NJS

Just read the alleged story - gross stupidity aside, you have to wonder how many times he's tried and/or succeeded doing the same thing in the past.

Immigrants could be nutters though - that's the risk you take. Of course they'd have to be quality nutters to threaten the jobs of world class serial killers we produce like Shipman.

whey aye, lets kick Scotland out of the UK and accept a few million more muslims, terrorists and assorted spongers to replace them. Since you obviously think all Muslims are Terrorists and Spongers why waste three words and just say Muslims. I also love the extension that all immigrants are terrorists and/or criminals as suggested previously has now been extended to mentally ill. I know you say you don't read the Mail but you obviously should get a job there - any story - including tragedies abroad carried out by insane people, can be twisted to get an anti-muslim/immigrant slant. Seriously - you could get a top job there.

wasn't a dive tbf (which makes a change) but it is one of those stupid penalty's where he doesn't have control of it or was anywhere when he took that touch, pokes the ball and lets Robinson clatter him happens all the time but robinson had no need to come sliding in like that He was pulling the face and moving his legs before Robinson hit him imo - I agree the keeper was daft but still not right.

Canny dive by Hernandez like.

This is so obvious, it's the reason why I just don't get Ashley at all. I'd love to just hear once and for all a few honest answers to these questions though you'd probably need to waterboard him to get there. All the insults aside, his actions just don't make sense from a business pov. I think the only real hope is that he doesn't want to spend any more money as he's biding his time for a sale.

Why can't you see the difference between where people want us be based on our stature and in an ideal world versus where they think finishing in the real world given the fact that we have an arsehole owner and limited resources compared with the teams above is reasonable? arsehole owner = correct limited resources [because of the arsehole owner] = correct compared to the teams above us = rubbish Which is the entire point. Which brings us back to square one. Given that he won't invest his money, where will it come from? Please don't say something about maximum revenues - as I've said before even if we suddenly made £50m profit a year which we never came within a million miles of doing in the past it would still take investment at that level for about 5 years before we'd be where we all want to be. That's why the realists among us think talking as if we are going there is pointless.

Why can't you see the difference between where people want us be based on our stature and in an ideal world versus where they think finishing in the real world given the fact that we have an arsehole owner and limited resources compared with the teams above is reasonable? I can't believe you also still can't get the simple idea that what we saw as success and were ecstatic about perfectly correctly, by other peoples standards we failed. I would love us to win the next 20 league titles and get to the point where if we did finish 4th or god forbid 13th a couple of times we'd consider it abject failure in the same way Man Utd would now. That's the point I'm trying to make -- their honest opinion of us as failures from their perspective is fair.

No different from their viewpoint - that's the point. As for your quote, finishing in the top 10 given that no money will be spent is realistic from their point of view. You've written off 4 teams, I'd extend that to 6 so a margin of 7th to 10th isn't that huge. Of course we all want to aim higher and achieve it but as in everything in life there is a cost for that - Ashley won't pay the cost so I don't see the point in the bravado of saying we want higher. so selling your best player is no different to keeping him ? 3rd bottom is no different to 3rd top ? They are both "failures" ? Aiming for 10th minimum is no different than aiming for top 4/5 minimum ? I'm trying to be patient here mate, but you're way off any logical common sense here. Anyway, I've got to go. FROM MAN UNITED'S POINT OF VIEW. It doesn't matter to them where we finish as long as it's not top - their standards not ours - tha's what matters to them. Chelsea are probably going to sack their manager for failing to win the league - with high expectations comes high price of failure. Of course we would all love to finish 2nd but because they now expect to win it, 2nd is failure. so you confirm that finishing 3rd bottom is no worse than 3rd top, and if you are going to only finish 3rd top there is no point in bothering ? Yet you and other idiots on skunkers etc will be doing cartwheels if we finish 10th this season ? Breathtakingly Fantastic. I said I wanted to finish as high as possible about 10 fucking times - when will you actually read what I'm writing just for fucking once. You call me negative for settling on aiming to be top of the also-rans but when I point out that wanting to join the winners means looking on second as failure you deliberately ignore the point. Ancelotti will be sacked for finishing second - by those standards Keegan wouldn't have even been given 96-97. So do you want to have those standards or are you happy wanking over finishing 4th?

It is a broad church but I'd say despite their punk influences, Guns and Roses were always a metal band imo.

Personally I think that summed up the differnce between Keegan and Robson - Keegan had the Scouse winning mentality - I don't honestly think Bobby did. One of your worst posts. Keegan as I've said many times is number one in Newcastle always will be. To say Robson didn't have a winning mentality is ridiculous. Robson was more tactically astute than Keegan, and we were a lot tighter as a unit even with donkeys like O'Brien in defence. Tell me though who won more as a manager? Who was the width of a goalpost from winning the World Cup? If we'd have won the WC you wouldn't have even question SBR's winning mentality. He won 5 league titles in his career, came close with Ipswich ffs, numerous cups and European honours. Terrible conclusion you've reach there imo. Fair enough Stevie - we disagree. I think Bobby while he was with us was to an extent just happy to be there and considered the succes he did achive as almost job done. I don't think I ever heard him match Keegan's "I want to win this title". In January 2002 I thought we had a chance of winning the title but nothing was said on the matter from either Bobby or Shepherd. I think he should have been going to Shepherd saying "these two players will win it" - in the end we didn't sign anyone. Now of course it could be the case that this was one of the periods when no money was available and they both knew that so said nowt - I think it was a mistake.

Personally I think that summed up the differnce between Keegan and Robson - Keegan had the Scouse winning mentality - I don't honestly think Bobby did. That's probably right, which was why failure weighed so heavily on Keegan (and on a personal note why I wasn't convinced he would ever be the right man for NUFC under Ashley regardless of the shit that went on). Robson was a nearly man when it came to the major leagues. Which was ultimately the reason I thought we had to try someone else to achieve the ultimate goal, despite his relative sucesses and him being a genuine lovely bloke. Stupidly enough, the main reason I thought Souness might work was that I thought he was another "winner". I think Bobby tried to sell that the idea that he could be ruthless despite being so nice - I never really bought it.

Personally I think that summed up the differnce between Keegan and Robson - Keegan had the Scouse winning mentality - I don't honestly think Bobby did.

No different from their viewpoint - that's the point. As for your quote, finishing in the top 10 given that no money will be spent is realistic from their point of view. You've written off 4 teams, I'd extend that to 6 so a margin of 7th to 10th isn't that huge. Of course we all want to aim higher and achieve it but as in everything in life there is a cost for that - Ashley won't pay the cost so I don't see the point in the bravado of saying we want higher. so selling your best player is no different to keeping him ? 3rd bottom is no different to 3rd top ? They are both "failures" ? Aiming for 10th minimum is no different than aiming for top 4/5 minimum ? I'm trying to be patient here mate, but you're way off any logical common sense here. Anyway, I've got to go. FROM MAN UNITED'S POINT OF VIEW. It doesn't matter to them where we finish as long as it's not top - their standards not ours - tha's what matters to them. Chelsea are probably going to sack their manager for failing to win the league - with high expectations comes high price of failure. Of course we would all love to finish 2nd but because they now expect to win it, 2nd is failure.

Of course - but in the absence of any money, realism bites. That's the future - what we're discussing here is a "judgement" on the past - as I said I think "failure" is correct from the "standards" we all actually aspire to. standards. Have fallen, under the new regime. That's the WHOLE point. Don't you see it ? Of course - but by Man Utd's standards we never reached the top so what does it matter? (from their pov)

No different from their viewpoint - that's the point. As for your quote, finishing in the top 10 given that no money will be spent is realistic from their point of view. You've written off 4 teams, I'd extend that to 6 so a margin of 7th to 10th isn't that huge. Of course we all want to aim higher and achieve it but as in everything in life there is a cost for that - Ashley won't pay the cost so I don't see the point in the bravado of saying we want higher.

Of course - but in the absence of any money, realism bites. That's the future - what we're discussing here is a "judgement" on the past - as I said I think "failure" is correct from the standards we all actually aspire to.

They may respect us as fans and think the club is big but the bottom line is still silverware. As I said by ours and all other clubs standards we were great, by the clubs who we both want to be counted as part of we weren't. see my next post. I think you are clutching at straws to attempt to say that finishing 3rd top is just as much a failure as 3rd bottom. Ridiculous. The irony being, if we finish 10th under this current owner, people like you will be doing cartwheels and saying "I told you so" etc. Told us what ? "Second is nowhere" - Bill Shankly - harsh and I don't particularly agree but that's the attitude that people like him and Ferguson had/have.

See, the only way you can avoid the question is by bringing Ashley into it. My point is if you call yourself a big boy and want to be counted among them then you can be judged by their standards. As it happens the judgment from their point of view is exactly the same under either owner - failure - and the teams you mention would be how they've always seen us and always will -except for Blackburn of course - they did win it. Why should they care that we think we should be up there with them or who our owner is and how much he cares? - all that matters to them is proven success - as I said same under anyone. because the change in ownership is a dividing line, don't you get this ? I changed my answer, as I misread it. Are you saying we may as well finish 5th bottom as 5th top then, or 4th bottom as 4th top, or 3rd bottom as 3rd top ? Astonishing, if you are. My view is that they don't care who the owner is - only whether we've won anything. I want to finish as high as possible and give all the cups our best - even if Europe wasn't available that would still be my view - but you have to realise that if by some miracle we did get back up there to compete with the top teams then we would have to start seeing 3rd as failure like Arsenal this year - with higher ambitions comes higher targets - and higher standards of failure. Maybe that's why there was such a reaction to finishing 5th that time - we'd started to think like Manc/scousers. I overheard a Spurs fan on the train this morning bemoaning a shit season as finishing 6th was "mid-table" as far as he's concerned - maybe that's the attitude you need to be winners.

They may respect us as fans and think the club is big but the bottom line is still silverware. As I said by ours and all other clubs standards we were great, by the clubs who we both want to be counted as part of we weren't.

See, the only way you can avoid the question is by bringing Ashley into it. My point is if you call yourself a big boy and want to be counted among them then you can be judged by their standards. As it happens the judgment from their point of view is exactly the same under either owner - failure - and the teams you mention would be how they've always seen us and always will -except for Blackburn of course - they did win it. Why should they care that we think we should be up there with them or who our owner is and how much he cares? - all that matters to them is proven success - as I said same under anyone.

you're applying different standards and expectations to the Halls and Shepherd than Ashley then ? Precisely my point. Would Shearer leave for ManU now ? Probably. I'm not really surprised, as you actually asked what they had done for the long term future of the club.....astonishing. Nothing to do with Ashley whatsoever and I wish you'd realise we can discuss the previous period in isolation. My point is that if we did join the elite in that period which is a view I'm inclined to support, by their standards winning no trophies makes us failures. By the standards of plucky outsiders we succeeded. Both views are valid imo. I DO discuss previous periods and the current one in isolation. I criticise Ashley, deservedly and justly as he has taken the club into decline, and I don't have to mention the last owners, but somebody else does. People are entitled to their views, but I don't understand how anybody can say Keegan "failed", they sound like Ken fuckin Bates when they come out with tripe like that. If you asked a Man Utd or Chelsea fan in 2007 whether Newcastle had been successful since promotion what would their pefectly valid answer from their viewpoint been? Again no comaprison to Ashley asked for or required.

you're applying different standards and expectations to the Halls and Shepherd than Ashley then ? Precisely my point. Would Shearer leave for ManU now ? Probably. I'm not really surprised, as you actually asked what they had done for the long term future of the club.....astonishing. Nothing to do with Ashley whatsoever and I wish you'd realise we can discuss the previous period in isolation. My point is that if we did join the elite in that period which is a view I'm inclined to support, by their standards winning no trophies makes us failures. By the standards of plucky outsiders we succeeded. Both views are valid imo.

TBF from the perspective of NUFC fans, those years were fantastic. However if you want to be considered a top club and count Man U as our rivals as you've suggested then you have to admit by their standards and 3 or 4 other clubs, they can be dismissed as a failure in absolute terms. Obviously relative to the previous decades they weren't. When Man U sing about Shearer turning them down and winning fuck all they are being cunts but at the same time they're right.

They've announced today that next years will be on a premier fixture day as well - to allow a longer break for the Euro champs. I haven't sat down and watched a cup final since the two we lost - used to love it before that.