Mike Ashley

[madras]

Stop being such a bunch of pussy's...... we've got the greatest manager we could possibly get, managing a young, hungry bunch of players that actually want to play for us, of course we will lose some games but we will give 100% in every game and Rafa has stayed for one major reason .................US FANS and what do we do twist, moan, complain,  winge  .........wind your necks in and support Newcastle FFS Ashley is a horrible w***** but at least he's leaving Rafa alone just now, when it gets to the point where he upsets him into leaving then you can complain but live in the moment and just enjoy it man.

While I get and agree with your overall point there's always going to be anxiety with Ashley as owner, especially as a manager with the pedigree of Rafa's position is being threatened by the owner being a c***; it's going to make people uneasy. They've got history for it with KK, Shearer and Hughton. Far too many media outlets have been saying he's unhappy/frustrated for him not to be unhappy/frustrated. Surely you can understand why people are so uneasy?

I understand the anxiety, even feel it myself but it seems more like Rafa is more frustrated with the market than the clubs playing of it and with Ashley coming out in public and still stating that Rafa has control over everything then I'm pretty sure our manager would put that straigh (and walk) if it wasn't so. Guess we'll find out on Septemeber 1st either way.

 

FWIW i think something will give in the market in general as it seems like what is stopping the likes of Hanley leaving here is a similar reason to blocking Gibbs, Perez and others moving on.

[Guest chopey]

The fact Rafa is a world class manager is the very reason (or one of them)  people are so p*ssed. You are wasting the best manager you can hope to get because you are a massive c*** (obviously referring to Ashley).

 

It's the same as when people got massively frustrated with Pardew wasting the talent he had, because it was a massive waste of potential.

 

Besides what is there to look forward to?  A frustrating season where we finish lower mid table with no real future past next summer when Rafa leaves because the owner keeps pissing him about?

 

Sounds awesome.

 

Your avatar is so fitting

[NEEJ]

Ha Ha this forum really is pessimists united, just enjoy it man, believe me Rafa will leave one day and then what ......give up ?........stop supporting?........pack football in?........there are literally thousands of teams around the world that win nothing every year and achieve the grand total of f*** all, supporting your local team is your birth right and if its not your your local team and you support them because of some strange draw towards them then even better but for f***s sake take the good with the bad and right now its good.

Chopey, I'm a born and bred Geordie and I'll never support another team til the day I die. Kindly f*** right off, you absolute rectangle. There's not a chance I'm settling for now being 'good'. We've got an absolute cretin for an owner and he's trying to push his 'we're only Newcastle United', small-time rhetoric that some people will fall for. Not me.

We're Newcastle United and we deserve more. We deserve a club that at the very least tries to be better. We have the best manager we could possibly hope for and he's being shafted big time. How any true supporter can stand by and claim these are the good times is beyond me. Give your f***ing head a shake, man.

[Guest chopey]

Ha Ha this forum really is pessimists united, just enjoy it man, believe me Rafa will leave one day and then what ......give up ?........stop supporting?........pack football in?........there are literally thousands of teams around the world that win nothing every year and achieve the grand total of f*** all, supporting your local team is your birth right and if its not your your local team and you support them because of some strange draw towards them then even better but for f***s sake take the good with the bad and right now its good.

Chopey, I'm a born and bred Geordie and I'll never support another team til the day I die. Kindly f*** right off, you absolute rectangle. There's not a chance I'm settling for now being 'good'. We've got an absolute cretin for an owner and he's trying to push his 'we're only Newcastle United', small-time rhetoric that some people will fall for. Not me.

We're Newcastle United and we deserve more. We deserve a club that at the very least tries to be better. We have the best manager we could possibly hope for and he's being shafted big time. How any true supporter can stand by and claim these are the good times is beyond me. Give your f***ing head a shake, man.

 

I gave my head a shake and a question came out would rather have a good owner and a shit manager ?

[NEEJ]

Ha Ha this forum really is pessimists united, just enjoy it man, believe me Rafa will leave one day and then what ......give up ?........stop supporting?........pack football in?........there are literally thousands of teams around the world that win nothing every year and achieve the grand total of f*** all, supporting your local team is your birth right and if its not your your local team and you support them because of some strange draw towards them then even better but for f***s sake take the good with the bad and right now its good.

Chopey, I'm a born and bred Geordie and I'll never support another team til the day I die. Kindly f*** right off, you absolute rectangle. There's not a chance I'm settling for now being 'good'. We've got an absolute cretin for an owner and he's trying to push his 'we're only Newcastle United', small-time rhetoric that some people will fall for. Not me.

We're Newcastle United and we deserve more. We deserve a club that at the very least tries to be better. We have the best manager we could possibly hope for and he's being shafted big time. How any true supporter can stand by and claim these are the good times is beyond me. Give your f***ing head a shake, man.

 

I gave my head a shake and a question came out would rather have a good owner and a s*** manager ?

Would rather have...? Give your head another shake and come back when you can ask a coherent question.

 

[M4]

 

Here's another one:

 

Would you rather have SJP covered in Sports Direct banners or flattened to rubble?

 

 

[LRD]

 

Here's another one:

 

Would you rather have SJP covered in Sports Direct banners or flattened to rubble?

 

 

 

[Stottie]

Ashley is a cunt but so is the interviewer letting him off with the straw man comparison to Man City. Any journalist who gave a toss would press Ashley why we are spending less than Bournemouth or Huddersfield. Why we have the lowest net spend of any club with tens of thousands of match going fans. Ashley only gets away with it (from a national perspective) because the established media narrative is that we are deluded (read: thick) Geordies who don't know their place. See the comments from Jenas too, someone who has a job on MOTD because his face and general image fit, not because of his insight into or fantastic career in football. According to pundits, there is a parallel universe where a club with top ten revenue and fans who turn up in spite of repeated disappointment carries a millstone of overexpections. Our failure to win silverware for decades is mocked, yet conveniently forgotten when discussing the fans and their loyalty. We are supposed to pity the poor billionaire instead.

[LRD]

The questions are all staged man. Ashley wouldn't allow himself to be put in an awkward position for a planned interview.

[timeEd32]

Ha Ha this forum really is pessimists united, just enjoy it man, believe me Rafa will leave one day and then what ......give up ?........stop supporting?........pack football in?........there are literally thousands of teams around the world that win nothing every year and achieve the grand total of f*** all, supporting your local team is your birth right and if its not your your local team and you support them because of some strange draw towards them then even better but for f***s sake take the good with the bad and right now its good.

Chopey, I'm a born and bred Geordie and I'll never support another team til the day I die. Kindly f*** right off, you absolute rectangle. There's not a chance I'm settling for now being 'good'. We've got an absolute cretin for an owner and he's trying to push his 'we're only Newcastle United', small-time rhetoric that some people will fall for. Not me.

We're Newcastle United and we deserve more. We deserve a club that at the very least tries to be better. We have the best manager we could possibly hope for and he's being shafted big time. How any true supporter can stand by and claim these are the good times is beyond me. Give your f***ing head a shake, man.

 

I gave my head a shake and a question came out would rather have a good owner and a s*** manager ?

 

Yes, actually. 1000x yes. Managers come and go. If we had a good owner there would be long term hope.

[Stottie]

The questions are all staged man. Ashley wouldn't allow himself to be put in an awkward position for a planned interview.

 

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. There's nothing stopping someone in the studio from giving a counter view though.

[afar]

I see the merits in everyone's frustration, ffs Unbelieavable, MrMojo and myself (along with others) were one of the first posters on here to question Ashley's intentions, we took a lot of stick back then. The fact is though we are stuck with him for the foreseeable, he is absolutely fucking up this opportunity we have with the best manager we've had in a long time. But I'm personally not going to let him suck the enjoyment out of this season, I've been looking forward to this season since May and I have every faith that Rafa, even with the current squad (which believe it or not has some talent in it)  will have us tough to beat and competitive, obviously not at the top but somewhere not as far from there as all the doom mongers are predicting.

 

There is way too much negativity around this place right now, admittedly much of Ashley's making and not groundless.

[Darth Crooks]

This has little to do with where we'll finish. I'll take 17th this season. People being 'negative' and booting off are doing so because they want some competency and slick operation, not because they are bet setters and anarchists. If I'm going to invest time in something I want it to be looked after. If I can see my ferraris exhaust is going to fall off I'm not going to just enjoy it whilst I have it - you kick up about it. I want to enjoy life undercrafa as much as anyone and I'll challenge any defamation of this club when I see it. The man who is the custodian is causing a needless circus. Again.

[ExiledGeordie]

Ha Ha this forum really is pessimists united, just enjoy it man, believe me Rafa will leave one day and then what ......give up ?........stop supporting?........pack football in?........there are literally thousands of teams around the world that win nothing every year and achieve the grand total of f*** all, supporting your local team is your birth right and if its not your your local team and you support them because of some strange draw towards them then even better but for f***s sake take the good with the bad and right now its good.

 

Totally agree, I'm as cynical as the best if them, but ffs the amount of folks on here that seem to want to remove all possible hope from the season is crazy. Ashley is a dick, we have a squad with holes in it but we have a world class manager who can get the best out of players. Seriously this is about as good as it's been under Ashley, if you can't at least hope for a season where you can truly get behind the team, then why bother at all. Give up, go watch the darts or something.

 

Why should it be enough that we have a world class manager? Why can't we build a side to properly compete? Are you so worn done by Ashley overs the years that you happily accept finishing 17th? I don't expect millions snd millions spent i expect us to compete with West Brom, Watford et al for players. But now we can't afford a striker circa 15m or genuine quality to help keep us in the league and properly stabilise. Ashley's latest comments are just farcical. Comparing us to Man City??? Blaming a lack of stadium naming rights deals when his company is plastered all over the stadium.

 

I'm looking forward to the Spurs game and I'll be watching and cheering them on. It's the same old rubbish from up top though, the same rubbish that was happening TEN years ago to Keegan. So ofcourse people are going to be p*ssed off about this latest rubbish.

[mrmojorisin75]

yeah i've been willing to look on the bright side until this point, if ashley was truly staying out of things and leaving rafa to use even a meagre budget how he wanted then so be it

 

this just confirms the man is a cunt and is presumably trying to get some kind of reaction from rafa after he's driven the narrative for the last few months

 

ashley can fuck off, when he ruins this we need to burn the whole thing down tbh

[Paully]

I've just seen a clip whereby he said that he regrets renaming SJP (I think he said he was warned not to as well) and then on the footage widely released yesterday he was bemoaning the fact that "It’s Newcastle United, it doesn’t have a £40m-a-year stadium naming rights deal"'.

 

The bloke is a lying gobshite tosser and we will never go anywhere near to realising our potential when he owns us. We've got to hope that we have new owners this time next year or else sadly Rafa won't be our manager.

 

Once a cunt, always a cunt!

 

[Altamullan]

Worn down by Ashley. Ashley lowering expectations. Is it an age thing, or an entitlement thing? Does anybody  really think Fat Mike has brainwashed the more recent generation?  How do you reconcile the rest of our history in living memory?to my mind,  we had a great promotion season with Keegan. Then we had hope and shared values and a sense (by and large/with moaning exceptions) of something building. We looked good for a year, equalled a record by finishing third. There was something coming, something we could be proud of. It amounted to one season where we looked like the best side in the country. We were setting records building/filling huge stands. Cranking up debt. The next season, looked good on paper; never really in it on grass (Barca excluded). Even with the slight Robson Renaissance, that is it. We are not entitled to be pushing into the top fours' noses. Five years out of 25 years, if you're a 92er, sounds a reasonable proportion of time to be in and around the top. Would be lovely to be there again. But add the previous 25 years and we have over 50 years with 5 of them top four bothering. 11 of them in a lower league. When Ashley says we are Newcastle  United  (with self/club depreciating undertones) why are we chucking toys out left right and centre?  Other than it is him, saying anything (other than here is some cash/gift/loan). I get ambition. I get pride. Growing up I never had expectations we would beat everyone or even play at the top level but I wouldn't be out sung and I wouldn't run away. Basically the things I could control I would try to, in support of the team. The city.  No point fretting over stuff we can't control. Times have been much worse.

[Dave]

The fact that both sides have felt the need to come out and state their case in public is exactly why most of us with eyes are concerned. This wouldn't be happening if all was well, and it's laughable that this needs pointing out. Be more positive ffs.

[Paully]

 

We are not entitled to be pushing into the top fours' noses.

 

 

Alreet Mike?

 

[ExiledGeordie]

The fact that both sides have felt the need to come out and state their case in public is exactly why most of us with eyes are concerned. This wouldn't be happening if all was well, and it's laughable that this needs pointing out. Be more positive ffs.

 

Spot on

 

[Darth Crooks]

So we've been shite before for a longtime, progressed a bit so shouldn't really be so bothered when someone comes along and completely disregards that because he can? Ashley doesn't care about any history or heritage. It's not even about winning, losing or position. It's the principle of merely thinking small time because it makes Ashley's life easier. No thanks.

 

I don't prefer any reckless, 'geordie nation' rot like we had before either but like I said it isn't related to history or heritage. I suppose he has a stay of execution in terms of good will as long as he keeps Rafa on side but he's making difficult work of that. Really it will truly tell at the end of the season and if and when an amount of PL comes in. He clearly wants it in the bank which I suppose has merit but it's risky to say the least. I'm not happy about yesterday's comments mind and it has fuck all to do with entitlement and I'm very much a 1992'er.

[Guest neesy111]

Last night's game also shows in an attacking sense we are well behind most of the PL imo, hence the need for investment in the playing squad.

[Altamullan]

 

We are not entitled to be pushing into the top fours' noses.

 

 

Alreet Mike?

Entitlement: believing that we're inherently deserving of something as a right, our special privilege.

 

Alreet Pards?

[Dave]

Right now should be the most positive period in the entire Ashley tenure, perhaps aside from when he first bought the club or that fleeting period where it looked like we might actually build on a 5th place finish (a concept soon smashed down). We have a great manager dragging the club into shape on and off the pitch and everyone is behind him.

 

The stink of incompetence, deceit and wasted opportunity that's hung over the club for about the last ten years is the problem and has always been the problem, not any lack of positivity on an internet forum. They've done it time and time again and there are still people queuing up to try and deflect the blame for our underachievement and worse, I really don't understand it.

 

[ianovthetoon]

More and more every day NUFC is an acronym for no use fucking crying.

 

I first attended games in my teens in the dark days of the late 80s when things were bleak.

 

We had the roller coaster 90s where we were able to far exceed expectations and the golden years of Robson where we again exceeded expectations.

 

Ashley has proven to be bad for us. He's struck gold in persuading Rafa to join in the first place, and sadly all of Ashley's chickens are coming home to roost after years of mismanagement. Players on wages that they wouldn't get anywhere else because they're dogshit and now we have to wait until their contracts run down or wait until someone is mad enough to take a chance on them.

 

Thing is, and I hate to say it but the snippets we've seen from Ashley's interview are right. We got promoted from the Championship by pretty much sustaining a Premier League operating model. We've probably now got a couple of years "transition" where we get rid of the deadwood and get back on a more level playing field with the rest of the division.

 

And anyone who doesn't think Rafa knows this is crackers. Yes I think he probably thought there would be more cash and it doesn't help that Penfold is inept but he sees it as a project. I do reckon the problem is more to do with the wage bill than anything else though.

 

Time to leave the bedwetting a few weeks. Get the transfer deadline out the way, see what we have then. For what it's worth I think we will be fine this season. Hopefully we will then kick on.....