bealios

A similar course of events occurred in 1992, and the overall impact it had on the club was very positive.

They've already told us - he hasn't gone. Relax. Stick together. Ashley's conduct over the last year to me seems to be for the best of the club (i.e. in its current state of not having a load of Arab oil money running it). Keegan loves the club and wouldn't want to sell the fans short. We have two parties who both want the best for NUFC, perhaps for different reasons, but still the the best. Ride the storm.!!

The man is solely responsible for the fact that we are not Forest/Preston/Leeds etc. The fact that those young kids feel obliged to stand outside SJP is because of that magical period which most of them didn't experience. Football has been around for over 100 years. In England there are almost 100 professional clubs. We should feel privileged that during our lifetime, as football fans, we lived between the years 1992 - 1997 as Newcastle fans. Those 5 years explain why even now the "Robinho" story has hardly been mentioned today.

The Man City thing initially struck me as the usual bollocks which Ashley (or more accurately his rent a quote associates) came out with when he bought NUFC. However the Robinho deal reminds me of what happened when Chelski arrived on the scene. This bloke means business, and now everyone else is fighting for 6th, which is great except that doesn't give european qualification.

Manorpark, the fans as you know are not a single thinking entity. Some of "the fans" see the absolutely disgusting media coverage that NUFC get for what it is, the rest are now outside SJP trying to get their mugs on Sky TV

To put everything in perspective, what happened with Man City yesterday will change football for the next 10 years. If Ashley had spent £30m yesterday it would have made no difference to the overall scheme of things. We cannot compete financially with Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal (ok. maybe but they have Wenger), Man City and very shortly QPR. There is no point at all infighting and making a dick of ourselves on Sky.

I was just about to type this but you saved me the bother so deserved a quote. KK - whatever his flaws at management level is one of the few things that keeps me watching this game.

This shouldn't be a thread for slagging Ashley. If I'd fluked just over £1bn I wouldnt be paying all of it just to try and keep up with a £850bn owning owner for a club I didn't grow up with. My view is that the only solution to this is a salary cap on sqauds. It wouldn't breach EU regulation (trust me, I'm a lawyer...) and the long term implications are a competitive league. Would Berbatov have joined Man Utd if he know that squad salary caps meant that the most he would ever be paid was £60,000 due to Rio/Ronaldo/Rooney still at the club? This is the only way in the long term that football will not lose the fan base. The worring thing is, I'm not sure it needs it in the very long term...

I thought you almost had a good point. Stop listening to Sky. Dennis Wise is a scout because he didn't personally want to work full time as a football manager. He has spent the last few months abroad scouting. If he was made manager attendances would drop to sub 40K. He will not be manager next. I agree with you that IF SOMETHING WENT ON LAST NIGHT then the overall fan reaction must have been a factor in making any decision today. The only thing which differentiates Newcastle from Middlesboro or Sunderland is the fan base. Lose that and Big Mike may as well have bought Fulham for half the price.

Can somebody sort out a proper discussion thread about this. I was in deep depression about the state of football this morning because of things such as this, and I've been distracted by the whole Keegan leaving stuff. To be honest, this whole "oil money now running football thing" is so more depressing to the sport I love. £135m for Ronaldo used to be something that would be published in the daily sport. Now is most likely going to be fact.

Stop being a dick until the fact are known. You're giving all NUFC supporters a terrible name. Why don't you go down and join the mongs at ST. James Park? ps. I imagine there are a lot of genuine fans concerned at the ground, but the pictures of young Wkd drinking dicks trying to get on TV is fucking horrible.

The coverage on sky is absolutely disgraceful. The reporter (who I am told is a dirty mackem) is basically reporting as fact that Keegan has turned his back on the club and that he should look at what the fans are saying. Even if it does end up to be true, by fluke more than anything else, this is appalling coverage from what is supposed to be an impartial broadcaster. Even the BBC have held back.

This is not the time for point scoring. We're all NUFC fans. Something has gone on, and I hope to fuck Keegan has said that if he doesn't get the control over players he needs then he leaves, and Ashley has realised what a blow that would be for the club and they are working something out. If it is this, once again Keegan has put his neck on the line for the good of the club. Lets all remember, like Souness, Allardyce and on an England level Mclaren, getting sacked is so much better financially than walking away for a manager. I hope I'm bloody right Haway the toon!!!

Wonderful. Its like 1992 all over again.

Always, but having thought about it, the most relevant news for NUFC long term is what happened to Man City yesterday. I think once the anger subsides the more sensible fans will realise that whatever has happened with Keegan, Ashley is still trying to run the club on a sustainable basis. With Keegan or without Keegan, what happened yesterday will directly or indirectly shape football for the years to come. Its one thing having a one off spawny Russian dick influencing football for the worse for a few years, its another thing having the English Premier League influenced in the long term by oil money. If this goes through, what's to stop 2 or 3 different takeovers putting Fulham and Sunderland and Middlesborough as the new top 4 (along with Man City...)

Stable club basically means a mid table side without hope for progressing any further. We now effectively have a fixed top 5, if not this season then certainly by next. I reckon QPR will make it a top 6 in the next couple of years - their owners are richer than Abramovich

This as well. Although Man Utd's were just as bad. Rich (or well represented) clubs disregarding rules, no punishment at all. Will Clichy be brought up an a disrepute charge for what he said about being proud of Nasri's foul? West Ham and the lack of punishment for Tevez? To be fair to Man City I hold nothing against them and hope they stick it to Chelsea and Man Utd - decent set of fans, but it just underlines how money runs the game. QPR will make up the new top 3 with Chelsea and Man City, it will only take one more mega rich club (and its not beyond the realms of possiblity that Arab oil money will take an available club very soon - Fulham anyone?) and then the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool will not be guaranteed CL qualification. How will you feel about football when after its rich history, we have the same 4 clubs run by bottomless pits of cash finishing in the top 4, not by building a team and being tactically astute, but by buying huge squads of the best players to the detriment of all other clubs?

This. I try to take a step back from the usual media crap and think about what makes sense. The Milner sale made sense (although it was clear it was not Keegan's decision), I even thought overall the transfer window dealings were alright - its just the injuries which make it seem worse. But the Owen announcement didn't make sense at all, reeks of amateurism. And if this is true, unless there is a world class manager lined up who actually picked all of our transfer window signings, could be a worse decision than the appointment of Souness.

I reckon the atmosphere for the Hull game might be worse than the Portsmouth/Liverpool matches last year. I'm predicting Owen will get the pantomime treatment if he hasn't signed by then (and I wouldn't blame him if he didn't)

TO be honest FFS hasn't said anything bad on Sky, hasn't made an arse of himself yet. That reporter is a tosser though "DO you think Kevin got a bit emotional over the transfer window" - what a twat

IF KK is on his way, my best guess on this, avoiding the media based crap is: KK: Mike, you've made me look like a twat, we got 2 players yesterday and I was told we would have 4 or 5 through the door. We're short on numbers and clearly this recruitment policy isn't working. I need more control. I can't manage without having input on how recruitment works - evidence is mate that your policy is basically bollocks. MA: Ok, fuck off then.

I was thinking this myself. There's a growing dissatisfaction about football amongst fans, a combination of overpaid underperforming players, a league where billionairre owners run the game. Previously the mantra was that money couldn't guarantee success, and examples like Jack Hayward at Wolves were rolled out. However, when you have an Abramovich or a Dubai consortium, the amounts available to spend are unprecedented, and it WILL GUARANTEE success. Man City getting Robinho shows that if you throw enough money at a player, they will sign. Do that with 20 players and you have the best squad in the league. If the Dubai consortium spend like they seem to have started, there fill very quickly become a fixed top 2 - the Glaziers and Hicks won't be able to keep up, and Arsenal will very quickly fall away. They will be replaced by the next team to get a billionairre owner - possibly us, or quite equally Fulham, Portsmouth. QPR will be up there in 5 years. The league table will represent a list of the richest owners. Even if it is us, I won't change my view - football as we know it is over, and the only solution I see is as the previous poster said, to have an overall squad salary cap.

I'm surprised that City can go for this. The takeover deal is by no means confirmed - they have signed a memorandum of understanding, which is generally a non-binding statement of intent - it is subject to due diligence i.e. complete investigation of City finances, and also Premier League sign off. If the buyers want it that desparately and they can satisfy "fit and proper person" test, and it seems the latter is easy enough, then it will probably go through eventually. But a but surprised that they're going for Berbatov before its actually confirmed (or that Berba would go if its not definite).

Owen won't go anywhere IMO. At best we're going to get £4/5m for him, and I'm pretty sure that at that price, Keegan values Owen for the rest of the season more than the £5m transfer fee. I also don't see any of the teams that could afford his wages being desperate enough to swoop when they could get him for nothing at the end of the season. However Owen leaving at the end of the season for nothing is a more realistic prospect...

If only they had gone out of the CL on Wednesday.....