Renton

You forgot he's won the Premiership then? Or the style of football he epsouses? Or his youth development? Or his insistence on a Director of Football? Yes, Sam's experience is exactly like Wenger Where did I say they were comparable? What I'm saying is, a managers previous experience is relevant to the job at hand now, whatever it is. For most people this would be too obvious even to state.

Presumably Wenger's experience would not be relevant to the Newcastle job either. Getting more Vic like by the day tbh.

If I'm honest if I saw me trying to parallel park I wouldn't say that.

Now, would Craig have posted this if it had been a bloke, or entitled the thread "Males on the road"? I realise this is entirely hypothetical and that would never happen in reality of course.

Not exactly like for like, like.

Short of the day he signed and the team photo, did he actually ever pull on the gold numbered shirt? Played a reserve game or so I think. He did the "lap of honour" too. Anyone reckon these players are the ones referred to by Butt and others as not giving a shit? Hopefully Dyer will be next. A new dawn beckons. I think (or should I say hope?) that the likes of Dyer, Luque etc will be cash sales. Fucking ought to be! Bramble will be back at Ipswich btw if what I've heard is true - they've not done bad have they? £5m in their bank for him and he's been shite ever since. Aye, I hope we make some cash on him but it will be limited by his wage demands no doubt.

Short of the day he signed and the team photo, did he actually ever pull on the gold numbered shirt? Played a reserve game or so I think. He did the "lap of honour" too. Anyone reckon these players are the ones referred to by Butt and others as not giving a shit? Hopefully Dyer will be next. A new dawn beckons.

Because the club has been completely changed. Would you honestly say Keegan overachieved, or was it the result if a proper plan for advancement? There is a difference between someone using what they would expect to cope with in a situation and doing better than expected, and someone applying extra resources to improve their situation. Who gets the credit for that? Just the chairman or was it an excellent achievement by Allardyce too? So without Sam there would have been no change? Do you think without hiring Keegan that SJH would be chairman of a Division 1 club right now? Of course he gets credit but seriously, is that a criteria for appointing our manager, he can add staff to a Division 1 club when given money? So Allardyce deserves credit for what he has achieved at Bolton then? Don't be daft, he didn't achieve it, apparently.

It might have something to do with the chairman don't you think? Or did Sam pay everyone's wages, sign the cheques and build a stadium?

To be pedantic, I don't see how we have nearly reached a UEFA cup final twice.

Who do you think was responsible for changing Bolton's status over the last 8 years, SSH? Jesus wept man!

How is it overachieving? By what standard do you judge, when he's had 8 years to run his own personal fiefdom? I guess if Sammy Lee doesn't get 5th now he'll be slated as absolute shite. What about the bloke at Gretna? Has he overachieved? You achieve the potential in your circumnstances. I'll judge Sam on how he does with a year with these players as compared to every other manager that has been given the same affordance. Alternatively, we could take a back step and actually look to see who is out there who really could improve this club over 5 years, not just take the bloke we know wants the job because he turned it down 3 years ago. Any comparison of NUFC to Bolton is way off base. Different players, different chairman, completely different club, different exectations, hell the only thing in common is the Premiership, nothing else at all is the same. You have to ask yourself would Liverpool/Arsenal ever take a chance with Sam? If not why not? His only top flight record is Bolton. Some people think that's a good thing, I don't. Alternatively, If you want untried at the top, why choose Allardyce? Why not anyone else? Why not a completely unexpected and dynamic appointment, like Wenger to Arsenal, Houllier to Liverpool etc etc. And frankly, most of this is down to Fred, so delusions of anything coming good now and attacking any hint of questioning is also foolish. You've still not said what his bad points are though. Come to think of it, he doesn't have many, apart from the glaringly obvious that people seem to think is water under the bridge, even though it isn't even resolved yet My anger at his appointment is the pure bull being spouted about justifying his appointment: 'over-achieved at Bolton' - flawed argument, see above 'best for our circumstances' - he would have been here 3 years ago, don't even pretend Fred has gone for Sam because of circumstances, he is his number one idea of a top flight manager 'backroom staff' - this is basically spin and soundbites, Sam is certainly not the only manager who knows this stuff 'will stand up to Fred' - basically, when it comes down to it, no, he won't. No manager ever has. Ifyou want this, you get a director of football Combined with the fact that yet again, no effort at all has been made to get the right manager, we have taken the easy choice once again. I can't understand why you think he hasn't overachieved with Bolton. Is your criteria for overachivement? Do you have to take Wimbledon from non league to the premiership? The simple fact is that before his arrival Bolton were a first division club with no expectations other than having the odd challenge for promotion and if they did get up battle bravely against relegation. But he did more than this, he took them up, kept them up, established them as a premiership club (similar to Curbishly at Charlton) and then give them a realistic chance of qualifying for Europe and even an outside chance of snatching a Champions League spot. For me and it appears most others, that is what we would consider overachivement. This whole point you have about the fat man wanting him three years ago is irrelevant when you are arguing about why people now are saying he is the best we could get currently. Three years ago I agree few people would have wanted him (although I'm sure almost everyone would have took him over Souness) but we are not in the same position we were then. At that time we had finished 4th, 3rd and 5th in three seasons, qualifying for the 2nd group phase of the champions league and getting to a Uefa cup semi final. At that time we were an attractive proposition. Now we have had three god awful seasons, we are not in europe and we don't have the same amount of transfer funds as we did. We can't expect Europes elite to come kicking our door in so most of us have shifted our expectations of who we can appoint. I agree with your point that any manager should be able to bring in decent backroom staff but the simple fact is that none of our last five or six managers have done this and Allardyce has a succesfull record of it. If he did pick Gary Speed to bring as a coach I would be quite confident that he would be up to the job beacuse Allardyce's previous picks Brown, Lee, McDonald all appear to have been good at the jobs with all three going on to manage their own teams. As for standing up to the fat man, none of us know whether this will ever happen but I don't have any real expectations for it. But I do believe that Allardyce would have set out certain ground rules before he accepted the job that Shepherd must have aquiesced to. This may be a false assumption but we will never know. I also agree that Shepherd is unlikely to have undertaken a thorough europe wide search for our new manager, I think this is something most would concede. But that just makes me all the happier that we got SA in. No one expects fatty to carefully consider his options so we can just be grateful we didn't end up with an appointment like the last two! Absolutely spot on, exactly how I feel.

Got any hawkwind or marillion [/neil] That's a point, maybe I should ask Papa Lazaru.

FYP That's bad.

He was spotted by a caller on the three two leg ends today fleeing Newcastle in a black Lambourgini, the ungrateful bastard.

Saw him on Wednesday in Shepherd's Bush Empire, what did you think? I thought it was all right, nothing too special though. I'm a big Suede/Tears fan and loved it, mind, as I say, it was a tiny, intimate venue with shite acoustics, so it was bit strange. He seems to have really lightened up recently himself and enjoy performing again. Was his 16 year old nephew on stage parading the most bling top ever at the London gig? I've been talked into seeing Marillion on June 5th at the Uni too. Haven't listened to them since Fish was the singer and I'm a bit dubious.

I almost always feel safer abroad like, I think it's the absence of pissed up charvers. Portugal was no exception, seems like a nice place despite the obvious poverty.

Cheeky fecker I was I hadnt succumbed to opening this thread now, I had successfully side stepped it several times too Its so depressing getting old, and far worse for a woman than a man too I remember being 21 like it was yersterday, its true when us oldies say the years just fly by they really do go past quicker the older you get!! Have to say though, I've never known so many young'uns on one forum before The worst thing about getting old is becoming inarticulate and over relying on smilies I reckon. Check out a Radgi Friday post for instance.

This concept makes my head hurt. Depends on who the clone was. Could be disastrous. Me, obviously. It was more the fact that we're all clones of each other that did my head in, bit of a two-snakes-eating-each-other moment. Where does it start...where does it end?!!! So anyway, are you and Alex talking to this bloke to make yourselves feel smarter or what's the craic? Boredom. Don't know if you know this but it turns out SSH is In Victa which I find quite amusing. A board of In Victa clones would reach critical mass quite quickly I'd imagine.

That's an excellent post and fair play to the lad for saying it. For the situation we find ourselves in, with the quite obvious problems we have he is one of the best people to sort them out. The mackems reaction to us can often be quite useful. They pissed themselves laughing and celebrated when we got Souness and they were right. As far as i recall they were pretty amused we went for Roeder and didn't think he'd do well. With Big Sam they'll either be like this bloke, or their posts will be sad, bitter and full of hope that he'll do this wrong, and that wrong but ultimately scared he'll do very well. I love the bit about fining Stelios for gettign cramp in a game for Greece That's true, much in the way I wa pissing myself when they employed Wilkinson but slightly nervous when they got Keane

This concept makes my head hurt. Depends on who the clone was. Could be disastrous.

There's the difference, you don't even think it's possible. What's possible? We're not the club we were under Robson or Keegan, and we can't simply pick any manager in the world, if that's what you mean. Under the present circumstances, Allardyce is probably a good appointment; you have yet to make a coherent argument against him.

There's no substance to anything you write SSH. May I ask you a question - what at this stage in Newcastle's history would make you happy? Roeder keeping his job? A different manager coming in? If so who, and please be realistic here, don't just say Klinsmann.

How can he get so many basic facts about Newcastle wrong? What a tit.

But on the other hand, we don't have Leazes anymore, so really deep down, we needed another person who creates straw men, argues against things nobody said and generally just says the same shite over and over again on ever thread where its mentioned, or even not mentioned! When do we start editing his posts?