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Enrique 4 Milner 7 Fucking ridiculous... They gave colo 5 and taylor 6 as well, giving milner and young 7, remind me how many goals they scored / assisted in scoring against two players they supposedly outplayed?!

Almost every time we mercilessly boo someone they score against us. At best it's tempting fate, at worst it's offering an unneccessary incentive to a player to rub it in our faces. I don't see what's wrong with just a bit of polite applause and then get on with the game. Booing is never 'good natured' and will just end up looking like fuckwits when he pings one in from 30 yards. But then, what's new?

Brilliant. Must echo the surprise though. FA in getting something right shocker

You don't buy into that surely do you? It reads to me that you're trying to convince yourself of this in order to convince yourself that the set-up/system/structure Ashley put in place is the right thing for the club and if that really is the case you've lost it mate. Seriously. that is the case with a lot of people. Keegan walked out in 1997 because he couldn't work under a new structure...a structure which you keep defending to the hilt non-stop under Shepherd which did bring a relative amount of success. you won't find a post by me defending the club going PLC Apology accepted. But you do defend Shepherd, and Keegan walked out first time not long after he took over as Chairman iirc, because of what was happening with the club. After a pretty average first few seasons, Shepherd started to get it right and we had a bit of success. Who's to say if Keegan hadn't stuck it out for a bit back then, that he couldn't have got us back to where we were when Hall was in sole charge? Same criteria applies for today. Who's idea was it to go PLC ? Who had the power to make such a decision ? I don't think it was Shepherd, but in the context of it being a board thing [which is what I've always said] then you would have to say they all did it, but such a decision isn't a footballing one so it was even more unlikely to be a minor shareholder all on his own. The wheels to go PLC were in motion before Shepherd became chairman, but I'm not arguing about the merits of whoever was chairman and I never have. One thing you need to be successful, more than anything else, is to back your manager, and this is why I've stuck with the old board, whoever the chairman is. Do you mean 'back the manager financially' , 'back the manager's judgement' or both? and when happens when the boards judgement is seen to be crap ? so how many clubs can appoint winning managers ? Surely a "big club" with big ambitions who are always competing to get the best players out there should have no problems appointing a competent manager at worst? you can go back decades naming big clubs who appointed managers that didn't win things, even when they acted big, which NUFC have done for only 15 years out of 44 years I've supported them. You can also go back decades and find clubs who have appoitned good managers and not backed them - sound familiar? How come ones accpetable yet the other isnt? Also noticed how you phrased is "managers that didnt win things" - how about appointing a competenet manager. Anyway i think we're digressing and i dont want to turn it into one of "those" threads. you can indeed. Joe Harvey, Gordon Lee and Arthur Cox would without a shadow of doubt done better at Newcastle with the Halls and Shepherd running the club than the people who were doing it at the time. Lee and Cox buggered off to clubs that would back him ie Everton, and Cox to Derby....then in the 3rd division but thats where he went, such was the depth of his justified anger and disappointment at his employers. This is the pattern you see through the game. Good managers move to clubs that back them, and leave ones that don't. I can name you examples stretching back decades, but shouldn't really have to mate. all 100% true and theres no denying it. but apppointing a poor manager,you're right lots of clubs have done it,but appointing another bad one as his successor shows poor judgement,to appoint a third off the spin is crap in the extreme and you would say it was the actions of a crap board if anywhere else. there is no doubt that Souness was a disastrous and poor choice, but Roeder had some merit - other clubs have promoted people from within - and Allardyce certainly had merit. The club had appointed - and attracted - trophy winners before, which is something they completely failed to do pre-1992. Whatever the ins and outs of all this - who is going to have a guess at how long it will take for this club to match the league positions and european qualifications achieved under the Halls and Shepherd ? And THAT is the 64 dollar question, and the only one that counts that we are interested in. Its what I've pointed out for ages, which was never acknowledged by other so called long term supporters who only bleated on about how "embarrassed" the poor little dears had been. 64 dollar? That's not that much...

Despite what has happened over the last few months we are still going to move into a commodity boom once the global situation is sorted, oil and energy will be up again in the medium term

My thoughts precisely. I'd think the opposite - if we were close to a sale he'd have hung around for the pay off... With no sale on the horizon he's stuck at a club where he feels unwanted (by the fans) and where any work he does over the season would probably be a waste of time when a new manager eventually gets appointed, so he's fucked off.

Good article gone up on there now, from the New Statesman - i think i'm beginning to warm to him a bit as well - would actually be nice for him to hang about in a coaching / assistant role as and when the inevitable KK return occurs - couldn't do any worse then old Terry Mac...

Strange how even Joe Kinnear knows about due diligence...

Has Kingdawson also disappeared?

Think the soap opera here would be right up his street...

We'll win tomo

I think the new spelling is probably more appropriate in the current climate!

Yep, made a remark along similar lines in another thread yesterday. We will be bought by someone looking to either run us as a business or use us as a status symbol. Very very probably someone not even UK based and with what is likely to be a fleeting interest in football. I can't turn off my passion for the game, i've tried not to think about it and during my teen years i veered away a bit, replacing fanatical support with something a little less intense, but as i've gone through my twenties my passion has got stronger as we've got worse and football has gone down the pan. I just can't help myself and i don't know why, it is a total addiction and sometimes I wonder if it is unhealthy. But what scares me is what the game is going to be to my children (if and when i have any). How do you explain what it used to be like? Why you fell in love with it? If all that remains is a bunch of assholes kicking a ball around answering to their offshore owner who uses the club as a plaything and a manager who is just part of a 'system' of faceless executives / scouts. There are so few characters left in the game, so few genuinely likeable people compared to even 10-15 years ago. The further you go back, the closer the players were to the fans, as we go forward you feel half the time the crowd is actually a distraction to them and they feel nothing but contempt. All that remains is the fans. They are what keeps my addiction alive and without fellow fans i think my love for the game would die. It's the banter, the tribalism and the common cause. Nothing else matters so much. I hope in time disillusionment grows into anger and anger into a movement that sees fans follow AFC Wimbledon and FC United into the realms of the lower league and supporter-started clubs. At least at that point we can start afresh, knowing that one day it'll develop into the same again most likely, but safe in the knowledge that if it gets too big it's the fans right to knock it down and start again, rather than our passion being dictated to us by Rupert Murdoch and cohorts. Live the dream!

I just laughed out loud and had to explain to my boss what i found so funny there... You cannot be serious dude? Forum browsing and 'pro gaming' is your interest in football?! hahahaha

That's HTT for you. Indeed Maybe it's just a case of wanting him to sell through the normal channels. Thaksin Sinawatra, despite being a lunatic fugative, managed to sell Man City, who were in as bad a state as us almost, with minimum fuss and no publicity... Not saying it's always that easy but we seem to be going to a ridiculous extreme the other way, if just a few of the press reports are to be believed.

Not as easy as thought, no, but as was discussed a while back, a lot of the Arabian consortiums and investment groups are doing it as a show of financial strength / positive western publicity. They aren't necessarily looking to run the club as a business, more of a status symbol. I'm not sure which of those two options is best, mind. What happened to clubs being run as football clubs? As and when i have kids how rubbish is it going to be trying to explain how it used to be about the fans and a passionate birthright? All football is now is a big business, it sucks. If you're right, and the primary motivation is to acquire a 'status symbol', than that's a worry, because that kind of motivation won't last. I don't think Ashley was all about big business. He wanted to run the club in a stable fashion, but he's a genuine football fan and he wanted something more than that. He's been dismissed far too quickly, all on the back of this emotional reaction to Keegan going. My reasons for dismissing him are far beyond the action of Keegan in leaving but definitely another thread for that! I don't actually agree that Ashley wanted us as anything other than a business and none of his actions have demonstrated otherwise, with the exception of wearing a toon shirt and sitting in with the fans, which cynics have called PR. The buying cheap, apparent re-financing rather than removal of debts, minimal input in playing staff and sky high asking price (if all true, obviously), will show this to be nothing but a short term high gain business deal. Maybe he sussed the markets were going to go tits up and has used an imaginitive alternative equity trading process. If it ends up seeing him make £100m plus in around a year i'll find it hard not to feel like we've been totally done. Also, sure it's been discussed elsewhere, but didn't Whelan say he was a Spurs fan? Don't trust a word that comes out of that asshole's mouth in fairness, Bruce in best 4 managers in league, Zaki the new Shearer, dear oh dear. He doesn't like Ashley after the whole shirt-fixing scandal anyhow. I'm arguing with myself now, i'll stop.

Not as easy as thought, no, but as was discussed a while back, a lot of the Arabian consortiums and investment groups are doing it as a show of financial strength / positive western publicity. They aren't necessarily looking to run the club as a business, more of a status symbol. I'm not sure which of those two options is best, mind. What happened to clubs being run as football clubs? As and when i have kids how rubbish is it going to be trying to explain how it used to be about the fans and a passionate birthright? All football is now is a big business, it sucks.

It actually sounds like Ashley has been reading this board... "oh those Arabs must all be the same, that fake Rolex i got last Christmas was priced at $1,000 and i got it for $10, best stick the football club at an obscene cost and then we'll shout prices at each other until we eventually meet in the middle". Newcastle's very own Terry Tibbs

Hmmm... would have said the same about the story in the Sun of him getting smashed up in LA as Keegan was quitting, until i saw the pics to go along with it. Not suggesting this is true, but certainly doesn't sound unlike Ashley

Haha, reminds me of Andy Murray's interview after the US Open. "You may have lost, but you have still won $250,000 so you must be happy with that?" "It's about £10 at the minute isn't it?" Dollar is hovering around an 18 month high against the pound, also doing well against the Euro. What's happening in the markets impacts us as much as the states (see ftse v dow today). What we wanna do is get our investors to come from Switzerland or Japan, then they can take advantage of a few decent days of fx adjustments...

Let me be first to say.... source?

It's been a good few years since I did company law during my law degree but i can say with relative certainty as outright owner of the company he can do whatever he pleases. Regardless of day to day running of the company, any constitutional articles that he bizarrely chose to draft would be his and his only to amend, so he could change them and do as he pleased. This is such a silly conversation as we're talking about a successful businessman who would never ever relinquish control of his companies in such a way unless it saw him benefit (sports direct becoming plc), not to mention his undoubted hoardes of legal advisors who would have said more than a few things had he suggested he was going to give over power for no apparent reason. No offence intended.

Yep, remember that conversation! I have to say, whilst i don't in the sober light of day wish injury on anyone, if you're going to act like a complete cunt, as fagan did throughout the game, in a situation as passionate and emotional as Saturday then you're going to get kicked. You'd be lucky to last 2 minutes playing with that attitude in a Sunday league and even those paid to play sometimes let the emotion get the better of them. Even the idiot Hull fan in front of us in the pub said Fagan is a grade a cock. Hopefully Guthrie will learn from this and hopefully won't have to be in such a shit situation many more times during his toon career (either a very ambitious hope or very short career for Guthrie with that second one). totally agree with your whole post mate Yes but that's where being professional comes into it. I know and I understand what he did was wrong, but football was a sport long before it was a profession and it's so hard to objectively draw such a line. I'd find it very hard to stay cool in such a situation and can at least empathise with the action, whilst not condoning it. Hopefully it was just a misplaced action that showed how much he cared for the cause. I certainly don't think he thought 'hmmm, the squad is bloody thin at the moment if i get a ban we'll be a bit fucked, i'm going to kick him anyway', i reckon he probably didn't think at all and saw red and would probably have been gutted a few minutes later. It'd be nice to hear him apologise, more to the fans than Fagan. As i said, it was a really emotional afternoon, he's a young lad, trying his best and let emotion get the better of him. He did wrong, but lets not crucify him for it. He'll serve his ban, come back and then we get behind him. I agree Fagan deserves little/no sympathy, but the bit in bold is absolute rubbish. Agreed, typing quickly and muddling things - i meant in the situation it's v hard to be objective, very easy to do so now

Most of the lads i've played Sunday league with are accountants, finance professionals and IT consultants, all classed traditionally as more intelligent than footballers and in the main very placid, thoughtful and good company off the field, yet i've still seen a few cases of people losing their rags in situations where pros have stayed calm. Just because someone is paid to play football doesn't mean they will become a saint and have all aggression removed. Saturday league that i have played on the other hand, is a majority of viscious animals.

Yep, remember that conversation! I have to say, whilst i don't in the sober light of day wish injury on anyone, if you're going to act like a complete cunt, as fagan did throughout the game, in a situation as passionate and emotional as Saturday then you're going to get kicked. You'd be lucky to last 2 minutes playing with that attitude in a Sunday league and even those paid to play sometimes let the emotion get the better of them. Even the idiot Hull fan in front of us in the pub said Fagan is a grade a cock. Hopefully Guthrie will learn from this and hopefully won't have to be in such a shit situation many more times during his toon career (either a very ambitious hope or very short career for Guthrie with that second one). totally agree with your whole post mate Yes but that's where being professional comes into it. I know and I understand what he did was wrong, but football was a sport long before it was a profession and it's so hard to objectively draw such a line. I'd find it very hard to stay cool in such a situation and can at least empathise with the action, whilst not condoning it. Hopefully it was just a misplaced action that showed how much he cared for the cause. I certainly don't think he thought 'hmmm, the squad is bloody thin at the moment if i get a ban we'll be a bit fucked, i'm going to kick him anyway', i reckon he probably didn't think at all and saw red and would probably have been gutted a few minutes later. It'd be nice to hear him apologise, more to the fans than Fagan. As i said, it was a really emotional afternoon, he's a young lad, trying his best and let emotion get the better of him. He did wrong, but lets not crucify him for it. He'll serve his ban, come back and then we get behind him.