Toonpack

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Bit unfair to just ignore the squad/form he had to work with and the circumstances off the pitch. Yet Pardew gets no such leeway. It's a results business Pardew knew the circumstances hence why he took the job as a failed manager of a League 1 club. Keegan was lied to. And you cant even begin to compare the state of the team Keegan had to the far superior squad Pardew has. In short, you're wrong. Of course I'm wrong I'm not an anti-Pardew zealot No, only about the comparisons with Keegan. Pardew on other things would be slightly different. I can't stand the defensive second half s*** we always do. But you would have to be blind not to praise the first half, and our second goal was the best we've scored since the two breakaway goals at W.B.A. two seasons ago. We didn't go defensive, see my post way above, we were put on the back foot, it happens in virtually all premiership games every team has a "spell", manager changed it and we were the most dangerous of the two teams again and we won again. I am ingrained as a decades old Newcastle fan to expect us to cock it up from winning/being the better team positions but we're actually getting better at not doing it. The view that the Anita/Shola substitution was a defensive step is nonsense, the game I watched just doesn't back that up, WHU had a couple of chances but apart from the 47th - 60th minute we were in pretty damn good control and continued to be the most threatening. The manager is getting better, as is the team/squad. Change would be for changes sake.

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Bit unfair to just ignore the squad/form he had to work with and the circumstances off the pitch. Yet Pardew gets no such leeway. It's a results business I might be in the minority here but that's not how I view football. I'm with you, performances and how football is played are important to me. It's an entertainment business as well. I dont even look at it like that either (i know that's true mind). I'm the same from kids football to the very top. Football should be about passing it, movement, good to watch stuff. Which we did first half yesterday. I really have no idea how anyone can enjoy what West Ham did second half, and what we did for most of last season. There's a place for a long pass in football, not a long hopeful punt imo. Why are you comparing last season to this, we're light-years better this season and have been since last January when the reinforcements arrived, we're bottom of the long ball table. We are improving all the time.

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Bit unfair to just ignore the squad/form he had to work with and the circumstances off the pitch. Yet Pardew gets no such leeway. It's a results business I might be in the minority here but that's not how I view football. I'm with you, performances and how football is played are important to me. You must have loved the game yesterday then.

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Bit unfair to just ignore the squad/form he had to work with and the circumstances off the pitch. Yet Pardew gets no such leeway. It's a results business Pardew knew the circumstances hence why he took the job as a failed manager of a League 1 club. Keegan was lied to. And you cant even begin to compare the state of the team Keegan had to the far superior squad Pardew has. In short, you're wrong. Of course I'm wrong I'm not an anti-Pardew zealot

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Bit unfair to just ignore the squad/form he had to work with and the circumstances off the pitch. Yet Pardew gets no such leeway. It's a results business Not even close to comparable. You're right, Pardew's is MUCH worse

Media man, we've had the temerity to match (and be robbed by, in the case of City) the "top four" they just don't like it.

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Did you see the state of West Ham yesterday? Yeah, drink that in - that's what he inherited from that fat f***ing fraud and had to turn around half way through a season. After the initial losing streak we actually went on a great fun, too. Look, I get it, Keegan's first spell was amazing, miraculous even, but the unadulterated man-love that persists is pathetic. Pardew is our manager for the foreseeable, the signs are good IMO, we are actually getting better. The once in a lifetime turnaround which was Keegan's first spell is not going to repeat itself, in fact it's rarely happened anywhere else (I can't even recall the like at all).

No class, Good, Fergie was such a saint

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere. Bit unfair to just ignore the squad/form he had to work with and the circumstances off the pitch. Yet Pardew gets no such leeway. It's a results business

I have little doubt we would be in/around champions league. the sad thing is KK couldnt work with the idiots Ashley put above him. what a shame. Keegan's second spell should show anyone we'd be more than likely be at the other end of the table tbh. P21 W6 D6 L9 He never really repeated his first spell with us anywhere.

Amazing how entrenched beliefs colour perception and distort the truth. After half time we started well first couple of minutes with two attempts at goal but after that until the Anita/Shola sub they had three attempts to our none, after that substitution until the end of the match we had 7 attempts to their two. (you can check the BBC live text thing). Matches my view of what I watched, we totally dominated first half, started brightly for a very short period, then they got back into it, the Anita/Shola sub worked well, and we saw it out quite comfortably, and eventually (although rather late) got the killer goal. We only had one less attempt on goal in the second half than the first.

Its the constant 'we have no money' s*** that gets me. The massive difference between refusing to spend f*** all and not having it is lost on too many That whole thing is fine by me, it's all about bargaining position. I'd rather play the "were skint" card than go around saying we're loaded, because the latter won't help get deals done at good value which given the owner ain't going to fund marquee signings, the further the clubs cash can go the better..

Means nothing really, Chelsea just paid £20 million for someone who originally wasn't a success initially. Football's full of such cases.

Wasn't the club up for sale unofficially regardless? I'm pretty sure there were a few others who had a look at the books and decided against buying. If Hall and Shepherd didn't want to sell the club, Ashley could never have bought it. The club spent £6 Million (I believe it was iirc) in the financial year previous to Ashley buying it in activities related to trying to sell it. Dividends were drying up/had dried up, they wanted out. Hall did, Shepherd didn't IIRC What difference does it make? He still sold at the end of the day. If anyone believes Shepherd didn't want out, they're mad IMO, he was the Chairman/CEO of a company that had spent £6Mill trying to find a buyer, so he must have sanctioned that spend, and yet we're supposed to think he didn't want to sell ! It just doesn't stack up. He played his sickbed attempt to leverage some more cash, into a "I never wanted to sell" story for the "Geordie nation's" consumption to near perfection.

Wasn't the club up for sale unofficially regardless? I'm pretty sure there were a few others who had a look at the books and decided against buying. If Hall and Shepherd didn't want to sell the club, Ashley could never have bought it. The club spent £6 Million (I believe it was iirc) in the financial year previous to Ashley buying it in activities related to trying to sell it. Dividends were drying up/had dried up, they wanted out.

Oh aye, it's Pardew's fault, we more than matched the best side in the country and got jobbed by the ref and it's the managers fault. Fuck me !!!!

I think Chelsea are the more complete side, but City are definitely the most powerful. They've been blowing teams out of the water this season. Let the foot off the gas today after they went up. THAT is doing our team a great disservice, they played as well as we allowed them. We were absolutely screwed today. Aye no doubt. Should've at the very least been a point for us. We made the most of the shitty opportunities given. Pressed hard and played well. But if City had maintained the pressure of the opening 10 minutes, they would've bagged at least one more before HT and we would've lost comfortably. But WE didn't allow them to.

I think Chelsea are the more complete side, but City are definitely the most powerful. They've been blowing teams out of the water this season. Let the foot off the gas today after they went up. THAT is doing our team a great disservice, they played as well as we allowed them. We were absolutely screwed today.

Need to score to be a top 4 side. Thats 3 league games without a goal now Thank the ref for that

The ones who want him sacked probably don't base their opinion on a 4 game win streak or a 4 game loss streak. Same with those who think he's the best thing since Bobby Robson. It's not about thinking he is, results wise etc. he demonstrably and indisputably is, according to the last NUFC managers table I saw.

Astonishing that this even needs explaining but then it appears even the most basic human psychology is beyond some people's understanding. Lambert, Allardyce and Pardew were all in the press last week with tears in their eyes about having to play in the FA Cup, all three subsequently got binned out after pathetic performances with no heart (four in a row for Pards). Funny that. That says as much about the game in general itself (which is broken) than any one club/manager in particular tbh

Any stick ...............................

Saw a decent question put to David Peace (author of the Damned United) a few months back that was answered like this, and I think it said something about what people look for in a manager: Q I met Shankly with my dad once outside Anfield and he did possess this messianic aura. Grown men felt blessed to be in his company and there was a kind of Puritan work ethic that drove men like Shankly, Busby and Stein. With the retirement of Ferguson who was perhaps the last of that breed, the British game now seems to be controlled by dull pragmatists and technicians. At board level, old school spivs like Louis Edwards, Ken Bates, Ron Noades, Doug Ellis and Peter Swales have been replaced by global franchise gangsters for whom each club is merely an entry in a portfolio. Yet football has never belonged to the fans, footballers and managers have always been expendable and chairmen and administrators have always been incompetent and corrupt. Gazprom United will no doubt rule world football soon but is this necessarily a bad thing? A: One thing that struck me, again and again, researching and writing Red or Dead was, as you say, that football has never belonged to the supporters, the players or the managers. The clubs have always been owned by the men with the brass. But what also struck me was the way in which men like Shankly, Stein and Busby – coming from backgrounds that were much harder and poorer than most of us (not all of us) will ever know – through their sheer bloody-mindedness and hard work, their sacrifices and struggles, taking on the owners and the directors, created clubs in their own and the supporters’ image. And even in times as dark as these, I still do find that inspirational. When you think of a manager like that at our club you would think of Robson or Keegan - they weren't just good managers, they were brilliant representatives of the club and the region, and as Peace said 'they shaped the club in their own image'. "Great managers" (Robson, Clough, Revie, Paisley, Shankley) first emerged in large numbers after the abolition of the maximum wage. They were able to scour the country searching for talent, and then assembling it at clubs in the big cities, who would have a financial advantage over those outside the cities (although the inequality was nowhere near as vast as it is today). They would often find the players themselves, and they would run the club from top to bottom. They were the club, and if successful they would be worshipped, and in this country that is what a great manager is still defined as. I think it's pretty obvious, even to a Pardew fan like me, that Alan Pardew is definitely not going to be that man for Newcastle United. However, it is also obvious to me that as long as Ashley is in charge we aren't going to have a manager like that. No one is going to be allowed that level of control. Pardew is consistently undermined in transfer windows, and it is obvious that unfortunately, for as long as Mike Ashley is here, the club will project Mike Ashley's image. But there is something to be said for the system that is put in place. I don't think it is as easy for a manager to build a dynasty on his own as it was in the 70s / 80s. There is only one manager in the league who has built his club from top to bottom. It is a global game now - you cannot have a manager and his sidekick driving round the country for players like Clough and Taylor at Forest. But the current accepted thinking in this country hasn't changed. We gave £50m to Souness, he rang up his mates like Boersma and Saunders and gave them jobs, then he rang his old club and other mates and the likes of Boumsong arrived. Then we had to spend more to sack him. Absolute insanity but common enough in football. Down at Sunderland, Short has been instructed in conventional thinking by everyone in football's best mate Niall Quinn - and has poured millions down the drain while Quinn, Bruce, and ONeill walk away with millions. Its an outdated method and clubs in this country are seeking an alternative. There is an argument that the days of truly iconic managers may soon be gone. Ashley is a loathsome individual and projects a terrible image for our club. But he has a system in place that does not rely on one man and there is something to be said for that. Pardew is never going to bestride this club like a collosus, but no one is while Ashley is here. Pardew is always going to tow the party line in interviews and his attitude to the cups, but so will any manager while Ashely is here. Pardew's style reflects the fact that we will not spend large amounts on forwards - any manager here will have to contend with this. He is though, the most important cog in the machine Ashley has put in place. He has done a good job for Newcastle United in that role, and he deserves praise for it. Important stuff bolded. Whilst I found Red or Dead a little hagiographic & at times cringe worthy I though it was a good portrayal of Shankly on a whole & a decent read. Peace seems to write football brilliantly which I previously thought was impossible. I had a look at Red or Dead but didn't think I'd be able to get away with the style unfortunately. Its a shame because after reading The Damned United, I'd have been really interested to see his portrayal of Shankly . The interview with Peace is here if you're interested: http://yerknowthedance.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/peace-in-our-time/ Regarding your bold bits. No-one other than Ferguson has been a colossus at their clubs. Ferguson even being a colossus towed the party line. Define "large amounts" if you mean £40+ million you're right. We paid a canny wedge for Cisse.

Pretty damn true, but you'll get hammered to fuck for it on here. Despite being second bottom of the long ball league we play hoofball doncha know.

We're one point behind Man U, 16 points above third bottom and 6 points off 4th, it is not going to happen.