manorpark

I am calm. But I am also very disappointed by this. KK has made a great impact with his "we are 2nd tier only" speech. He has caused a great deal of (long-lasting, if hopefully not permanent) damage to our club. No he hasn't man. Get a grip ffs. As I said earlier - I wish you were right. Sadly (as we will all come to realise soon) you are not right.

NO - not any more. He has already talked to those players in his misguided speech. They will KNOW (already) what he really thinks . . .

I am calm. But I am also very disappointed by this. KK has made a great impact with his "we are 2nd tier only" speech. He has caused a great deal of (long-lasting, if hopefully not permanent) damage to our club.

I would NEVER have agreed with a statement like that (no matter how poorly we were performing at any given time) as we were always a huge club with huge amounts of money and 52,000 fans in a magnificent stadium and centred in a great Regional Capital City. NOW, I do agree with it. NOW - since Mr Kevin Keegan has so succinctly consigned us the the Premier League's 2nd Division, with his "our best position is only 5th" speech (because that is what it was). NO top player will want to come to a 2nd tier club. Mediocrity is the best we can ever hope for, according to Mr Keegan - and the football world will have heard that. There will be people on here who disagree with me on this. To you I say - "I WISH YOU WERE RIGHT AND THAT I WAS WRONG". Oh come on, do you really think that people needed KK's statement, to realise that we are a "2nd tier club" He said nothing wrong...sad but true. Peoples opinions can vary on this, but (to me) we were never an official 2nd tier club. We were in the top four or five often in recent times since Sir John Hall took over, we were in European competition most seasons (UEFA or CL). We have a large fan-base (in UK and worldwide). We are based in one of Englands greatest and most famous regional capital cities. We earn 'loads' of money (always in and around the top ten financial clubs in the world). We have a fantastic, large, stadium (2nd biggest in UK, only Old Trafford and us over 50,000 - now joined by Arsenal). No - we have never been an 'official' 2nd-tier club. Unfortunately, the other four of the UKs rich clubs have been pulling away from us in the immediate years since SBR was sacked - but we were still not 'officially' or factually, actually a 2nd-tier club. NOW - IT IS OFFICIAL. (Thanks KK!) (and no top player will want to join an official 2nd tier club).

I would NEVER have agreed with a statement like that (no matter how poorly we were performing at any given time) as we were always a huge club with huge amounts of money and 52,000 fans in a magnificent stadium and centred in a great Regional Capital City. NOW, I do agree with it. NOW - since Mr Kevin Keegan has so succinctly consigned us the the Premier League's 2nd Division, with his "our best position is only 5th" speech (because that is what it was). NO top player will want to come to a 2nd tier club. Mediocrity is the best we can ever hope for, according to Mr Keegan - and the football world will have heard that. There will be people on here who disagree with me on this. To you I say - "I WISH YOU WERE RIGHT AND THAT I WAS WRONG". I suppose, the only way to overcome that would be for KK to change his thoughts and say to potential signings that that is the mould in the PL, and we're trying to look to break it. Agreed - but in fact he chose to specifically say exactly the opposite of that - to the entire listening football world!!!

I would NEVER have agreed with a statement like that (no matter how poorly we were performing at any given time) as we were always a huge club with huge amounts of money and 52,000 fans in a magnificent stadium and centred in a great Regional Capital City. NOW, I do agree with it. NOW - since Mr Kevin Keegan has so succinctly consigned us the the Premier League's 2nd Division, with his "our best position is only 5th" speech (because that is what it was). NO top player will want to come to a 2nd tier club. Mediocrity is the best we can ever hope for, according to Mr Keegan - and the football world will have heard that. There will be people on here who disagree with me on this. To you I say - "I WISH YOU WERE RIGHT AND THAT I WAS WRONG".

Completely wrong. Old-style (Freddy Shepherd) "one-off" trophy signings will achieve nothing, other than confirm that we are still second-rank 'triers / failures'. That doesn't make any sense. So buying a world class player at a high fee would confirm us as second rank triers? What would buying second rank players do then? its just to have a go at Shepherd though Not really, I am simply saying (the bleedin' obvious) that Keegans comments (no matter how 'clever' his intentions MAY have been) have only made it specifically more difficult for us to become a successful club (attract top players) and I was refuting a comment made that "a trophy purchase" (singular) would help mitigate the damage. so - again - who are these "trophy" players that have been signed in the past ? And what have you got against the club having, for instance, one or two players the top 4 would like themselves, rather than none ? Hmmm, interesting. Firstly, I did not bring up the subject of 'trophy players' - someone else did. My response was that one-off big purchases are no good at all. A big purchase is only a sign that you are a club that means business, if it is 'the norm' (part of a continuous process) as it was starting to be when Keegan was last with us, and as it is all the time at Manchester United (for example). A 'one-off' big purchase is not the solution that the poster whose comments I was refuting, thinks it is. ok? Let's not get hung up on the past, or previous owners of the club etc, it is the future that matters. Secondly - I have already said it really. To be successful, we should only (routinely) be buying top quality players. If we do not (cannot afford to) then we will not be successful. Keegans comments help to make it more likely that we will indeed NOT become successful I hope he is proud of himself. I think he is a great bloke and a great manager, but in letting the "we are not big enough" Genie out of the bottle - he has done untold damage to our club (as I said in my earlier posts). no, YOU said "Freddie Shepherd style trophy players". So who did you mean exactly ? Please also explain why you think "trophy players" are different to "top quality players", and if you are only prepared to entertain a team with "many" of these players, where do you start buying them ie if you are against only having one ? Why do you think it is not preferable to have one or two to none of these "trophy/top quality players " If you think we have had "Freddy Shepherd style trophy players" in the past, what particular category would you have put Modric into ? What category would you put Shearer, Ferdinand, Ginola, Asprilla, Batty into ? And some players bought after Keegan part 1 too. Or were you unhappy the club bought these players ? Please explain the difference, or why you didn't want them, because for the life of me I can't see a difference, other than having the urge to move the goalposts and slate the old board, which is not just yourself to be fair ie I'm not having a go at you personally ? NE5 man, I'm not having a 'go' at the old board - they bought all the players when Keegan was last here. They were not perfect were they? But they did a lot of good stuff. Trophy players and Top Quality players are the same type of player, but the implication of the use (by the other poster) of the words "trophy player" is that they are one-offs (not part of the norm). Perhaps that is my misunderstanding? But, I think that is what most people understand by the phrase. I am saying it IS preferable to have LOTS of Top Quality players. You must know that is what I am saying. Shearer, Ferdinand, Ginola, Asprilla, and Batty were all part of (as I have already said) the one time when we were starting to do it right - buying top quality ('finished article') players was becoming the norm (that means NOT as one-off acquisitions). Modric, was (I hoped) to be the 'start' of the routine/continuous acquisition of (only) top quality players AGAIN. This may still happen (though not starting with Mr Modric, of course). Now, I have tried to answer your questions. My interest lies not with the past (or any more questions from you about the past) but with the future. Please comment on the future, and whether you think we will ever get over the 'damage' done to our fragile reputation with big foreign (mostly) players that we may wish to attract, by Keegans comments. It was (with our recent few years of poor performances) always going to be difficult in the short-term to attract the best. It is now (I think) going to be even more difficult, because of what Keegan said. What do you think?

Completely wrong. Old-style (Freddy Shepherd) "one-off" trophy signings will achieve nothing, other than confirm that we are still second-rank 'triers / failures'. That doesn't make any sense. So buying a world class player at a high fee would confirm us as second rank triers? What would buying second rank players do then? its just to have a go at Shepherd though Not really, I am simply saying (the bleedin' obvious) that Keegans comments (no matter how 'clever' his intentions MAY have been) have only made it specifically more difficult for us to become a successful club (attract top players) and I was refuting a comment made that "a trophy purchase" (singular) would help mitigate the damage. so - again - who are these "trophy" players that have been signed in the past ? And what have you got against the club having, for instance, one or two players the top 4 would like themselves, rather than none ? Hmmm, interesting. Firstly, I did not bring up the subject of 'trophy players' - someone else did. My response was that one-off big purchases are no good at all. A big purchase is only a sign that you are a club that means business, if it is 'the norm' (part of a continuous process) as it was starting to be when Keegan was last with us, and as it is all the time at Manchester United (for example). A 'one-off' big purchase is not the solution that the poster whose comments I was refuting, thinks it is. ok? Let's not get hung up on the past, or previous owners of the club etc, it is the future that matters. Secondly - I have already said it really. To be successful, we should only (routinely) be buying top quality players. If we do not (cannot afford to) then we will not be successful. Keegans comments help to make it more likely that we will indeed NOT become successful I hope he is proud of himself. I think he is a great bloke and a great manager, but in letting the "we are not big enough" Genie out of the bottle - he has done untold damage to our club (as I said in my earlier posts).

Completely wrong. Old-style (Freddy Shepherd) "one-off" trophy signings will achieve nothing, other than confirm that we are still second-rank 'triers / failures'. That doesn't make any sense. So buying a world class player at a high fee would confirm us as second rank triers? What would buying second rank players do then? its just to have a go at Shepherd though Not really, I am simply saying (the bleedin' obvious) that Keegans comments (no matter how 'clever' his intentions MAY have been) have only made it specifically more difficult for us to become a successful club (attract top players) and I was refuting a comment made that "a trophy purchase" (singular) would help mitigate the damage.

johnnypd - I think you are exactly right - in what his comments were 'intended' to achieve. Unfortunately, he has ALSO achieved a great deal more than he intended to . . . .

Everything you have written of late has put a negative spin on information that is not necessarily negative and some information that is pure speculation. It reads as badly as the bile produced from the various papers in this country over the last few days regarding NUFC. If you could back your statements with facts there wouldn't be an issue. The fact is unless you've spoken to Mike Ashley you have NO IDEA what he thinks. So don't make out like you do. Top quality post bobyule. While none of us 'know' all the facts, that sums up exactly how I read the situation too. The impact of what Keegan said will be felt in many individual situations (that we will never know about or be told about) for the forseeable future. The impact will always be negative, unfortunately. He has let a sort of 'genie' out of the bottle (by admitting in public that we are a second-rank club) and it will take a very long time to put it back in the bottle - if ever. Keegans words could well prove to be quite "self-fulfilling" in fact! Making this club successful and an attractive place for top footballers to play, is now much more difficult than it was before he spoke. it's nothing one big signature signing won't put right though. Completely wrong. Old-style (Freddy Shepherd) "one-off" trophy signings will achieve nothing, other than confirm that we are still second-rank 'triers / failures'.

Everything you have written of late has put a negative spin on information that is not necessarily negative and some information that is pure speculation. It reads as badly as the bile produced from the various papers in this country over the last few days regarding NUFC. If you could back your statements with facts there wouldn't be an issue. The fact is unless you've spoken to Mike Ashley you have NO IDEA what he thinks. So don't make out like you do. Top quality post bobyule. While none of us 'know' all the facts, that sums up exactly how I read the situation too. The impact of what Keegan said will be felt in many individual situations (that we will never know about or be told about) for the forseeable future. The impact will always be negative, unfortunately. He has let a sort of 'genie' out of the bottle (by admitting in public that we are a second-rank club) and it will take a very long time to put it back in the bottle - if ever. Keegans words could well prove to be quite "self-fulfilling" in fact! Making this club successful and an attractive place for top footballers to play, is now much more difficult than it was before he spoke.

You're almost there! Or some people have a chip on their shoulder about London? People are too quick to jump on the regional bias thing. I was wrong, you are NOT almost there. You appear to have no idea at all. Have you lived? Are you aware? No, it seems not. There are serious agendas out there, and ignoring them and accusing those who choose not to ignore them of "having chips on their shoulders" does not help at all.

You're almost there!

For a while, with our recent 'good run' of form, the media seemed to be easing up on us a bit (the return of 'the entertainers' and all that sort of stuff . . .) Now, with KKs interview on Sunday - it is open season on us again in the media. Its gonna be an interesting summer. No matter what we do / don't do / fail to do (players who choose elsewhere over us etc) / we will be panned by the cockney-based parochials in the press!

Just a few of the latest articles - mostly full of sh**e - but what do you expect from the isolated, insular, uninformed cockney-based gutter-press !!! Wish there was a NATIONAL media in the UK. There never will be though, just a bunch of obsessed cockney-based morons (who get 'published' nationally). Some of the below are not TOO bad (by their standards) but most are sh**e. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article3882824.ece http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article1138119.ece http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/05/07/sfnnew107.xml http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=564656&in_page_id=1779&ito=1490 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/05/08/sfnfro108.xml

Again.

I wonder if the "he'll never come here brigade" with their automatic certainty of our inferiority, will ever change? As my Dad used to say - "like the poor, they are always with us". As change happens here (from the immediate past) under Mike Ashley and Kevin Keegan - will their perceptions and comments (clothed in a blanket of "realism" . . . ) ever change. I doubt it! It is going to be hard work - but you need 'vision' to succeed in life (and football is life) but this club is the PERFECT club (with all the ingredients) to be a big, big, success. Small thinking (even if stating 'current' obvious fact) such as 'we are Newcastle United not Real Madrid' is a useless, pointless way of thinking and acting. Realism - yes, but let's MOVE ON from the strange 'immediate past' that we have had. Lets get moving in our minds (I'm sure Ashley is). The objective has to be - as soon as possible - to be alongside the biggest clubs, as equals - AND YOU DON'T GET THAT BY CONSTANTLY THINKING "HE'LL NEVER COME HERE" . . .. If we have constantly progressed over the next three-five years then I would say that it would be possible to bring in some of these names. The main point here being we are so far behind the bigger clubs now that we have to build ala Villa, Everton before we can consider signing bigger players. In the real world that we live in why would such players sign for Newcastle? They want to be successful and win trophies, they have more opportunities to do that elsewhere AT THE MOMENT. Personally I thinkyou are dellusional to expect players of that calibre to sign for Newcastle. Some might point out that Michael Owen signed, well I will argue that he panicked, realised by not playing he would lose his England place, and couldn't get a better offer. If, and it's a big if, we develop and improve over the next few seasons to come, I can maybe then accept that we would expect to be signing players of world class quality. At the moment I prefer to live in the "real" world and I for one certainly won't be getting my hopes up. I expect players of the Crouch, Ashton mould and quality to be signing, not Henry and Modric. I stand to be proven wrong, and will gladly put my hands up if I am pleasently suprised, but I doubt I will be! I agree with much of what you say. I do have a strong dislike for the "he won't come here" brigade, which you are not one of. But, it is an 'attitudinal" thing (not sure if I can even spell it!!) that often 'stinks' for me, from some people. It is implicit in everything they say and do that we are INFERIOR (for whatever reason) and they could not be more wrong! As I say, there is much work to do, but it IS going to get done. The new 'Sunday Times Rich List' confirms Ashley's approach to life. We already know Keegans. LETS (JUST) JOIN IN !!!!!! (AND ENJOY . . . )

I wonder if the "he'll never come here brigade" with their automatic certainty of our inferiority, will ever change? As my Dad used to say - "like the poor, they are always with us". As change happens here (from the immediate past) under Mike Ashley and Kevin Keegan - will their perceptions and comments (clothed in a blanket of "realism" . . . ) ever change. I doubt it! It is going to be hard work - but you need 'vision' to succeed in life (and football is life) but this club is the PERFECT club (with all the ingredients) to be a big, big, success. Small thinking (even if stating 'current' obvious fact) such as 'we are Newcastle United not Real Madrid' is a useless, pointless way of thinking and acting. Realism - yes, but let's MOVE ON from the strange 'immediate past' that we have had. Lets get moving in our minds (I'm sure Ashley is). The objective has to be - as soon as possible - to be alongside the biggest clubs, as equals - AND YOU DON'T GET THAT BY CONSTANTLY THINKING "HE'LL NEVER COME HERE" . . ..

So sad, so young. My Mother was 81 when she died, and I felt that was too young to lose her . . . but 58!! RIP.

Tell that to the seemingly-endless brigade of the "He'll Never Come Here" types on this forum, whenever a good world class player is linked with us. There are a lot of people with no vision and big inferiority complexes (sorry, "massive" inferiority complexes) who just cannot and will not believe (for reasons which escape me) that an 'Ashley / Mort / Keegan' future for us, should be so very much better than the (very recent) past.

I wonder if supporters of other clubs, having read all the (very) many recent articles criticising us in an equally ridiculous and over the top manner, have rushed to their own forums to defend us like this? Also (on the question of 'Parochial Cockney National Media' which we have now, versus 'a real National Media', versus 'an Honest Media') - the first step is to get a National Media. There is more chance of some 'natural' objectivity and honesty, if we get a National Media first. What I'm saying is, one should lead to the other. However, lets get real, we have NO chance of ever getting a National Media in the UK. All the POWER is in Cockneyland.

Not sure which paper this is in, but it is VERY unusual for the parochial Cockney-based press, to attack their own. Reading this makes me really wish we had a 'National Media' (as opposed to "what Cock-neys think of everyone else", all the time) as this is what it might look like. A "National Media" in the UK? The stuff of DREAMS!

Ha Ha - "Going Home" by Dire Straits.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion!!! But - you really need to have a brain first!