manc-mag

Check out the relegation thread. The more sagacious members were pointing to the cleansing effects of relegation before it happened. (safety wink)

Voldermong. Good post prior to that btw. I would like to see overall retention and then a couple of additions but selected mainly without reference to whichever additional competition we're in. Ie if we're tracking anyone, it would be a good time to step in for them, but other than that I don't want to see us just looking at additional randoms. It's all still a bonus as you say. We've got here through targetted resourcing and theres good reason to stick to that. CL wage earners should emerge from within the current squad following the reward model before we start recruiting them from elsewhere to fuck up the whole chemistry.

I'm a bit of a dichotomy in that I like Given and always will, but have no problem in saying I'd like to see him go down and never play at a level above us again. Just in the same way as it's gratifying when that happens to other former servants, good and bad. Including everyone sold for the last couple of years, happily.

More great craic. Spot on.

I think Chelsea might actually sneak through against Barca tonight but they'd get roundly trounced by Madrid (or fairly comfortably beaten by Bayern) in the final.

Aye well said. I can only see Leazes content when he gets quoted, but touching on what he's written there the whole lesson sadly seems lost on him. You can get so far spending big money (examples he's used) but to convert that into silverware and go that final step instead of peripheral also rans, you need players who will die for the cause. Leazes has sadly only ever subscribed to the big money side of it, which is disappointing given how long he's been watching football (and NUFC in particular). In quoting what he has he's summed up perfectly the case against him. It's not how "the big clubs do it" at all, despite what he says. It's a massive blind spot in his knowledge, despite what else he seems to think he can teach us about how football works, has worked and will always work. Which is quite an all encompassing brief tbf so he'd do well to study this area with more care and attention.

Ashley Cole is English football's supreme example of a truly 'great' full back. Evra has never been in the same ball park as him. Walker and Assou Ekotto will never make it to the same ball park as him.

I couldn't give a fuck. They're both far from brilliant and if it's true theyre anywhere near the best full backs in the country (they're absolutely not btw, Ashley Cole who is admittedly a grade A cunt has been on a different plateau to either of them for an entire career), it says more about the standard of the country. Happy to aim higher and I'm a person who traditionally doesnt even expect a lot from his full backs apart from competent defending. Fwiw I think you routinely get glassy eyed about by ten a penny Forest Gump type full backs who can "bomb on"

Superbly illustrated.

Sp Parker didnt want to be here because his wife didnt want to live up here etc etc. Michael Owen didnt want to be here because he wanted to race horses in Cheshire. The point is, it doesnt matter why. The point is you make it your business to buy players who want to be here and you do your fucking homework on that score first. Multi million pound transfer fees mean sweet FA if the player considers you to be an inconvenience to the rest of his life. As I say, we've only ever really paid the wages, but thats just apeing the top clubs. You need to be doing far, far more than that when you're looking at players and putting a team together. That's how you get them spilling blood for the cause.

I'd happily keep Santon and have a tilt at what comes in during the summer over Walker and Assou-Ekotto. Got to aim higher tbh. PS if Kyle Walker is "brilliant" then English national football has an horrendous future. Which is probably true.

I'm not denying we need to strengthen in defence. I agree if we want to push on. I actually take comfort from the fact that this 'ingredient' isn't remotely a conundrum. To say we dont deserve to be where we are now after 34 games though is something else altogether and a complete piss take.

Parker's had a great season tbf. You'll have to remind me who he was playing for when he was here and what was going on, perhaps the difference is he's had his best spell playing for a club that's set up properly and he respects. Shocking theory I grant you.

The defence are protected though with genuine DM's. That's something that NUFC have never done previously and it makes a diference. It's a team game. If you've followed NUFC for any length of time you'd know how we usually just buy expensive defenders and let opponents run at them for the entire game until they don't look like expensive defenders anymore. Serious teams have midfielders to break up play and protect their back four. Spurs defence contains Walker (shite) and Assou Ekotto (massively overated) but they have Palker running around like a gimp all day breaking play up for them and they benefit from that. The opening game argument is shameful craic now tbh and pisses all over what this team has achieved. No time for it at all.

I like the cut of your jib.

Tbh Leazes, its good to see a climb down at last on your part when facts like this are pointed out to you. I mean you can continue to point a finger to the future and sound a cautionary note, I don't think anyone whos been following NUFC for any appreciable length of time would argue with that, but of course when your manifesto has been at it's most robust, you've said verbatim that we are set up as a selling club and turning a profit on a player is the sole motivation/business model. Well four of the last five windows where that's not happened would represent absolutely appalling business from MA if that was indeed his focus, being as he's a market stall billionaire. And the one where it did turn a (freakish) profit you had respected private North East businessmen and genuine football people saying they'd have done the same. So I think we can finally put some of your more extreme stuff to bed as claptrap at least.

The bit you've quoted was me repudiating the point he was making about Fulham, Everton and Stoke. I mean it can increase the chances of you falling away. I don't really see the point you're trying to make coming at it the other way tbh. My point is we should be massively positive about whats gone on this season and we should continue to keep our points of reference re: exactly what has worked for us and carried us forward as a club. A happy go lucky attitude to Europe is great but my point is please pleeeeeeease dont turn into a whinging bairn as soon as we're knocked out and you turn to the league table again. This deserves a real long term mindset at the moment.

Yes and they all fell away again the following season. So if you're okay with that, that's fine we can enjoy it as a holiday and I'll expect you to say no more about it when we fall away again slightly the following season. If you want to keep up there though (as a priority) that may require spend. Given the way the club is run, this will (rightly) need to be paid for out of Euro money accrued and sustained in following seasons through future Euro monies. Ergo there will be a financial pressure to qualify again. So what i'm saying is even if the papers highlight this, it's not scaremongering, it's just a reality. We need to deal with realities by the way. We move forward as a club far better when we do that, rather than playing head-in-the-sand fantasy chequebook fotball.

PS for clubs that win things, it's absolutely nowt to do with the journey and everything to do with 'arriving'. You have to win by hook or by crook, so running around wide eyed for 90 minutes with a smile on your face chasing a fotball isn't an option. Europe is a huge bonus at the end of this season, but how it's approached by the club both in terms of preparation and 'mistakes learned from' (ie that dirty word: "hindsight") is actually very serious business.

I realise that but you don't set the club's budgest with respect. You should enjoy any Euro excursion for all it's worth, anyone would be daft not to, but if you're wanting any Euro money earned to be spent one season then the people holding the purse strings will want Euro money coming in the next to cover it again. That's a reality. Unless you're not advocating spending to stay in European competitions, in which case yeah what you say is absolutely spot on. Just enjoy it for a 100% holiday and anything more is a bonus.

This is the double edged sword of (eg Champions League) in the modern game. The manager will be under pressure to qualify again. If they've been allowed to spend some money that pressure will be intensified further. This might induce him to 'rest' players for the cups. The reality is the cup is the only thing we have a realistic prospect of winning and therefore we should go for it, but in that case we should also accept it has a potential impact on league placings due to the demands it places on the squad game. As soon as we're out of the cup we can't then moan on unduly about ground we may have lost in the league. Ideally we should compete on all fronts but that might still be a while off yet as we first have to adjust to extra (euro) games. It's all good experience and you've got to be in it to win it, but we never won it (or anything) when we were the biggest spenders in town so we have to never lose sight of that context rather than go crying off if it doesnt come to pass and we slip some league positions. As has been rightly pointed out by Toonpack, NUFC never made season on season improvements to high league finishes save for one season. That's an horrendous indictment and shows what progress really boiled down to back then. The big clubs do things very differently and we have to try to emulate their standards rather than just apeing the transactions of their payroll department. A cup of any description would be an unbelievably massive achievement but it needs a completely new focus and mindset for NUFC. Even going back to the Keegan era, while the football was scintilating, when he said that Geordies would rather see an entertaining team than a winning team (words to that effect) he'd already handed any silverware over to the clubs that putting winning silverware above anything else. We're set up not to lose now and thats a start, but we need to be clear we have to pick our battles next season. If we'd have spent tons of money under other managers in the last few years we wouldn't have won owt so we've not missed out on anything. This has to be an era of constant focus, reflection, standards and sheer graft. The last ingredient is luck, but if we work harder than we've done in the past we're more likely to get that. We haven't in the past because we've never really deserved it. I detest Man U for their luck but you earn your luck at the end of the day and they earn their's because their millionaire players never ever stop playing for the cause. Ours you did well to get 5 minutes out of. Not these lads though because it's not tolerated and they've responded to that. The top players do, they respect the standards being demanded of them and they rise to it. The rest can fuck off anyway, theres plenty of other ailing gravy trains (Villa etc). We've been there and I'm fucked if I want to go back to it. Lets go all out for the cups but lets also try and look at things holistically and try to judge on overall trajectory. If we have to build slowly, fine. Building fast has never bought us a trophy anyway so in building slowly we're not turning our backs on anything thats ever worked for us in the past.

I'll tell you what would make a difference like. Proper Union flags rather than the £2.99 JJB ones. Get a proper flag and put it on a proper pole if it's something to be shown respect. Draping tatty JJB shit everywhere looks horrendous visually and drags the whole thing down even further. Not that I agree with everything about the USA's slavish flag flying (far from it) but the ceremonial aspect of it invariably elevates it above our 'pub curtain' approach. You'd be arrested in the States for our attitude to flags.

Focus will either then, a) switch to the January window -"Wait and see what happens THEN!", or; b ) attempt to take credit for the club "finally doing things the way (he's) always advocated", ignoring his previous predictions that they will "never ever" do things that way because they're only a selling club and a vehicle for SD. but more than likely some combination of both a and b.

That's absolutely horrendous for a Man U player. This is a team which spends 90% of games camped on the edge of the opposition penalty area for 90 minutes taking shots for fun.

Absolutely epitomised our old approach, that. Does he cost a lot? Yes. Does he want to play for Newcastle United? No. BUY! Whoopeeee! We're a big club!