Is Mike Ashley steering Newcastle United in the right direction?

[Happy Face]

Everyone had their own criteria for thinking as they did at the back end of May last year, but whatever they were, some people were reasonably hopeful of a top 2 finish, that's all.

[madras]

Everyone had their own criteria for thinking as they did at the back end of May last year, but whatever they were, some people were reasonably hopeful of a top 2 finish, that's all.

i was one.

[Howaythelads]

Everyone had their own criteria for thinking as they did at the back end of May last year, but whatever they were, some people were reasonably hopeful of a top 2 finish, that's all.

 

I was hopeful but I believed bottom 2 was more likely merely because I thought the tw*t would sell every first team player and we'd be fielding a bunch of yutes.

[STM]

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

[thomas]

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

Not sure I necessarily agree with that.  If promotion this season is in spite of him, are you saying he's made no positive contribution to the promotion campaign or that he has actively attempted to prevent our promotion?

[STM]

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

Not sure I necessarily agree with that.  If promotion this season is in spite of him, are you saying he's made no positive contribution to the promotion campaign or that he has actively attempted to prevent our promotion?

 

This. And i don't want to hear "but but he invested in the january transfer window" because he contributed the bare minimum.

 

In my eyes all of the hard work has been done by the management and the players.

[Mick]

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

 

In spite of what?

 

In spite of him keeping the players who didn't want to leave after our relegation.  In spite of carrying a wage bill which is 3 times what our nearest rivals are paying.  Is that the sort of things you mean when you say "In spite of Mike Ashley"?

[Mick]

 

This. And i don't want to hear "but but he invested in the january transfer window" because he contributed the bare minimum.

 

In my eyes all of the hard work has been done by the management and the players.

 

The bare minimum during the January transfer window would have been nothing, not £5.5 million.  Did any other club in England spend more than we did during the last transfer window?

[Guest Phil K]

Pointing at Barton is pushing it.

And asking for it !

 

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

 

In spite of what?

 

In spite of him keeping the players who didn't want to leave after our relegation.  In spite of carrying a wage bill which is 3 times what our nearest rivals are paying.  Is that the sort of things you mean when you say "In spite of Mike Ashley"?

 

I agree, but I doubt the wage bill is as bad as you say, actually.

We have a smaller squad than WBA last time I checked. (which was a while back to be fair, and came from only one source which was never backed up !)

[Mick]

 

I agree, but I doubt the wage bill is as bad as you say, actually.

We have a smaller squad than WBA last time I checked. (which was a while back to be fair, and came from only one source which was never backed up !)

 

The wage bill is as bad as that and it will be proven when this years accounts come out in about 12 months.  The way things are going we'll get 2 sets of accounts at the same time. 

[Guest malandro]

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

 

In spite of what?

 

In spite of him keeping the players who didn't want to leave after our relegation.  In spite of carrying a wage bill which is 3 times what our nearest rivals are paying.  Is that the sort of things you mean when you say "In spite of Mike Ashley"?

Can you tell us which players could have left if Ashley hadn’t stopped them. Which clubs wanted them, how much did they bid, what wages they were offering and how much the player in question was on at SJP.

 

[Mick]

Can you tell us which players could have left if Ashley hadnt stopped them. Which clubs wanted them, how much did they bid, what wages they were offering and how much the player in question was on at SJP.

 

 

No.

[Guest malandro]

Can you tell us which players could have left if Ashley hadn’t stopped them. Which clubs wanted them, how much did they bid, what wages they were offering and how much the player in question was on at SJP.

 

 

No.

So how do know it wasn’t a lack of suitable offers that stopped more players being sold? 

And why is this page in stretch-O-vision?

 

[Mick]

So how do know it wasnt a lack of suitable offers that stopped more players being sold? 

And why is this page in stretch-O-vision?

 

 

I don't know that suitable offers were made but I do know that at least Coloccini said he'd had offers and I could probably find another two players who were said to have had offers but I'm not going to go looking for them.

 

As for the stretched page, it could be the url further up the page.  It's usually stretched by large photographs but I can't see any of those.

[Guest malandro]

So how do know it wasn’t a lack of suitable offers that stopped more players being sold? 

And why is this page in stretch-O-vision?

 

 

I don't know that suitable offers were made but I do know that at least Coloccini said he'd had offers and I could probably find another two players who were said to have had offers but I'm not going to go looking for them.

 

As for the stretched page, it could be the url further up the page.  It's usually stretched by large photographs but I can't see any of those.

It’s very annoying, would it be OK to I bump this onto a new page.

[Tsunami]

If we get promoted, it will be in spite of Mike Ashley.

 

This. To argue otherwise is to completely dismiss what happened in his 1st 2 seasons and ignore the fact that we started this season with last seasons leftovers. Had the team not shown a strength to get results early this season and had the crowds dwindled as a result we'd be looking down the barrel.

[Wullie]

Everyone had their own criteria for thinking as they did at the back end of May last year, but whatever they were, some people were reasonably hopeful of a top 2 finish, that's all.

 

I was hopeful but I believed bottom 2 was more likely merely because I thought the tw*t would sell every first team player and we'd be fielding a bunch of yutes.

 

Did you say yutes?

[Guest jonlane86]

Our Relegation:

 

Because of -- Shepherd

Aided by -- Mike Ashley

 

Our Promotion:

 

Because of -- Chris Hughton

Aided by -- Mike Ashley

 

Regular posters will know I think a lot of good as come from the MA Administration, and although I realise he's made mistakes you just need to see the fact that he's invested over £250m in the club, that includes buying it and then vastly reducing some of the debt.

 

I'm glad we're working towards being self sufficient.  It worries me that people are still convinced he's being "greedy" or making profit, because anyone with an ounce of sense can see that you'd do nothing but lose money if you maintain our wage bill alone in the Championship, otherwise the other 23 teams would be doing it too!

[Mick]

Our Relegation:

 

Because of -- Shepherd

Aided by -- Mike Ashley

 

Our Promotion:

 

Because of -- Chris Hughton

Aided by -- Mike Ashley

 

Regular posters will know I think a lot of good as come from the MA Administration, and although I realise he's made mistakes you just need to see the fact that he's invested over £250m in the club, that includes buying it and then vastly reducing some of the debt.

 

I'm glad we're working towards being self sufficient.  It worries me that people are still convinced he's being "greedy" or making profit, because anyone with an ounce of sense can see that you'd do nothing but lose money if you maintain our wage bill alone in the Championship, otherwise the other 23 teams would be doing it too!

 

I'm no fan of Shepherd, honestly.  But he can't be blaimed for our relegation as Ashley had plenty of chances to turn things around.

[bealios]

Our Relegation:

 

Because of -- Shepherd

Aided by -- Mike Ashley

 

Our Promotion:

 

Because of -- Chris Hughton

Aided by -- Mike Ashley

 

Regular posters will know I think a lot of good as come from the MA Administration, and although I realise he's made mistakes you just need to see the fact that he's invested over £250m in the club, that includes buying it and then vastly reducing some of the debt.

 

I'm glad we're working towards being self sufficient.  It worries me that people are still convinced he's being "greedy" or making profit, because anyone with an ounce of sense can see that you'd do nothing but lose money if you maintain our wage bill alone in the Championship, otherwise the other 23 teams would be doing it too!

 

I'm no fan of Shepherd, honestly.  But he can't be blaimed for our relegation as Ashley had plenty of chances to turn things around.

 

I think it's probably more accurate to say that because of Shepherd (and a little bad luck if truth be told) we were transformed to a lower md table side who were only a couple of poor football decisions at board level away from being relegated. Enter stage right Mike Ashley.

 

If Ashley had bought us in 2003/2004 I doubt he would have had us relegated in 2 seasons.

[Mick]

 

I think it's probably more accurate to say that because of Shepherd (and a little bad luck if truth be told) we were transformed to a lower md table side who were only a couple of poor football decisions at board level away from being relegated. Enter stage right Mike Ashley.

 

If Ashley had bought us in 2003/2004 I doubt he would have had us relegated in 2 seasons.

 

I'm not doubting our position was poor when Ashley took over, I just think he had plenty of opportunities to turn things around and he didn't do that, he made us worse.

[Guest malandro]

So how do know it wasn’t a lack of suitable offers that stopped more players being sold? 

And why is this page in stretch-O-vision?

 

 

I don't know that suitable offers were made but I do know that at least Coloccini said he'd had offers and I could probably find another two players who were said to have had offers but I'm not going to go looking for them.

As for the stretched page, it could be the url further up the page.  It's usually stretched by large photographs but I can't see any of those.

He did. What he didn’t say was Mr Ashley blocked the move. Sounded more like it was his decision. IIRC he reeled out the ‘I wanted to put it right for the great supporters’ line? Whatever reason Colo decided not to take up this offer (and my guess it would have been a potential drop in wages) crediting Ashley is baseless.

 

As always we’re pretty much in the dark, but the stock of our players would have been rock bottom after we were relegated. They were hardly in a position to command the kind wages Ashley had been handing out despite our spiralling debts. It’s hard to believe there were many clubs who were both interested in buying our failures and prepared to match the wages they were on. Leeds had huge problems shifting their high earning flops post relegation, why should we be any different.

 

There’s also the question of who was deciding which transfers to block. With the club up for sale and a caretaker manager in place, who exactly was making these decisions?

 

[Mick]

He did. What he didnt say was Mr Ashley blocked the move. Sounded more like it was his decision. IIRC he reeled out the I wanted to put it right for the great supporters line? Whatever reason Colo decided not to take up this offer (and my guess it would have been a potential drop in wages) crediting Ashley is baseless.

 

As always were pretty much in the dark, but the stock of our players would have been rock bottom after we were relegated. They were hardly in a position to command the kind wages Ashley had been handing out despite our spiralling debts. Its hard to believe there were many clubs who were both interested in buying our failures and prepared to match the wages they were on. Leeds had huge problems shifting their high earning flops post relegation, why should we be any different.

 

Theres also the question of who was deciding which transfers to block. With the club up for sale and a caretaker manager in place, who exactly was making these decisions?

 

 

Hughton didn't seem to know much about what was going on so I doubt that it was him unless he was just trying to avoid answering questions.  As for the stock of our players, it didn't stop players like Martins, Bassong,  Beye, Duff, Xisco or Owen finding clubs.  Out of those I've just mentioned I think two were worth keeping, the others were not worth keeping and Martins is one of those as he rarely lived up to his own hype.

 

[Benwell Lad]

Dave, why don't you stick a straight yes or no poll on the question in the OP ? - Then maybe we can put it to bed .

[Guest Brummiemag]

Why do you want to put it to bed?

 

Its currently one of the better threads on this forum, with some interesting points made by people on both sides of the argument.

 

If people don't like the thread then they dont need to look at it