owned crap stadium. Do you think that these clubs are going to be able to carry on for decades with the stadiums and avoid going into this crippling debt that you appear to think prevents clubs from winning trophies - I've quoted the top 4 already as role models, I have no idea why you want to choose mediocre teams as role models instead. THAT is what I call unrealistic ambitions and belief in your club. Makes me wonder how many people on here really understand what mediocrity is all about, my guess is not too many. By the way, please point out where I have EVER said that ANY of the top clubs - ie meaning us as in following the way they do it - have done what they have done "by spending big alone" fair enough on the spending big alone thing, they don't just do that, but then i don't recall saying YOU said it either, perhaps implied it was your primary or maybe ONLY judgement on how well a football club is run just out of interest are you not cherry picking your favourite decade of the clubs history and trotting it out to suit you in every situation? you're the guy who always refers to a decade so when did that start? 92? 94? 96? whenever you're starting it add ten then start the argument with the new decade; so 2002, 2004, 2006 onwards? all ratshit basically in the grand scheme of things when you start that "decade" would you swap our last decade with evertons in the 1980's? such a question is just as relevant and meaningless as when you reference liverpool circa 1958 and leeds under revie while at the same time talking about our last decade? laughable... i'll combine both your replies into one with the next bit; don't try and tell me what i advocate, i'll say it myself when i have an opinion...i raised this whole point about the balance between succeeding and financial sense/suicide (call it what you will) - i don't deal in absolutes, idiots do that, so i can see the virtue of running a club the way everton do, the way blackburn do; it doesn't mean i automatically think we should copy everything they do as i've told you in the past i think there's a certain strength to your argument about building on the potential of the club; to me we had 2 times to do that, under keegan mk1 and robson and we basically f***ed them both up with the best of intentions...you might think we're as big you do but cementing our place on either of those occaisions would have sealed it - as it is in everywhere else but your mind we're seen as a bit of a failure all round, a bit of a joke to many just so we're clear this is what i think - we had a go, a good go at success and i applaud shepherd/hall or whoever you want to name for it, i had some of my best footballing moments during the period and i doubt i'd swap them for anything...i remember walking out of wembley after arsenal turned us over and thinking how glorious we were in failure and how numb they were in victory, i'm not sure i'd swap places with them then to be honest 'cause being us is something they'll never understand THAT SAID there surely has to come a point where it became clear that the money we spent in this over a decade had caught up to us and realism needed to kick in, if you can't see that i pity you, but 80m in debt with an out of control wage bill and a team utterly unable to get out of the bottom half isn't gonna fix itself overnight is it? if i hold everton up as an example of anything it's of a club who were riddled in debt and stuck to a plan that's got them from the brink of relegation to europe in a few years, surely you can see that this is our only hope short term? we need to get to a point where have a decent balanced squad and can spend on the big players to make our claim AGAIN...if we go out now and spend 50m on 3 magnificent players or whatever i simply think we'll end up back where we were 'cause the squad is imbalanced and weak it's what needed to happen under bobby - he spent 3 (?) seasons balancing the books and building a nice tidy squad then hit us with the summer of robert and bellamy and we took off again and the spending started, THIS is all i'm advocating I'm not cherrry picking anything. My point is that to succeed and sustain success, you MUST have players the top 4 want themselves, and this means buying players for the top fees, or they will ( key point ). As I keep saying, they haven't spent the money themselves if they didnt' think it was necessary. As a slight aside, the best team we have had at Newcastle in the last 50 years was also done by spending like the other big boys. If nothing else in what is being said here can be taken on board by you - perhaps because you are younger - then surely you can grasp this particular truth ? You will not challenge these teams by taking the approach the also rans take ie leaving the big players to someone else. With a good manager it will take you so far and thats all. A club with the 3rd biggest crowd in the UK ? Well there is something wrong if they can't compete with the other big boys. I know the reason why you and others reject this, its just because you feel the need to reject everything the fat b****** did, just because he's the fat b******. Thats true and you know it. Which brings me onto your point about the last 10 or 15 years. Personally, I see it as 15 years, but as a lot of people seem to split the era of the Halls and Shepherd into 2 parts - which I don't because nothing really changed other than the figurehead and spokesperson of the group - I do this just to humour them and point out that the past decade wasn't really so bad as they make out. It's pretty obvious that SJH was far better at PR than Shepherd, but personally, I don't give a monkeys for PR. The only PR that concerns me is winning, and 52000 fans every home game - over half of which weren't interested in the club for years previously - must have been attracted by something. Basically, if you are saying the expansion of the stadium was a bad move, then you are massively wrong. There is just no way that anybody can say that this was not a long awaited and excellent move by the club. Add to that the new training academey, facilities etc. I would have certainly swapped our decade in the 1960's, 70's and 80's with Everton, I'd have done that before you could say Gordon Lee, but no way would i have swapped the last 15 years. Not a chance. I don't disagree that we messed Keegan up the first time, but its rather strange that nobody mentions this, this is probably because it was the major shareholders decision to take the club onto the stock exchange though and unfortunately, as with Ashley, it seems some people are beyond criticism whereas others are damned whatever they do. I'm not denying that things went wrong with the appointment of Souness, and never have. Others on here supported him until the end though so there is no point in telling me that the club spent money on s*** players and undersold good players, because I was one who said it was going to happen. When you talk about realism, you should realise that nobody appoints the "right" manager all the time, thats why the top 4 clubs haven't always been the top 4 and they won't remain so either. That is realistic. You have to accept that everybody makes mistakes. When it comes down to it in the end though, you are better off with an ambitous board that will reach out rather than one playing the prudency game and operating a "sell to buy" policy. Are you prepared to see the club lose top players, and lose out to top players, by capping wages in future ? Do you seriously think that a club like us with the support we have should be operating at the lower levels of the likes of Portsmouth and blackburn ? you're not reading what i've posted, you're putting words in my mouth to suit yourself so there's little point in continuing well, if you read it again, you will see I've pretty much responded on everything you asked /mentioned ie the stadium, Everton, Ken Bates, buying top players [in particular where you say I said only buying top players . I actually thought lately you were seeing the reality of the situation at the club, particularly as the new owners haven't exactly set the world on fire yet, and you are one person I have quite liked debating with previously. We'll see what happens. oooooh-k dude, you've killed yourself in the first sentence 'cause i never ONCE brought the stadium into matters, i mentioned debt, you mentioned the stadium...go back and see if you like i also responded to the bit about "only buying players" or whatever in the last post so i'm not sure why you're mentioning it again? and i'm totally with you about the new board/owner, totally, they need to get their fingers out and stop talking a good game rather than playing one...the reality of the situation as we each see it is vastly different though, i think that's the fundamental problem here - as i said i'm in total agreement with you about the end game and our potential as a club, but the REALITY as i see it now is we have too many high earners who can barely play football dragging us down and to "quick fix" that is going to be very difficult and take A LOT of money, i think we need a couple of seasons of building a stronger, younger squad then go out and buy big again you're right, good players may go to other clubs in that time but that's the nature of football, there's ALWAYS another good player, always [oh and i kind of like debating with you too, but i realised when my replies were as big as they were things seemed to be getting bogged down a bit!!]

quick reply, but if we had won just one Cup Final, by virtue of playing the smoggies instead of the premiership champions, would your perspective of the Halls and Shepherd be different ? And yet, the Champions League is supposed to be the be all and end all these days ? Leeds fans were in their element during those European Cup semi final days etc, they would hardly have been anything else. The ones I know were anyway. They also condemn Ridsdale for BORROWING money to buy too many players. They know they aren't big enough for that, they certainly know they don't have the support of Newcastle. As for Everton, its taken them 6 years (SIX) to get to 5th in the league, at least 4 of those were watching Allardyce type stuff, and we already know the answer to the question would we really want to watch that for 4 years. And they aren't challenging their neighbours, nothing like it, and when they upgrade their wooden delapitated stadium, they will be in debt Maybe it won't stop them from winning a cup or two though, just like the current top 4 clubs though Anyway mate, your're cherry picking, the vast majority of clubs aren't successful because they don't spend money, not vice versa, I held up the mackems as an example. They are a big club too you know ? I'M cherry picking, ME?? masterful, masterful mate it's taken liverpool over a decade of big spending to scrape 4th every year mate, and everton making 5th in SIX years (i'll ignore that 4th place they had just in homage to you) is considered bad by you? don't bother wheeling out the cup wins 'cause i know already amazing...i was always under the impression you had unrealistic ambitions for the club and you've just confirmed them, just how much bigger than leeds do you actually think we are? if you think under the old board or new NUFC getting back to anywhere near the top 4-5 by spending big alone then you are severely deluded, it's unsustainable for a club our size in the current circumstances of the 2008 EPL we had 80m of debt did we not? and we'd have needed to increase that debt significantly to even come close to the top five, but yeah EVERTON are the mugs err.......Liverpool have been winning trophies since 1958, when Shankly took over as manager. During that time, they have ALWAYS set high standards of footballer, and paid the money when they wanted the absolute top player. As UV has also said, loads of clubs are run like Everton, and get precisely nowhere, so you are cherry picking. Would you really swap our last decade - and a further 5 if you like - with Evertons ? I think we are a canny bit bigger than Leeds. We always were, until Don Revie took them over at the same time as McKeag, Westwood etc ran us into the ground for 40 years taking us in the opposite direction. Also - they were massively in debt and that is WITHOUT doing anything to their council owned crap stadium. Do you think that these clubs are going to be able to carry on for decades with the stadiums and avoid going into this crippling debt that you appear to think prevents clubs from winning trophies - I've quoted the top 4 already as role models, I have no idea why you want to choose mediocre teams as role models instead. THAT is what I call unrealistic ambitions and belief in your club. Makes me wonder how many people on here really understand what mediocrity is all about, my guess is not too many. By the way, please point out where I have EVER said that ANY of the top clubs - ie meaning us as in following the way they do it - have done what they have done "by spending big alone" fair enough on the spending big alone thing, they don't just do that, but then i don't recall saying YOU said it either, perhaps implied it was your primary or maybe ONLY judgement on how well a football club is run just out of interest are you not cherry picking your favourite decade of the clubs history and trotting it out to suit you in every situation? you're the guy who always refers to a decade so when did that start? 92? 94? 96? whenever you're starting it add ten then start the argument with the new decade; so 2002, 2004, 2006 onwards? all ratshit basically in the grand scheme of things when you start that "decade" would you swap our last decade with evertons in the 1980's? such a question is just as relevant and meaningless as when you reference liverpool circa 1958 and leeds under revie while at the same time talking about our last decade? laughable... i'll combine both your replies into one with the next bit; don't try and tell me what i advocate, i'll say it myself when i have an opinion...i raised this whole point about the balance between succeeding and financial sense/suicide (call it what you will) - i don't deal in absolutes, idiots do that, so i can see the virtue of running a club the way everton do, the way blackburn do; it doesn't mean i automatically think we should copy everything they do as i've told you in the past i think there's a certain strength to your argument about building on the potential of the club; to me we had 2 times to do that, under keegan mk1 and robson and we basically f***ed them both up with the best of intentions...you might think we're as big you do but cementing our place on either of those occaisions would have sealed it - as it is in everywhere else but your mind we're seen as a bit of a failure all round, a bit of a joke to many just so we're clear this is what i think - we had a go, a good go at success and i applaud shepherd/hall or whoever you want to name for it, i had some of my best footballing moments during the period and i doubt i'd swap them for anything...i remember walking out of wembley after arsenal turned us over and thinking how glorious we were in failure and how numb they were in victory, i'm not sure i'd swap places with them then to be honest 'cause being us is something they'll never understand THAT SAID there surely has to come a point where it became clear that the money we spent in this over a decade had caught up to us and realism needed to kick in, if you can't see that i pity you, but 80m in debt with an out of control wage bill and a team utterly unable to get out of the bottom half isn't gonna fix itself overnight is it? if i hold everton up as an example of anything it's of a club who were riddled in debt and stuck to a plan that's got them from the brink of relegation to europe in a few years, surely you can see that this is our only hope short term? we need to get to a point where have a decent balanced squad and can spend on the big players to make our claim AGAIN...if we go out now and spend 50m on 3 magnificent players or whatever i simply think we'll end up back where we were 'cause the squad is imbalanced and weak it's what needed to happen under bobby - he spent 3 (?) seasons balancing the books and building a nice tidy squad then hit us with the summer of robert and bellamy and we took off again and the spending started, THIS is all i'm advocating I'm not cherrry picking anything. My point is that to succeed and sustain success, you MUST have players the top 4 want themselves, and this means buying players for the top fees, or they will ( key point ). As I keep saying, they haven't spent the money themselves if they didnt' think it was necessary. As a slight aside, the best team we have had at Newcastle in the last 50 years was also done by spending like the other big boys. If nothing else in what is being said here can be taken on board by you - perhaps because you are younger - then surely you can grasp this particular truth ? You will not challenge these teams by taking the approach the also rans take ie leaving the big players to someone else. With a good manager it will take you so far and thats all. A club with the 3rd biggest crowd in the UK ? Well there is something wrong if they can't compete with the other big boys. I know the reason why you and others reject this, its just because you feel the need to reject everything the fat b****** did, just because he's the fat b******. Thats true and you know it. Which brings me onto your point about the last 10 or 15 years. Personally, I see it as 15 years, but as a lot of people seem to split the era of the Halls and Shepherd into 2 parts - which I don't because nothing really changed other than the figurehead and spokesperson of the group - I do this just to humour them and point out that the past decade wasn't really so bad as they make out. It's pretty obvious that SJH was far better at PR than Shepherd, but personally, I don't give a monkeys for PR. The only PR that concerns me is winning, and 52000 fans every home game - over half of which weren't interested in the club for years previously - must have been attracted by something. Basically, if you are saying the expansion of the stadium was a bad move, then you are massively wrong. There is just no way that anybody can say that this was not a long awaited and excellent move by the club. Add to that the new training academey, facilities etc. I would have certainly swapped our decade in the 1960's, 70's and 80's with Everton, I'd have done that before you could say Gordon Lee, but no way would i have swapped the last 15 years. Not a chance. I don't disagree that we messed Keegan up the first time, but its rather strange that nobody mentions this, this is probably because it was the major shareholders decision to take the club onto the stock exchange though and unfortunately, as with Ashley, it seems some people are beyond criticism whereas others are damned whatever they do. I'm not denying that things went wrong with the appointment of Souness, and never have. Others on here supported him until the end though so there is no point in telling me that the club spent money on s*** players and undersold good players, because I was one who said it was going to happen. When you talk about realism, you should realise that nobody appoints the "right" manager all the time, thats why the top 4 clubs haven't always been the top 4 and they won't remain so either. That is realistic. You have to accept that everybody makes mistakes. When it comes down to it in the end though, you are better off with an ambitous board that will reach out rather than one playing the prudency game and operating a "sell to buy" policy. Are you prepared to see the club lose top players, and lose out to top players, by capping wages in future ? Do you seriously think that a club like us with the support we have should be operating at the lower levels of the likes of Portsmouth and blackburn ? you're not reading what i've posted, you're putting words in my mouth to suit yourself so there's little point in continuing

and the point you're trying to make is? everton failed to etc... despite NOT spending vast sums of money on transfers in the years before that and having a higher league placing than us, yet we (with the bigger wage bill and shitter players) finishing bottom half (or was it 7th that year?) could do what exactly with our debt? yet everton acheived a european finish with debt, so isn't good in your book? they were punching their weight, no? the second one: what were the league positions of the other non-promoted clubs named there? 3 of them finished in CL spots, spurs i can't be bothered to look up but either 5th or lower despite spending fucksites of money and us, bottom half of the table? or was that roeders 7th place, the blip on our recent run of bottom half finishes? we're not gonna agree, i have a point i'm making and i think i've made it to death, i haven't a clue what you're on about...spending is good, spending is bad, we spent too much, we spent too little, we should spend now, we should not spend now, we've got a nice stadium everton haven't, debt is good, debt is bad?? blah-dee-fucking-blah

quick reply, but if we had won just one Cup Final, by virtue of playing the smoggies instead of the premiership champions, would your perspective of the Halls and Shepherd be different ? And yet, the Champions League is supposed to be the be all and end all these days ? Leeds fans were in their element during those European Cup semi final days etc, they would hardly have been anything else. The ones I know were anyway. They also condemn Ridsdale for BORROWING money to buy too many players. They know they aren't big enough for that, they certainly know they don't have the support of Newcastle. As for Everton, its taken them 6 years (SIX) to get to 5th in the league, at least 4 of those were watching Allardyce type stuff, and we already know the answer to the question would we really want to watch that for 4 years. And they aren't challenging their neighbours, nothing like it, and when they upgrade their wooden delapitated stadium, they will be in debt Maybe it won't stop them from winning a cup or two though, just like the current top 4 clubs though Anyway mate, your're cherry picking, the vast majority of clubs aren't successful because they don't spend money, not vice versa, I held up the mackems as an example. They are a big club too you know ? I'M cherry picking, ME?? masterful, masterful mate it's taken liverpool over a decade of big spending to scrape 4th every year mate, and everton making 5th in SIX years (i'll ignore that 4th place they had just in homage to you) is considered bad by you? don't bother wheeling out the cup wins 'cause i know already amazing...i was always under the impression you had unrealistic ambitions for the club and you've just confirmed them, just how much bigger than leeds do you actually think we are? if you think under the old board or new NUFC getting back to anywhere near the top 4-5 by spending big alone then you are severely deluded, it's unsustainable for a club our size in the current circumstances of the 2008 EPL we had 80m of debt did we not? and we'd have needed to increase that debt significantly to even come close to the top five, but yeah EVERTON are the mugs err.......Liverpool have been winning trophies since 1958, when Shankly took over as manager. During that time, they have ALWAYS set high standards of footballer, and paid the money when they wanted the absolute top player. As UV has also said, loads of clubs are run like Everton, and get precisely nowhere, so you are cherry picking. Would you really swap our last decade - and a further 5 if you like - with Evertons ? I think we are a canny bit bigger than Leeds. We always were, until Don Revie took them over at the same time as McKeag, Westwood etc ran us into the ground for 40 years taking us in the opposite direction. Also - they were massively in debt and that is WITHOUT doing anything to their council owned crap stadium. Do you think that these clubs are going to be able to carry on for decades with the stadiums and avoid going into this crippling debt that you appear to think prevents clubs from winning trophies - I've quoted the top 4 already as role models, I have no idea why you want to choose mediocre teams as role models instead. THAT is what I call unrealistic ambitions and belief in your club. Makes me wonder how many people on here really understand what mediocrity is all about, my guess is not too many. By the way, please point out where I have EVER said that ANY of the top clubs - ie meaning us as in following the way they do it - have done what they have done "by spending big alone" fair enough on the spending big alone thing, they don't just do that, but then i don't recall saying YOU said it either, perhaps implied it was your primary or maybe ONLY judgement on how well a football club is run just out of interest are you not cherry picking your favourite decade of the clubs history and trotting it out to suit you in every situation? you're the guy who always refers to a decade so when did that start? 92? 94? 96? whenever you're starting it add ten then start the argument with the new decade; so 2002, 2004, 2006 onwards? all ratshit basically in the grand scheme of things when you start that "decade" would you swap our last decade with evertons in the 1980's? such a question is just as relevant and meaningless as when you reference liverpool circa 1958 and leeds under revie while at the same time talking about our last decade? laughable... i'll combine both your replies into one with the next bit; don't try and tell me what i advocate, i'll say it myself when i have an opinion...i raised this whole point about the balance between succeeding and financial sense/suicide (call it what you will) - i don't deal in absolutes, idiots do that, so i can see the virtue of running a club the way everton do, the way blackburn do; it doesn't mean i automatically think we should copy everything they do as i've told you in the past i think there's a certain strength to your argument about building on the potential of the club; to me we had 2 times to do that, under keegan mk1 and robson and we basically fucked them both up with the best of intentions...you might think we're as big you do but cementing our place on either of those occaisions would have sealed it - as it is in everywhere else but your mind we're seen as a bit of a failure all round, a bit of a joke to many just so we're clear this is what i think - we had a go, a good go at success and i applaud shepherd/hall or whoever you want to name for it, i had some of my best footballing moments during the period and i doubt i'd swap them for anything...i remember walking out of wembley after arsenal turned us over and thinking how glorious we were in failure and how numb they were in victory, i'm not sure i'd swap places with them then to be honest 'cause being us is something they'll never understand THAT SAID there surely has to come a point where it became clear that the money we spent in this over a decade had caught up to us and realism needed to kick in, if you can't see that i pity you, but 80m in debt with an out of control wage bill and a team utterly unable to get out of the bottom half isn't gonna fix itself overnight is it? if i hold everton up as an example of anything it's of a club who were riddled in debt and stuck to a plan that's got them from the brink of relegation to europe in a few years, surely you can see that this is our only hope short term? we need to get to a point where have a decent balanced squad and can spend on the big players to make our claim AGAIN...if we go out now and spend 50m on 3 magnificent players or whatever i simply think we'll end up back where we were 'cause the squad is imbalanced and weak it's what needed to happen under bobby - he spent 3 (?) seasons balancing the books and building a nice tidy squad then hit us with the summer of robert and bellamy and we took off again and the spending started, THIS is all i'm advocating

saw a bit about that the other day but never read the story, he's not donating the money right? it's interest free loans... imagine if that story came out about us in the press...it'd be mental, as it's chelski you hear nowt about it wonder what the implications are there, if any

Eh, yes. That's the exact meaning of it. Using the best example out of a bunch of teams using the same approach is cherry picking. It's like using Solano as a justification for buying loads of cheap South American players and ignoring the many more cheap South American players who have failed in the Premiership. Why not compare us to Boro, Charlton, Fulham, Man City, etc, etc? Why would we have to suddenly make the debt disappear? It was manageable. The club was sustainable for a couple of years until we reduced the wage bill to a level suitable for the Championship. If we halved the wage bill (easily done if necessary after a few years) we'd turn a profit on gate receipts alone. Half the debt was manageable stadium expansion debt by the way. I'm hoping you're not going to argue we shouldn't have taken that on. Like I said, back it up with facts and figures and I'll listen. It was "well reported" that we were f***ed too. Selling a couple of players whilst not desirable is also not financial ruin. I've cherry picked your post for the bits that were worthy of a response. worthy of a response, listen to you man...who the fuck do you think YOU are like? i'll ask you though - point me to the teams who have successfully reached and sustained european football by spending big OTHER than manu, liverpool, arsenal & chelsea since abramovic... there aren't any, so you CAN'T cherry pick any can you? not even we managed to sustain it...everton have managed to sustain a CHALLENGE for the top four for a couple of seasons now, blackburn a challenge for europe under hughes and the same for villa/pompey recently without breaking the bank...but then i've only named you 5 clubs out of a possible 20 there so i'm cherry picking still i guess... the part you seem unable to grasp is they're doing it in a SUSTAINABLE way and thus have a chance to keep it going the debt we had was manageable with a 50,000+ crowd each home game, PL money in the 10's of millions and associated sponsorship etc.... unless you bounce back up i'm sure the landscape for a club with 80m or so debt would change VERY quickly my friend, very quickly indeed...leeds again anyone? helloooooooo! i haven't got the time to trawl for facts and figures on chelski's debt, but it's like the wind mate, because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there

yeah but we gave it a shot don't you know? the whole things comparable to an addicted gambler who starts by spending the money he actually has, when he loses that he takes out debt in a bid to recover what he's already lost, then he goes to a loan shark to cover the full amount in one easy lumpsum - the next logical step is he gets his kneecaps shot off...thanks to ashley we probably avoided the kneecapping!!!! [don't bother NE5/UV i already know it's not a perfect comparison]

cherry picking again eh? jesus...so using a good example to make a point is cherry picking is it? by the way i never said WE were anywhere near bankruptcy, just that our finances were in a poor state...use bolton, blackburn & villa as teams who have either made europe or come very close in the same way, punching above their weight but still getting close or actually doing it don't bother saying "so we should have the same ambition as blah blah fucking blah" 'cause it's been said before i think you're very, very wrong about our fortunes should we have ever been relegated mate...our players are worth shite NOW so what would they be worth should we have ended up div one? and that's the only feasible way we'd have dented the 80m ain't it? by selling also i'm no expert but it was well reported at the time chelsea were about fucked...reports varied but a week from being unable to operate was mentioned; i remember it so well because it was rumoured that we were hovering about looking at terry and other clubs at lampard once they hit the wall "On takeovers in general - Chelsea, Man U, Portsmouth, Villa, West Ham & Liverpool all got taken over before us. Is that a sign that they were all well run or badly run? I'm not sure what your point is." - i'm sure what your point is either; portsmouth are a nothing club, villa were run down for years, west ham were recovering from a relegation/promotion fiasco so who knows about their finances? never said anything about about the extra debt doing anything to ashleys intentions, merely pointing out he was bitten by it, which he was...i have no idea of his intentions, neither do you as for everton of course it's the manager but it also has quite a lot to do with selling rooney - they were in financial trouble also when they sold him but did it to secure their long term future...seemed to work out pretty well for them in the end? but big clubs don't sell do they? prior to ashley we had the debt and wage bill of a CL team and the players for a relegation struggle, that's the start and end of it mate...you wanna put a gold plated finish on a turd knock yourself out, it's still a turd when you scratch the surface

quick reply, but if we had won just one Cup Final, by virtue of playing the smoggies instead of the premiership champions, would your perspective of the Halls and Shepherd be different ? And yet, the Champions League is supposed to be the be all and end all these days ? Leeds fans were in their element during those European Cup semi final days etc, they would hardly have been anything else. The ones I know were anyway. They also condemn Ridsdale for BORROWING money to buy too many players. They know they aren't big enough for that, they certainly know they don't have the support of Newcastle. As for Everton, its taken them 6 years (SIX) to get to 5th in the league, at least 4 of those were watching Allardyce type stuff, and we already know the answer to the question would we really want to watch that for 4 years. And they aren't challenging their neighbours, nothing like it, and when they upgrade their wooden delapitated stadium, they will be in debt Maybe it won't stop them from winning a cup or two though, just like the current top 4 clubs though Anyway mate, your're cherry picking, the vast majority of clubs aren't successful because they don't spend money, not vice versa, I held up the mackems as an example. They are a big club too you know ? I'M cherry picking, ME?? masterful, masterful mate it's taken liverpool over a decade of big spending to scrape 4th every year mate, and everton making 5th in SIX years (i'll ignore that 4th place they had just in homage to you) is considered bad by you? don't bother wheeling out the cup wins 'cause i know already amazing...i was always under the impression you had unrealistic ambitions for the club and you've just confirmed them, just how much bigger than leeds do you actually think we are? if you think under the old board or new NUFC getting back to anywhere near the top 4-5 by spending big alone then you are severely deluded, it's unsustainable for a club our size in the current circumstances of the 2008 EPL we had 80m of debt did we not? and we'd have needed to increase that debt significantly to even come close to the top five, but yeah EVERTON are the mugs

pretty much the response i expected NE5...but your response would have been a little different i'd guess if abramovic HADN'T come along i'd guess but we'll never know suppose i could ask the question of leeds eh? they backed their manager to the detriment of the club, do you think you'd hear leeds fans complaining about that period? they'd more than likely tell you it was great at the time but seeing as it totally fucked the club they'd maybe rather not have had that champions league semi final to show for it one thing i find amusing is your ridiculing someone in another thread about "hindsight signings" yet you're saying in this post that chelsea fans wouldn't be complaining 'cause they had some good times and won some cups in the past when their club was on the brink of financial collapse...it's only hindsight that makes that period good for the club, had things gone the other way it might very well have been seen as the creating darkest in their history finally, and this is for UV too, abramovic bought chelski after spurs told him to beat it so they weren't as attractive as all that were they? he probably knew they were there for the taking due to their financial situation and they were in london with decent facilities...if it was an attractive, successful side he wanted why not buy arsenal or man utd? same goes for ashley really...our share price was low due to the recent poor results and perceived (put that in for you) bad financial state of the club and he saw an opportunity to buy a great club for a reasonable amount of money, ostensibly; he was then bitten in the arse by the debt anyway seems like i'm trying to turn this into an old board argument, and i'm not, honestly another question though; are everton giving it a go at the moment? 'cause i agree it's better to try than not to try but what do you consider "having a stab"? seems to me they're trying to break into the top four by buying and developing players, and you can't say they're not paying big fees either really can you? so would you be happy with an everton-esque approach? or for us to have a stab do we have to spend beyond our means? or ask yourself the same question about aston villa maybe? i'm guessing i already know the answer to that one too

Don't forget, we're booting out the sensible new chairman after a year (even though we all knew it was a temporary appointment). Yes, I think that's probably a very fair summation of what people who don't know much about the club think. The thing is, you will only get stability when you get a manager who can meet the chairman/owner's expectations. It's up to the chairman/owner to financially support the manager fairly for that level of expectation, but there's not much you can do about that. That goes for any club, at any level. There's no point in having stability by keeping a manager who is evidently crap and keeps getting you relegated, but for some it's enough to have stability with a manager who can keep a team in mid table and simply avoid relegation every year. Is that stability better for a player than the instability of a team who are constantly striving to better themselves? That's a question for the player and different players will have different ideas about it. Also agents will absolutely LOVE less stable clubs, as they get to cash in on transfer fees more often, so us, Chelsea and Man City should get the pick of the crop this season Agreed. No end to the people prepared to make up any old rubbish to discredit the old board it seems We were "stable" enough when we qualified for europe pretty regularly and had the same manager for 5 years, until the same supporters who now wish he was back, booed him for only finishing 5th in the premiership Takes all sorts I suppose NE5 just a quick one that's occured to me to ask, not sure if you'll comment though as it's not about NUFC, anyway; how would you categorise chelsea under ken bates up to the point of the club being bought out? hoddle, gullit, vialli then ranieri were all backed by the manager, they made europe, won cups, played in the CL and won the CWC they were, however, by common consensus about one week from being unable to run as a business before he sold up to abramovic so is backing the manager the be all and end all is my question really? we obviously weren't in as bad a financial state as chelsea but with a little more time we might well have been

I disagree, we also have a choice not to take the risk. I know it sounds crazy but I think it could be done. I know I haven't really explained myself there. I'll try make some sense for once. I rate Dean Ashton, he's a quality player, he could very well be a huge player for this club, but he's got an injury record, this makes him a risk. I don't see anyone out there, with a proven ability in the PL, who can have as big an impact in the role of CF and that we realistically could attract, than Ashton. A strong target man is just what we need, since we really can't rely on Viduka, and Ashton fits the bill completely. It's a risk and at 10 mill a huge risk, but a risk I think we must take if we want to progress. But as I said earlier, I think we are being used here to bump up his contract offer. Or we could all stop living in the past, get over this "We absolutely must have a big target-man up front" thing, stop relying on the "tactic" of booting the ball up the pitch in the general direction of some big lump and praying for a miracle that is him getting the better of the opposition's defenders considering the vast majority of premiership centre-halves can deal with that all day long, get the team playing some decent passing football and try and move away from being the one-dimensional bottom-half cloggers we seem to have become over the last few years. Dean Ashton is a big step backwards in my view. I think you're seriously under-estimating Ashton there. Yes, he plays as a target man, but his touch on the ball is absolutely superb, and he's very comfortable when the ball is played on the deck. You're right I don't rate him much, at all. But even if I did, for the kind of money we'd be talking about to get him we could get players who are much better at that kind of stuff than he is. Ashton's value gets inflated for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to: "he's English", and; "he's the new Shearer", neither of which are relevant and one of which isn't even close to being true!! We'll never play route 1 football under KK, I honestly don't know what you are going on about. He signed 2 big target men in the past for us, Sir Les and Big Al, and at no point did we play the long ball game. You need diversity in your attack to open up defences, Ashton offers us something different to Martins and Owen. KK values that, his best partnership as a player was when he played for Liverpool with John Toshack (sp?), the big man little man combo worked so well and they won 2 European Cups with it. Bottom line is he's a damn good player, he's proven that in the PL, it's nothing to do with him being English or in the same mould as Shearer, it's to do with his ability and he fills one of our needs. If we're never going to play route one, why is it such a desperate need to have a "strong target man"? As for the 2 big target men he signed for us in the past, both Sir Les and Big Al were so much more than that, they were light years ahead of Ashton. They were great players that also happened to be target men, I'm not so sure that applies to Ashton, he's not what I'd call prolific when it comes to top flight football, unlike those two. Hopefully Keegan realises that football's moved on a bit since the 70s and what worked well then, isn't so good now, big-man/little-man who cares!?! Let's have good-man/good-man, over average-big-man/good-man any day. My bottom line is that I don't think he's that good a player, I don't think he's proven in the Premiership and I think this whole proven in the Premiership thing is bollocks anyway. Yeah, there are different demands playing here than some of the other leagues, but that doesn't mean players from those leagues can't shine here, you just need to have a half decent scouting network and a manager that knows what he's on about to pick them out. Fair enough, we haven't had that in the past, but I reckon we might now, so parochial attitudes about who we should and shouldn't sign, will only hold us back. Then go ahead suggest a better option, that is obtainable by NUFC. Who out there fills our need, or do you think we don't have one? You think Owen and Martins as a paring will work ? I have huge doubts and I don't think for one minute KK has faith in that either. He want's a bigger presence in there. Playing with a big man doesn't mean you have play "70's style football" or route 1 stuff. Labour the point once more please. Arsenal play with a reasonably tall chap up front and are reguarded as perhaps the best footballing side in the land. As someone else pointed out Ashton's game is not just about being the target man, he's good on the deck and goals per game record is pretty decent, just doesn't play enough. I never said he was as good as either Sir Les or Big Al, because he quite clearly isn't but your response was predictable. Sigh. My point, which you chose to ignore was that you can still play pretty "modern" football with a big man or even two in your team. This is not a "oh let's buy him cos he's English" thing, why do you keep bleeting on about that ? There are numerous better options out there, it's not my job to find them, in fact most of them I haven't got the first clue about at all! That's one of the points I'm making, most of the people offering up Dean Ashton as a good potential signing are only saying that because they know who he is. As a club we need to be casting the net a lot wider than simply the other Premiership sides, it's a lazy and ineffective approach and this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say "parochial attitudes". The best players already in England are out of our reach at the moment, in fact most of the mid-range ones are as well. The ones that are available to us are either no great improvement on what we've already got or worse. They're also really poor value for money. Why is Ashton so much better than Viduka? Even the people who want us to sign him are struggling to come up with an answer to that. My own view is that he isn't better than Viduka, his only advantage is he's younger. I don't see why spending £10m plus on replacing Viduka with someone of a similar or worse level, when hopefully by the time Viduka retires we'll be able to attract someone significantly better, is a good idea. It seems like a pointless waste of money to me. I do think we could do with an additional attacking player, but not a target man. What we really need is a Peter Beardsley type player, someone who can create stuff, but will also chip in with a few goals of their own, someone like Modric (from what I've read) or Arshavin (from what I've seen). Both of those were/are getable in my opinion and if they don't end up here there's others like them out there somewhere, we just need to find them. I'll continue to labour the point about big immobile target-men not being what we need for as long as you continue to labour your point that a big immobile target-man is exactly what we need. I've already said that I disagree with you about Ashton's other abilities being all that good, either accept that's what I think or convince me otherwise, I'm not just going to believe it because you tell me to. As for comparing Adebayor with Ashton, well you're right that they're both quite tall, but that's where the comparison ends I'm afraid. As I've said, this is not about whether a player can be a target man if needed, it's about a player being a target man and nothing else. Adebayor has a lot else to his game, Ashton doesn't, in my view anyway. My point about Ferdinand and Shearer may well have been predictable, but you still seem to have totally missed it. What I'm saying is that Les and Big Al had so much more to their game than simply being a target man, Ashton hasn't. You admit yourself that Ashton simply isn't in their league, yet you continue to use them as examples to back up your argument!! Why isn't he in their league? Because he doesn't have all the other aspects to his game that they did!! This is what makes them legends and him merely an also-ran. You'd be much better comparing him to Duncan Ferguson, as that's a much more appropriate comparison, the only problem is that wouldn't really support your argument for signing him, would it!?! Erm, I'm not bleeting [sic] on about him being English, I've mentioned it once in this conversation. Anyway, I'm bored of this now. indi, that's about the best post i've read on here for a long time in all respects, particularly the beardsley role player...that's been what i've been saying for a long long time owen filled the role quite well at the end of the season but he wasn't producing magic, he was playing a simple game and timing his runs...play the same system but a "creative striker" (note not an attacking midfielder) and we'd be in business who isn't for you or i to say though - we need to be casting the net beyond the english PL & FM08 as you say...surely that's the reason we got this real madrid scout fella? isn't he supposed to know every player in the world inside out?

If it was (b) then we're f***ed. If Ashley's going to lie to or mislead the manager then we're never going to be able to get a decent manager to stay for any length of time, and I don't care how many promising young talented players we manage to sign, if we stick with that policy only we're always going to be a mid table side at best acting as a feeder club to those with ambition*. Edit: * That's the ambition to win things, not just the ambition to make a tidy profit. can't say i disagree - keegan needs to be allowed to sign at least SOME of his own targets but i understand, as Tron says, if the board are saying you're not paying 10m+ for a 30 year old we need a balance between the two - SWP for instance or Dunne would be reasonable targets for us to move for, that calibre of player for decent fees that sort of thing, plus some kids for the unknown factor would be the ideal balance...arsenal have the best youngsters around but they couldn't beat the nouse that man u and chelski's more experienced players had saying to KK you're not getting anyone above 'XX' years old regardless of price would be suicide look at spurs - if i were them at the moment i'd be shitting myself about their midfield as they've no experience coming in just kids, what experience they do have basically isn't that good