LucaAltieri

I'd like to see Boro back up. My Boro-supporting mates are a good laugh, certainly more so than my mackem "mates." Besides, they've been in exile long enough now. Of the realistic contenders I'd prefer Brighton. It'll be nice to see them going up with Poyet going down.

I had it on in the background while working. Lasted about 10 minutes.

Just watching the "big announcement" from NYCFC about Yankee Stadium. The press conference is fucking awful. Constant rattling of the air conditioning, the mic is exploding with every "P" or "B," you can barely hear anything anyone is saying, not that it matters because it's boring as fuck anyway. Bunch of old white men trying to sounds like they're serious business. 37 minutes of this shit.

Pochettino here, Moyes there, Pardew at Man U. Done. Pard U.

I've been confident for months. They're awful. They don't score enough goals or fluke enough wins. They're gone.

They're still down, stop panicking. We've seen them lift themselves against big teams before, this is no surprise. They're still ridiculously short on goals. Borini isn't going to save them every week. The result today only goes to show how much the bottling cunts deserve to be relegated. Results against City and Chelsea but failing to win against the shitter teams. It's purely down to them not giving a fuck. Good riddance.

I'd like to nominate Christophe Dugarry.

I might send in one as well, just an A4 page with NOT PARDEW written on it. Should be good enough. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rLHpEHrXcWg/TskKIQGKmOI/AAAAAAAABgQ/CkY1WGbvazs/s1600/yawn.png Funny, I get that reaction to near enough all of your posts like We can't all contribute as much as you do, mate.

I might send in one as well, just an A4 page with NOT PARDEW written on it. Should be good enough. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rLHpEHrXcWg/TskKIQGKmOI/AAAAAAAABgQ/CkY1WGbvazs/s1600/yawn.png

it's his job to you know, stop them getting relegated. He's been awful. It's his fault, he's had absolutely ages. if the players are bunch of f***ing boozing halfwits who can't be f***ed then what is any manager supposed to do? PDC tried to be a hardass about it. That failed. Poyet tried to be easy going and positive. That failed. The only way he was keeping them up is if he put on a pair a boots and played up front. The core of this squad has managed to stay up (not by a huge margin I admit) in recent seasons. Bruce is having their cast offs comfortably midtable. Poyet is not without blame here, and he's the fucking captain of the ship jumping in the lifeboat at the first sign of an iceberg. Nah, it's not the first sign of an iceberg. The iceberg was in sight when he boarded. It's more like; "ok lads, iceberg ahead, let's change course. Lads. Lads, there's an iceberg. We're leaving this a bit late, lads. Iceberg. Iceberg dead ahead. Lads? Ok, fuck it, where's the lifeboat?"

it's his job to you know, stop them getting relegated. He's been awful. It's his fault, he's had absolutely ages. if the players are bunch of fucking boozing halfwits who can't be fucked then what is any manager supposed to do? PDC tried to be a hardass about it. That failed. Poyet tried to be easy going and positive. That failed. The only way he was keeping them up is if he put on a pair a boots and played up front.

Don't blame him at all. Ok, some of his signings have been shit, but that's not even the main problem they have going on. The players are running the show and they couldn't give a fuck. They managed to get themselves up for the derbies and the cup games... from time to time they'll play a big team in the league and they'll look like they've got something about them, but on the whole it's obvious they just can't be arsed. Di Canio said it. Poyet is now trying to wash his hands of the situation. They could hire any manager in the world and with those players on the books they'd still be down at the bottom. I don't like Poyet and I think he'll be shown to be an average manager at best. But I don't blame him for the mackems going down.

Couldn't give a fuck about Columbus, like.

How many fucking transfer windows do you need ffs? Haven't people been saying "This summer/winter is the big test" for about 4 or 5 years now? And we've consistently done fuck all. I guess we'll do fuck all this summer beyond the bare minimum, then you'll be back on here telling us that January is the big test. Grow a spine and stop letting Ashley constantly ream you in the ass. Ashley isn't much of a giver, more of a taker. I do most of the of the reaming. And that's, of course, the only reason I'm not stood outside his house with a burning torch. Bang on about me saying the same thing every window too, mind. Fucking yawn.

That's a bit low, you don't even know if she's still alive. Correct. Which is what makes it have no power whatsoever.

So's your gran. Why would you care? Cunt Police. Over 50s Division. Move it along.

So's your gran.

Probably true to a point. The club don't value cup runs or a second tier European tournament because they don't generate enough revenue. They've made that clear. I'd bet you Ashley would bite you hand off for a bit of the champion's league money, though. I think he wants us to improve, but in very specific ways, on very specific terms. This summer is the big test. He's taking a more active role in the club so here we'll see what his intentions are. If it's just more of the same then I'll hold my hands up and admit defeat. No ambition, no desire to be anything more than mid-table. If we invest then I'm sticking to my guns. Early indicators, with the upgrades to the academy, are that he's going to double down on youth and try to get the best out of kids as offering value for money. I like that prospect. It was great seeing the likes of Bassong and Krul come good. As a fan I find that exciting.

£18 million. And if he'd just sold Cabaye and never hired Kinnear, it's still £18 million plus the threepence Kinnear was earning. He'd probably face more flack than peddling Kinnear to deflect anything from coming his way. But that doesn't appear to be the reality. Public opinion was shit anyway, hiring Kinnear made it worse. Sacking Kinnear didn't bring it back up to where it was before. It was better than having him lurking around but it didn't restore any optimism. It just made Ashley's decision making seem suspect. It's like when people argue smoking makes you calmer... it only makes you calmer because it's the very thing that's stressing you the fuck out. I just don't buy it. I can be convinced, however. If we go into this summer, with Ashley on the board and helping with transfers and we sign players... I'm sticking to my guns. I was right. He's not sitting at home petting his cat and cackling manically. If we go into the summer and we don't sign enough players or players of the right quality, spending way under what's needed, and/or selling off our top assets without replacing them, and in the fallout Ashley resigns from the board to take the heat off... then you've got me as a conspiracy theorist too.

£18 million. And if he'd just sold Cabaye and never hired Kinnear, it's still £18 million plus the threepence Kinnear was earning.

Logic is boring. That's why so few dabble in it.

We know that Ashley doesn't give a fuck about what the fans think. We know that Ashley doesn't like to spend money. Why would he hire someone just to use them as a scapegoat? Did he suddenly start to care what the fans think or did he suddenly decide he liked wasting money? I see little evidence of either in any other aspect of the club. If he was so keen to keep the fans onside, why would he hire Kinnear in the first place? Why wouldn't he hire someone we respected to be DoF then use them as a scapegoat? Wouldn't that be more plausible? It just doesn't add up. It's fucking bonkers. I'd dispute your first point, which would sort of negate much of the rest of your post tbh. Few questions for you, if Ashley doesn't care a jot what the fans think... - Why did he throw a massive paddy when fans were kicking off at him after the Keegan stuff, reacting by putting the club on the market in a huff? - Why did he do similar when the Chronicle objectively and innocuously reported a protest march in their paper, banning all TH publications from the ground? - Why are his staff consistently trying to dampen expectations in the media, if not to limit fan anger and fuel apathy? - Why are they consistently mis-leading the fans on issues such as transfer fees paid out, if not to avoid being berated by the fans for not spending what we bring in? - Why the cloak-and-dagger approach to explaining the Sports Direct advertising issue? If he's not bothered about the fans, why doesn't he just say it's his ground and they can fuck off? - Why is the club run in such a shady, secretive way, where every communication with the fans is watered down and again geared towards lowering expectations? They're just a few questions, there'd be more if I could be arsed to think of them. But the point I'm making is that although fan's feelings clearly aren't the be-all-and-end-all for Mike Ashley, he benefits from an easier ride, which is unfortunately all too often afforded to him due to the fractured nature of our support, general apathy/resignation in the stands (much of it resulting from years of the club saying/doing things that suggest we're not much cop as a football club, in contrast to previous years where we'd be allowed to dream and knew we'd try to compete) and also many of our fans falling for the quite obvious decoys being put in front of them, such as an excuse-machine manager and a DOF who people would point and laugh at and then later on blame when no players were brought in and our best one was sold. You even heard it at the time, fans all over the shop going "It's the Director Of Fuck-All's fault, he's not doing his job properly", so it clearly was believable to some. I can't be bothered to reply to every point so I'll just go back to the only one that matters... If he cares what the fans think and wants to keep them onside then why is Joe Kinnear his DoF appointment? Nobody, sympathiser or hater, wanted Joe Kinnear in that role. No one thought it would work out. No one looks at that and thinks "fair play, Ashley is free from blame here." It was a massive fuck up and one he rightly gets blamed for. That's not good PR. Not spending money or appointing a fucking chimpanzee who fails to spend any money, he still comes out of it looking like shit. Fans are still pissed off. We can still do fuck all about it. What did he gain?

Maybe, the billionaire owner with no history working in football, and with multiple other business interests doesn't spend that much time worrying about the inner workings of the club and leaves that to the people he hires specifically for that purpose. Ah right, of course. It's the club employees that are choosing to sell our best players, choosing not to spend, choosing to hire a manager sacked by West Ham, Southampton and Charlton Athletic. Mike's given them an open cheque book and told them to go after Laudrup and they keep letting him down, the bloody rascals. See, this is the kind of shit I'm talking about. I argue that he's not micromanaging the day to day operations. Your response is to suggest that there's no money available anyway. It's all smoke and mirrors. Part of the plan. There's a middle ground. Ashley wants bargains and fuck face Kinnear couldn't deliver them. We were bidding for players. We even had bids accepted and were negotiating personal terms. But no, that's just a smokescreen in the grand plot to make sure we never sign another player again. Logic would dictate Ashley gave them a budget and Kinnear couldn't make it work. He sold one of our most valuable assets (arguably cheaply) and couldn't get a replacement through the door in time. He got sacked. Looks pretty obvious to me. But unless there's something sinister you lot just aren't happy.