Mattoon

Can he do Barton too? No he's too old now, may have done when he was at school, that would account for the anger issues.

Aye that's City though... Didn't seem to matter much when we flogged them our best player in January. I still don't think we would have been relegated if we hadn't sold him. We might of conceeded one or two less than we did, but we still wouldn't have been able to score in a brothel with £5m strapped to our d***s!

Was discussing this with a neighbour the other day, if we can get some quick, powerful strikers up front that can score 80-90 goals between them, 85 to 90 points is acheivable, but again, this all depends on this summer. IF we can keep players like, Taylor, Beye and Bassong we'd have the strongest defence in the league by far.

Anyone know a good priest that would be willing to exorsise St James?

Meanwhile it looks like another summer of hitting the refresh button on newsnow with crossed fingers. Right now I'd take Bin Laden if I thought it would bring stability and enough cash to build a decent, young, hungry squad!

Business success involves a hell of a lot of luck. Being in the right place at the right time with the right people around you can make even a complete moron a lot of money. With us, Ashley seemed to be content to rely on his luck rather than good management and his luck just ran out. The situation reminds me a bit of what happened with Alan Sugar a few years ago, when he bought Spurs. He ended up having to sack Terry Venables, who was the fans' favourite, and found himself out of control of his own business. Like Ashley, he was glad to get out in the end. The only criterion for success in a business is making money. With a football club, success is trophies and there's a degree of customer involvement and interest in decisions which would normally be entirely up to an owner. True. Tbh I can understand people thinking that Ashley is deliberately running the club down because his decision making is so catastrophic that it seems inconceivable that he thinks he is doing the right things. But he is a trader and a chancer who got lucky in a market he understands. He thinks that means he has ability to run something else which he doesn't understand and like others before him (Sugar being one as you say) he is very wrong. People like Ashley are used to making decisions in their own time and in their own way, those that work for him know that and set things up around him accordingly. But in a business like a football club decisions are absolutely time critical and success depends upon the assets of the club being moulded into a cohesive unit (and not being viewed as a potential profitable resale). Ashley, though rich, isn't really very clever at all and I have thought since the word go that he was completely out of his depth owning a Premiership club. I'd kind of agree with your conclusion that there's a different skill-set needed to run a football club, when compared with running a business, and that Ashley has fallen short. I don't think it's the time pressure factor that's significant though, and I wouldn't say that Ashley has necessarily been lucky in his business life, any more than Sugar was lucky. In business, they each saw opportunities neglected by other people and went for it hell for leather. The problem with a football club is that it is only partly a business. The other part is a kind of community institution in which the fans have a big influence, and in that respect it's like running a public service. The strain in running a public service is that you have the press, the government and the public on your back, demanding that you run things in a certain way, and you're not your own master. So a lot of what you would like to do has to be weighed up and compromises reached. So you get the worst of both worlds - you have to pick up the tab at the end of the day, but you don't get the free hand that you would get in business. Like you said, maybe Ashley just doesn't have the kind of brain that can anticipate that kind of difficulty and deal with it. He's also used to shunning the limelight, and may not have the kind of thick skin you need in that very public position. I didn't like Shepherd, but he did have the hide of a rhino when the criticism started flying. Strictly in the world of business, appointing Wise and Keegan together might have made a lot of sense. Keegan would produce an entertaining product for the customers and Wise would look after the long-term strategy and the finances. But in practice, that was a disaster. Keegan is more than an employee - he's a public figure with a lot of support and he wasn't averse to using that status to try to get what he wanted, despite what may have been written into his contract. Ashley has not been in control since that point, because he was never going to win a PR battle with Keegan. It's just not a situation that occurs in the business world. Great response bobyule. Just a couple of points of clarification: I don't know so much about Sugar but I think Ashley was lucky. The flotation valuation of Sports Direct was way in excess of reality as subsequent results have shown (pre recession too) and he coined nearly a £billion in cash on the back of that. Also my point about decisions in football being time critical was more to do with planning the timing of decisions so that they are made at the best time for the club, given that there is a clear cut season, transfer window, pre season training etc. The timing and significance of these is known well in advance. And if you do have an unexpected event (e.g KK departure and JFK illness) mid season it becomes a matter of urgency to sort something out quickly. The run of results under Hughton's stewardship post KK where we lost to Hull and Paul Ince's Blackburn at home was a case in point. Your second para on the difference between a football club and other businesses is about as good an analysis as I've ever read tbh. Each of Ashleys shops make around £15-18k a day on a weekend your looking at over £20k a day and a replica shirt release day the shop in that area can make around £10k from the shirt sales alone. That's not luck. He has been able to make loads of money before the shops were floated from hard work hunting for grey market merchandise to flog in this country for dirt cheap then buying out companies to allow him to produce stock for next to noubt and sell it for huge profits. This is not luck. Missed the point. Trousering a £billion of cash when floating a business at £3 a share when it is worth less than half that is luck. Added to which, his decision-making since has been unbelievable - and not just in the football world ; would anyone with an ounce of nous have invested 100m in Bradford & Bingley just when the whole Sub-prime debacle was being revealed...? I rest my case. Many on here slag off SJH for being a 'money-grabber', yet with both MetroCentre and NUFC he 'saw an opportunity and took it, what's lucky about that'....!?? Noticeably, Sir John has NOT lost money subsequently as Ashley has - even Cameron Hall was messed-up by DH after SJH had retired.... No, Ashley HAS been lucky - Branson had a similar start in business, but unlike our dear owner, he weathered recessions and built a massive empire - anyone see the difference, I wonder..!? I also hopes he sells up, runs off with the mobey he screwed from our player sales and gets spanked still further in the stock market, seeing Sports Direct go into liquidation in the process. Oh sweet justice! Not that I'm bitter or anything...

This and the 3-0 win with the Shearer and Ferguson double act. Love it when we do over the mancs.

This. The only downside to this is would Shearer be happy with a non-comittal stance? This also raises problems that we have faced before, every manager wants to make their stamp on a club, their own players that fit the style of play they want. We could end up with new owners that don't want Shearer in charge and consequently a new manager who doesn't want the playing staff he's inherited thus creating another transitional period. The sooner this is all rectified, the better. I think we'll see a new manager installed as the business deal comes to a close. It just boils my piss that every passing day is another day other teams around us get a bigger head start and the bank ballance gets significantly lighter as we pay our overpaid useless squad to be on holiday.

What say does Shearer have in the matter? I'm sure Shearer would do everything in his power to prevent Bassong going to Sunderland. Besides I can't see Bassong deserting us to join a team that was only 2 points better off than us last season. Two years time the rolls will be reversed again. Shearer isn't employed by the club so has no say whatsoever. And I think you're overestimating Bassong's loyalty. Not refering to his loyalty but rather the fact that if he was to leave it would be to a better team. With any luck the Shearer thing will be sorted before any deals go through. Although I wouldn't put anything past this ownership, I really don't think they would do anything to compromise Shearers plans as I believe he is integral to the sale of the club. I read the other day something that makes sense regarding Shearer and a potential takeover. Ashley might want him appointed to make the club more attractive (popular manager already in place, fans happy etc) - but that relies on this supposed bank agreement in case there's no takeover. Another party though may want Shearer to hold off signing a deal so that they can negotiate the price of the club down, then have an sly agreement in place to appoint him anyway. There could be some kind of power struggle going on regarding Shearer's appointment. I firmly believe Shearer will be appointed no matter what the outcome, what does rely heavily on the outcome though is capital, therefor team building, therefor probability of Premiership status next year. Not something that can be done on a shoestring budget with all the transfers in and out of the club needed.

What say does Shearer have in the matter? I'm sure Shearer would do everything in his power to prevent Bassong going to Sunderland. Besides I can't see Bassong deserting us to join a team that was only 2 points better off than us last season. Two years time the rolls will be reversed again. Shearer isn't employed by the club so has no say whatsoever. And I think you're overestimating Bassong's loyalty. Not refering to his loyalty but rather the fact that if he was to leave it would be to a better team. With any luck the Shearer thing will be sorted before any deals go through. Although I wouldn't put anything past this ownership, I really don't think they would do anything to compromise Shearers plans as I believe he is integral to the sale of the club.

What say does Shearer have in the matter? I'm sure Shearer would do everything in his power to prevent Bassong going to Sunderland. Besides I can't see Bassong deserting us to join a team that was only 2 points better off than us last season. Two years time the rolls will be reversed again.

Anyone else on here feel really confident of Englands chances next year? We have a manager who is not afraid to drop big name players if they're not playing well, can get a team to grind out results and most importantly is turning games that we used to draw into wins. Granted, it's not the toughest group we've ever been in but these semi-pro national teams are the ones that used to give us the most problems.

It's funny you should say that Bruce, cuz it's never been a dream of ours to have your quasimodo face running our club either! Best case scenario, Sunderland stay up by the skin of their teeth, we get promoted as champions and then at the end of the next season Scumderland have to play us, leading to a humiliating thrashing which puts us into a europa cup place and puts them down on the worst points/goals tally ever recorded in premiership history.

Yeah, probably when he's in the twilight of his career when his legs have gone for one final payday. Not that I'm blaming him, just seems the way to go at our club. Would love it if he stays, one of the small silver linings in a dreadful season.

Bye bye you useless overpaid wannabe hippy :colo:

everyone was willing us to go down, the media were rubbing their hands and laughing at us, they all jumped for joy when we didn't even bother to muster a whimper against Villa. But now what are they going to do? Writing stories about a Championship side doesn't sell papers, there's no one in the premiership that the mainstream media can spout their poisoned stories about. Will be interesting to see who gets the limelight now we're no longer in the picture. Hopefully for good!

If his idea was to bring the youth through the ranks and spend less in the short term then why the hell did he bring in Keegan whose last stint at NUFC saw him spending insane money(at that time) to bring success to the club and the reason he left the first time round is believed to be because his spending had to stop. Ashley went in blind from start to finish and is still fumbling around in the dark now.

I think Shearer has done all he can to decide who's comeing and going and who's staying, but until everyone knows where they stand there's not much else he can do.

Surely if the only reason he wanted to stay was because he couldn't get a club in the Premiership he would have waited until closer to the new season? I think he would bang away a few goals in the Championship, his pace would worry a lot of defences in this league and as was said on here earlier, he had a better eye for goal at the tail end of the season than Owen and Martins put together!

I'd be more than happy for us to start bringing in young players with masses of potential from championship or lower league teams, it worked for SBR.

It hit home the other day when I was watching the ticker bar running along the bottom on SSN and they said there was some news about Shearer. The bar came round to Premiership news and I was wondering where the hell this update was, then it flicked over to Championship news and low and behold there was the Newcastle news.... GUTTED!

What's this 10 mins in and we haven't conceided yet?!?!?! Must be on to a winner!