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LoveItIfWeBeatU

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LoveItIfWeBeatU

LoveItIfWeBeatU

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I thought I'd create this thread as sometimes there is NUFC related stuff to post which doesn't warrant it's own thread (and the 'Not Worthy Of A Thread' is usually non-NUFC related posts).

 

I saw this yesterday: -

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35744820

 

Like most internet 'Comments' sections, if you want to read the ill informed opinions of idiots then read the 'View Comments' section but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Quote
Newcastle United: Why can't Premier League strugglers get it right?

 

By Phil McNulty

 

Chief football writer

 

Newcastle United is the great football soap opera played out on the banks of the Tyne - and it was a grim storyline after Saturday's home defeat by Bournemouth left them in the Premier League relegation zone.

 

Magpies great and BBC Sport pundit Alan Shearer told Match of the Day the club was "a mess from top to bottom" while besieged manager Steve McClaren admitted the display in the 3-1 loss was "going down material".

 

Newcastle's elder statesman and former chairman Sir John Hall said McClaren should be sacked, saying: "It's probably time he goes. You've got to find someone to harness the team."

 

So other than that… why has this giant of a club found itself in the sort of crisis it attracts on a regular basis and facing relegation once more?

 

Do Newcastle fans expect too much?

This is the age-old - and unfair - question aimed at the Toon Army.

 

Expectations should be high at Newcastle United. This is a one-club city with a huge stadium that is a landmark, bang in the middle of it, attracting 52,000 fanatical supporters on a regular basis.

 

This is a captive audience with a burning passion for the game and their football club - so, yes, expectations should not be played down.

 

Newcastle's fans do not expect too much, however. They simply expect to see a club given such backing to at least have a crack at winning trophies. Too much of the Mike Ashley regime has been about preserving Premier League status, with even the FA Cup regarded as an irrelevance until this season.

 

    What they should expect is better than 19th place with 24 points from 28 games after an outlay since the summer of almost £80m on eight players.

    What they should expect is better than constantly living in fear of relegation, only surviving the drop on the final day of last season with a 2-0 win against West Ham.

    What they should expect is better than a team that has spent six days in the top half of the table, 207 days in the bottom half and 144 in the bottom three this season - with a highest place of ninth.

 

Newcastle have only had two top-10 finishes in the past six campaigns, with fifth place under Alan Pardew in 2011-12 almost looking like the glory era.

 

Since the start of last season, out of 66 Premier League games, Newcastle have only won 16 and lost 35. Expectation is certainly being built up.

 

Those vast crowds, of course, bring pressure - but no more than 76,000 watching at Old Trafford or 60,000 at Arsenal - and every Newcastle player knows they will be elevated to almost deity status should they give those supporters the success they crave.

 

Newcastle's fans are not expecting Premier League titles or Champions League successes - just more than the constant diet of mediocrity they have been fed.

 

In reality, the Toon Army has been patient. This is club that has not won a major trophy since the 1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup - a little expectation is excusable.

 

Is McClaren to blame?

McClaren was handed a three-year contract in June - an appointment seemingly long in the making after Pardew left for Crystal Palace and John Carver held the fort, and one confirmed despite a dismal end to his tenure at Derby County when they failed to make the Championship play-offs despite strong financial backing.

 

It was an underwhelming move given McClaren's credibility problems in England since his disastrous spell in charge of the national side - but he talked big by insisting trophies and the top eight was his target.

 

The top eight looks a long way off with six wins and 16 defeats from 28 games, and the FA Cup run ending in the third round at Watford.

 

McClaren won a big reputation as a coach working alongside Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, notably in the Treble season of 1998-99 - but his managerial career has been a mixed bag.

 

He won the League Cup at Middlesbrough in 2004 and Eredivisie with FC Twente in the Netherlands in 2009-10.

 

But he was a failure at Wolfsburg and in a second spell at Twente before fruitless times at Derby and this shocking stay at Newcastle. He also had a 112-day stay at Nottingham Forest in 2011, but that was ended by differences with the hierarchy as much as football matters.

 

Players who have worked under him speak in glowing terms of his ability on the training field - but such references are harder to find as a manager.

 

Martin Keown, who worked under McClaren when he was on England's coaching staff, said: "I thought he was an excellent coach - but no, not a manager for me."

 

He added McClaren looked like "a rabbit caught in the headlights" in his post-Bournemouth interview.

 

Where questions could be asked is whether McClaren is working with the players he really wants as, for many seasons, Newcastle chief scout Graham Carr has been a major player behind the scenes.

 

The bottom line, though, is that ultimate responsibility lies with McClaren and even his place on Newcastle's board - that rather unusual award that came with his appointment - will not save him if managing director Lee Charnley decides he must go.

 

And, given McClaren's demeanour, admission the club are heading down, and miserable results, it is surely when rather than if he goes.

 

The Ashley effect?

Mike Ashley has long been regarded as a toxic presence at Newcastle United, described by fans as a member of the 'Cockney Mafia' running the club - but can he be blamed for this season's debacle?

 

Of course he agreed to McClaren's appointment but this was very much driven by Charnley, and Ashley even stepped down from the board last summer.

 

McClaren joined along with Charnley, chief scout Carr and club ambassador and former captain Bob Moncur.

 

Ashley also sanctioned that £80m spending spree, that started in the summer and continued in January with the arrival of England pair Jonjo Shelvey from Swansea City for £12m and Andros Townsend from Tottenham for a similar figure.

 

It has had little or no impact but while Ashley can be accused of many things, he cannot be accused of keeping his hand in his pocket this season.

 

On that final day last season, in a rare public statement, he insisted he would not sell Newcastle "at any price" until they won a trophy. It may be a long stay.

 

Ashley's problem, one that still exists today, is he is regarded as a malign figure by the Toon Army and has been almost since he bought Hall's 41.6% stake in the club in May 2007, taking full control later that year.

 

He won fans over by re-appointing the beloved Kevin Keegan as manager in January 2008, but Keegan left unhappy with the hierarchy eight months later and Ashley has never been well regarded since.

 

Ashley wanted to sell Newcastle as far back as September 2008 - issuing a 1,644-word statement explaining why - but is still there, locked in a loveless relationship with the fans that casts a constant cloud over the club.

 

He has backed Newcastle with cash this season but once more it has resulted in failure.

 

Newcastle, with its ground and potential, should be a huge going concern but it is heading towards the rocks, in this case the Championship.

 

Ashley insists he will be staying - but relegation may change his mind.

 

Bad buys, bad results

Carr, Newcastle's powerful 71-year-old chief scout, likes a low profile but has been pushed into the spotlight by the failure of the club's recent recruitment policy.

 

Carr signed an eight-year contract in June 2012 - reward for bringing the likes of Hatem Ben Arfa, Cheick Tiote, Yohan Cabaye, Papiss Cisse and Sylvain Marveaux to Tyneside.

 

The golden touch has since deserted the old campaigner, with players brought in this season lacking the leadership qualities and stomach for a Premier League relegation fight.

 

Newcastle, in search of goals on Saturday, did not even start with Aleksandar Mitrovic, bought for £14.5m from Anderlecht in the summer. And Florian Thauvin, signed from Marseille for £12m last August, was sent back on loan in January after looking out of his depth.

 

Georginio Wijnaldum, signed from PSV Eindhoven for £14.5m, has shone fitfully while Chancel Mbemba, an £8.4m capture from Anderlecht, has looked promising.

 

McClaren has talked up the fighting spirit of Shelvey and local boy Jack Colback but a succession of performances without fight do not support his words.

 

It is significant, however, that Carr's strategy of recruitment from abroad was ditched in January and he is now coming under fierce scrutiny.

 

And there is no promise in youth either. Shearer pointed out the lack of academy players coming through, confirmed by the fact Newcastle's Under-21 team is two places off the bottom in Premier League Division Two while they are ninth out of 12 in the under-18 table.

 

What must change?

McClaren, in a brutally honest interview after the Bournemouth game, admitted Newcastle would be relegated on such form. It may just have been his farewell speech.

 

It was not the talk of a manager full of faith in his players and Ashley and his colleagues - with Charnley the main powerbroker - must have been dismayed at such a bleak bulletin being delivered by the man supposedly in charge of inspiring his players.

 

So results must change, self-evidently, but there is a growing case to change a manager who has looked anything but the "perfect fit" described by Charnley in the summer.

 

Recruitment has been beyond average and the production line from Newcastle's academy appears to have developed a bad case of rust.

 

And for a man whose task was outlined as that top-eight finish and who was "heavily incentivised to try and win a cup competition" the future looks bleak.

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Wallace

Wallace

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Mike Ashley and Newcastle: how to suck the spirit out of a football club

 

Steve McClaren’s sacking is the latest symbol of the deep troubles at Newcastle, who are stumbling incoherently into another relegation battle with the fans feeling sour, angry, baffled and betrayed

 

David Conn

Friday 11 March 2016 13.00 GMT Last modified on Friday 11 March 2016 14.08 GMT

 

When Newcastle United slump into another of their serial crises during what passes for stewardship under Mike Ashley, the grand old club look wrong in every respect – from “top to bottom”, as their hero of yore, Alan Shearer, recently lamented. Yet another manager, Steve McClaren, has been dispatched from the ejector seat months after he replaced Newcastle’s discount experiment with John Carver’s career and wellbeing. Substantial money has actually been spent on signing players – £80m in the summer and January – but this has prompted only bewildered questions about the quality of recruitment by the chief scout, Graham Carr, who in effect selects the players in the decision‑making structure insisted on by Ashley.

 

With all of it leading the club stumbling incoherently into another relegation battle at a stadium built for cavalier adventure, the whole modern incarnation of St James’ Park looks dire. Ashley’s tainted retail empire, Sports Direct, has its logo on every wall and in everybody’s face around the ground, while the players Carr has signed according to the Ashley value policy of being under 25, pull on the noble black and white shirt with Wonga emblazoned on their chests.

 

The mood among an army of supporters who actively want to embrace the club as an engine of pride and regional identity is sour, angry, baffled and betrayed. Newcastle are facing the drop for the season when the financial divide between Premier League and Championship will gape wider than ever, alongside Aston Villa, another big club of great tradition failing under a billionaire owner.

 

Yet while Randy Lerner has almost said his farewells at Villa Park, and announced he will not be over from America much any more, Ashley is involved with the hierarchy – threadbare as it is – at Newcastle and sanctioned all that spending. Somehow, nothing they do is working.

 

The club reversed the clinical, misery-inducing strategy set out by the managing director, Lee Charnley, last season, 60 years after Newcastle last won a domestic trophy, the FA Cup, of in effect surrendering ambition in the cups in favour of aiming for a financially comfortable position in the upper half of the league table.

 

Then, out McClaren’s team limped from the Capital One Cup in September to a 1-0 home defeat by Sheffield Wednesday, after which Charnley – to his credit – sent an email to supporters apologising for “a very disappointing start to our Premier League campaign, and a painful early exit from a cup competition that we were determined to give everything in this year”.

 

Fourteen league matches after that, of which only four were won, a run punctuated by the 5-1 thrashing administered by their former manager Alan Pardew at Crystal Palace, Newcastle trudged out of the FA Cup in the third round, losing 1-0 at Watford.

 

That has left top-flight survival as the only aim and, with the Premier League finalising its unbelievable £8bn for the total 2016-19 TV rights, Ashley cannot contemplate missing out on so much money. Charnley’s apology in September talked about being in it all together and not apportioning blame (“We have sat down as a collective – myself with Steve and his coaching team, and Steve with his players …”) but the ringing of the relegation alarm drowns out such emollience.

 

It is natural at times such as this to see Ashley’s ownership as a permanent dead hand, which has brought his cheapskate, bottom line‑obsessed practices of Sports Direct to a football club that have always relished stars with a touch of extravagance.

 

It is easy to forget that after his first hideous period of ownership, when he seemed to buy the club for a good time then saw them relegated in 2009 and promised to sell up, the Ashley tenure briefly came together. In 2011‑12, after Carr’s scouting had brought in talent including Yohan Cabaye, Papiss Cissé and Hatem Ben Arfa, Pardew took the team to a fifth-placed finish, and the then managing director Derek Llambias pulled the finances back to sanity.

 

Then Ashley appointed Joe Kinnear as director of football, Llambias left the next day, other clubs including Leicester City overhauled their recruitment, including from France, and Newcastle, with their talk of the top 10 and lack of interest in the cups, came across as too financially matter-of-fact for their own good. As they scramble to stay up now, Charnley must know, even if Ashley still gives an air of being detached, that there is only so much spirit you can squeeze from a football club.

 

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LoveItIfWeBeatU

LoveItIfWeBeatU

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35785854

 

Newcastle United: Can Rafa Benitez enjoy #feelgoodfriday?

 

Why would anyone take the Newcastle job?

 

The club has problems from top to bottom, according to Magpies legend Alan Shearer.

 

They are stuck in the relegation zone - only Aston Villa have a worse record this season. And while they are just a point behind 17th-place Sunderland, there's a further eight-point gap to the next team, Swansea.

 

Oh, and there's only 10 games left. And the next one is away to table-topping workaholics Leicester.

 

But come on, it's #feelgoodfriday. So with that in mind, and with Rafael Benitez in place as their new manager, we've been thinking about the things Newcastle have going for them.

 

1. They are only a point behind Sunderland

 

One point. And they play their north-east rivals at home next week. What an opportunity!

 

2. They have last year's Dutch player of the year

 

Georginio Wijnaldum captained PSV to their first title in years in the Netherlands last season. He's Newcastle's top scorer this season - nine goals in 22 appearances from midfield is decent. He scored against Brazil for the Dutch in the 2014 World Cup third place play-off. Now if Rafa can just get him firing consistently...

 

3. They have England internationals in their ranks

 

Jonjo Shelvey and Andros Townsend didn't come cheap when they arrived on Tyneside in January and have been two of the better players recently. Now if Rafa can just get them firing consistently...

 

4. The board are willing to spend money

 

Many Newcastle fans have been critical of the board. OK, very critical of the board. But they have spent £83m since the end of last season and have pledged to continue forking out on players.

 

5. Benitez is a successful manager

 

The Spaniard has the seventh-best win rate in Premier League history, according to Opta.

 

6. He likes stripes

 

The last time Benitez managed a team that plays in stripes (Inter Milan) he won the Fifa Club World Cup - though he was sacked five days later.

 

7. He pulls off miracles

 

Remember the 2005 Champions League final? A bold team selection saw Liverpool 3-0 down to AC Milan at half-time in Istanbul. What happened next? A bold fightback by Benitez's men is what happened, and Europe's premier trophy returned to Anfield for a fifth time.

 

Can he pull off another miracle on Tyneside?

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wyn davies

wyn davies

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biggest disaster was getting beat off West Ham when we were 12 points up leading the premiership, even biggest disaster watching them from 1964 to now always hoping things can only better, glimmer of hope under Keegan then all gone tits up since then.

 

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54

54

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5 live now- monday night club discussing us/ the relegation run in.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_five_live

 

Frightening levels of drivel. Chris Sutton is one of the stupidest people on the press circuit.

 

Imagine uttering the phrase: "Rafa Benitez is a big gamble, especially when Nigel Pearson is available" with a straight face.

I really don't get the sudden fascination with Pearson, he's only managed in the Premier Leage for one full season, and bar an 8 game stint the majority of that was rock bottom of the league, and suddenly he's an expert at surviving relegation :lol:

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LoveItIfWeBeatU

LoveItIfWeBeatU

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5 live now- monday night club discussing us/ the relegation run in.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_five_live

 

Frightening levels of drivel. Chris Sutton is one of the stupidest people on the press circuit.

 

Imagine uttering the phrase: "Rafa Benitez is a big gamble, especially when Nigel Pearson is available" with a straight face.

 

The joke is, if Rafa doesn't keep us up the idiot pundits will say it proves they were right about Rafa not being the right choice. Nevermind the fact our squad is not fit for purpose and nobody could probably have done any better.

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Norseman

Norseman

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Not wanting to sound harsh but is there any need for the 17th (well, 18th!) minute applause still?! I can't believe people still do it!

 

There's really no need for it any more. I seem to remember even the families of the victims went public and pretty much said so a while ago?

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Guest Roger Kint

Guest Roger Kint

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Not wanting to sound harsh but is there any need for the 17th (well, 18th!) minute applause still?! I can't believe people still do it!

 

There's really no need for it any more. I seem to remember even the families of the victims went public and pretty much said so a while ago?

 

They did yeah.

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Heron

Heron

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Yet nobody wants to be the bad guy who tells everyone else. It'll probably hang around for years.

 

I've just started singing for the team over the top of the applause.

It's an indirect way of saying stop the clapping but still think / do what they would have done.

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