Jump to content

Recommended Posts

"But I am now a dad who can't take his kids to a football game on a Saturday because I am advised that we would be assaulted."

 

Get ready for round two Mike...

Link to post
Share on other sites

"But I am now a dad who can't take his kids to a football game on a Saturday because I am advised that we would be assaulted."

 

Get ready for round two Mike...

 

People are resigned to defeat these days IMO.

Link to post
Share on other sites

He released that cheese ball statement when we went down, admitting his mistakes and claiming he'd learned from them, aye right. 

 

I'v said his only concern with us is league status, it's pretty clear. Wouldn't surprise me if he finds all this perversely amusing tbh.

Link to post
Share on other sites

"But I am now a dad who can't take his kids to a football game on a Saturday because I am advised that we would be assaulted."

 

Get ready for round two Mike...

 

People are resigned to defeat these days IMO.

 

Agree. It's not like 2008 when KK resigned anymore.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll support and love NUFC - always - I'll be there at SJP for our first home match of the next season hopefully and will be cheering them on but, the spark, that kind of passion that once was - it's not there just this moment of time.

 

I think once Ashley fucks off it'll be back 100%. Till then, it's turn off the on field actions, support the 11 players on the pitch...

Link to post
Share on other sites

After the naming rights/Keegan/Kinnearmk1and2 debacles I don't know how anyone can think he holds us with anything other than contempt; even if those decsions are made on the grounds of supposed 'sound business practice'.

 

Even if you had a niggling doubt, it's been completely and utterly removed in the last 48 hours.

He fucking hates us with a passion. He's a piss artist, openly mocking us with our own club.

It's disgusting.

Link to post
Share on other sites

When Kinnear was at Wimbledon they brought in players very cheap lots of free transfers then sold them on for a profit. This is what Ashley wants, just on a bigger scale than Wimbledon did it. So appoint Kinnear to make sure this policy is carried out.

 

Interesting.  From whose mouth did you hear that?  Joe Kinnears?

no just old enough to remember Wimbledon , our own Warren Barton was typical  example of how Wimbledon use to work in those days.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest chopey

Just a quick side point here, Kinnear is not a healthy man, he looks like he has just been dragged out of the Tyne with his greasy hair and ill fitting suits, he needs protecting from himself, but Ashley is quite willing to put him in the firing line to meet his own selfish needs what ever they might be, this job will kill this old fella and although the Newcastle fans will get the blame the ball will be firmly in Ashleys court for putting this old fool in the position in the first place.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Has Kinnear actually been seen in public since all this? He claims he's never been fitter.

 

Which admittedly means he's probably in a wheelchair and isn't allowed on Ryanair flights.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just a quick side point here, Kinnear is not a healthy man, he looks like he has just been dragged out of the Tyne with his greasy hair and ill fitting suits, he needs protecting from himself, but Ashley is quite willing to put him in the firing line to meet his own selfish needs what ever they might be, this job will kill this old fella and although the Newcastle fans will get the blame the ball will be firmly in Ashleys court for putting this old fool in the position in the first place.

 

This has crossed my mind like.  Despicable that Ashley's willing to wheel his mate out to take this much flak when he's clearly got a screw loose.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Mike Ashley’s voice has only ever been heard once in public.

 

It is the 2008 instalment of the BBC TV Comic Relief telethon. The nation is watching the Celebrity Apprentice, and Louise Redknapp is seeking charitable donations from pals.

 

She puts a call in from the back of a London taxi. "So, Mike, could I tempt you into buying some tickets and giving us some money, please? There are some people who have given us £200 for a ticket and other people have given us over £30,000 for some tickets," she says over the speaker phone.

 

"Really? Right, three tickets, I'll give you £100,000," squeaks out a southern accent of the type that meets with disapproval in Tyneside streets. The voice might be unfamiliar, but the impetuousness of the snap decision is not.

 

"What an amazing man,” Redknapp says as she hangs up. Others might voice amazement in describing Ashley, though perhaps not in the sense the fragrant former Eternal songstress meant.

 

Joe Kinnear's return to Newcastle United is the latest piece of Ashley astonishment. Even if it is a reprise of a previous routine, it has been no less effective in its achievement of shock and awe. Actions will always drown out words in Ashley’s world.

 

The simplest formula to successfully owning Newcastle is to keep the Toon Army happy. In the early days, hundreds of Newcastle fans were treated to largesse when the Ashley credit card was placed behind city-centre bars. They all laughed with him, too, when he was caught illegally necking a pint in the stands at Arsenal.

 

It seemed he just wanted to be one of the lads, a status cemented when he returned Geordie Messiah Kevin Keegan to the manager’s job. However, the unwinding of that regime was a prelude to a tenure in which the owner’s decisions have almost always been inimical to popularity and sanity.

 

When you are a self-made billionaire, the angry complaints of 52,000 football fans would not seem to matter. “Hughton is a Geordie” was the ultimate accolade the Toon Army could bestow on Chris Hughton, but he was removed within weeks of a 5-1 thrashing of Sunderland, despite his newly-promoted team punching well above its weight.

 

United went into their penultimate match of the 2012-13 season with relegation a real prospect. Who better to turn the ship around than a 66-year-old whose management took them to the brink of their relegation of 2008-9?

 

The overriding suspicion is that Kinnear is a Trojan horse to smoke Alan Pardew out from his eight-year contract. Only at Ashley’s Newcastle could a long-term deal be the source of such doubt.

 

Gustavo Poyet, looking for work after suspension and fall-outs at Brighton, is now being linked with Newcastle. Poyet is a friend and former team-mate of Dennis Wise, the member of the “Cockney Mafia” whose presence was the first indication of the Keegan revival going awry.

 

On the face of it, one of the keys to reviving Newcastle is to build a bridge to their sizeable Francophone clique. However, in the unlikely event of Kinnear ever saying “pardon my French”, he will not be referring to his incorrect use of a participe passe.

 

We live in an era where the director of football is finally becoming acceptable in the English game. Andre Villas-Boas has requested one at Tottenham Hotspur, and is expected to work with Franco Baldini. Even Tony Pulis combined well with John Rudge at Stoke City. Sir Bobby Robson used to manage in tandem with Gordon Milne at St James’ Park, but the three names mentioned are discreet operators who sought to take a back seat rather than making their voices loudly heard.

 

Kinnear is not that type of man. He quit such a role at Oxford United in 2001 because of frustration at a lack of day-to-day involvement, and exited calling fans “muppets” in a fashion similar to the now notorious talkSPORT interview on Monday night that almost crashed Twitter with its hilarity.

 

“Some are talking out of their backsides, a load of tosh,” he said when asked to deliver his message to doubtful fans. “I'm not accepting it, as simple as that. I have certainly got more intelligence than them, that’s a fact.”

 

X-rated press conferences, mangling of names, tall tales and angry settling of scores are hardly compelling indicators of suitability for a job that is presumably one of considerable responsibility. Neither is there evidence of any semblance of an embracing of football modernity, yet Kinnear returns as Ashley’s man, and one whose football judgment the owner supposedly values above all others.

 

“What I'm saying is that I've got my finger in the pie halfway around the world,” Kinnear said on Sunday, a sentence that makes as little sense as his return to Newcastle.

 

Then again, we are not Mike Ashley. Billionaires do not make their impossible fortunes by being nice or following the rules that others do. Popular does not necessarily mean profitable. Neither, seemingly, does sensible.

 

The fans at St James' may hate him for his seeming desire to make theirs the most mocked club in football but, as they walk to and from the stadium, they must head past a branch of SportsDirect, the flagship company that belches out pile-em-high-sell-it-cheap sportswear to the masses. Those who wear a replica shirt must do so with the legend 'Wonga' emblazoned across their chests. A city riven by unemployment and economic problems has its most famous asset serving as an advertising board for a loan company that offers an APR of 4214%.

 

Why must Ashley do things like employing Joe Kinnear? How does he get away with it? Because he can. He bought the club without due diligence and paid the price of front-loaded sponsorships. He messed around managers and bore the shame of relegation. The opportunity cost of Kinnear’s return is likely to be Pardew’s departure and yet more instability. And Newcastle fans must suffer yet another spate of theirs being a comedic crisis club.

 

Before he became involved in football, Ashley was personified in the business world as a recluse, Britain’s answer to Howard Hughes. Perhaps the hasty purchase of Newcastle in 2007 was his way of showing that he does cut his fingernails and hair, and does not sleep on a bed of Kleenex tissues.

 

It is as plausible an explanation as any for his utterly bizarre stewardship of a football club. Louise Redknapp was right. She still is. Mike Ashley never ceases to amaze.

 

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/6976?cc=5901

Link to post
Share on other sites

"But I am now a dad who can't take his kids to a football game on a Saturday because I am advised that we would be assaulted."

 

Get ready for round two Mike...

 

People are resigned to defeat these days IMO.

 

Agree. It's not like 2008 when KK resigned anymore.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'll support and love NUFC - always - I'll be there at SJP for our first home match of the next season hopefully and will be cheering them on but, the spark, that kind of passion that once was - it's not there just this moment of time.

 

I think once Ashley f***s off it'll be back 100%. Till then, it's turn off the on field actions, support the 11 players on the pitch...

 

That's what he wants.  Money in the coffers from fans in the belief it'll all simmer down.

 

He's not fucking off anywhere anytime soon.

Link to post
Share on other sites

:frantic:

Would anyone stomach relegation if it meant Ashley sold the club?

 

Would make it less likely to be honest.

If Mike was to get out, it would have to be at the top of the market (which makes this latest move even harder to understand)

I admire the fact you're clutching at straws here  :lol: crambling around in the dirt for anyway out.

 

Fair play  :lol:

Link to post
Share on other sites

If he was going to sell, he should have sold on the back of the 5th place finish with a manager on a short-term contract and a young talented squad bought very cheaply; the likes of Tiote, Cisse, Ba, etc were all at the highest of their valuations as well. He probably could have had a case for the amount of money some could cost if they were traded and added that to his sale price. He could have earned his money back on a massive premium in my opinion. It was his absolute best and easiest time to go. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...