ExiledGeordie

Ironic that I live 20 mins from the ground and have moved back to Newcastle after something like 14 yrs away and yet I have absolutely zero desire to go and watch this pathetic excuse for a football club. A new footballing low for me.

Really? Yes, assuming you get any enjoyment for watching the football obviously. So very few if any are depriving themselves of anything positive. Ian the football club is a car crash of an operation. I'm not even the hardcore, far from it but I simply can't be arsed to pay for tickets anymore given what's going on. I love the club and ill always support them but there's more to life than forcing myself to go and hand over cash when I've become so disillusioned. This last act spells out exact what Ashley thinks in terms of ambition and football know how and the only eay I can vote is with my feet and not go. It's disappointing and it's s*** but that's the decision I've come to, it's the principle of it all.

Similar feelings here, except I guess it's more outright incompetence than contempt for anyone. Why? It's contempt quite clearly IMO. Ashley has invented a role for someone when there was no talk of this before. He knows the fan feeling towards Kinnear/pardew and he knows what reaction this would get hence why he did it anyway. I highly doubt he thought this would benefit nufc in any way You honestly believe Mike Ashley is out to wind up his own customers? He doesn't care what we think, true, but these kinds of decisions are just idiotic, not vicious. He might not set out to deliberately wind fans up but then if that's not the case he's clearly so clueless with regards football and so thick skinned that he simply doesn't care. Hes playing on the fact that he knows the club is so much to the region that people will still turn out and pack the stands despite what he does. This really is the final action for me under his ownership though, it's just such total bollocks. I've got no intention to go at all now which is a crying shame given that I've moved back to Newcastle and live 20 min walk from the ground. Had enough

That's pretty much the way I feel mate, it's a total waste of time

I still can't quite believe this It's so utterly absurd I've been driven to nervous laughter

It's the worst possible jobs for the boys example and sums everything up about Ashley's intentions at the club. He's showed all his cards with this one, no doubt. Colossal fuck up

I was actually thinking about going to watch some games too having read all the latest nonsense

I don't have a season ticket but I went to plenty of the home games. I can't be arsed anymore so won't be spending my money on tickets, that's all I can do

It just says everything about the current set up that they would actually move to appoint someone like this for a position like that. It's a total waste of time the whole thing. What next Sports Direct United

If this actually happens I'm fucking it all off, total waste of time. The word farce wouldn't even come close to doing that situation justice

Well that would be a surprise wouldn't it

Betting suspended

Wouldn't be at all surprised if this happens to be fair, seems the most likely of any of our big names to leave. ££££ won't be reinvested properly either though. Winner for Ashley

Awful player

Can see him going to Arsenal

We've got some good players no doubt but there's clearly areas that need to be improved on. It's not the time to start fretting yet but past experience means I won't be holding my breath that there'll be multiple genuine quality additions to the squad. There's also just too manya contradictions from Pardew in relation to player recruitment and expectation as to where the club should be looking to finish - no point listening to any of it. We desperately need some new creative options and more players who can score because we're woefully reliant on Cisse. Whether we get those players in remainds to be seen. Mind when the manager sets us up not to lose you have to wonder what difference new players will make in any case. You could bring in a new attacking midfielder and striker and while they'd add more offensive power but if they're constantly told to keep it tight for 70 mins before trying to nick one then they're not going to make a massive difference either way

Same here, I don't think we're going to make any serious progress as a squad, it'll be more of the same. I also don't have any faith in Pardew organising the team into anything with a particular style. Might just go and throw myself under a bus

What are these strengths? How does he help the team play that style? Sure he missed a lot of chances this season and was poor by his standards but as far as I could tell he played a lot of the time with his back to goal as a target man which isn't his strength. We don't have many players who get behind a defence or beat a full back to put crosses in. And Pardew doesn't set us up offensively so our general play is negative and we don't create a lot of chances as a result. Cisse's strength is thriving on crosses and hitting them first time. He scored a fair few goals like that in is first season here and as a result his all round play was more confident. That's just how I see it. To be honest this season has completely sucked the life out of me so in reality if its more of the same next season ill probably save my pennies rather than go to the match.

Cisse struggled but the team isn't exactly set up to play to his strengths. He's not a target man ffs but Pardew has him isolated so badly that he ends up having to play like one. I don't remember many games where he was running onto decent whipped in crosses to either head or hit first time along the floor. When your play is set up so as not to lose I can't ever see someone like Cisse being used to their maximum potential.

That is just awful, Jesus. I bought a retro 94/95 top but to be fair I haven't bought a shirt since god knows when.

Our brand image is hardly good though. You won't get many respectable companies wanting to sit alongside Sports Direct and Wonga. Sports Direct is hardly a pariah brand, although Wonga is definitely shaky ground. But even before Wonga signed up last season we were hardly attracting big bucks in sponsorship deals, and was probablyone of the reasons we ended up with them eventually. I think it's more to do with big companies want to be attached to clubs which are aiming for success and show ambition. With us it's still appears to be the case of survive on the cheap and take what you can above that as a bonus. Sticking with a cheap manager rather than appoint a quality one sends out that signal for sure. Sport Direct is a horrendous brand I'm afraid. It cries out 'stack em high sell em cheap'. It's a bargain basement brand, and it's been plastered all over what was once a great looking ground. The club used to have a fairly good brand image itself tbh, but the Ashley regime have changed that. Even the Puma shirts are cheap template kits with sow on badges as opposed to embroided ones. Look at the state of the club shop. Its basically a Newcastle United version of Sports Direct where everything is crammed in and its 3 t-shirts for a tenner. I haven't been in many other club shops, but I have been in Arsenal's and Chelsea's. Both are pretty classy and the items on sale are desirable and of good quality. Personally, I haven't bought one item of merchandise since the last Adidas top. The whole image of the club is wrong tbh, but what it is is all Ashley knows. His kind of marketing doesn't adapt well to a Premier League football club where you're looking to attract sponsorship and where brand image is important. Brand image isn't really that important to Sports Direct. It's hardly a wonder our commercial revenue has almost halved, and disgracefully so is now even below Sunderland's. No high end brand wants to be associated with us, and whats on the pitch is only a tiny part of it. Good post. Great post

I'm just surprised that people would really think that he'd be replaced. This is Ashley and Llambias we're talking about, he still absolutely fits in with what they want. .com has it exactly right when they point out that it's highly unlikely those two would appoint anyone of better quality. I saw Pard's has cancelled the phone in on bbc sport, now there's a surprise Must have realised what an absolute slaughtering he was going to get. One more point, I like listening to John Anderson on there but I'm surprised given he;s watched every fucking game under Pardew that he hasn't been more critical of Pardew given what he's seen.

My mate sent me a message on facebook earlier sounding pretty confident he was going, that it was all over twitter. I haven't heard that much though and seems nothing more than basic rumours.

Can forum members come and watch? (sorry if this has been asked already)

It really is painful isn't it. Actually its more embarrassing now to be honest.