Any Ashley apologists on here?

[Liam Liam Liam O]

Three men most responsible for the trouble we're in now:

 

Kenny Dalglish - Took us from 2nd best team in England that took Man Utd apart 5-0 to relegation candidates.

 

Graeme Souness - Destroyed another decent team.

 

Mike Ashely - Alienated Keegan and replaced him with Joe Kinnear.

 

Dalglish as well as buying some monumental s**** also left us with Solano, Dabizas, Given, Speed and Hamann.

 

 

 

When we first signed Dabizas I was really impressed with him.

 

We were all impressed with Coloccini. 

 

 

Well you would've been wrong not to be.  He played well against Man U and Bolton.

 

Chose not to judge him after two games, same with Jonas.

[Frazzle]

Three men most responsible for the trouble we're in now:

 

Kenny Dalglish - Took us from 2nd best team in England that took Man Utd apart 5-0 to relegation candidates.

 

Graeme Souness - Destroyed another decent team.

 

Mike Ashely - Alienated Keegan and replaced him with Joe Kinnear.

 

Dalglish as well as buying some monumental s**** also left us with Solano, Dabizas, Given, Speed and Hamann.

 

 

 

When we first signed Dabizas I was really impressed with him.

 

We were all impressed with Coloccini. 

 

 

Well you would've been wrong not to be.  He played well against Man U and Bolton.

 

Chose not to judge him after two games, same with Jonas.

 

But if someone asked your opinion after the first two games you would've said he's been good.

[Guest RowanB]

Three men most responsible for the trouble we're in now:

 

Kenny Dalglish - Took us from 2nd best team in England that took Man Utd apart 5-0 to relegation candidates.

 

Graeme Souness - Destroyed another decent team.

 

Mike Ashely - Alienated Keegan and replaced him with Joe Kinnear.

 

Dalglish as well as buying some monumental s**** also left us with Solano, Dabizas, Given, Speed and Hamann. It wasn't also his fault that Shearer got injured just as Sir Les was about to sign for Tottingham. I'm by no means Dalglish's biggest fan but to suggest he is partially to blame for where we are now is quite ludicrous to say the least.

 

Of course Dalglish is to blame. Title challengers two years consecutively and then relegation candidates. Even had the audacity to play his son.

[Liam Liam Liam O]

Three men most responsible for the trouble we're in now:

 

Kenny Dalglish - Took us from 2nd best team in England that took Man Utd apart 5-0 to relegation candidates.

 

Graeme Souness - Destroyed another decent team.

 

Mike Ashely - Alienated Keegan and replaced him with Joe Kinnear.

 

Dalglish as well as buying some monumental s**** also left us with Solano, Dabizas, Given, Speed and Hamann.

 

 

 

When we first signed Dabizas I was really impressed with him.

 

We were all impressed with Coloccini. 

 

 

Well you would've been wrong not to be.  He played well against Man U and Bolton.

 

Chose not to judge him after two games, same with Jonas.

 

But if someone asked your opinion after the first two games you would've said he's been good.

 

Didn't see the Man United game, & thought he did well against Bolton.

 

By the end of September I'd made my mind up though.

[Guest RowanB]

Three men most responsible for the trouble we're in now:

 

Kenny Dalglish - Took us from 2nd best team in England that took Man Utd apart 5-0 to relegation candidates.

 

Graeme Souness - Destroyed another decent team.

 

Mike Ashely - Alienated Keegan and replaced him with Joe Kinnear.

 

How far are we allowed to go back?

 

And are you ignoring the fact that we've qualified for the Champions League since then?

 

I'm not ignoring that fact. If you think about people that have done the most damage to Newcastle, Dalglish is right up there. You can't allow any rebuilding that was done to detract from that.

[Tooj]

Three men most responsible for the trouble we're in now:

 

Kenny Dalglish - Took us from 2nd best team in England that took Man Utd apart 5-0 to relegation candidates.

 

Graeme Souness - Destroyed another decent team.

 

Mike Ashely - Alienated Keegan and replaced him with Joe Kinnear.

 

How far are we allowed to go back?

 

And are you ignoring the fact that we've qualified for the Champions League since then?

 

I'm not ignoring that fact. If you think about people that have done the most damage to Newcastle, Dalglish is right up there. You can't allow any rebuilding that was done to detract from that.

 

That's got nothing to do with where we are now though.

[Liam Liam Liam O]

 

I'm not ignoring that fact. If you think about people that have done the most damage to Newcastle, Dalglish is right up there. You can't allow any rebuilding that was done to detract from that.

 

You're putting him in the top 3 of people responsible for where we are now.  Madness.

[Guest RowanB]

I suppose you could go further back and perhaps find worse people, but he did serious damage and I doubt we'd be where we are now if it wasn't for him, but then I guess going back to 1892 you could maybe find a better three people. They're the three biggest damagers that I've known though.

[Liam Liam Liam O]

I suppose you could go further back and perhaps find worse people, but he did serious damage and I doubt we'd be where we are now if it wasn't for him, but then I guess going back to 1892 you could maybe find a better three people. They're the three biggest damagers that I've known though.

 

I'd have to ask Mick or NE5 & get back to you.

[David Icke - Son of God]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

[Liam Liam Liam O]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

[David Icke - Son of God]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

 

By which name did I call him? Just for the record, natch.

[Liam Liam Liam O]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

 

By which name did I call him? Just for the record, natch.

 

It's just the fact that you suggested you had more than being offensive, then within about 25 words you had forgotten about it.

 

Nice try though.

[Guest Heneage]

We had this debate in the pub today and I asked Dave if Hodgson came to us demanding £25m war chest would he take him, he said no because he didn't want another new manager. To me Hodgson is in the mould of SBR and is made for us.

[David Icke - Son of God]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

 

By which name did I call him? Just for the record, natch.

 

It's just the fact that you suggested you had more than being offensive, then within about 25 words you had forgotten about it.

 

Nice try though.

 

My offensiveness is accompanied by cold hard facts so I think whether or not I call him a cunt while addressing him is moot. I'm not Ban Ki bloody Moon.

[Guest LucaAltieri]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

 

By which name did I call him? Just for the record, natch.

 

It's just the fact that you suggested you had more than being offensive, then within about 25 words you had forgotten about it.

 

Nice try though.

 

My offensiveness is accompanied by cold hard facts so I think whether or not I call him a cunt while addressing him is moot. I'm not Ban Ki bloody Moon.

 

Unless you've started shitting crystal balls you're not basing anything on fact re: how successful we will be long term under Ashley. You're being offensive in order to make your disagreeing with me appear more valid. Which basically means when you call me a "fucking cretin" for expressing an opinion it's a bit of the pot calling the kettle, wouldn't you say?

[Liam Liam Liam O]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

 

By which name did I call him? Just for the record, natch.

 

It's just the fact that you suggested you had more than being offensive, then within about 25 words you had forgotten about it.

 

Nice try though.

 

My offensiveness is accompanied by cold hard facts so I think whether or not I call him a cunt while addressing him is moot. I'm not Ban Ki bloody Moon.

 

No, you're the son of god.

[David Icke - Son of God]

Ashley has made his mistakes, as have many.

 

It's one thing to say "he's the owner so he's ultimately responsible." Which is fair enough really. At the same time, he came into this knowing nowt about football. His forte (and the bit he's got spot on) are the finances.

 

In order to aid him in getting the finances in order he decided it made good financial and footballing sense to buy young talent and develop them - a philosophy that most on here would agree with.

 

To get the most out of our squad of has-beens and cast-offs (that we couldn't afford to replace) he hired a motivator as manager - the exact same thing I (and many others) would have done.

 

On paper he got a lot of it right. The approach is exactly what we needed. The problem came with the execution.

 

His first big mistake.

Given his lack of football knowledge he really should have appointed boards members who knew what the fuck they were doing. When there were rumours of us bringing in David Dein we REALLY should have been bending over backwards to bring him (or someone like him) into the club in order to put Mike's game plan into action.

 

Instead our chairmen have been a lawyer and a smug cunt both with no knowledge or experience of the game. To remedy that Ashley appointed Dennis the Menace as a football executive... a role in which he had no experience and has never shown any qualities that might suggest he'd be any good at it. A year and a bit on and Wise, surprise surprise, is no longer with us.

 

If we had hired someone like David Dein instead of the three stooges you'd imagine that some situations would never have arisen eg. Milner being allowed to leave before a replacement was signed and sealed - that was a schoolboy error of epic proportions. (Same goes for allowing other players to leave)

 

His second big mistake.

Hiring Kevin Keegan was both a master stroke and a disaster. There's no doubt that we needed a motivator to get the most out of our players and someone likeable to take the heat off us in the media. Keegan ticked both boxes. There's also no doubt that Kevin saved us in his first season.

 

That said, from the second Keegan was appointed the speculation was that he wouldn't see out the rest of his contract. Whether you would describe him as 'flaky' or 'principled' is all down to your own personal opinion of the man but he was always going to leave. The amount of times he's talked about the pressure of the game it was obvious - and they don't come with much more pressure than being a tyneside hero and the fans expecting you to work miracles.

 

Given that he was always going to be a short-term measure there were only two ways Ashley could play it: 1) Bend over backwards to keep him as happy as possible for as long as possible. 2) Have a replacement lined up for when the shit hits.

 

As it happened he did neither. Again this is a problem which could have been avoided had he hired a director who had a fucking clue.

 

His third big mistake.

There was always going to be trouble when Keegan left. We still don't know the true story behind Keegan leaving and we probably never will but there was only ever going to be one man winning the PR battle that followed and it wasn't Ashley. From then on it should have been a damage limitation exercise for Ashley. He should have kept coming to the matches. He should have been sympathetic and tried to work towards a strong replacement. But again, he did none of those things and bowed to the initial fan kneejerk responses and he put the club up for sale.

 

This has two negative impacts: 1) The fans felt empowered meaning the protests went on far longer than they should have, which in turn disrupted the harmony at the club. 2) Nobody wanted to come and manage a team that was up for sale, on a temporary contract, with the transfer window closed.

 

Yes, appointing Kinnear was a farce but by that time Ashley had backed himself into a corner. Nobody else of any stature wanted the job and once again, he had nobody around him with any footballing knowledge who might have spotted Kinnear's bullshit from a mile off.

 

His fourth big mistake.

This sort of stems from the other mistakes and that is to do with the time it has taken to replace both Keegan and Kinnear. It's simply ridiculous that even after the disaster earlier in the season when Hughton took over as manager he still took several weeks to find a replacement for Kinnear leaving Hughton in charge a second time. Again this is down to lack of interest in the job and the board's football naivety.

 

The positives

Amongst the catastrophe people have ignored the positives. It's easy to see why. It is hard to see Ashley as anything other than a 2d cartoon villain at times... but you have to give him this; he appears to be learning from his mistakes. Once again he has appointed a media-friendly and fan-friendly motivator in Alan Shearer. Only this time he is bending over backwards to keep him. He's given Wise and medical staff the boot and allowed Shearer to hire what you can only assume is a fairly expensive assistant in Iain Dowie. If we continue down this path we should see a long-term improvement at the club.

 

While we have been selling-off some of our players (rightly or wrongly) we have been getting fantastic money for them. This has no doubt increased our stability and based on Ashley's projections in terms of spending we should now be able to go out and spend some money this summer for the much needed rebuilding of the squad. This will be the key as to whether or not he has my support. He has seen enough of the first time now to know that we're struggling. Even as a novice he will be able to see it plain as day. He's done well backing Shearer so far but he needs to follow that through with financial backing in the summer.

 

I have given Ashley the benefit of the doubt so far with regards to spending. He has said he was only willing to put x amount into the club every year and according to what our smug cunt chairman said recently that means that this year we should see the majority of it going on transfers (as debt has now decreased and top earners will be leaving).

 

Hopefully Ashley has learned the error of his ways and will no longer neglect the first team. In the summer we need to buy and we need to buy quality. I don't care if they're 18 or 28, we need to bring in the right kind of players.

 

If he keeps his word and backs Shearer (or whoever is in charge) then he will have my support. If he has played us all for fools yet again then I'm done with him. That doesn't mean you'll see me walking around with anti-Ashley messages written on bed sheets but I certainly won't be shedding any tears if/when he decides to sell up.

 

The words 'absolute fucking cretin' spring to mind.

 

Very good. Keep them to yourself.

 

You're like a battered housewife. No matter how many times that cunt Ashley slaps you across the chops and calls you a nasty name you think he's going to change.

 

He's fucked this club up through his complete lack of common sense. If you think he's suddenly going to grow a brain and start calling everything right spot on then you're very, very wrong.

 

He doesn't have to so long as he appoints people who do more often than not. Shearer would be a good start... or would you not see that as progress?

 

Now, if all you've got is name calling can I suggest you toodle off to one of the following:

 

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-13483.html

http://www.readytogo.net/

 

I've got more that name calling. I've got two seasons of abject misery punctuated by contemptuous actions and amateur decison making to back up my claim that your opinions are worth fuck all.

 

Shearer isn't a fucking start, he's plan bloody G. 'Progress' would've been consolidating our position in the mid to lower reaches of the Premiership table when Fat Ash arrived and building on that, not getting relegated.

 

The more I look at Ashley the more I think he's became a billionaire by sheer luck rather than top notch business acumen. He's a goon of the highest order and the way he's gambled on the clubs future is abhorrent. There is no way you can seriously justify any his decisions since he came in because they've all been unspeakably bad.

 

Brilliant.

 

By which name did I call him? Just for the record, natch.

 

It's just the fact that you suggested you had more than being offensive, then within about 25 words you had forgotten about it.

 

Nice try though.

 

My offensiveness is accompanied by cold hard facts so I think whether or not I call him a cunt while addressing him is moot. I'm not Ban Ki bloody Moon.

 

Unless you've started shitting crystal balls you're not basing anything on fact re: how successful we will be long term under Ashley. You're being offensive in order to make your disagreeing with me appear more valid. Which basically means when you call me a "fucking cretin" for expressing an opinion it's a bit of the pot calling the kettle, wouldn't you say?

 

I'm basing my assumption on what we've seen so far from the chubby mess running the gaff. I take issue with your opinion because it has no basis in the plain of reality I and 99% of other supporters are currently operating on. What lead you to make the ridiculous claim that we're on the verge of a breakthrough? Tea leaves? Russell Grant? Or are you just off your box?

 

The facts are there and you don't have to look too hard for them: Shearer was effectively forced on Ashley, we have went backwards since TCA came in and his decision making has been nothing short of criminal. I've also got a bit of stuff relating to the finances and 'building for the future' bollocks, which seem to make so many people on here rub their crotch in a homoerotic fervor, if you want it?

[Bad Mongo]

Unless you've started shitting crystal balls you're not basing anything on fact re: how successful we will be long term under Ashley. You're being offensive in order to make your disagreeing with me appear more valid. Which basically means when you call me a "fucking cretin" for expressing an opinion it's a bit of the pot calling the kettle, wouldn't you say?

 

"how successful we will be long term under Ashley" can't possibly be related to fact, you drooling idiot. Facts concern reality, not potential. And fact is, we have had no success under Mike Ashley, and there's no sign we will ever be. Those are the facts. Any thought of future success is plain wishful thinking. You call it "opinion", others will call it for what it is: inane, cretinous drivel. That's name-calling, and that's fact.

[Dave]

It's ridiculous that you lot can't have a disussion without resorting to pathetic playground insults.

[David Icke - Son of God]

It's ridiculous that you lot can't have a disussion without resorting to pathetic playground insults.

 

Fuck off

[Big Geordie]

I've also got a bit of stuff relating to the finances and 'building for the future' bollocks, which seem to make so many people on here rub their crotch in a homoerotic fervor, if you want it?

 

I'd be interested in seeing that.

[David Icke - Son of God]

I've also got a bit of stuff relating to the finances and 'building for the future' bollocks, which seem to make so many people on here rub their crotch in a homoerotic fervor, if you want it?

 

I'd be interested in seeing that.

 

It's nothing particularly new, just affirmation of the facts that our wage bill has actually rose since MA came in as well as the fact he paid one of his pals £1 million p/a to do fuck all.

[sicsfingeredmong]

Yup, lack of ambition is what it's all about. I have said lots of times that without ambition a club has no chance at all. I said ages ago that's it's far worse when the club is showing no ambition than when the Board is trying but ultimately falls short due to mistakes. This is the difference between the current lot and the previous lot.

Plenty of people reckoned it was impossible for the club to have a worse owner/board than the last one. Mick, tmonkey, sima, omar, macbeth, BigTron, elbee909, baggio, mandiarse, wullie and boo boo to name a handful, though the list could go on and on. People said they were embarrassed at the media ramblings of Fred. Well, what's more embarrassing, idiotic comments of no real significance, or the laughing stock we've been turned into by Ashley and his crew?

 

Many of you wouldn't listen to common sense. Not only that, you poured scorn and vitriol toward people like me for refusing to join your "hate the Board" bandwagon, effectively causing me to lose interest in this forum. It became a forum for whingers. Dave is even having a go at me this morning for saying some are getting what they deserve. Well, they are, though no doubt many of them will remain in denial. The "spin" that I'm in some way happy about this is as pathetic as it comes, given that I've been supporting the club for 41 years through thick and thin...mostly thin.

 

So, what do you people think now? Do you still believe it was impossible for a worse to be in charge of the affairs of the club? Do you still believe the previous Board, despite their mistakes, showed no ambition? Do you still think the previous Board was outright s****, rather than a Board that tried to take the club somewhere?

 

I'll tell you what I think. What we have now is a s**** owner/board, it may even be worse than the pathetic efforts prior to John Hall. The evidence is laid out before you and is as stark as it's going to be regardless of what happens next week. Ashley and his crew are 100% at fault for the current desperate plight of the football club and anyone claiming anything different really needs to think again.

 

So, at the end of the day, those people I mentioned at the top of this post, plus others I can't recall, are getting what they deserve. They believe being in the top division and finishing in the top 5 for 3 seasons in a row, something we previously accomplished between 1948-1951 = a Board showing no ambition. You couldn't make up such rubbish.

 

We all want to be the best. We all want to win things but there aren't that many trophies and the competition is fierce. When the club is controlled by a Board that is trying to challenge for those trophies they are showing ambition. When the club is controlled by people who are not, they are showing no ambition. You should appreciate the first when it's happening but many of you didn't, you whinged instead. I don't even feel sorry for you that you didn't enjoy while it was happening. A pathetic bunch, tbh.

 

From where I'm sitting, the worst may still be to come and I'm not talking about relegation next week. Some of you are getting what you deserve.

 

Agree with all of that *tin hat placed on head*. The first point being a key one.

 

For the sake of sounding diplomatic, some - out of the names/posters mentioned - eventually saw the picture unfolding. Different story for some ala mandiarse, to just mention one name.

 

And those who saw the writing on the wall - early in the peace/the direction the club was taking under *Wor' Ashley - were abused etc for posting as such.

* i still remember the branding of Ashley as 'Wor' Ashley' by some, and by many as 'that breath of fresh air'. Well some of those very little piggys have had that their straw & so easily influenced houses blown down by that so-called breath of fresh air.

 

An example being one of mandiarse's well worn & cliched one-line responses to a post i made with regards to the inevitable evaporation of Keegan's second stint in charge. I detailed enough points to explain my conclusion that the 'clock was ticking'. mandiarse's reply was 'overwritten bollocks, as usual'. Typical response i'd expect from somebody who thought that some fictional writer - that Stephen Spence bloke, or whatever the name was - was an instrumental assist provider, in one game, for Shearer back in his heyday.

 

As for the second section placed in bold. I'm in complete agreement, and have posted as such in the past for numerous reasons. For the starters the club was chewed up in the second division, before the Halls & Shepherd arrived, thanks to McKeag's and Co lack of ambition post-relegation. Ardilles, as poor as his record was, never had a chance. Just like Jim Smith. IMO the current incarnation of the second division is more competive/cutthroat now. Over cautiousness, or a continued lack of ambition on Ashley's part, will result in further punishment beyond this season.

[sicsfingeredmong]

I dont know about the rest of you, but when i see Ashley sitting on the stands with with that smug grin on his face i feel like there's cold blood going through my vain.

I kept the criticism for myself for quit a while but when i see him smile like there's nothing wrong with what's going on i just can respect the person of him.

 

He's a very fortunate man that our season closer is away from home. The fixture gods, whatever the parameters are behind the programming, have inadvertently smiled on the bastard.