Shepherd backs Ashley’s decision to axe Hughton.
Posted on December 8th, 2010 | 432 Comments |
Shepherd claims that the writing was on the wall for Hughton, and had been for some time, so the decision shouldn’t have come as a shock to people. He even claims he would have done the same himself had he still been in control of the corridors of power at St James’ Park.
That doesn’t surprise me to be honest as Shepherd did have a bit of a penchant for sacking managers in his time, usually having to fork out millions of pounds in compensation in the process. The departure of Hughton will have not warranted a large sum of compensation, but it still came as a shock to a lot of people who had thought that Hughton was doing reasonably well.
Shepherd said: “I may be the last guy to tell anyone how to run as football club but no-one should be surprised. The signs were there, no contract, no transfer funds and no replacement for assistant Colin Calderwood. I’m surprised anyone is surprised. The writing was on the wall.”
“Remember, nice guys don’t win.”
So nice guys don’t win then? Is that why Shepherd sacked Bobby Robson after just four games of the 2004/2005 season? Makes you think doesn’t it? Personally I don’t buy that particular well used cliche, but that is just my opinion. Anyway, Shepherd continued;
“If I had been Mike Ashley I’d have been worried as well. I like Chris Hughton, he’s a great guy, in fact I’ve not met anyone as decent as him but it was heading one way in my opinion.
“A lot of people won’t agree with me but I think he’s done the right thing. I would have done the same.”
I find it quite amusing how Shepherd has crawled out from underneath the rock from where he has been hiding to comment on this particular subject. As he said, he is the last guy who should tell anyone how to run a football club, yet here is offering his valuable ‘input’.
I mean let’s not forget just what Shepherd done for this club. Aside from calling the fans ‘mugs’ for buying club merchandise and calling Geordie women ‘dogs’, he also very nearly run the club into the ground, all while he was picking up a rather large wage on top of all the shareholder dividends he recieved.
In ten years he managed to turn a club that had £100 million of cash sitting in the bank into a club that was swimming in £70 million worth of debt and losing £30 million plus each year. Not exactly financial wizadry is it, but some will say that it was ok because we had two years of Champions League football.
Anyway, the fact that Shepherd is backing this decision doesn’t surprise me. After all, it has given him a chance to once again glory in the media spotlight, albeit only briefly.
Now bye-bye Freddy, off you pop.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Speaking of pearls of wisdom, I wonder why Dave Whelan hasn’t yet graced us with his media presence? He normally loves a pop at Ashley. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when even HE finds our fat controller too much of an easy target.