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Newcastle United vs Sunderland Match Thread


Kid Dynamite
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He gives it both barrels now that the Ronnie is banned, but he used to be a run-of-the-mill Ashley lickspittle as recently as last season. Don't be fooled. Ryder just scopes out N-O and toontastic and writes what he thinks the best-informed posters are saying. Not that he needed to do any 'research' to know the fans' opinion on that disaster on Saturday.

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He gives it both barrels now that the Ronnie is banned, but he used to be a run-of-the-mill Ashley lickspittle as recently as last season. Don't be fooled. Ryder just scopes out N-O and toontastic and writes what he thinks the best-informed posters are saying. Not that he needed to do any 'research' to know the fans' opinion on that disaster on Saturday.

Lee-Ryder-6404129.jpg

"The supporters club desperately need a pub and the football team desperately need a good crosser like Shane."

 

 

:faint:

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He gives it both barrels now that the Ronnie is banned, but he used to be a run-of-the-mill Ashley lickspittle as recently as last season. Don't be fooled. Ryder just scopes out N-O and toontastic and writes what he thinks the best-informed posters are saying. Not that he needed to do any 'research' to know the fans' opinion on that disaster on Saturday.

Aye I've got no time for his newly grown balls either. If not for the ban, that would have been a significantly different article.

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George Caulkin having his say now...

 

http://blogs.thetimes.co.uk/section/the-game/107597/newcastle-are-profoundly-unsatisfactory/?shareToken=e76a4c07c746972504cb04e7980b380c

 

 

 

It is one of those dilemmas that shovels lead in the pit of supporters’ stomachs, because Newcastle may be a difficult club to love, but they are even more difficult to forsake. And, when it comes down to it, they should not have to do. When Keegan arrived for his first spell as manager, the first thing he did was fumigate the dressing-rooms. They need another Keegan. They need a fumigator.

 

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if someone with a times account can do the needful it'd be appreciated ;)

not like he doesn't know it happens every article he writes :D

 

(it's ok george that means you're good, ryders never get logged for the same reason)

 

 

Newcastle are profoundly unsatisfactory

George Caulkin

February 03 2014 17:02PM

 

Profoundly unsatisfactory: Newcastle United’s vapid, hollow-eyed performance in the Tyne-Wear derby. Profoundly unsatisfactory: selling Yohan Cabaye, without question their most accomplished player, and failing to replace him. Profoundly unsatisfactory: successive transfer windows without a single permanent signing. Profoundly unsatisfactory: two words which could sit beneath the club crest.

 

“Profoundly unsatisfactory”: a phrase employed by a Premier League tribunal in October 2009, which found in favour of Kevin Keegan’s claim for constructive dismissal against Mike Ashley’s Newcastle and which now, five years later, is in their DNA. Defeat to Sunderland can cloud the eyes, befuddle the brain and inflame emotion, but not this time. More than anything else, it felt like another quiet, lonely death.

 

“The cathedral on this hill” was how Sir Bobby Robson used to refer to St James’ Park, perched on Gallowgate’s elevation, visible from most approaches to the city, but that was before the bulldozers moved in and a cavernous warehouse was erected in its place. Newcastle did not participate in a game on Saturday, not really. They were a 90-minute advertisement for Sports Direct and Wonga. They are a works’ team, with better perks.

 

The extraordinary thing is that Newcastle remain eighth in the Barclays Premier League and players and staff are fulfilling their brief. They are on course for a bonus. There have been worse moments in their history, not least the toxic season which followed Keegan’s departure, and episodes when they have danced towards oblivion or irrelevance, but have they ever been this transparent? Have they ever felt this empty?

 

Eighth and on target, but out of both domestic cups which, more and more, feels like betrayal of history (“Our primary aim and focus has to be the Premier League,” is the official, joyless mantra). Eighth, but rejecting the chance to reinvest, regroup and, with a bit of luck, kick on. Eighth, but three-time losers to their local rivals. Eighth and apparently content with that. Eighth and leading the race for eighth. Eighth and pointless.

 

Communication with supporters is measly, bombastic, deflating or contradictory. Joe Kinnear, the director of football, says “judge me on my signings,” and then makes none. Directors to a fans’ forum in September: “the club confirmed that money was available.” Alan Pardew: “you can’t lose a player of (Cabaye’s) quality and not replace him.” Pardew at the weekend: “I didn’t particularly say in this window, though.”

 

Whether or not Newcastle refurbish their squad this summer (there is no evidence they are capable of it), an opportunity has been forsaken and there is no guarantee that results, fortune or circumstances will fall for them next time. Momentum is everything, as Sunderland have shown, and Pardew has lost his biggest player and personality, not that it excuses the paucity they mustered against Gustavo Poyet’s team.

 

Sunderland fans might dispute the tone of this. If you want desperation, try two relegations with record-low point tallies. Try Paolo Di Canio and taking root at the foot of the table for half a season. They would have a case, but Newcastle’s recent narrative is of a soul’s slow corrosion, peppered with some surges and decent football. Cups? Not a priority. The Europe League? No, no, no, no, not at any cost. A hole, which a club once filled.

 

On Wearside, mistakes are legion and perhaps there will be more, but errors have been corrected with a stunning brutality. Di Canio was dismissed 13 games into a two-and-a-half year contract. Roberto Di Fanti, Kinnear’s equivalent, lasted a few months. At Newcastle, Kinnear is associated indelibly with relegation, but is given another job and greater responsibility. He is still there, when nothing suggests he is qualified for it.

 

There was no affection in this space for Ashley’s predecessors and there is no mourning for them now. The money they spent was not theirs, their stewardship made wealthy men wealthier and an institutionalised arrogance brought interference and vanity signings ahead of growth and improvement. Their departure was overdue, but there is one area of empathy; when they made an appointment, I don’t dispute that it was with a view to winning something.

 

Some came close, although a majority were a queasy fit and Newcastle’s quicksand foundations and financial overreaching were deep flaws and fissures. Partially through his own missteps, Ashley has offered some correction and there was a worth to Derek Llambias seeking “stability” through self-sufficiency, a strict transfer model and long-term contracts, although the byproduct was often hateful (Sports Direct Arena, Wonga).

 

One argument – and it is a powerful one – is that any notion of stability was blown away from the second that Kinnear blundered into Newcastle saying that all criticism of him was “water off a duck’s arse,” and promising “I’ve got my finger in the pie halfway around the world.” Another is that this is where stability gets you. Eighth, with Ashley knowing that he can do what he wants, pretty much, and people will still turn up.

 

If you care for Newcastle, Sunderland was unacceptable; for a fixture which carries a clout far beyond the rational, there was no sense of a team. Just 11 untethered men. In isolation, there was “a criminal lack of commitment and talent,” as nufc.com put it, which reflects poorly on Pardew, but the wider picture is of “an overwhelming sense of gloom across Tyneside following the sale of Yohan Cabaye and completely predictable failure to sign a replacement.”

 

A month or so earlier, Newcastle lost 2-1 at home to Cardiff City in the FA Cup and for the entirety of the day – before, during and after – they felt like a beaten club. There were 31,000 supporters inside the stadium (smaller crowds were widespread, admittedly) and apathy was entrenched. The league had won, Sky had won, Ashley had won, just get it over with and move on. That experience was profoundly unsatisfactory, too.

 

Ashley has staunched his losses, but his Newcastle is without direction, where relationships are risibly brittle and where nobody will take him on. Where the chief scout scouts players the director of football does not buy and where the manager makes do, unable or unwilling to criticise, the only public face of a dysfunctional business. Where they can all point to the table and claim they are doing their jobs. A profoundly unsatisfactory eighth.

 

It is one of those dilemmas that shovels lead in the pit of supporters’ stomachs, because Newcastle may be a difficult club to love, but they are even more difficult to forsake. And, when it comes down to it, they should not have to do. When Keegan arrived for his first spell as manager, the first thing he did was fumigate the dressing-rooms. They need another Keegan. They need a fumigator.

Edited by Sonatine
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When I was growing up as a bairn in the 80's we expected to lose many of the games we played. The biggest hiding I saw Newcastle get was a 0-4 trouncing off Everton on Boxing Day 1986. That stayed the biggest home hiding I saw us get till Man Utd beat us 2-6 in 2003. The thing is with those two defeats, Man Utd had van Nistelrooy, Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Keane...all at their peak. Everton went on to be champions when they took the piss in 1986 with one of the greatest sides I've ever seen.

 

Liverpool last season obviously is the biggest home defeat that anyone under the age of 100 has ever seen at home for us. However, and I don't want to go over the top, Saturday for me was worse than last season against them, and worse than against Liverpool too. I've seen us play Sunderland probably twenty times, I saw us lose 2-0 in the play offs to them, the two 2-1 games in 2000 and 2001, last seasons and now this season. The play off game was the most important obviously, but we were the better side, we didn't deserve to lose 2-0. The two 2-1 games, we were the better side. Last season Sunderland had 4 shots, three of them absolute screamers, again a game that felt like a bit of a freak.

 

At the weekend though, I could see after 5 minutes what was going to happen. They were all over us and for the first time in my lifetime they absolutely deserved to pummel us. We were fucking shit! Now I'm not going to let the players get away with getting none of the abuse, they deserve it. Ashley however has outshone himself in the cunt stake and that takes some doing. Pardew moaned all season about the Europa League effecting our league form. That's fine, but in a large percentage of the games he was only playing 4 and 5 first teamers anyway! You could tell against Aston Villa the first game after the window closed (a window where we signed no one), that it was going to be a shit season in 12/13. Having said that we didn't lose anyone then and there was a deeply negative feeling that month which only got worse, and Pardew's excuses got worse. This time we've lost our best player, in fact without sounding biased one of the very best midfielders in the entire league this season. Fine. Cabaye wanted to leave. He left with Laurent Blanc coming out with the following, "Yohan stressed to me he would not have left Newcastle if they were in the Champions League because he loved the club." Even if we were spunking money, like Man City, there's no guarantees we'd get in the Champions League, but Everton and Tottenham over the last 3 or 4 seasons have shown you don't have to bankrupt yourself to float about 4th, 5th and 6th place.

 

Which leaves the question for me. What is the point in our existence? I don't care what any fucker says, Newcastle United should be far far bigger than Everton with our vastly superior fanbase, and certainly being competitive with Tottenham every single season. What is the point in our existence? I'm 36 years of age and I absolutely adore the club the same as most people from Tyneside do. A League Cup or a FA Cup victory, would be the only trophy we've ever won in my lifetime, and I don't care about how snobby clubs like Chelsea are to these trophies, to win one of them would be absolutely brilliant for us, it would get that 45 year monkey off our back, and there's not one city in this country would appreciate it more. The guy who came to the fans meeting months ago, admitted the soul purpose of our club is to come top 10. He basically said the cups were an irrelevance. Well they can fuck off! I don't want to portray myself as the clubs best fan, I've hardly been away for 3 or 4 years, but I've missed no more than 10 home games since the 80s, and for the first time ever I'm seriously considering jacking it. I don't know what the point of Newcastle United is, other than something to clear the debt we owe a man who made £250m profits from his businesses last year.

 

He bought the club to have fun. If by having fun he means take the piss out of 1m Newcastle fans in the UK, he's doing a magnificent job. Even his staunchest supporters, must be honest enough to admit, a proper contigency for Cabaye's departure should have been sorted. The man is a CUNT, and in my view anyone that claims to support Newcastle who denies it, is a cunt too.

 

Anyway back to the game. Worst I've ever seen. The mackems battered us. They took the piss out of us like we did them for years. Shola should retire now with dignity, he was absolutely disgusting, but getting back to that Villa game last season, it was entirely the same approach. No signings, but this time losing our best player. That created a negative attitude around the city without losing anyone. I don't know where we go from here, we could win our next two games, and everything will be "fixed" in some peoples eyes. It won't though. It never will while Ashley owns us. Pardew has to toe the party line, but I think even he is getting fucked off with it. The amount of erms and ahs and no comments in that press conference was telling. We're 8th top of the best league in the world, so looking at it like that, things don't appear to be all that bad, but they are. The mackems are laughing their tits off at everything about our club, and so they should. Fair enough we're a far bigger club, but their supporters could be looking forward to two cup finals this year, a manager who has progressed the club no end, whereas the rest of us at Newcastle can look in the mirror and just genuinely wonder what the point of existence is. For all Ashley's faux pas in the last 7 years, we are far past the point of no return with him now.

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+1

 

There's no shame in giving up your ticket. Personally last seasons game was worse because I expected to beat them. I had no real hope for a result on Saturday missing Cabaye, Remy and Colo. The worrying thing is those 3 are likely to be permanently gone in 4 months

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Cheers for the feedback. I'm not depressed with life, it's going alright, I'm totally depressed with this club though. I know I sound a disgusting human being saying this, but if Ashley died in a horrific plane/helicopter/car crash. We'd get our club back again. The full thing is a wind up.

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Cheers for the feedback. I'm not depressed with life, it's going alright, I'm totally depressed with this club though. I know I sound a disgusting human being saying this, but if Ashley died in a horrific plane/helicopter/car crash. We'd get our club back again. The full thing is a wind up.

I've heard he's bequeathed it to Dennis Wise.

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"And the best day will come when someone buys it from him and runs it the way Newcastle should be run. The club can never go anywhere under Mike Ashley. I promise you that"- KEVIN KEEGAN.

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I'd be a bit more concerned about what league his team will be in next year if I was our Mackem friend. 12 games left, seven of those v the top 7, six of those away from home. Losing yesterday at home to hull was a bigger blow than some realise.

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