Consortium of one

Using Ian W's format for this... Given - I love watching him play. He's talented and passionate and has good reason to be frustrated. Harper - good deputy Beye - quiet, consistent, professional player. An asset to any squad Bassong - Looks to able to form a solid pairing with Colo Taylor - I want to see more of him at RB while Beye is out. It may untimately turn out to be his best position Collocini - I think he's still adjusting to the league can be the foundation for the back for in time Enrique - I still don't know what to make of him Edgar - may develop into adequate cover Cacapa - he should have been sold instead of Faye Duff - too much a wage bill for too little an end product N'Zogbia - All I see is a guy who dribbles with his head down so he has little awareness of where his teammates are around him. Guthrie - Would love to see him in the holding role alongside another really creative CM. could develop into a very nice player Butt - Past it Gutierrez - I think he's the only player with any creativity on the squad. Love to watch him play and dream of what he can be with more talent around him Barton - Our best holding MF right now. Still has questions surrounding his character Geremi - Consummate teammate, I'll bet, but yeah his legs are gone Smith - Don't think he offers the club anything, ATM Viduka - He's a tease Martins - he's a wild card. has tremendous physical skills if not technical skills. best paired with a technically sound bigger forward Owen - Bye bye Carroll - I like what I've seen but can he do it consistently? Ameobi - Rotation player Xisco - Don't know why JFK has buried him. get this lad on the pitch. Kinnear - Caretaker, not a permanent solution. It's incredibly difficult to evaluate this squad as a team because they never get to play together for an extended period of time

Again, it's all down to s*** communication from inside of the cub. yeah, that too.

And if he still hasn't taken it, I think it says a lot about Mike Ashley. People are saying he doesn't care about the club and he was just in it for the money. But if he isn't taking the interest he clearly is making an effort to help the club It is his f***ing club man. Yeah, and he could be taking the interest right now and no one would give it a second thought. I tell you what, after people slagged him off after the Keegan fiasco I could understand him taking the interest if I were him. I say again, if he were in it just for the money like a lot of people have said, he would have taken the interest. Business is business unless you look at the club differently.

And if he still hasn't taken it, I think it says a lot about Mike Ashley. People are saying he doesn't care about the club and he was just in it for the money. But if he isn't taking the interest he clearly is making an effort to help the club. His failing is that he has made terrible decisions about who to trust, IMO.

Yes, Ashley screwed up because he didn't do the due diligence to find out that the sale of the club triggered specific clauses in the loans. However, he did the club good by loaning money to the club with interest but foregoing collecting on the interest to benefit the club. He has also put his own money back into the club. I really think his heart is in the right place when it comes to the club. It may just be that he has placed his trust in the wrong people. people like Mike Ashley (rightly so) hire lawyers to read loan agreements, some one failed him in that regard. He also made a mistake with some of his management, specifically Lliambas and Wise, IMO. So while it appears that Ashley has made some blunders, it's not because he didn't have the best interests of the club in mind. If he didn't care he wouldn't have made these monetary concessions. He didn't just buy the club and try to run it as a business. It sounds to me like he had a decent plan to move forward and ran into the perfect storm ie: managemnet issues coupled with the current financial crisis. Ashley fucked up because he trusted the wrong people.

Some questions/points We buy a player for 10M, he's given a 4 year deal. From a balance sheet perspective, his value decreases 2.5m/year for 4 years. So if we sell the player after 3 years for 6M the club would still record a "gain from sale of asset" of 3.5M right? 10-7.5 = 2.5 + 6 = 3.5??? Also if the parent company loans money to a sub, it has to have interest otherwise it isn't really a "loan" right? If the loan does have interest, the new owner would assume the loan payments as the new owner unless their is some kind of provision included in the sale agreement.

I wonder where we would be if we had fewer players that have been injured?

I think he's done a decent job in a difficult situation. That being said, I wouldn't offer him a contract beyond this year if my life depended on it.

2-0 Jonas and Owen score

That youtube video of Allardyce yelling into a bullhorn during a practice, choreographing the players movements was enough for me.

I can't shake the feeling that Joe Kinnear is going to be out in the cold and twisting in the wind for the club when all is said and done. Wise and Lliambas must be having a contest, each trying to out do the other in regards to sending Kinnear out with updated "news" and seeing if he will repeat it to the press. Wise: I sent Joe out to tell the press we've offered 5M for Mbia. Lliambas: Good one Dennis (giggles). We know he's not coming here but Joe sure does (more giggles). I've sent Joe out to tell the press that Mike will address all the issues after the window closes. (laughter) Wise: Ok, how's this: I tell Joe we've tabled a 25M deal for Kaka (hysterical laughter). Mike Ashley pokes his head into Derek's office. Wise and Lliambas suddenly get serious looks on their faces. Ashley: What the hell is Joe talking about? He's saying I'm going to address all the issues once the window closes? Lliambas: Beats me Mike, I've no idea where he got that one from. Dennis? Wise: (looks nervous) No idea boss, I'll look into it once I finish with these...umm...scouting reports!

I just find it odd the way he is conducting business in the media. It almost sounds as if he's trying to convince himself that the club is making progress. Maybe Wise is BSing him just to get JFK off his back and in turn, JFK is taking Wise's BS and talking to the press about it. Joe Kinnear rings Dennis Wise JFK: What progress have we made Dennis? Wise: Huh? On what? JFK: those players I tipped you on. Wise: Right...right...(shuffles papers loudly). Oh yes, we're doing quite well. We have some bids in. JFK On...? Wise: Uhh yes, on a couple of your guys. JFK: Is M'bia one of them, The bloke for 4M? Wise: Yeah, yeah. That's it. (Wise finds a scrap of paper with a couple of names scribbled on it) and... uhhh... Gomis? Yeah, yeah, Gomis too. JFK: Great, Dennis, (breathlessly) I knew I could count on you.

Classy player who lost his legs. The plus he gave the club on set pieces was canceled out in other areas. I don't think he can ever give a productive 90 minutes of football any more.

Vini, vidi, vici

What the hell happened to Carroll, Taylor, Enrique and Geremi? Training ground injury?

This

The club needs depth. The player is still relatively young and has had success in the past. He's coming on a free. Maybe he plays with a chip on his shoulder and wants to prove everyone wrong. Maybe we catch lightning in a bottle. If he has his legs, sign him I say. Maybe this will be a prelude to other deals but I'd be afraid if the dominoes start falling. If one fall the wrong way the club may be left short in some areas and we can't afford that.

I think it's hard to judge any center back when he has inconsistent center midfielders in front of him.

If he "caught the Newcastle bug" then he will bring a certain amount of passion to his work won't he? I would think that if one brings passion to their job, when a conflict begins to erupt they won't sit on their arse in London while it gets inflamed. They won't fiddle while the club burns. They won't send text messages in the aftermath when face to face resolution is a must. We've all seen how Mort communicated when he was with the club. He did it with the fans and I'm sure he did it in the back rooms. It's fair to say if Mort had been there with the club (as opposed to Llambias idling in London) whatever disagreement arose between Keegan and Wise, et al wouldn't have blown up the way it did.

Team: Newcastle United Current Position: 12th Where did you expect your team to currently be: Competing for European spot Best player so far this season: Bassong. His pairing with Coloccini has solidified the defense which in turn breeds confidence to throw more into the attack. A close second is Shay Given who has made some wonderful saves and has been the most consistent performer from the first of the season. Worst player so far this season: Maybe not the worst but certainly the most dissapointing to me is Nacho Gonzalez. The central midfield is crying out for some creativity and had he not gotten injured, he could have provided it. Jonas looks to be the only midfielder with any kind of vision and ability to deliver the canny pass. Best game so far: Pompey away. I would have gone with the Man U draw but with the ensuing Keegan mess, we never had the chance to build on that game. Worst game so far: Giving it away to Stoke Who would you like to sign in January: A creative, attacking central midfielder. A guy who make everyone around him a bit better. With a guy like that and Jonas, our strikers could really do some damage. Who would you like to sell in January: Smith, Smith, Smith and Smith. Thoughts on your manager so far this season: He walked into a shitstorm and has done a fine job getting everything pointed in the right direction. Given what was available at the time...he looks to have been the right guy at the right time. General thoughts on your team so far: The uncertainty at the top is and will keep this team from moving substantially forward. The January window may well tell the story as the squad is both thin and fragile. There has to be a commitment to shoring up the rotation and a legit attempt to acquiring a creative midfielder. Where do you think you’ll finish from this point to the end of the season: As constituted, the club would finish 12th and we'd be an injury or two away from a relegation battle. With some reasonable signings in January, top 8 is possible. It would be easier to say after the window closes than it is to say before it opens. I guess it all depends on Ashley.

We'll take 4 points from the next two games

I hope he stays too, at least until the end of the season. I think he dribbles down too many blind alleys and the club should look to upgrade after the season but he's the best we have right now and it looks like the team is starting to come together so having him go, even if we were to get a suitable replacement in the window would still be problematic, IMO.

Good post. I don't think it's possible for anyone to be "100% sure that he wasn't going to succumb to health issues again," though. Yeah, I couldn't quite find the right words to express it the way I wanted. Maybe beyond reasonable doubt would be a better way to put it.

Kudos to Kinnear for steadying the ship. He walked into an impossible situation: the club was in turmoil and he had nearly faded from memory. If you remember, after Keegan left, the players were pissed off because no one cared enough to come up and talk to them face to face. Instead, Wise and Llambas were texting the players. The players may have been near revolt. I would think that in a situation like that, if I were a player, I wouldn't trust anyone, let alone a manager that had been out of the loop for a number of years. And yet, here comes Joe Kinnear, and he apparently got the players to trust him and settled the team. I would think a simple list of priorities would be too: 1) settle the team, begin to gain trust 2) install a simple tactical approach 3) evaluate players Obviously, he did #1 and #2. The third was much harder, given the number of injuries. So , he did a fine job gaining the trust of his players. They want to play for him. This team could have easily gone in the tanl and been lost for the year. He gave them a simple framework to play in which helped them regain a little confidence. And despite the squad being ravaged with injuries, I think he did quite well evaluating talent. He was also decisive when he has needed to be. I remember him saying that he was shocked how Xisco didn't know where he should be playing in the box when attacking. Ameobi showed a better understanding and Shola won the job. Duff is more experienced and more fundamentally sound than Zogs so Duff won the job. Taylor was more of a known quantity than Bassong so Taylor was paired with Colo. All three of those moves spoke to the same philosophy: settle the ship and play conservatively. Once the ship is settled, then, based on your observations you can then make the necessary changes and open up your approach a little more. Hence, Bassong over Taylor and Zogs getting more play over Duff. Shola eventually lost his spot to Owen but I think it was well played by JFK to make a point of moving Owen in very slowly. Perhaps he was making Michael win the job rather than just handing it over to him. I think central midfield is still very unsettled and is Kinnear's top priority. I'm interested to see where he goes (if allowed to) in January. So I think as a caretaker, he has done quite well. He looked to be a rising star at Wimbledon but never seemed to recapture the magic after his heart attack. Sometimes when I see his interviews, I can't help but think that being a full time, long term manager will eventually take it's toll on him. If I were the owner, I would say that he's done a wonderful job to this point and say that I would be willing to discuss longer terms after the season ( instead of adding pressure by saying, "He can get us to Europe!"). Then if he has shown that he could maintain a consitent level of improvement through out the season. I would sit down with him. My first priority at that point would be to focus on his health and happiness. I would have to be 100% sure that he wasn't going to succumb to health issues again; a situation that would put us back in a similar position as when Keegan bolted. If and only if I was 100% sure he could maintain his health would I consider something long term. So, to sum up: he has to prove it on the pitch and convince me he can handle the stress and stay healthy. I mean it may very well be that Joe Kinnear can be a fine manager, just that it is better it be a place out of the limelight.

Not sure why the club is being mentioned as interested in Upson. I've never seen Skjelbred play (only know him from FM) and I don't know if he's ready for a starting role in the EPL but this club is crying for some creativity in the central midfield. I hope Owen signs, too. If Owen signs a deal, it shows that the team is serious and that Owen believes the team is serious and both elements are essential for the club to go forward. he may not be the payer he once was but he still has a reputation and locking him up is a signal of stability and diligence to other players.