quayside

Unless he is now the club's spokesman and in charge of all PR - no.

It's plausible. Posted something similar on the previous page. Then I read JFK's comments in the Chronicle which imply that Llambias is onside with this. Mind you I question my sanity at attaching credence to any comments by JFK. I am struggling to understand this but can only come to the conclusion that it is Ashley playing games to ruffle feathers - but whose? There are theories around that he has done this to p1ss the fanbase off but I am not buying that. His targets are AP, DL or both.

Even by Ashley's standards this is a move that is beyond weird. Just a thought....Llambias handles the press releases. The fact that the club have said nothing so far does make me wonder if he is as gobsmacked as the rest of us by this. The "job description" put forward by JFK does seem to include things that Llambias has been responsible for. Also the press seem pretty convinced that this has Ashley fingerprints on it and not those of Llambias. Has Ashley just shafted both Pardew and Llambias? Edit: Have just read JFK's comments in the Chronicle and, unless he is totally in fantasy land, it would seem that Llambias is fully on board with his appointment, so scrub most of what I said above

You would not need a gap of 17 years to measure the decline. You would only need to put a DVD of us under Dalglish or Gullitt to see that.

Mort did make the decision and I don't think sacking Pardew will come from llambias. But Mort was Ashley's man in charge so it has to count as an Ashley sacking as he had the ultimate say. I think you are saying that Ashley is more involved now than he was in 2008 and would probably make the call himself if it came to it and you are probably right.

The legacy is that you don't support sunderland, that's a positive that you can carry right through your life. True enough!

Ashley didn't sack Allardyce, he agreed to it and that's a big difference. Can you explain that? I had thought Allardyce said Ashley told him "you aren't my man" when he sacked him. You saying Mort made the decision? If so not sure there's a big difference tbh. He wouldn't have done it without consulting Ashley.

Supporting Newcastle is like an illness, when you first get it you have a greater resistance to it. The longer it goes on the harder it is to just brush it off. If the clown is still managing us we’ve got to hope that playing in Europe was as bad as he claimed because we’ve got nothing else to look to for a change in fortune. We've also got to hope that we go out of the domestic cups early because we don't want too many games. We’ll also have to hope that we get a decent start because if we have a tough start and a few defeats then we’re in the s*** early on because our manager isn’t going to lift the players, just like he couldn’t do it this season. The straws we’ve got to clutch at look fairly thin on the ground at this time. At least Man U, Everton and Chelsea are going to struggle because they don't have stability, I guess that’s another straw. Know what you mean but I tend to think of it as a life sentence. I'm really only a fan because my parents were living in Tynemouth when I was born and my father brought me up following the club. He used to go and watch the mackems when we were away and they were home - in those days quite a few did just to get out of the house. But NUFC was the club he supported. What a f*cking legacy he has left me Anyway I get through the bad times by thinking of the even worse times and we have had plenty worse than this in my lifetime. Mind you my glass is always half full......

Ashley is a very strange owner. He's sacked (or constructively sacked) managers when things were going well because he didn't get along with them. Seems like he'd prefer to have a struggling manager who will work within his restrictions compliantly than a successful manager who may actually make him buck up his ideas given he's not a football man and only understands finances. Agree with you that he's hard to read but he sacked Allardyce when things were not going well. KK walked because he didn't like the way the club does/did player transactions, he won his case for constructive dismissal but no way was he sacked. Kinnear (who was the only manager Ashley could get at the time) retired through ill health. Shearer was not offered a contract beyond the end of the relegation season so things weren't going well and he wasn't sacked. Hughton was certainly sacked, how well we were doing at the time is open to debate. And that's it really.

Got to say you've really gone flaccid on this in recent days

Apparently it was him in Kenwyne Jones locker.

You may have been asked this before but where is the land of pleasant living?

We missed players like Danny Guthrie, Leon Best and Ryan Taylor (very unlucky) this season. Not those players specifically but players like that with a bit of experience who aren't international standard but can come in and do a decent job when needed and not let you down. Gosling doesn't look like a player. Ferguson, Tavernier, Sameobi, etc aren't ready yet. Bigi isn't far off imo. Not at all sure abut Amalfitano....I've probably missed a few players out but hope you get what I mean

Agree. In fact he cannot say that any player is staying. No manager can. I watched Laudrup say exactly that in a tv interview tonight. What would people expect David Moyes to say if asked whether all the star players will still be at at ManU next season? Something more diplomatic or deflecting maybe? No one can be sure but in the image of improvement you can insist you have no intention of losing your best players when you've recently claimed the squad was too small to deal with the season just past and if anything you are hoping to strengthen it to improve on a disappointing season maybe? He'd get called a c*nt if he came out with that.

Agree. In fact he cannot say that any player is staying. No manager can. I watched Laudrup say exactly that in a tv interview tonight. What would people expect David Moyes to say if asked whether all the star players will still be at at ManU next season?

Confident or not, just keep your trap shut Pardew, it's the usual market stall patter we hear every window. As Dave says, its about the context. Was he asked a question about being confident all our stars would stay? I don't know the answer to that btw. Wahey! Indeed.

Confident or not, just keep your trap shut Pardew, it's the usual market stall patter we hear every window. As Dave says, its about the context. Was he asked a question about being confident all our stars would stay? I don't know the answer to that btw.

We can all see how this is going to be interpreted (ie players only want to leave leave because of AP) but you surely don't expect him to to say he's confident all our stars will stay? Doesn't matter who our manager might be that stuff is out of his hands.

We're 12-8 down on goals in the last 10 minutes this season. But how many in average per game, our last minute goals are 1 a game I would expect, a la Cisse whereas I would expect a few of ours might be attributed to 2 or 3 as we trail off and get mauled. A lot of them took points off us. 86th minute at the mackems. 81st and 85th minutes at Stoke. 90th minute at Man U 85th minute at Swansea 90th minute at Wigan 8th place if the table didn't "gloss over" those HF = slayer of urban myths

I laughed at this, but it's not funny, because it's true For a number of reasons it did not work with Ba and Cisse up top in a 4-4-2, it seemed to me that one of the reasons was that they frequently arrived in the same areas at the same time and got in each others way. They did not "hit it off". We did well with 4-3-3 last season with Ba playing wide, but come the start of this season Ba was more likely to hit the net than Cisse and, I suspect,made it clear he wasn't happy playing wide so he took the central role. If you are Pardew do you leave out Cisse (who is an instinctive goalscorer and can score a goal from nothing) or play someone else? It really does not mean that Carroll or any other central striker we sign will end up playing on the wing

Please explain to me what makes you think that?

Got a feeling the amusement factor might have a fairly short shelf life tbh. For us. Well yes - and our experience tells us that the club is here to keep the rest of the footballing world amused Really did think i'd seen it all when we appointed Kinnear. I hope to f*ck that you did see it all with that particular appointment. Fwiw I think lessons have been learned.

Got a feeling the amusement factor might have a fairly short shelf life tbh. For us. Well yes - and our experience tells us that the club is here to keep the rest of the footballing world amused

Pardew has said we need two strikers and he's right. Not sure how we could sort the wages issue but purely from a squad point of view I can't see anything wrong with having Carroll as one of our striking options. Sure he is a certain type of player but options are what squads are about. What we might have to pay for him is not for us to worry about. Ashley/Llambias can make the call on that, it clearly won't be £35 million though

Got a feeling the amusement factor might have a fairly short shelf life tbh.