David Kelly

And as anyone who can remember beyond the arrival of John Hall knows ( unless they have a selective memory, or something ), not every Chairman would do the same. How many times does it have to be said....nobody is saying FS is the best thing since sliced bread, or that he hasn't made mistakes. But he's not as bad as some appear desperate to make out ( god knows what their agenda is ), and we could do a whole lot worse. He backs his team manager, he gives them every chance to succeed but then it's down to them to make the right footballing decisions. They're paid well to do this and he doesn't tie their hands behind their back by selling our best players ( I can go back to Pop Robson ). If the manager got it right nobody would be slagging FS, but the pity of it is that people wouldn't be giving him any credit either. This is a fact, after all, FS was Chairman when Robson took us to 4th, 3rd and 5th, but that's ignored of course. 99347[/snapback] I've highlighted the bit I posted earlier because you've either ignored it or didn't understand what I was getting at. Firstly your right not every chairman would make the funds available and as I said the clowns we had before Hall were just greedy and incredibly short sighted. But what is also important to understand is that we are now a PLC and as such the chairman of such a company cannot just rape it blind as he see's fit. He has shareholders (even if FS and Hall are the major one) and the city to answer to. As such his actions are under much more scrutiny and restriction. He has to act in the clubs best interests and therefore if he can make money available he must. Yet despite this he still manages to pay himself and Hall fantastic dividends every year so I'm sure he's quite happy taking what he is allowed out. As for why people don't like him I think I have just mentioned a big one and you can add his treatment of Sir Bobby, appointing Souness, the whole Spanish brothel incident and generally spending far too much time in front of the camera's sounding like a twat and making us look stupid!

Bellamy used to play like that every week. Shame there were people who insisted we were better off without him. Meaning also that if Bellamy were still here we wouldn't have missed Dyer in the slightest. 98925[/snapback] some compare owen to bellamy,not a midfielder playing up front...however dyer done a good job filling in,wouldn't you agree leazes ? 98982[/snapback] if we buy a replacement for shearer in the summer will you agree that owen was bellamys replacement ? 99008[/snapback] We will have to buy a new forward in the summer, but I doubt very much if we will have anywhere near 15m to buy him, unless its the only buy we make. Which would not really be a good move I think. Especially as Shepherd himself said the club had earmarked part of the budget over the years to replace Shearer, and Owen had became available a year early. Which is actually good planning, good foresight and just the sort of excellent transfer dealing that all the other shit chairman do for their clubs. I think its extremely amusing that someone can think you can sell a player for 4.5m quid and somehow conjure up 16m to "replace" him, then find the same amount again 12 months later..... Do you think this club has a bottomless pit of money, and do you think Fred is "shit" because he can't find 30m quid a year to buy players with ? 99014[/snapback] If the money was there at the club in the first place, any chairman could "find it". No? 99043[/snapback] You think the club has a bottomless pit of money don't you 99311[/snapback] Of all of the clubs in this country Newcastle United has one of the best base of resources. The Fat Man didn't produce this it was there well before his arrival (actually it was there before Hall arrived but before then it was just wasted by greedy short sighted individuals who could rape the club when it was a private concern). All he has done is provided the managers with the transfer funds that have been available due to our revenue base. This does not put him in the running for chairman of the year in my book, as Gol pointed out any chairman could have done the same.

Bellamy used to play like that every week. 98925[/snapback] No he didn't. He was good, but he had his fair share of shite games too. 98952[/snapback] Rubbish. Bellamy had the odd poor game, his level of consistency was very high for us. 99299[/snapback] Tbf he only became consistant after a major injury towards the end of his Newcastle career. 99310[/snapback] I have to admit I can't remember often coming away from a game (certainly not before the age of darkness that Souness brought) thinking that Bellamy had been poor. His finishing was often poor and that was frustrating but his contribution to the team was most often high class.

It all depends what the other side is. If it's the stupid appointment of a clown like Souness your right but if you use the oppertunity to appoint a good manager then the grass is greener. The poor choice of replacement didn't mean that removing SBR wasn't the correct (if mis timed) decision.

It may well be true to say we did start falling backwards a little towards the end of the season we finished 3rd but I think it would have been totally unfair on SBR to move him out then. He'd more than earned the oppertunity to have another season. But I think it did become apparant that season that he no longer could move us forward and he should certainly have been moved upstairs when we finished 5th.

Hopefull it would force us to play football though as they're both awfull in the air. At least with Luque you get some mobility even if he's not got blistering pace.

In the Chronicle Roder is talking as if Shearer's out and Dyer is doubtfull (I wouldn't play him even if there were no doubt) so surely it has to be Luque with Shola.

We WERE going backwards. Now who's got the rose-tinters on?! 71 points, 69 points and 59 points in his last 3 seasons in charge IIRC. 98881[/snapback] Rot set in when we blew it against Belgrade. FACTILICIOUS. 98885[/snapback] Yes, and blew it is the word, it was nothing to do with "not buying anyone", as we had already bought Woodgate, and got Bowyer for nothing, which getting 2 players like that for 9m was very well done. 98895[/snapback] we played some great football in the years we finished 4th and 3rd The following season however, although we ended up scraping a 5th spot, the standard of play was shocking at times!! 98945[/snapback] Spot on, we were extremely fortunate to finsh 5th that season and some of the games were painfull. We were on a downward spiral with SBR but it shouldn't have turned out to be the almost sheer drop that it turned out to be over the last two seasons. And you can thank a certain fat git for that! No matter how much money he tried to help Souness with, you can't hide the fact that his timing of the dismissal of SBR (not the mention the disgracefull way that he actually did it) was idiotic. If he had been moved on in the summer we could have found the right replacement and given them the pre season to and finances to build a team.

Graham Coxon - Love Travels At Illegal Speeds

The new Mogwai album Mr Beast and I am greatly enjoying too.

He's just the sort of appointment I expect from the fat man tbh. Fred's record of appointing managers suggest he will go for someone who is the anti Souness. As such Ranieri is likeable to the fans and his teams play attractive football. Never mind that we could appoint someone who could move the club forward in the long term when we can look for a short term change eh?

There is the possibility that he doesn't create enough but that's not what he's there for at the end of the day. You could argue that a midfield of Emre and Dyer or Bowyer would be more creative but then I would argue that they wouldn't get the ball enough to show their creativity so we'd be worse off and add to that they would leave an already dodgy defense terribly exposed. We've tried that sort of thing before and it's failed spectacularly. The best midfield we've had for years was when we had Speed, Dyer, Solano and Robert with Speed more or less doing the Parker job but they still left the defense over exposed at times. Parker is more controlled than Speed but at this stage he doesn't offer as much going forward (although the fact that every pass he makes isn't misplaced is an improvement on the latter day Speed at least). I think he could push on a bit more especially at home (and I think he probably will now that Souness has gone). But think MM is completly off his rocker saying that he's probably pissing off his team mates because I am certainly they are incredibly releaved that he is doing so much of their work. And I agree with Brock, games like the Arse and the Portsmouth ones have made him a legend in my eyes.

Sorry I should had added a smiley but I thought it wasn't neccessary.

Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

Oasis? How about TV On The Radio? Actually they're quite possibly like loads of other bands but not like any at the same time. Sufjan Stevens. I can't think of anyone else that sounds like most of his stuff.

Richard Kimble finally caught up with him then!

Cracking album but my pick for Album of the year so far is Nine Times That Same Song by Love Is All.

Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Co. Farewell Transmission is one of songs of the decade.

I'm quite surprised that it appears that he's the favourite for the job tbh. I don't really know why but I just got the feeling they would either go English (Allardyce, Curbishly etc) or foreign (Hiddink in particular) and I never got the feeling that O'Neill was a serious contender!

Agree with that but you just know what our luck is like and some of the twats in the media who are arguing against him would love to say told you so!

Just read some of N-O threads and it just makes me worry that it's now all set up for us to appoint him and for him to fall flat on his arse!

I see the website's been mentioned in this mornings journal. You never know, some of the tabloids might pick up on that tomorrow morning.

I'm sold.

With our financial situation the way it is, European football is a must and as long as we appoint a decent manager I don't see why it would be expecting too much to get it. Beyond the current top five there are not other good squads in the league so I don't think it should take too much to get ahead of the likes of Bolton, Charlton, Citeh, Wigan and Blackburn. Champions league is beyond us for a couple of seasons at least unless everything goes right. And by that I mean getting a top class manager and giving him a good amount to spend, keeping all of our best players, having no major injuries and getting the type of luck we used to under Sir Bobby.

Well we were shite then too!