manc-mag

Unless we get a billionaire sugar daddy like Chelsea and City then whoever comes in may well have to run the club in the same way or we could get a Ridsdale who would mortgage the club within an inch of oblivion with the hope of champions league. Would you want to take that gamble?? I know Ashley has been a cunt and his appointments of Wise and Dekka have been very poor but we could end up worse off than we are. We are pretty safe this season and playing quite well, we also have 35m to spend in the summer so its not all doom and gloom Or we could have someone in the middle, which Ashley is more than capable of being, given his wealth. I don't see why it has to be one extreme or the other. Ashley doesn't have to run the club the way he is. It's a personal choice on his part. exactly. Ambition is a choice, but sadly a lot of people had got used to seeing it and thought it would be automatic. Alex's point is spot on fwiw. Sadly your actual desires are not reconcilable with having someone who is 'in the middle' so it's laughable that you quote it. You're basically endorsing the Ridsdale model in other posts ffs. Obsessed. Fuck off. You're wrong. I know you think you're a smart lad, but you're a thick idiot. Read my comments, I'm only commenting on the last bit of Alex's post, the only difference being that - unlike others - I don't clip his post before replying.......... You're thick as mince, lad.

ah. There was a time when we said someone wasn't for sale and they weren't. In fact, nobody bothered trying to buy our best players because they knew they wouldn't be sold. Or because they were under-performing mercenaries? must be nice living in a make believe little world like you do Best players not for sale? Woodgate was our best defender and he was sold, so was Bellamy and Andy Cole wasnt too shabby either. Every player is for sale if the price is right. You think Man U wanted Ronaldo to go? If a player gets a whiff of more money and a better lifestyle or to play in the champions league then their head is turned and when a club makes a top offer then its bye-bye regardless who the manager/chairman is. The measure of the club is who replaces the sold player so we need to wait and see who comes in the summer. oh fucking hell. Do bugger off man. Footballers are always leaving clubs, everywhere, but the top clubs replace the odd quality player they lose with another of the same calibre in the managers opinion and allow him to continue to attempt to improve the team with the cash from the sales. This is kids stuff. How much longer does this need to be explained ? How many idiots are there in this world ? Thats what I said, It depends who the replacements are although in your book if we dont get Ronaldo,Tevez and Xavi then we are not ambitious enough. The reality is we are where we are at the moment and if we get players like Tiote or Jose who may have the ambition to play in the champions league or challenge for the title then thats the reality. Football has changed and we have no chance of top 4 even if we spend a fortune. We should aim for a top 6/7 spot and win a cup and play some European football in the Europa league. As long as those that leave are replaced with players who have something to offer and not just shite or so called big names then so be it. Or are you so deluded you think we should be spending 30mil on a player and 100k pw on wages?? your first line is bollocks. For starters, if we signed any one quality footballer, would Carroll have left, and would we be talking about the possibility of Enrique and Tiotte leaving ? My guess is both these players would be first in the queue to sign extended contracts. Secondly, no person turned their noses up when we signed the likes of Shearer, Ferdinand, Ginola, Woodgate, Speed, Dyer etc etc bleating on about the club heading towards administration. I agree that if the 35m quid is invested in footballers the manager decides will give us a better team than the one we had with Carroll in it, it should prompt a re-think about Mike Ashley and his ambitions for the club, but it won't. The waft of 80k per week was enough to tempt Carroll and if you think any signing would have convinced him to stay I would say you are wrong. As for Jose and Tiote, I said if they want to challenge for a title or play champions league, so Man U, Chelsea,City or Arsenal not to mention Spain,Italy etc. If any top clubs come in for ANY of our players then they will go if they want to and its up to Ashley to get a deal thats right for NUFC and to re invest it. I wasnt bleating when we had those players but no one had any idea how fucked the clubs finances were on the back of it all as for your final point, could I borrow your crystal ball please The Carroll issue and the fact Ashley should've had a look at the books aside, I think Happy Face has shown that Ashley could've spent less than the relegation cost him by handing KK a canny bit of money to spend as he chose. That's what sticks in my throat when you get the lines trotted out about how much of his own money he's spent. The media seem particularly blind to this so it's no wonder fans from NUFC and other clubs don't pick up on it much. I've no sympathy with him for 'how much he's had to spend' like as he's a billionaire who didn't do due diligence ffs. His own luck out. At the same time if it's a fact he has done that and it was required to be done (interest free loan or however), that remains a fact that has to be acknowledged and will no doubt affect how much additional cash he's willing to make available. KK was just a horrible mess, gutting and eminently avoidable. Oh and entirely Ashley's fault.

Unless we get a billionaire sugar daddy like Chelsea and City then whoever comes in may well have to run the club in the same way or we could get a Ridsdale who would mortgage the club within an inch of oblivion with the hope of champions league. Would you want to take that gamble?? I know Ashley has been a cunt and his appointments of Wise and Dekka have been very poor but we could end up worse off than we are. We are pretty safe this season and playing quite well, we also have 35m to spend in the summer so its not all doom and gloom Or we could have someone in the middle, which Ashley is more than capable of being, given his wealth. I don't see why it has to be one extreme or the other. Ashley doesn't have to run the club the way he is. It's a personal choice on his part. exactly. Ambition is a choice, but sadly a lot of people had got used to seeing it and thought it would be automatic. Alex's point is spot on fwiw. Sadly your actual desires are not reconcilable with having someone who is 'in the middle' so it's laughable that you quote it. You're basically endorsing the Ridsdale model in other posts ffs.

Unless we get a billionaire sugar daddy like Chelsea and City then whoever comes in may well have to run the club in the same way or we could get a Ridsdale who would mortgage the club within an inch of oblivion with the hope of champions league. Would you want to take that gamble?? I know Ashley has been a cunt and his appointments of Wise and Dekka have been very poor but we could end up worse off than we are. We are pretty safe this season and playing quite well, we also have 35m to spend in the summer so its not all doom and gloom At the end of the day, Leeds are on their way back to the top league. They have only in effect been relegated and are now on the way back, but talk to a Leeds supporter and they will tell you about their run to the Champions League semi final and going to Barcelona, Rome, Milan etc etc [just like us in fact]. If you seriously, seriously prefer to spend years in total anonymity - like the mackems under Bob Murray and by fuck didn't we lord it over them and let them know about it - that is your choice. Not me though. You want success when you can, and go for it, thats what football is all about. The big clubs come back again, you want your team to try and win you trophies and play at the top. The Ridsdale scaremongering is abolute bollocks. The nearest we came to administration was in 1991, after years of being run by clowns like Mike Ashley. Newcastle are twice the club Leeds are anyway. And what if Leeds weren't on their way back btw? I only ask this as you deploy the possibility of NUFC getting relegated under Ashley and not coming straight back up again (cf last season) when that suits your argument.

He gets nee benefit of the doubt from me. Basically I think he has no emotional investment in the club whatever (and hence we can expect to suffer things (such as Hughton/Carroll) which hurt us as fans), but he's in absolyutely no doubt about his financial interest. He has and will continue to make x amount of progress simply on the basis of streamlining/a back to basics approach alone and it actually says a lot about the league and explodes a few myths about the Prem that you can make that sort of progress as opposed to just pissing money about. The next step up from that is where it'll need a sale because that'll require cash the club doesn't currently generate for itself (and probably could not even with increased tornawa). Like I say, he gets no benefit of the doubt from me, but at the same time I find the only way I can stay sane is to try as best I can to dissociate my emotional reactions at various decisions from what are (as he would no doubt claim) merely business management decisions devoid of sentiment. I remain disgusted at the treatment of Hughton fwiw.

Incontrovertibly. Last season we were in the championship, at the start of the season survival seemed the most we could hope for, by mid-season survival looks guaranteed. If we win on saturday, we will be looking to finish top half. That appears to be progress, whichever way you look at it. If you take 1996 as your starting point, then we have gone backwards. If you take relegation as the starting point, we've moved forward. You like facts, those are the barest of facts regarding the direction of the club. Of course, Carroll's sale is a clear step backwards but only if he goes on to fulfill his potential. If he doesnt, selling him wasnt a step backwards, it was a fucking good bit of business. Anyway, 10 steps forward and 1 step backwards is still 9 steps forward People have used the Carroll sale to come up with pretty far reaching conclusions about the future of the club, which is fair enough, it did wipe out the positivity from all the other things that were going right. However, if one player transaction defines a club then presumably everyone will change their mind if Enrique signs a new deal when we are mathematically safe? Would be interested in responses to this last part, as its clearly the one of the biggest uncertainties for the fans at the minute. Absolutely spot on. Also, and it pains me to say this because I've consistently (passionately) refuted this about our support down the years when the media/other fans have trotted it out, but a lot of the criticism that's flying around these days is to do with deluded/unrealistic expectations of the season. Getting back to brass tacks, this season was about survival and at best, meaningful consolidation. Because we've already *touch wood* met these (specific) ambitions, lots of people are now impatiently looking to the next step and harping on because we're not already pushing for Europe/making Champions League signings. It's basically just delusional. I've said it before, to want that is perfectly fine and valid and we all want it. But to get there is going to take massive investment beyond the natural resources of NUFC. That is dictated by outside forces (ie investors in other clubs/clubs being bigger than us). Again if thats what it takes, we probably all still want that (though there will be divergence over the extent and degree), but we have to acknowledge that for what it is. A selfish wish just like every other fan of every other club harbours There's absolutely no credibility to the people saying we should be doing that/should be doing that already, merely because we're NUFC and get 50k gates and have been the 5th best club in the country over 20 years as though that rendered all other argument void. That's basically just an attempt to dress up divine right as established science I'm afraid and it's a load of old cock.

ah. There was a time when we said someone wasn't for sale and they weren't. In fact, nobody bothered trying to buy our best players because they knew they wouldn't be sold. Or because they were under-performing mercenaries? under performing = qualifying for the Champions League and europe more than anybody bar 4 other clubs in 15 years ? yeah right ! Cretin. Under performing means under performing. When you begin to consistently 'underperform' as we did over several seasons, averaging performances up over a 15 year period instead to give a different picture sadly doesn't accrue you any points for the season at hand or amount to a strategy for the future. Which is your cue to shut the fuck up, btw.

Sometimes I think Stevie's clairvoyance must feel like a curse rather than a gift.

It shouldnt effect him tbh he is a through professional. Hope they dont boo him. he doesnt deserve to be booed "Affect". Don't let CT's spelling lead you astray, Paul. He is throughly illiterate.

At the risk of stating the fucking downright obvious, I was attempting to take the piss out of 2ooj, here.

CT, as long as we get a Weight Watchers slimmer of the year photo posted up here of you holding your size 46" elasticated jeans with a triumphalist smile on your face, you can diet however you fucking want. Hat optional.

Blyme! Love the David Beckham seat sniffing clip.

Fair call that, Neil Faulkner doesn't even hide behind a username. Proper poster tbh.

The shite Shola has had on here on other boards down the years, if he read everything he couldn't fail to be effected imo. He should be affected by it. In a positive way. Raise your game you cunt, people think you're not trying. I get what you're saying and I'd never have a go at the match, but off the field people can say what they want. Re Twitter, I actually agree with what you're saying for the most part, but really players shouldn't be posting on it if they're delicate flowers. Not to say that Simpson is btw (and I hope he's not, my respect for him has grown this season). Basically, you get the full spectrum with footballers; at the other end of the scale you have Savage, who my hunch says would have been buzzing when you abused him via Twitter, simply because he was getting any form of attention at all.

As soon as he fucks off, the better for everyone.

They want to not read Twitter/not leave the house tbf like if that's the measure of their mental strength.

Hope you're having a brilliant day mate, whatever you're doing! Make sure we get a pissed up post later on! Residual mentions for 'Neil Faulkner(21)' and 'Jonny2J'(26).

Great goal. Proper youthful know-no-fear dribble, including nutmegs. The one I always associate with him and miles better than the Arsenal one. Will still be absolutely delighted when he fucks off for good. I hope he called it as well. Nutmegs is the best thing in football and calling it as you jog past just rubs salt in the wounds. Acceptable variations include "Awooga" whispered gently in the ear. Whilst patting them on the fanny. If you raise your hands, it's an automatic red card these days.

Welcome aboard, marra.

Great goal. Proper youthful know-no-fear dribble, including nutmegs. The one I always associate with him and miles better than the Arsenal one. Will still be absolutely delighted when he fucks off for good. I hope he called it as well. Nutmegs is the best thing in football and calling it as you jog past just rubs salt in the wounds. Acceptable variations include "Awooga" whispered gently in the ear.

Great goal. Proper youthful know-no-fear dribble, including nutmegs. The one I always associate with him and miles better than the Arsenal one. Will still be absolutely delighted when he fucks off for good.

30 inch waist!? 31 tbh, its a bit of a squeeze into the 30s. Anyway, lets not get carried away, i might have shed a few pounds but am far from healthy overall. Still smoking. Imagined you saying that as 'the Mask', wearing 30" Tesco jeans.

Could be wrong but I think you're angling towards Victor Moses who ended up at Wigan signing from palace. He had a seriously tough early life. What was he doing in Kosovo ffs?

Did you get your swans neck rubbed in the back row?

God alone knows what you'll be like on your 101st birthday.