fredbob

The "frightening" thing is that this same topic has been covered before and the timelines were all posted yet once again it seems to be dragged up to slate the way the club is being run, we complain about the press having a go at the club yet we're as good as them at spinning, if not better at times. For some people it's more important to back Fat Fred than their football club. For some people its more important to slate someone off for eating all the pies than to be able to see that running a club who qualify for europe more than every team bar 4 actually means they are doing a decent job of running the football club. Still dont listen do you, i cant believe someone can use a stat which doesnt hold much water considering it doesnt paint the true situation of the club. You conitue to use the 7 european qualifications out of 10 years as opposed to the 4 top 10 finishes in the same 10 years stat, even thought the top 10 finishes show the truer picture for the club. If we were to look at who had the most top 10 finishes for the club in those 10 years, do you think we'd still be the 5th best? Nope. Show much for your ambitious chairman crap. No wonder your "opinions" hold no water on this board when you talkabout "facts" which have no relevant context to the situation and are contrived to fit a silly agenda. If you want to talk about relevance, what relevance is the arbitrary choice of 10th? Top half. Wow. No footballing significance whatsoever. Mid table is much of a muchness, pretty much a lottery where you end up. Oh noes Spurs were better than us because in the 8 years they finished mid table they came 9th twice and 10th twice, but in the 6 years we came mid table the best we did was 11th! If you want to talk about relevance you have to talk about relevant achievements. Qualifying for Europe is a relevant achievement. It's a hell of a lot harder to get a team into the top 4 (which we did 5 times under the previous board) than it is to win the also-ran pissing contest in the middle. Never mind, we'll be great now we're under new management, and thank god we didn't waste any money on players in January eh? You must be well chuffed about that. Only if they were complete idiots. You didn't did you? You didnt think that when we were in the running for the title we were in a position to estabillish ourselves as a dominant team in england along the likes of Man U? Ill be honest i did, and when we were having those brilliant fininhse under SBR you didnt see us as a club that was on par with the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea, teams we were competing with for the top 4 finishes at one point? Ill be honest with you here as well, i didm but becuase of one incompetent decision by whomever we arent there. Fair play about the European qualifications bit, not really seen it that way, but i still think that our top 10 is a finishes are moreof a relevant stat because its atruer recoginition of the cboards overall decisions, ie manaer choices and finances. There is something significant about fininshing in the top 50%.

It would appear he also took some league points with him too. He should have shared some with his mate Souness. Some league points and some beans and maybe the two of them wouldn't have found it necessary to boot your idol, Bellamy right out of Newcastle. What a can of beans they made out of that one. I see. It escapes your attention that the fat b****** and his mate Bobby also brought my idol, Bellamy, into the club too. Most unlike you to pick out what suits your opinion and discard the rest. Well then, that makes it perfectly justifiable to sell him then. He did buy him after all. What a silly argument. That about sums up all your other arguments. oh dear. Have you decided whether or not you advocate spending money on quality footballers or not yet, ref your dramatic u-turn ? Or do you have any consistent view of anything that you find yourself able to stick to that doesn't involve personalities ? mackems.gif Well said! Really addressed the point there, bravo! Personalities have nothing to do with my judgment, in fact, i say the same things over and over again, ive supported all of Shephards decsions, but at the end of the day wen push came to shove, the last 10 years are irrelavant to the current state of the club, you cant seem to accepth that. I dont know why, i accept that he was part of the great revival of the club, and i understand he brought some good times to this club, but 4 years, thats right, 4 whole years after his best achievement the club is in no better situation than the one he took over. What other business would accept that?

It would appear he also took some league points with him too. He should have shared some with his mate Souness. Some league points and some beans and maybe the two of them wouldn't have found it necessary to boot your idol, Bellamy right out of Newcastle. What a can of beans they made out of that one. I see. It escapes your attention that the fat b****** and his mate Bobby also brought my idol, Bellamy, into the club too. Most unlike you to pick out what suits your opinion and discard the rest. Well then, that makes it perfectly justifiable to sell him then. He did buy him after all. What a silly argument. That about sums up all your other arguments.

The "frightening" thing is that this same topic has been covered before and the timelines were all posted yet once again it seems to be dragged up to slate the way the club is being run, we complain about the press having a go at the club yet we're as good as them at spinning, if not better at times. For some people it's more important to back Fat Fred than their football club. For some people its more important to slate someone off for eating all the pies than to be able to see that running a club who qualify for europe more than every team bar 4 actually means they are doing a decent job of running the football club. Still dont listen do you, i cant believe someone can use a stat which doesnt hold much water considering it doesnt paint the true situation of the club. You conitue to use the 7 european qualifications out of 10 years as opposed to the 4 top 10 finishes in the same 10 years stat, even thought the top 10 finishes show the truer picture for the club. If we were to look at who had the most top 10 finishes for the club in those 10 years, do you think we'd still be the 5th best? Nope. Show much for your ambitious chairman crap. No wonder your "opinions" hold no water on this board when you talkabout "facts" which have no relevant context to the situation and are contrived to fit a silly agenda. Very important and relevant stat, is what it is. I'll let you look up how many times we qualified for europe in the 30+ years preceding 1992 if you still can't understand how far forward we moved under the old board. Thats not an opinion by the way, you can't argue with league positions and european qualifications, and a full ground every home game either. When we really were s***, only 20000 fans supported the team evermore, blah blah blah, and good players constantly wanted to leave the club including locally born Newcastle supporters to further their ambitions Im not arguing about how far the old board took us though, im saying that the use of that stat does nothing to enhance your argument because it doesnt paint anything close to the true picture of the club. How far could the club of dropped before you stopped using the argument that we were crap 92? I mean, if under Shephard the club went into freefall, and ended up in the same place he found them, then would he be excused because of what he had achieved for the club because he showed ambiion in the first place? I imagine you are a sensible wise man deep down behind that cantankerous exterior and you can see where theres a point where his fallacies wont be excused by his previous record, which point would tat be for you? For most of us, its at the point that he sacked SBR/appointment of Souness which basiclly unravelled all the work that was done by him and the old board. His achievments in hindsights were clouded because of the financial situation and the position in the league where he left us. Can you not see that? This isnt a question of ambition, that magic buzz word you like so much, this was a question of runing abusiness properly and using advantage that we had as a club to further ourselves. You have to realise that most fans see us as being on par with Man U at one point in our history, a bit further down the line we were on par with the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool. Why are we not there now? Who do you attribute that downfall to? For most the fans it was the oldboard andShephard.

The "frightening" thing is that this same topic has been covered before and the timelines were all posted yet once again it seems to be dragged up to slate the way the club is being run, we complain about the press having a go at the club yet we're as good as them at spinning, if not better at times. For some people it's more important to back Fat Fred than their football club. For some people its more important to slate someone off for eating all the pies than to be able to see that running a club who qualify for europe more than every team bar 4 actually means they are doing a decent job of running the football club. Still dont listen do you, i cant believe someone can use a stat which doesnt hold much water considering it doesnt paint the true situation of the club. You conitue to use the 7 european qualifications out of 10 years as opposed to the 4 top 10 finishes in the same 10 years stat, even thought the top 10 finishes show the truer picture for the club. If we were to look at who had the most top 10 finishes for the club in those 10 years, do you think we'd still be the 5th best? Nope. Show much for your ambitious chairman crap. No wonder your "opinions" hold no water on this board when you talkabout "facts" which have no relevant context to the situation and are contrived to fit a silly agenda.

Ferdinand was a good sale at the time. We got decent money for a player at his best who never did anything of note afterwards. Speed did ok with Bolton who were perfectly suited to his talents. Good business on both accounts IMO. I have to disagree with you there completely, the point with Ferdinand was that he was doing something here, bare in mind it was his sale that forced keegans hand. You dont under any circumstance sell players who are scoring for you. That was probably one of the best partenerships this club has ever had, why break it up? Also Speed was insrtrumental for our side, was a very very important player, when we sold him the sides perfomances suffered alot. Was also a very mature head in a relatively young side. The business is alway bad if you sell players who affect your team, irrespective of the cash.

The 2 players that i think signify the downfalls of the club on 2 seperate occasions would be Ferdinand and Speed. Speed probably the most important player to directly effect the team but Ferdinand obviously for the significants of his departure and the fall out from it.

Mort and Ashley, probably.

Theres a 17 page thred on Taylor, and there is a decent spread of fans who say Taylor will come good and has immense potential having seen him make many mistakes over the course of 3-4 seasons, and not show any real signs of improvement over the course of those 3-4 seasons, the same spread says he needs a better partner and and equally even spread who can categorically say that both Cacapa and Roz are s*** having seen thme play in the premiership for 4 months. Wheres the logic that 2 players who have proven themselves througouht there career, one a consistent CL perfomrer and captain, are completely written off as "s***" yet Taylor still gets away with a hell of a lot by a certain section of fans. Seems a pretty inconsistent judgement to me, what do you attribute that bias to?

Im not particularly arsed with Taylor at the moment, very disappointed with the quotes if true, to be honest i thik he's a liabilty of Brambles proprtions at the moment. He's getting a lot less greif then the likes of Roz and Cacapa and Barton,Smith and even Owen, purely because he's a "local" lad. He's had 3 years of first team football to show what he;s capable of and stil hasnt produced consistent perfomances. I dont think he has it in him to be honest, and i think he believes his own hype. To be fair to him, he's been our main defender for the past 3-4 years, partnering the likes of Bramble, Boumsong, Moore, Gooch, Cacapa, Roz, Faye and he's been the one in all those years who has played consisntently. Unformtunately, in his mind he thinks its because he's been head and shoulders above the rest, which is partially true becuase most of those have been exceptionally crap. Would love him to prove us all wrong, but i dont think he will.

Was he ever captain at Man City? Either him or Dunne. I think it was him.

This is gonna get raped as a comment, i know, but id of liked to of seen Barton become captain, id of used it as a challenge forhim, told him its his to lose and he needs to improve his on pitch and off field problems or thats it. I think deep down he likes the club and i have no doubt that on form he is a quality player. It'd be a move similar to Hitzfeld and Effenberg although obviously Effenberg had outrageous talent. Barton could still be a very good player for us.

I think the DM position is gonna be the key decision tommorow, does Faye play there providing decent defensive cover for the likes of Emre to support the attack, i think Emre is exactly the tye of player we need, someone who can help make things happen and keep possession in the final third, which we've been dearly missing. However this leaves us short in CD, and with the likes of Cruz and Mcarthy im not sure id want a weak defense. Both physical and both extremely intelligent, so the likes of Taylor will suffer in my opinon as would Cacapa. Kind of means we have to play Faye in defence. Butt and Barton will therefore play because they will provide a "decent" blend of Attack and defence which is bull, Zog will be on the left, ?Milner on the right with Owenand Smith up front with Martins coming on for Smith later in the match. Thats my prediciton.

Good comments mate. I am not trying to single him out for criticism and I am grateful for the goals he's scored (last season would have been even worse if not for him, Sib and Milner), I just don't think he is what we need over the coming seasons. Especially on improved wages.

Happy enough, to have him on board to be honest, not sure about his wages though. But getting him to sign a new contract will be very good for us just to get that clause out, i happen to like him as a player, its all fair and where breaking down his individual attributes. which we can all do and most of us can see that he isnt the complete player and most of us can see that his intelligences on a pitch will hinder his progress, but his goalscoring record is pretty undeniable. Its been better than fanstastic considering the 2 mangers and systems he's played under, especially Roeder where he was on his own for most the season. He doesnt suffer from too many injuries and lets be honest i think its fair to say that even though he doesnt use his pace very effectively, he still scares defenders. I dont understand how he gets this much criticsm when he's scored so many goals for us, the bottom line is that he's scored goals for us, and had already saved us from relegation once. Dont get me wrong, i dont think he's the messiah, but i still think he's a player 90% of the teams in the premiership would love to have.

Offer what they paid for him and hope he's home sick, it's a starting point and probably our only selling point to him. I think we as fans are looking at the fallacies of the club entirely wrong, i dont doubt for one second that money needs to be spent, but the figures being bandied about are ridiculous, we need to be aiming for the top half before we go looking for Europe, its about expectation and the higher we raise the expectation the more sensitive the trip wire becomes. Personally i would be happy to see the club cement a top half finish before we go making proper strides into the top 6/7. If we go about spending huge amount of money, and only achieve a top half finish, what effect does that have on the club and its fans? Personally i dont think it'd be particularly healthy. We havent seen a team yet play anywhere nears its potential, i dont buy into this the whole squad is s***, deep down everyone at this club knows that there are some excellent players at this club, we need to be punching our weight at present. Look at the effrect that heavy investment had on Tottenham, it needed a set up to get them flowing inthe right direction, and they are now in a posotion of power because of it, i genuinely belive that brining in 7-10 new players will do more damage than good. I just still think this talk of heavy investment a bit kneejerk, i know we are in a very poor position, but we have had a stupid run of fixtures, i genuinely belive that this club could be transformed with 3-5 max, players. Who are the 6-8 first team players who are good enough, for you? And what happens when one of them gets injured, or two of them, or three. Our "first team" players are supposed to be: Given - flaky, still top 6/7 for next season/one after? Probably. Beye - Seems pretty good, not a brillaint defender. Top 6/7? Yes. Carr - f*** off. 6/7? f*** off. Faye - only an idiot thinks he's a "beast" so far. Seems alright, needs to iron a few errors out. 6/7? Hopefully. Taylor - has a number of things to iron out, imo can become a good defender. 6/7? Hopefully. Cacapa - vastly over rated. 6/7? No. Enrique - unclear whats happened to him. Not a good buy, it seems. 6/7? No, not on showings so far. Duff - weak, doesn't drive forwards, ineffective. 6/7? No. The Zog(at left wing) - our best left winger by a country mile. 6/7? Yes. Barton - Has been poor, pretty consistently. Also scum. 6/7? On current showing, No. (and please f*** off). Butt - f*** off. Geremi - f*** off. Milner - not the fastest, but not as slow as some would have us think (no slower than Solano, really). 6/7? Hopefully. Smith - rubbish. Rubbish in the middle. Rubbish up front. 6/7? No. Owen - Past his best, not arsed, not fit, no service to him. Still clearly has ability, but not world class by a long chalk. 6/7? Yes. Martins - Very, very flawed. Extremely fast, but its no good making random runs. 6/7? Possibly. Viduka - Slow, fat. lazy. Well past his best. 6/7? No. So, imo, what we have is: YES x 3 (ST, LW, RB) PROBABLY x 1 (GK) POSSIBLY x 1 (ST) HOPEFULLY x 3 (CB, CB, RW) NO x 6 (CB, LB, LW, MC, ST, ST) f*** OFF x 3 (RB, MC, MC) We WERE mid table crap for the past few seasons. Allardyce put things in place to bring us down to the level we now are. We do not want to be looking for mid table safety next season, we need to be looking to get back to the top 6/7 without delay. And to do that, we need some serious investment. Mind, anyone who thinks we can prise the likes of Carrick away from teams like Man Utd is an idiot. We need to look at what teams like Citeh have done with their buying, or get a great manager in. In the end, its a matter of opinion, and i havent seen a single set up at this club for a good 3-5 years which has been an environment where the players can prosper. I dont think its just a coincidence that a huge number of supposedly talented players come here and flop so badly. Take a look at the number of top class players we've had here, we havenet had many players who have really prosepered since the SBR days. I dont think its a coicident. It'd be nice to see a player be judge in a team that is actually playing cohesively. I mean i surely cant be the only one who thinks that the defence is crap because the organisation is shocking. It cant be as simple as "they're shit etc" Sure the indivdual players have there fallacies as players, but there fallacies cant be entirely responisible for the horrendous results. Surely not. For me, id like to see 2 CM (1 DM, 1 AM), a RW and a CD as a minimum. Thats for players who, in a squad going in the same direction would transform the team.

Nah me neither, he looks like ap layer who has ridiculous amount of confidence. I think thats essential in the modern players. He seems to have a proper cockiness about him. I think he could be a bit special, wouldnt be unhappy at all ifhe came, granted ihavetn seen loads of him but the bits i have seen look good.

Does anyone else see similarities between him and Ronaldo? He has that dead quick shimmy where he moves the ball to the side really quickly, puts the defender off balance and gives him an extra few seconds to get a shot in. Also quite tricky. Could be an absolutle gem.

Surprised Kenwyne Jones and Gordon havent been mentioned, (not sure when they were signed, dont really care), also Elano has been a good player as has Eduardo. Would put all of them ahead of Woodgate, Muamba, McFadden.

think it was7m

Offer what they paid for him and hope he's home sick, it's a starting point and probably our only selling point to him. I think we as fans are looking at the fallacies of the club entirely wrong, i dont doubt for one second that money needs to be spent, but the figures being bandied about are ridiculous, we need to be aiming for the top half before we go looking for Europe, its about expectation and the higher we raise the expectation the more sensitive the trip wire becomes. Personally i would be happy to see the club cement a top half finish before we go making proper strides into the top 6/7. If we go about spending huge amount of money, and only achieve a top half finish, what effect does that have on the club and its fans? Personally i dont think it'd be particularly healthy. We havent seen a team yet play anywhere nears its potential, i dont buy into this the whole squad is shit, deep down everyone at this club knows that there are some excellent players at this club, we need to be punching our weight at present. Look at the effrect that heavy investment had on Tottenham, it needed a set up to get them flowing inthe right direction, and they are now in a posotion of power because of it, i genuinely belive that brining in 7-10 new players will do more damage than good. I just still think this talk of heavy investment a bit kneejerk, i know we are in a very poor position, but we have had a stupid run of fixtures, i genuinely belive that this club could be transformed with 3-5 max, players.

Thats the one.

he'll take into account inflation,check the stat of evary player and slag each one off for not being brilliant or climb aboard the bandwagon (begrudgingly) He'll only conceed in 10 years time when Ashley et al have helped us to finish in the top 10, 4 times.

I would take Carrick in a flash, think he;s exactly what we need, someone who can find a pass. The thing is is that as it stands we are in the same position as Middlesbrough, our only selling point really is our ambition, what kind of player that brings us who knows, i think its a safe bet that any big player in the prem who's not looking for a pay day but success would come here, so that rules out the likes of Bentley and Carrick etc in my book, i think all our big signings will come from abroad to be honest.

That's what I was saying earlier. Any quality signing is dragged into the torpor rather than pulling the squad out of it. Instill a bit of belief, then make expensive additions to a club on the up. It's like they say about getting your hair cut, you should always go when it looks it's best. Eh? If you go for a haircut when it looks s***, your barber thinks you like your hair to look s***, and gives you a s*** haircut. Surely you go to the barbers to get your hair to stop looking s***? Nope. You need to be more pro-active than that. Well what if you go to your barbers while its looking good to have it cut, and the barber does a s*** job and the end result is that it now looks s***, despite not being s*** before you had it cut? Serves you right for having a 'trophy' haircut. Just because you spend £50 on a haircut doesnt mean you are going to pull! Same concept applies to the club.