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Various: Mike Ashley in talks with Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan


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Guest NobbyOhNobby

It's always like that whenever I listen to it. It's blatantly genuine, but they always go overboard. It's usually a good listen after a win though.

It's just such a shame that they don't get it at all. I remember listening to it after we best palace at home last season and they were legit saying we were going to finish top 6.

 

It's great that they're positive about the club, but surely they should be using their podcast to highlight how shit things are at the moment and the need for coordinated fan action to try and apply some pressure on Ashley.

 

Meh

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Listened to the true faith podcast previewing the new season, and it was far too positive. Kept talking about how much stronger we are than last season. I had to stop listening as it was making me angry. Completely missed the point of our current predicament

 

They just tend to focus on the experience and their thoughts about going to the match, albeit in the context that Ashley is shit. I like it TBH, it's a relief to think about football sometimes.

 

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It's always like that whenever I listen to it. It's blatantly genuine, but they always go overboard. It's usually a good listen after a win though.

It's just such a shame that they don't get it at all. I remember listening to it after we best palace at home last season and they were legit saying we were going to finish top 6.

 

It's great that they're positive about the club, but surely they should be using their podcast to highlight how shit things are at the moment and the need for coordinated fan action to try and apply some pressure on Ashley.

 

Meh

 

They do. Alex and true faith to be fair to him is part of the magpie group.

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It's always like that whenever I listen to it. It's blatantly genuine, but they always go overboard. It's usually a good listen after a win though.

It's just such a shame that they don't get it at all. I remember listening to it after we best palace at home last season and they were legit saying we were going to finish top 6.

 

It's great that they're positive about the club, but surely they should be using their podcast to highlight how shit things are at the moment and the need for coordinated fan action to try and apply some pressure on Ashley.

 

Meh

 

I like listening to it and they often have a decent balance but its the same problem; they all socialise through it and I think Alex even alluded to his life being better with the NUFC games than without it and you can appreciate why they want to keep upbeat. I get that. Still, it's all well and good but they know that all this talk of building and being stronger with Rafa is pretty moot. The one lad on it was more vocal about it. They aren't money grabbers and I don't want to misrepresent but they have a paid platform for the pod now and that brings with it a certain politics to consider.

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I keep wondering why Ashley didn't play these games with Rafa next summer? - he could have backed him now, give him a reasonable budget, fix the squad to compete, Rafa signs contract.... then say next window you have to sell to buy?

 

Guess he does want Rafa out after he's served his purpose this season of keeping us up on the cheap again. He will try to do same again with another manager who is out of work.

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I don't think he wants Rafa out, he doesn't really 'want' anything except to keep costs down and advertise Sports Direct. He's just not prepared to spend what it takes to make Rafa happy, so he'll leave. For Ashley that'll be a side effect rather than a strategy.

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It's always like that whenever I listen to it. It's blatantly genuine, but they always go overboard. It's usually a good listen after a win though.

It's just such a shame that they don't get it at all. I remember listening to it after we best palace at home last season and they were legit saying we were going to finish top 6.

 

It's great that they're positive about the club, but surely they should be using their podcast to highlight how shit things are at the moment and the need for coordinated fan action to try and apply some pressure on Ashley.

 

Meh

 

I like listening to it and they often have a decent balance but its the same problem; they all socialise through it and I think Alex even alluded to his life being better with the NUFC games than without it and you can appreciate why they want to keep upbeat. I get that. Still, it's all well and good but they know that all this talk of building and being stronger with Rafa is pretty moot. The one lad on it was more vocal about it. They aren't money grabbers and I don't want to misrepresent but they have a paid platform for the pod now and that brings with it a certain politics to consider.

 

But only fans pay them, nobody else. And a very small minority I imagine, the main podcast is still free.

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It's always like that whenever I listen to it. It's blatantly genuine, but they always go overboard. It's usually a good listen after a win though.

It's just such a shame that they don't get it at all. I remember listening to it after we best palace at home last season and they were legit saying we were going to finish top 6.

 

It's great that they're positive about the club, but surely they should be using their podcast to highlight how shit things are at the moment and the need for coordinated fan action to try and apply some pressure on Ashley.

 

Meh

 

I like listening to it and they often have a decent balance but its the same problem; they all socialise through it and I think Alex even alluded to his life being better with the NUFC games than without it and you can appreciate why they want to keep upbeat. I get that. Still, it's all well and good but they know that all this talk of building and being stronger with Rafa is pretty moot. The one lad on it was more vocal about it. They aren't money grabbers and I don't want to misrepresent but they have a paid platform for the pod now and that brings with it a certain politics to consider.

 

But only fans pay them, nobody else. And a very small minority I imagine, the main podcast is still free.

 

 

Yeah thats fine. I don't subscribe but they are clearly making big things about becoming a bit of a broadcast network for the wider fanbase and I can see why that would have them reticent to put out 6 pods a week with the kind of agenda the likes of some of the protest groups advocate.

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From .com

 

 

View from Europe:

 

"Magpies in coma"

 

 

Sounding like something off the set list of a Geordie Smith's tribute band, that's the title of this article published in German magazine "Kicker" and helpfully translated by NUFC.com reader @jens1893:

 

How Newcastle United drives its own fans into madness

 

Magpies in coma - a lesson from the Premier League

 

A Premier League club that depends on player sales?

 

"Everything is going wrong off the pitch" says manager Rafa Benitez one week before the start of the season.

 

About a club that drives its own fans into madness.

 

In Newcastle it seems like there's never been a record-breaking Premiership TV contract. The club made its club record signing 13 years ago and signed its second most expensive players 22 years ago. Their names are Michael Owen and Alan Shearer. And yet the club somehow valiantly keeps its place in the richest league around.

 

This is how far it's come: A club has for years been a symbol of just about everything that's wrong with modern football and yet the consequences somehow sound romantic.

 

Newcastle United can be compared to Hamburg a little: Trophy winners on the domestic and international stage years ago, both still possess a big and emotional fan base, but yet both have been a mocked sleeping giant for years. Although it should be noted that Newcastle of late haven't only been sleeping, but lying in a coma as one of their fans recently put it in the Guardian. Back in the day he and everyone else was still dreaming about the Champions or at least the Europa League, nowadays the only thing they want is to wake up and see the club in the hands of someone other than Mike Ashley.

 

At the beginning, the fans liked this maniac - wasn't he one of them?

 

Ashley, who became a billionaire with Sports Direct, has owned NUFC since June 2007, or to say it bluntly: Has had the club in a stranglehold since. And that's despite it all starting off so beautifully: The then 42 year-old met up with fans in a pub, watched games in the club shirt and even once had a pint with them in his seat, which is prohibited in England. The club back then stated the beverage was non-alcoholic and, of course, was just handed to him. Many fans liked this maniac from the West Midlands, somehow and someway he was one of them if you ignore the size of his bank account. And didn't he love NUFC like they did?

 

Eleven years on, and one week before the start of the new Premier League season, the manager Benitez states things like "everything" off the pitch is going wrong. He had "no idea" if he was allowed to sign another player. "The fans should be concerned, I am very concerned." Newcastle, 10th in the Premier League as a promoted side a year ago, had just lost a friendly against Braga by the score of four to nil. No new signing featured.

 

In order to sign Muto from Mainz, Benitez first had to sell

 

In an age where Huddersfield can sign a center half from Monaco for €20m or when the pure status of being in the Premier League is enough to bank nearly €150m, like Newcastle did last year, that very same Newcastle has a transfer profit of nearly €20m.

 

In order to sign Muto Benitez first had to sell, the other new signings, such as the ex Hoffenheim man Schär, cost next nothing or came in on free transfers. How can this possibly be the case at a Premiership club, one of the richest in the world?

 

Let's go back to 2008, when Ashley publicly sipped a pint.

 

When the beloved manager Kevin Keegan, one day after the close of the transfer window, was told that the club, with Ashley being at the forefront, had secretly offered some of his players to other clubs, he furiously resigned. The fans protested and called for Ashley to sell the club. He did try to do so, roughly one year after he'd bought it, when he allegedly only found it was indebted after he'd done so. He publicly regretted his purchase, called it a "disaster for everyone" and said his money was lost, but just like in 2009 and 2017 there was no prospective buyer willing to meet his valuation of at least €450m.

 

Ashley has taken from them what they love and those in charge of the English game have no objections

 

And as long as it stays like this, he stays. In order to somewhat save his investment, he's for years only barely invested what might be necessary to keep the club in the lucrative top flight. Finish 6th or 16th? Ashley doesn't care. In 2016 Newcastle went down because Ashley only signed off on making funds for new signings available after it was too late. Those funds would've been available at Newcastle just like at every other club in that league.

 

And this is how one single one man has been paralysing a club, a club which drew in excess of 50k per home game even in the Championship, for a decade. This is how one single man hasn't awoken a sleeping giant, but rather knocked it out and driven its fans into madness in the process. They see what is possible with this club and with this manager, but the only person who could make their vision a reality just refuses to do so. He's taken from them what they love and those in charge of the English game have no objections. What happens when a private investor forgets, or even on purpose neglects, the interests of the club in pursuit of his own private interests? Newcastle fans know that all too well by now.

 

Benitez could walk at any minute, many fans would now join him

 

"People need to understand that we won't sign the player at the top of our list. We won't even bring in the guy who is our Plan B or Plan C" Benitez now openly dares to criticise Ashley's transfer policy. He can afford to do so: He led Newcastle back into the Premier League and kept them there in a remarkably solid fashion despite all problems.

 

He could walk away from the job at any point and could undoubtedly have a new job only shortly thereafter. His current contract expires in 2019 and he only wants to sign the new five-year extension that's been offered to him when he's been guaranteed investment into the academy and the training facility. And he knows the fans are on his side.

 

It all seems like Newcastle is steering towards the biggest power struggle of the Ashley era. Problems loom on the pitch (their final rehearsal for the season was a 0-1 home loss v Augsburg) and especially off it - a current stand-off about the squad bonuses just seems fitting considering the generally comatose condition the club finds itself in.

 

"When Rafa goes, we go" many Geordie faithful now despairingly say themselves. But after a decade of Ashley they know better than anyone that he could very much live with that.

 

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"There are two priorities in the 53-year-old’s life. His sports shop and his family."

 

Message received.

 

Not his parents though. He cut contact after borrowing money off them and not paying it back. Top bloke

Not surprised at all. Hope karma is waiting for him.
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"There are two priorities in the 53-year-old’s life. His sports shop and his family."

 

Message received.

 

Not his parents though. He cut contact after borrowing money off them and not paying it back. Top bloke

 

Let's not forget that his mum worked behind the cash register, and his father handled all the bookkeeping/accounts (when Little Mikey fledgling enterpise was finding it's feet financially). First two employees to be shafted by Mike, his parents. Top bloke.

 

If you're able to burn your own parents, in business, there's no moral obstacle when shafting a cancer sufferer (Jonas) who is just a number on a playing roster, and SD's workforce

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His parents, who rarely have contact with their son, the 25th richest man in Britain, still live in the same bungalow. Mike Ashley lives in a Hertfordshire mansion in 35 acres of ground, which was once owned by pop tycoon Mickie Most, where he can park the company helicopter. A father of three

 

Hold the bus!!!  Cannot believe it!!...... some variant of the female species has done the dirty with him not once, but three times?!!!! :yikes: 

 

Fuck the da Vinci Code and Opus Dei.  We need to stamp out his seed on this planet! It's for the greater good of humankind!!  O0

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