Newcastle’s new summer 2014 signings

824 Responses

1. “There’s some argument about how much we paid Montpellier for the attacking midfielder. Newcastle claims is was £7m and Montpellier claims it was closer to £11.5m (Transfermarkt has it at £8.8m).”

   £7 million sounds quite low for Cabella. Did Newcastle actually say they got him for that or was it just the Thomson House drivel factory? Or perhaps Ashley doesn’t want it getting out that he’s paid a full price for player to keep his “Scrooge” reputation? Didn’t Luke who’s talking Donald only say that the club have “privately briefed” that they bought Cabella for only £7 million.

   Riviere hasn’t scored many goals yet for a striker.

2. Worky, I got the £7m/£11.5m difference from Luke Edwards in The Telegraph who says “Newcastle have been privately briefing they paid just over £7m”.

   When I first heard about it on 5 Live I’m sure they said “undisclosed, thought to be £9m”, so it could be anything really.

3. Nice article Hugh. A good read.

   Against all the odds, it looks like we’ve made some good signings (maybe another to come). Let’s hope they quickly settle into a side that can be effective from the outset.

   Better still if we had a new manager.

4. DarthBroon says:
   July 19, 2014 at 6:12 pm

   “Against all the odds, it looks like we’ve made some good signings (maybe another to come).”

   Though I’m impressed with Cabella and the three Dutchmen, we still need a striker as I wouldn’t pin my hopes on Riviere.

5. I was hoping that we might get Ba back, worky – on the cheap or on loan, obviously, as that would be the only reason we’d be sniffing around for him. He’s gone to Turkey though.

   Maybe we’ll end up with Remy somehow. I could live with that (Remy and Ba are tried and tested in the EPL which is why I’ve thought about those two in particular). Apparently, Arsenal aren’t that keen on him and Liverpool
   won’t pay his wages.

6. DarthBroon says:
   July 19, 2014 at 7:11 pm

   “Arsenal aren’t that keen on him and Liverpool
   won’t pay his wages.”

   It would be strange if Ashley paid wages that Liverpool baulked at, Darth.

7. Liverpool have bought Remy for £8.5 million.

8. Will Pardew freeze out Cabella out of the side and not give him a squad number when he realises that he can’t defend either?

9. We really do have 5 potential first team additions with only one real subtraction (Remy). I say this because Pardew never played ben Arfa and Marveaux in the second half of the season and Shola and Gosling should never have been near the first team anyway.

   I don’t know how much difference it will make. I see Pardew has said he might play 4-2-3-1. Will we therefore start 5 of the new players against Man City? Maybe even 6 if we can find a center back?

   I cant see Pardew experimenting for long against City and fear he will revert to type if they score.

10. Did I miss something with Santon? Does he have a very serious knee injury? I didn’t see anything about a torn ligament, but I might have missed it.

    I think he will go 4-4-2 against City anyway. Without any other signings and if Santon isn’t fit, my guess is:

    Krul

    Janmaat Taylor Coloccini Colback

    Sissoko Tiote Anita Cabella

    de Jong Gouffran

    Could easily be 4-5-1 with Gouffy tracking back. Or 4-6-0, especially second half.

11. Has anybody looked at the fixtures? We have a very tough first game but at least it is at home. The next 7 are about as easy as you could draw up – ON PAPER.

    If we are bottom half after 8, and Pardew isn’t sacked, we are relegated.

12. GS says:
    July 20, 2014 at 11:02 pm

    “I see Pardew has said he might play 4-2-3-1.”

    That is so season before last, GS.

13. It just struck me that it is the middle of winter in New Zealand. NUFC have the whole of the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics for nice warm up tour and they chose winter.

14. GS, I think the antipodean tour has all been eclipsed by the Newcastle United fans flying down there on the plane that was shot down over the Ukraine. It has even been in the national news quite alot over here.

15. Looking forward to the start of the season and seeing how these new signings fare. Would like to see a big strong, domineering centre back and solid striker signed, and also Ben Arfa to be given a squad number before it all kicks off. Guess the latter would mean someone putting a dent in their ego, which has small chance of happening, unfortunately.

    The Montpelier chairman said Cabella was fast but lightweight, so I can’t see him living up to Pardew’s dream of being able to attack and defend in equal measure. Like Arfa, he sounds like a player who will excel given a pure attacking role with a bit of freedom behind the front line. What’s Pardew going to do with him? Hope he’s been watching some old videos of Robert, Ginola, even Dyer, etc.

16. GS says: Has anybody looked at the fixtures? We have a very tough first game but at least it is at home. The next 7 are about as easy as you could draw up – ON PAPER.

    I thought the same myself. If the team haven’t picked up a fair few points from those games – and the next two are Tottenham and Liverpool – then somebody’s going to be getting some stick. I’m hoping to the powers that be we have a good run – to begin the season as we ended the last one would be severely depressing, to say the least.

17. Good to see you on here again, Jimisol.

    Cabella is a small, slightly built player who is a very good attacking playmaker. Like the player he’s replacing though, Hatem Ben Arfa, he can’t defend.

    Aye, we need a defender who is good both in the air and on the ground as opposed of having one who is good on the floor and useless in the air (Coloccini) and one who has been good in the air but isn’t great with the ball at his feet (Williamson). I think that was supposed to be Yanga Mbiwa but they should have paid the bit extra and gone for Jan Vertonghen, or even Mateo Musacchio from Villareal who would have only been around £4-5 million after Villareal were relegated but like Vertonghen, he would be double what he was back then today.

18. Cheers, Worky. Appreciate you and Hugh keeping this blog alive somehow. Always enjoyed reading articles from both of you, as did I always look forward to the late Bowburn Mag’s pieces a few years ago. Hope you can keep it going!

    I agree. Vertonghen would have been a great buy, though he would probably be looking for pastures greener by now if we had have snapped him up. Isn’t he looking to leave Spurs now?

    What’s the general consensus regarding Mbiwa? I thought he would’ve been shipped out this summer, which is looking extremely unlikely given he went on tour, and even scored yesterday. Sometimes he has looked class to me, but other times he’s looked completely lost. Do you think he’ll step up this season? Maybe he’ll be sitting on the bench with Collo, Williamson and Taylor in front of him.

    Did anyone watch the match? I missed it, unfortunately. How were the new signings?

19. Are these rumours about Caroll true? Do you think he’d cut his wages in half to come back? I hope so. Always liked a good old-fashioned, big-bastard centre forward pushing everyone around with his beard. Bring the lad home!

20. jimisol says:
    July 23, 2014 at 2:38 am

    “Are these rumours about Caroll true?”

    I very much doubt it, just like last time. It’s just something to fill space and get paid for.

    Didn’t watch the game.

21. Worky: I am watching the West Ham v Wellington game and they had a moment of silence for the NUFC fans, which I thought was a nice gesture.

    Ray Hudson also had nice things to say about them.

    As an aside, they said Carroll has an ankle injury that might keep him out until November. I think he has been crocked more than he has played. Remember, he even had an injury when we transferred him to Liverpool.

22. Now they are having a minute of applause for John Alder. I am impressed that the New Zealanders are being so thoughtful.

23. Now, I don’t understand Muse, they seem to have real talent but just copy Radiohead. And Coldplay, they don’t have any real talent and copy two songs from “The Bends” endlessly. And Chris Martin is the worst dressed and worst “dancer”. He walk around on his haunches like that is cool?

24. You know what Worky? Fatman should match the contributions to the charities for the 2 dead fans. That, and the new signings, might get us to give him some credibility.

    Only if he sacks Pardew will he gain any real credibility, although, in hindsight, Hughton might not have been that good either (better than Pards though).

25. I cant decide if Fabinho is the coolest or crapest name ever? He plays for Monaco.

26. GS, the Newcastle United foundation gets a few thousand from NUFC every year (most of the money they get comes from fans) but that’s about it for Ashley and charity. He prefers to throw away millions in a casino.

    People don’t change. If fans give Ashley credibility, they are stupid and gullible bumpkins who are just getting fooled time and time again. As George W. Bush once said so eloquently: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

27. Aye, Fabinho sounds like a crap name that has just been made up in English, GS. He’d get some stick in the Premier League if he played crap with a name like that.

28. Worky: his first name is FABIO so his super Brazinlian marketing team decided he is now FABINHO! Sooper dooper Barney Rubble FABINHO is what I would call him.

29. ‘Pele’ is just a completely meaningless stage name. His real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento and his original nickname was ‘Dico.’ I wonder why he didn’t use that name as a player?

30. I see Pards is saying we have a shot at Champions League football because he has been on the phone with Charnley every day getting the new players over the line. He said last year we didn’t offer a threat going forward after Cabaye left and now we will.

    The man is delusional. It was not Cabaye leaving that f@cked up our team it was Pardew’s f@cking tactics. I think we scored about 3 goals in the second half of the season and lost 3-0 at home to a struggling Sunderland. Pardew is the one who played Shola, Gosling and Dummett in the same team and expected us to win. Urrrggghhh.

    To be sure, we have got a couple of decent players, but Mr. Ego is now saying it is all down to him, whereas it wasn’t down to him that we would lose 0-3 or 0-4 every other week.

31. Is Pardew serious when he says we aim for the Champions League? Our transfer budget so far has been roughly what Chelsea are asking for Lukaku, what Man U paid for Mata, what Arsenal paid for Ozil, and Citeh have our transfer budget in the cushions of their couch.

    You add Liverpool, Spurs and Everton and Mr. Delusional thinks we can qualify for the Champions League?

    Last time I looked he wasn’t the second coming of Brian Clough. Isn’t his only accomplishment as manager or player winning the Johnson’s Paint Trophy? Maybe it was the LDV vans trophy, whatever, it was it was inconsequential.

32. Has Mike Ashley been forgiven again now he’s bought a few players?

33. Not by me, worky.

    Maybe if he gets back the part of the Gallowgate end he sold off;

    if he writes off THAT loan;

    if he starts buying experienced world-class players to give us strength where we actually need it instead of ‘investing in’ (loading us up with) unproven sprog midfielders with a potential sell-on value;

    if he gets us a quality manager instead of that useless, toady toe-toucher we have at the moment;

    if he removes all that tacky Shorts Direct branding plastered all over SJP.

    To be honest, probably not even then.

34. I have tried for a while to come up with something to describe Pards. I have it now. He is a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

35. GS says:
    July 26, 2014 at 1:57 am

    “I have tried for a while to come up with something to describe Pards.”

    The obvious question in response to that is why? :-)

    He just reminds me of some prick in a Mondeo who blames eveyone else when he doesn’t meet his sales targets. I still think that Jorge Sampaoli from Chile would make the perfect Newcastle United manager.

36. DarthBroon says:
    July 25, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    “Not by me, worky.”

    But I suspect that most fans have retreated from last season though, Darth.

37. Worky @35 :) Yeah, I seem to be obsessing on him, I should change my name to AndyMac :)

    It is his constant yapping, without saying anything.

    Champions League, he’s having a larf.

38. Hey Worky: I think Klinsmann would be good for us. He lives in Southern California though and might not take to the frozen North. If he would like a challenge he could be ideal because we have quite a few players with talent. The new additions seem good – although I think Pards is blowing his own horn a bit much on the input he had in choosing them.

    Pardew Out.

39. Pardew’s latest:

    “Seim is a player I love, I have had 2 players like him – Sherringham and Bedayoun”

    FFS, you also had Tevez, Mascherano and ben Arfa but didn’t know what to do with them. You shite spouting, looking older by the minute, cockerney bell-end. A farking Mondeo is too good for you.

40. Is Pardew worse than a pickled egg? I am going to say yes, because the egg keeps itself to itself. The eggs stay on the bar for years and years and don’t do anybody harm unless they open the jar.

41. GS says:
    July 27, 2014 at 2:35 am

    “Is Pardew worse than a pickled egg?”

    Well, pickled eggs usually make you produce large amounts of guff, just like Pardew does 24/7. That’s all I have to offer really in that particular debate.

    Do you think that Sissoko will leave?

    I just start getting radged if I think about the things Pardew says, not as radged as I get with Israel though.

42. What’s wrong with pickled eggs? And what have they done to deserve being compared with Pardew?

    I happen to like pickled eggs. They go great with a bag of salt & vinegar crisps.

43. I watched the game against Wellington and Pards played a back three with Coloccini in the middle, Steven Taylor on the right and Hadiara on the left. Then he had Anita as a sort right winger and Colback and de Jong pushing forward through the middle. Gouffy seemed to play where he liked.

    It was a big change from Pardew’s normally rigid, lump it up to Shola strategy. Who knows if it will work, but it is certainly different.

44. What I am saying is that Pardew might actually be trying different tactics, that he could have figured out that he has been figured out and that he either changes or is sacked?

    Wishful thinking on my part?

45. The other thing I noticed is that Colback can take a decent set piece – definitely a step up from Dummettt, and hopefully will keep Ryan Taylor out of the team.

46. Hugh de Payen says:
    July 27, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    “I happen to like pickled eggs. They go great with a bag of salt & vinegar crisps.”

    Aye. Even better with a pint of Boddington’s, Hugh.

    I’ve never understood the pork scratchings thing, though.

47. GS, from last season.

    http://www.sunderlandecho.com/sport/football/newcastle/newcastle-boss-pardew-set-to-stand-by-three-at-the-back-1-6565836

    A shit manager who changes his tactics is still a shit manager. Managers like Cruyff, van Gaal and Guardiola like to play 3 at the back, but so does Iain Dowie. Germany won the world with a 4-2-3-1 formation, but look at Pardew’s interpretation of it the season before last.

48. Darth: I worked at a working man’s club for about a year and sold hundreds of bags of pork scratchings and not a single pickled egg. The big jar just sat there at the end of the bar and the only time anybody came close to buying one was on a bet, but even then they backed out.

    Worky @47: that actually shocked me. I mean the fact that he had tried the 3 at the back last season before he saw it at the World Cup on the telly. Them coaching badges must be easy to get if Pardew, Carver and Stone have them. By the way, second half against Wellington he went back to 4-4-2. We were ahead 1-0 and I guess he expected a second half onslaught from the mighty Wellington in a f@cking friendly and had to batten down the hatches. Wellington were 9th of 10 teams in last years Aussie league so he had every right to be cautious :)

49. Hay , I ACTUALLY went, as I live in NZ can say That !! Hey the team was cruising , and were scared of some of the stupid tackles that went in by Phoenix on West Ham the game before !
    The new spaniard looked good , but short of stamina I thought , got tired quickly. Goofy was the best on the park , and Cloocinni was sharp. Colback did like running for the set pieces but some of his corners were woeful. Beating Wellington 1-0 was not the best game I have seen, but I thought we were miles better that West Ham who really do look poor at the moment.

    Think we need one more midfielder and another striker eh !?

50. Aye NZed, West Ham did actually lose to “the mighty Wellington” as GS calls them.

    We certainly need another striker. If Cisse’s crisis remains and we depend on Riviere, that could be catastrophic. We also need a centre back who can play both in the air and the ground instead of having one who can do each thing but not the other and a lousy actor who’s a liability.

51. I watched West Ham / Wellington and the commentators were amazed at how poor West Ham were. By what they were saying, Wellington were supposed to be on a par with Oldham or the like.

    I might be going over the top now with my hatred of Pardew. It is just that he talks shite all of the time and doesn’t seem to have a memory. His latest is that he wants to rotate the players more against better teams because they suss out the same old formations. No sh@t, good managers can figure out Pardew, they even do it during games or at half time. HOWEVER, what Pardew fails to say is that the only time he has had any success/good results is when he stumbles onto, and stays with, a certain team selection. When he tries to do tactics we almost almost fail.

    He bemoans a lack of players but plays Shola, Gosling and Dummett in meaningless games last season. The obvious thing to do was give Armstrong a look or try to get Cisse some confidence, maybe even give Steven Taylor another chance. We lost 3 and 4 nil anyway.

    I mean, what the hell were we playing 2 players who were obviously leaving (and not very good) and another who will never hack it in the premier league for?

    Oh, and Mr. One Trick Pony is putting all his eggs in the Seim de Jong basket now. Hopefully he wont get injured because we have seen what happens (Cabaye). de Jong only played 16 times for Ajax last year and went off injured against Wellington.

    Sorry for the rant (just call me AndyMac).

52. And another thing. I know it is the manager’s job to utilize sports science and make each player the best they can be, but do they, do they really? Do we all give 100% every day in our work and personal lives? We all have different abilities and I would rather watch an 80% ben Arfa than a 150% Shola.

    I am not advocating a Paul Merson or Nile Ranger lifestyle, I am just saying that some players have higher ceilings and who the f@ck cares if they don’t reach 100% of their potential if we are being entertained?

53. More on ben Arfa. I would be really frustrated as well if I was told that my importance to the team was to track back, and not use his obviously exceptional skills. He is a shite defender anyway, so what is the use? When he does try to defend he just gets in the way of other players. We can’t all be Peter Beardsley. I mean isn’t part of management supposed to be how to utilize your resources? Are we asking Mike Williamson to do a mazy run and hammer a left footer into the top corner?

    I think Pards doesn’t get the fact that some people are just gifted. He was a journeyman player (and manager) who probably thinks that he got where he was through hard work and that’s the way it should be for everybody. It is not. Some people are gifted.

    Maybe Pardew’s “tactics” should be to not have ben Arfa marked by 3 people every time he gets the ball, or to use the space that that creates better?

54. I think I am saying that just like you can’t teach height in basketball or small for a jockey, there are some skills that people just have. Look at Maradona or Bryan Robson who were great players despite their bad habits? George Foreman was a 300 pound piece of lard and was heavyweight champion.

    People argue that footballers and anybody else in public life should be saints and machines nowadays. F@ckem. Pardew got to the lower reaches at an elite level probably by hard work and doesn’t understand what innate ability is about. I mean, if someone has an IQ of 100 there is very little chance of them going to Oxford unless they go to Eton or are a member of the Royal Family.

    Worky: I should have written an article titled “my thoughts on Chairman Pardew”.

55. “I am not advocating a Paul Merson or Nile Ranger lifestyle”

    Why not, GS? Maradona, Garrincha and George Best were far worse than them and they were three of the greatest players ever to kick a football. George Best was the well behaved one out of that lot by a long way. Garrincha lost his virginity with a goat, made half of Brazil pregnant with his huge member and drank himself to death just like Best. He and Pele never lost a game together, not one in ten years together with the Brazil team. They were the zenith of football. I think I’ve said this this before but a friend of mine once saw Tony Adams on all fours throwing up into the gutter the night before an Arsenal game. He was captain, they won. That was in the days when they could go a whole season without losing.

    Why don’t you write a blog on here? I will soon.

56. On the Garrincha goat thing it reminds of that joke, I will paraphrase because I can never remember jokes:

    But,

    Owen the Sheepshagger says: You gift money to the orphanage and you aren’t known as Owen the Benevolent, you single-handedly cure hunger in South Wales and you are not known as Owen the Feeder … but, you shag one sheep…

57. Again on Garrincha – I hope it was female :) Although in the scheme of things it doesn’t really matter that much :)

58. Sort of adds a different dimension to the phrase – you don’t look at the mantlepiece when you are poking the fire.

59. GS, did you know that according to the Kinsey report, one in six men in Iowa, (the US’s largest chicken producer) admitted to having sex with a chicken? Perhaps one major factor in the sheep thing is that the vaginas of female sheep and women are actually very similar indeed.

60. I made a mistake above, Pele and Garrincha actually played together for twelve years together without being beaten, not ten.

    Mané Garrincha – Football’s Greatest

61. Actually, watching that Garrincha film again, I honestly think that if Pardew had him in his squad, he would think he was too much of a wild card, stick him on the bench like Ben Arfa (and Mascherano) and play Obertan on the right wing instead.

62. Here’s a quote from Neil Cameron in The Journal who is hoping we sign Remy:

    “One more striker and, if possible, another central defender would take a good squad to the verge of a great one”.

    I don’t know where to begin. Maybe this guy wasn’t paying attention when our team fell apart after the departure of one player, lost 14 of 20 games (I think), there was a mass walkout during the last game and the Manager wasn’t even allowed into the stadium after a failed headbutt when we were cruising at Hull.

    I expect some of the kids on Ed’s blog to get worked up over a few signings, but this guy is a paid journalist.

    I can honestly see there might be a bit of a squad upgrade but there were departures as well. We haven’t really even seen any of them play yet – certainly not against quality opposition.

    I am hopeful (despite Pardew) but I am not anointing Siem de Jong the second coming of Shearer after a couple of friendlies. I have seen that sort of thing said on another message board.

63. Did Neil Cameron see the many 3 and 4 nil defeats last season? We have the same defense now except we have swapped rightbacks. Steven Taylor was available and not picked at the end of last season, and Santon is injured.

    Is the return of Ryan Taylor going to make a difference? I never rated him anyway.

    Plus, they are even trying to loan M’Biwa so there would be even less cover.

    I do think Hadiara looks like he might be a good player – I hope so for our sake.

64. GS, I got lynched on the Chronic for being somewhat critical of Pardew. Apparently, everything is hunky dory again with alot of the fans. The Choronic, the Journal and the Sunday Stun have been allowed to penetrate Ashley’s inner circle once again and they wasted no time in getting their tongues lodged right up there!

65. Worky, I did notice a change in tone at the NE press in the last few days. Are you speculating that that there has been a reconciliation or do you know?

    Now, I know nowt about this Ferreyra Argie but there have been a few wikipedia reposts and Youtube clips. It got “Croftus5678” on Ed’s blog excited:

    “very pleased… not only does he never hit the ball at the keeper (Cisse-esq) but all his shots are into the side netting with accuracy and mostly power…HE REMINDS ME OF A YOUNG ALAN SHEARER”

    I would caution people about making judgments from Youtube. I remember many getting a Youtube hard-on about Albert Luque as well.

66. Thinking back as well, I remember some clips of Jonas when we signed him showing him crossing and scoring. Unfortunately, as we found out, that happened only 2 or 3 times a season.

67. I will try to be positive, even though I don’t trust Pardew.

    It looks like we have signed some decent players, especially Siem de Jong because not many bad players captain Ajax.

    We now have a few goal scoring midfielders and not just Cabaye.

    If Pardew can reconcile with Mbiwa and Colback can cover left back we might not be as bad as last year. Still, our best form of defense has to be attack because we are still dodgy at the back.

    There has been addition by subtraction. Not giving Pardew the Shola or Gosling option should help.

    The new players will not be jaded yet by Pardew’s doublespeak and playing them out of position.

    We have kept most of last year’s squad and added to it, as we obviously needed to. Remy is probably the only real miss because Debuchy was replaced probably like for like (I am not sure about Marveaux because he was never given a proper run in the team). I don’t think we were ever going to see the best of ben Arfa under Pardew and he was only ever a fringe player under Pardew.

    So, if Pardew and his coaches manage to f@ck this up Fatty will have no choice but to sack them. People say we have had no net spend in this window, but we have added a bit of quality as well as a bit of promise. Given the remit of taking advantage of contract situations or injuries to get players on the cheap we seem to have done quite well.

    We have a squad full of internationals. Quite a few are from France or Holland who did a lot better than England at the World Cup, so there really shouldn’t be any excuses if we get involved in a relegation fight.

68. I am seeing worms turn on the Chronicle board as Pardew reverted to his sit back and invite pressure tactics. One thing I haven’t seen is criticism of this pre-season schedule.

    Who set this up? Travel to the other side of the World where anyone who went to the world cup couldn’t go, and play low quality opposition. Meanwhile, have a couple of warm up games against cr@p opposition here in England. I am OK with that to get players fit.

    As the season approaches we play 2 games in 2 days in Gelsenkircken. There is no way we can put out a decent team in either to gauge strength and test tactics.

    I have watched a few pre-season friendlies they are having here in the US and Liverpool, Citeh and Man U are playing mainly their first choice teams in the first half. That’s good because there are still 2 and 1/2 weeks to go.

    Now we have another warm up against inferior opposition and a final game where we might put out a near full strength team. This is a f@cking organizational shambles. But what do you expect?

    Most teams use the final warm up as a tweak to tactics and even rest some key players so they are fresh for the first game and/or protect them from injuries. Not us.

69. The only redeeming factor I can see about the pre-season is that a long weekend in Gelsenkirchen will be nice for the fans.

    I saw Sociadad take Barcelona apart last year, so that will not be any easy game.

70. Absolutley no threat on goal in the first half. Pardew made a big show of stepping in to take the blame as it’s only a pre season thing, then blamed the two new players upfront. I didn’t hear him say anything about Malaga scoring three goals against a shite defence in one half though.

    GS, I don’t know about a holiday in Gelsenkirchen, it’s like a German Tyneside but they still have the coalmines as Thatcher wasn’t German. I would have preferred one against Monaco or Paris to be frank if I was a travelling fan.

71. GS says:
    August 2, 2014 at 6:41 pm

    “I saw Sociadad take Barcelona apart last year, so that will not be any easy game.”

    GS, Real Sociedad were in the Champions League last season. They have what a certain someone would refer to as a modern young manager, Jagoba Arraste.

72. Nothing is going to change this season I think. Goals are going to be hard to come by unless we have a striker that can break away from the stupidity of Pardew’s lack of tactics. Last season we had a good spell where we got some wins. This season I doubt we are to be that lucky. I see a relegation fight this season.

73. Good to see you commenting on here again, Michael. As they’re on again now I’m going to hold my counsel for 90 minutes or so!

74. Worky: we get the Spanish League live on BEIN Sports here. Sociedad have a very young and talented team. Along with Malaga we could do a lot worse than scouting their players as we play them and getting one or two before the transfer window shuts.

    As you have mentioned, it is not on Carr’s Eurorail route so I doubt any of our scouts have seen them. We would have to know which ones only have a year left on their contracts though :)

75. I see the Russian Army is advancing on Donetsk. Lucky that Facundo made it to Tyneside. There was a rumour that we were trying to send ben Arfa there. I knew Pardew didn’t like him, but that would have been ridiculous. The story was ben Arfa refused to go.

76. I watched the second half and it wasn’t bad. Nice finish by Cabella. It was good to see some commitment and a bit of the high pressing game. It seems that we do have some fast and skillful players when they have some space and the defence is not a shambles.

    I really do want us to succeed despite Pardew. This has offered a bit of hope, although Schalke looked cr@p.

77. Knew it was wise to not to say anything before the match because Schalke aren’t themselves at all and I think they had nine players out injured, GS. They still seemed to have us penned in our own half early on and it looked like typical Pardew. Then I fell asleep, woke up and we were playing better after I awoke.

    I thought it was the Ukrainian army who were advancing on Donetsk.

78. Yeah Worky: Ukranians advancing on Donetsk, you’re right. I am getting confused with all of these wars, insurgents, bombing of schools, cease fires, spying, NSA, CIA, ISIS, Hamas, Syria, Libya, torture.

    What I do know though is that “Ferreyra” will be almost impossible for the average Geordie to say. He shall be known as FACUNDO. That’s much easier and vaguely sweary.

79. And the ones I mentioned @78 are only the latest in the news. There’s still the old total f@cking nightmares of Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and too many others to mention, or they are being ignored like Chechnya.

80. Wor Facundo. Isn’t he called “Chucky” as well?

81. If Cisse’s condition continues, they are taking a bit of a chance with the centre forwards. The two they’ve brought in might have potential, they might end up being lucky and getting off to a flyer. I hope they do. However, they are taking more of a chance than they would be if they signed a player like Remy, Bony or someone like that along with another striker or two like Ferreyra, Monaco Riviera or the youngster, Ayoze Perez.

82. We lost 7 of the last 8 games last year. If we have a bad start and lose one or two of the first games, can Pardew survive? We have an easy start, but if he manages to continue our unbelievably bad form, can he survive, and is there anybody out there who could pick up the pieces?

    Part of me wants us to lose a few games to get him the sack. We definitely need a centre forward and centre half, but even without them we have to be able to finish above three of Burnley, Leicester, Hull, Palace, Villa and QPR? It would take monumental incompetence, even worse than the end of last season for us to get relegated.

83. Any streams?
    Hope all is well on the blog nice to see a new thread Worky :)

84. As usual I am a bit confused. We played 3 games in 4 days which NEVER happens during the regular season. Pards said we took the Tuesday night game because it was a “fatigue game” for us. I have no idea what that means.

    It seems that we were lucky and didn’t come away with any injuries. What amazes me is that Coloccini started all 3 games and played quite a few minutes in each. He missed quite a few games through injury last year and is getting on. I don’t think I am being hyper-critical here. There were always complaints from Pardew when we played in Europe on a Thursday and then had a match on Sunday. Now they travel to play 3 in 4 days and risk our Captain? It is not like we have a ton of cover.

    I suppose they know what they are doing?

85. I also wonder what the hell Jonas did to Pardew. He says he wants to sell Obertan and plays him and yet Jonas is nowhere to be seen. Jonas used to be one of his favourites.

    I don’t disagree with dumping Jonas, because I think the refs figured out his game – running out of defence and falling over to get a free kick. However, I don’t understand the unceremonious loan to Norwich and now the total silence from the club.

86. SJT, sorry I missed you there, I’ve been out alot. I keep thinking about writing something, but something always gets in the way. I must admit I only saw highlights of the Huddersfield game.

    GS, Gutierrez is also one of the biggest tacklers in the Newcastle team when he plays.

87. RE Jonas: This is what’s keeping him out of the side

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/newcastles-jonas-gutierrez-limbo-thanks-2968687

    I’m sure we’ve discussed this before.

    RE Obertan: He’s been excellent in the pre-season games. As if proof were needed Pardew doesn’t have a clue what he needs.

88. Darth, didn’t you see the name Anal Oliver is in that story? I don’t know why they drop his name in any story as anything with his name in it immediately loses all credibility with sane people.

89. Thanks Darth: that makes sense, although I wouldn’t have him in the team anyway unless Pardew sets us up in his 9-0-1 formation.

90. It’s pure Anal, ie shite.

91. @87: It is funny that Oliver referred to Steven Taylor as a fans favourite. I usually see him referred to as “chicken with his head cut off”, I hardly ever see a good word said about him except he tries hard.

92. Or drama criticism questioning his dubious and embarassing acting skills.

93. Worky, there’s plenty more references to the story of the trigger clause in Jonas’s contract (Sunday People article seems to be the first reference).

    http://www.thejournal.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/uncertainty-growing-around-newcastle-united-6321754

    http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/newcastle-united-could-pay-unwanted-7224361

    http://www.touchlinetalk.com/clause-pushes-newcastle-ace-towards-exit/80616/

    Loads more if you do a google search.

94. Darth, Mahmood Ahmedinejad never said that Israel should be “wiped off the map” but how many references are there to him saying it in the media, and how many people are there who think that he did? Maybe there is a clause, but I wouldn’t necessarily believe it on that alone without evidence. The Journal, the Chronic and the People are all the same Mirror group newspapers though I don’t know about touchline talk, they might have just copied it. 90% of what you read is either made up drivel or copied drivel or in the case of Newcastle United and the local press, some kind of leak by Ashley to further some agenda or other.

95. Southampton have bought Fraser Forster for £10 million.

96. workyticket says:
    August 9, 2014 at 12:11 am

    “Darth, Mahmood Ahmedinejad never said that Israel should be “wiped off the map” but how many references are there to him saying it in the media…”.

    You’re right, worky. Anyone who cares to check will find that he apparently said “This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time” – which obviously conveys a different intent entirely :)

    As for the reported ‘trigger clause’ in Jonas’s contract: It’s not been confirmed or denied by either side (a statement from one party against the wishes of the other would constitute a breach if contract in itself, obviously) but it’s the only explanation that makes any sense for him having been sidelined as far as I can see.

    And it’s the kind of low trick that this regime would stoop to – even though Jonas opted to stick with us after we were relegated when he could have deserted us as a couple of others did.

97. DarthBroon says:
    August 9, 2014 at 8:31 pm

    “It’s not been confirmed or denied by either side”

    You make them sound like the CIA, Darth.

    Being in London, I can’t really guage the mood on the street right now re Ashley. Is all talk of a peasant’s revolt dead now?

98. I think “The Peasants Revolt” is on the back burner due to Ashley’s sleight of hand this summer.
    It will all start again in earnest when Walter Mitty makes an absolutely shoite start to the season!
    All his talk of top four is complete is complete bollox and they are more likely to finish in the bottom four.

    I’m not buying in to all the optimism some have got as i think nothing has changed and we will struggle again.
    Our defensive frailties have not been addressed which is scandalous imo.
    That will do for us alone and i find it disturbing that the so called management cannot see that.

    The Pre-Season has been predictably shambolic under Pardew and as usual we approach the season with most of our charges having little game time together with Pardew’s negativity.
    He is too terrified to play people because he knows a couple of injuries will derail his little squad.

    The only entertainment on display at St James’ Park is watching Alan Pardew constantly dodge the bullet.
    I expect early cup exits, 6 points for Sunderland, Mid table obscurity, And plenty of excuses and double speak!

99. Been on holiday Joe?

    If there aren’t any more defenders everything depends on whether Mapou Yanga Mbiwa radically improves. Coloccini, Williamson and Taylor are all known quantities, they’re never going to shock us and turn into Franco Baresi all of a sudden. On the other hand, Mbiwa absolutely hummed, but at least a wishful thinker could put it down to a (very) dodgy first season in a new league which he will get over. Pardew will have to commit and risk playing him though.

100. Worky, No i have been doing up my garden and other repairs.
     I have had to put up two new fences along with concreting new posts in etc.
     I have had to get a new garden shed because the roof went on the old one.
     So i have been busy doing that and taking up all the grass and paving the whole lot so i don’t have to mow it anymore lol
     To cap the whole thing off i got sun stroke through being a silly sod and not wearing a hat.
     I was in a right old two and eight and thought my depression had come back because i was all over the place lol

101. joe hawkins says:
     August 10, 2014 at 1:54 pm

     “I think “The Peasants Revolt” is on the back burner due to Ashley’s sleight of hand this summer.
     It will all start again in earnest when Walter Mitty makes an absolutely shoite start to the season!”

     That’s about right I reckon Joe.

     There are as many Sunderland fans in my neck of the woods as there are toon fans and I seem to have spent my summer having futile arguments with them about the Jack Colback signing as much as anything else.

     Most of my toon fan friends seem to have had their heads turned by this summers signings in spite of the fact we’ve seen it all before under the current administration (shower of sh|t).

102. Worky: I am going to be optimistic about the new players for a totally unscientific reason. Troy on one of the other boards says they are all shite, and if the past is any guide, taking the opposite view to him will be correct – he is a big Pardew backer. Reports about Cabella, Janmaat and de Jong suggest we might do OK despite Pardew.

     I seem to remember someone on here had travelled quite a bit to Asia, Joe or Darth? I am meeting my mother and brother in Thailand (Koh Samui) in January but need a decent Hotel in Bangkok. High quality and hopefully away from the flesh pots. I will have a look at a couple of the clubs but I don’t want to have it in my face (as it were).

103. I would also like a how to guide to avoiding lady boys. Is it proper etiquette to grab them by the knackers as a way of checking?

104. GS says:
     August 10, 2014 at 7:01 pm

     “I would also like a how to guide to avoiding lady boys.”

     I was just passing passing Koh Samui for a while and didn’t like it. If you don’t have a girl welded to your arm all the time, you will be propositioned constantly by prostitutes. Don’t know about now but when I was there, midnight was a kind of Kathoey (ladyboy) watershed. After that time, all the prostitutes had knackers, it seemed to be the tradition.

105. My brother lives in Koh Samui. I will be with him, his girlfriend, her parents, my Mam and Aunt. Hopefully the hookers wont be a problem. I have known some real sleaze bags from Newcastle who went for the whores and I don’t think I will be doing any of their sloppy seconds. Maybe I will get a t-shirt with “F*ck Off Whore” on it? I might get arrested though.

     My brother bought a bar in Koh Samui and the co-owner turned out to be a total alcoholic/druggy. Originally from the Toon. She bought him out after 6 months because they couldn’t get along. He still lives there though.

     By the way, I saw somewhere that our net spend was 3 million and that was before the sell on for Forster. I bet we have spent the least of any club in the Premier League. There is something fishy going on here. The extra 25 million TV money and sponsorship money has to be going somewhere. I suspect it is into a rather pudgy trouser pocket.

106. Don’t know about now but Koh Samui did have the nicest airport I’d ever seen when I was there. I asked the locals where to get the best Thai food, they sent me to the restaurant in the local Tesco hypermarket.

     Ashley made £20 million last season, nearly all Cabaye of course. He has spent nearly the same this season overall when you throw in the further sale of Debuchy. Actually, he’s spent about £500,000 less. He always expects the club to make a profit on players over time so people shouldn’t delude themselves.

     I watched Janmaat for Feyenoord a few times and he seemed like a good right back.

107. ain’t been on here for ages :) hows it going lads?

108. Hi Dokky, hope things are goung well with you? I’ve just been having a bit of a break from this blog, I might get back to writing a few blogs soon though.

109. I don’t know if Tiote to Arsenal is newspaper rubbish but it makes sense to me. They have a bigger squad so wont be affected if he gets suspended. If he is cover for Wilshere that is smart given his injury record. Also, Wilshere is/was the next big thing and yet I have never really seen him have a good game. He looks strong but you can knock him over with feather and is constantly injured.

     I also wonder if HBA was threatened with a fine for setting up his book club? He is quoted as saying there would be a media circus and NUFC have a media ban for their players.

110. yeah im good thanks mate, glad all good your end. cant wait for footie again! glad sholas gone to gaziantep BB fook knows who they are

111. Dokky, Gazintep is in Turkey but that was about all I knew. I looked up Gazintepspor up and they’re a middle ranking team, a bit like Newcastle. They came tenth last season (like we did) and had a really good season a few yera back where they came fourth. Good for him. Turkish footbll has lost Didier Drogba to the Premier League, but they will get Shols Ameobi in return which is fair, don’t you think?

112. I was just reading a few Newcastle United pieces in the Chronic and looking at some of the comments they were just awful, with Newcastle United fans just ripping each other apart with some really personal insults and several mentions of how much they “despied” each other. WTF? Ashley seems to be doing an even better job of making Newcastle United fans hate each other and the club just a total misery to support.

     http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-face-mounting-bill-7597603

113. I don’t get why The Chronic have gone all pro NUFC and Pardew all of a sudden. Didn’t they have a massive splash with P45DUE at about our last premier league game?

     Pardew is not speaking to the press and only fulfills his Sky obligations and the players are banned from speaking to the press. There’s also the talk that the reasoning is that Ashley wants paid for press access, which is really strange as other clubs have PR departments specifically to further their image with the press and TV knowing that this will generate interest/revenue.

114. I mean, this is really odd – Ashley says to The Chronic suck my d*ck and they say OK, and turn around so we can kiss your ars* as well.

115. haha indeed i read they are a 2nd division club he will light turkey alight! well at least he lives on through his brother who is equally average.

116. Aye I missed that at first, Dokky. I thought they were in the middle of the top division. You don’t seem to be a big Ameobi fan then.

     GS, I don’t know what’s going on, I’m losing hope in Newcastle United and I’m not even talking about Pardew, how we do next season etc, it just seems to be nastier than ever and Ashley has the fans at each other.

117. GS says:
     August 13, 2014 at 5:10 pm

     “I don’t get why The Chronic have gone all pro NUFC and Pardew all of a sudden.”

     Certainly Lee Ryder seems to be, GS.

     “Ashley says to The Chronic suck my d*ck and they say OK, and turn around so we can kiss your ars* as well.”

     I think the d*ck sucking is still a public domain thing but you have to be an accredited ‘NUFC Media Partner’ for the mutual ars* kissing :)

118. Has there been a secret deal where they have been allowed to suck Ashley’s cock again?

119. We’ll probably find out on Sunday afternoon, worky, when the gentleman from the Chronic gets up to asks P4due what went wrong. See if he gets an answer.

     It’ll be nice if we get off to a good start, but Citeh will be looking to put the Charity Shield behind them. They weren’t very good. I’m sure they’ll be much better against us.

120. Man City didn’t take the Charity Shield very seriously. Arsenal still rested some players but they took it a bit more seriously than Man City did. Too many of the fans are already kissing his arse again.

121. Its a topsy turvy world at SJP. Obertan is now OK and the unofficial media spokesman and mascot, Steven Taylor, is up for sale but wont go. It appears we are stalling on signing a much needed forward and center back because of the contract situations of 3 players – Taylor, ben Arfa and Jonas.

     It is a strange way to run a club with the lawyers and accountants taking precedence over football, and players being favourites of the manager one minute and outcasts the next. There were stories that ben Arfa only became the enemy when he refused to sign a new lower paid deal.

122. Worky: I watched the Charity Shield and City were very unlucky not to score a couple. I hope I am wrong, but I expect them to be encamped in our half on Sunday.

123. This was scrping the barrel a bit, Stewart Rayner in the Chronic invoking the deaths of John Alder and Liam Sweeney in some kind of plea for Pardew and Ashley, and why we should be excited about the forthcoming season. Whatever intepretation I or anyone else might put on it though, I just don’t think you should put those things together, or is it just me?

     “The club and its manager remain alienated from its fans. Their refusal to take cup football seriously is a major issue unlikely to be resolved.

     “But the reaction to the deaths of John Alder and Liam Sweeney over the Ukraine as a plea as they flew to New Zealand to watch their team in pre-season has bonded a club divided by the walk-outs and protest matches of the previous campaign. The tragedy was a timely reminder of priorities.

     “And at least owner Mike Ashley has been prepared to reinvest some of the vast amounts of money he has creamed off his club. In an ideal world Newcastle would be treated to a steady stream of investment rather than shopping sprees a window too late, but this transfer window feels more positive as a result.”

     http://www.thejournal.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-cause-excitement-after-7610409

124. Worky: its a double edged sword isn’t it. Paying tribute whilst furthering your cause. We see it so often with the military, and I think especially in the USA. I can’t count the number of ads that pay tribute to the troops with a paltry donation in order to sell cars, beer, insurance and even a five hour energy drink. Guinness has a particularly egregious example.

     I am not really accusing NUFC of doing this with their tributes, but I certainly wouldn’t say that the fans’ deaths have caused any healing between factions. What we are seeing is the usual optimism at the start of a season after a few seasons. Equating the two is a stretch, but as I mention above PR and advertisers do it all the time.

125. optimism after a few signings (not seasons) is what I meant to say.

126. Also, I don’t think I meant double edged sword. I mean they know what they are doing when they pay tribute, there is a hidden agenda sometimes and this is especially apparent when this technique is used in advertising. Again, I am not saying NUFC are being as bold faced about it here, but I don’t see the “healing” connection that Stuart Raynor made up.

127. GS, do you remember this one from Llambias, where he used the fresh corpse of Gary Speed to beat Joey Barton after Barton spilled the beans on the gruesome twosome?

     “In a week when one of Newcastle United’s most beloved footballers passed away, it is disappointing that once again Joey Barton makes the headlines.

     “It is also unfortunate that Joey chose to draw such a disparaging comparison between himself and the employees of Sports Direct, who through hard work and dedication are the recipients of one of the most generous bonus schemes in UK retailing.

     “It may not be a lot of money to Joey, but over 2,000 Sports Direct employees earning £20,000 will receive shares worth over £44,000 over the next two years.

     “However, in this week of all weeks, we really do not wish to engage in a public war of words with Joey Barton.”

     ‘Our legal advisors are dealing with the matter now and we would encourage Joey to concentrate on his football at Queens Park Rangers.

     ‘Our thoughts and attentions this week remain firmly with the family and friends of Gary Speed.’

     The bits about not wanting to get into a war of words and about Sports Direct employees is beyond parody.

128. GS, did you know that the Police are even investigating Cliff now about an alleged interlude with an under sixteen year old at a Billy Graham gig in the eighties? They turned over his Penthouse in Sunningdale today but he wasn’t there.

129. What are they looking for 20 years later? They must have had a tip off about pictures or videos. I hope it is not true.

     The bad mimics of the 70’s and 80’s have lost most of their material with Jimmy and Rolf. Please, not Sir Cliff as well.

130. GS, more like 30 years. Someone made an allegation according to the Police.

     One controversy within the controversy is that someone from the investigation tipped off the media that they were going to do a deep search of his house. They were all there waiting. I don’t know what you heard over there about the the investigations of the media over here with the phonetapping and so on, but one of the things that emerged was the Police’s questionable relationship with the media, including stuff like this.

131. workyticket says:
     August 15, 2014 at 10:32 am

     “One controversy within the controversy is that someone from the investigation tipped off the media that they were going to do a deep search of his house. They were all there waiting.”

     That made my blood boil, as it always does when this happens (the press being tipped off by police).

     The Thames Valley Police released a statement saying they didn’t alert the press prior to the search – obviously pointing the finger at South Yorks Police. South Yorks statement sounds like a right old load of b0llocks, basically denying any tip-off but congratulating themselves for turning up with the BBC (whose news helicopter apparently showed up before anyone else):

     “Since the search took place a number of people have contacted the police to provide information and we must acknowledge that the media played a part in that, for which we are grateful.”

     http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11037386/More-people-contact-police-after-Sir-Cliff-Richards-home-searched.html

     What an inept and utterly corrupt cunch of bunts. When it comes to the police and the judiciary, England and Wales (at least) is turning into a third-world country.

132. When the cops raided Harry Redknapp’s house in relation to income tax issues, they came at dawn and brought half of bloody Fleet Street with them. Frightened the life out of his poor missus who was on her own at the time.

     http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2299228/Police-raid-on-Harry-Redknapp-unlawful.html

     Why were the press tipped off and who got paid? Shouldn’t we be asking that question every time this happens?

133. They are only supposed to tell the press if the public at large are in imminent danger. Mind you, so long as Cliff is free, we’re all in imminent danger of him releasing a record. He should’ve been locked up 14 years ago for the Millennium Prayer.

     Tony Blair was obsessed with being seen to be more tough on crime than the right, so he just said yes to everything the police asked. Of course though, if you say yes to everything the Police ask, you end up with a Police State.

134. @133: like in St Louis. The pictures of snipers with guns pointed at a peaceful demonstration were perhaps a watershed moment. Who knows, they even let armed militia men roam the border instead of locking them up as vigilantes. The priorities are totally f@cked up over here as well.

135. Worky: I had never heard of Millennium Prayer but looked up Sir Cliff’s body of work to remind me of why he got the knighthood. It is a pile of utter dross. He must have got it for his charity work or being the housewives favourite. I am not saying he is guilty, but the housewives of the 70’s and 80’s didn’t seem make very good choices when it came to their entertainers.

136. “Mistletoe and Wine” too, the bastard should have been shot for that one. I liked his first ever record, “Move It” though.

     Think back to the seventies and Punk and such. It wasn’t as it was remebered now, the charts were still full of bloody awful novelty records, Saturday Night fever, stuff like Cliff etc which was only punctuated by moments of brilliance.

     The 70s was a different time in terms of underage sex, just as it was in ancient Greece. Once people started digging and applying justice retropectively, it wasn’t going to end for a long time.

137. No preview Worky? I see in the Chronic that it was Cabaye’s fault that we lost to Citeh last year. In the same interview Pards said that the lack of players cost us last year but that Mike always backs him and has given him the tools to do the job this year (funny that he cant see any irony in his words). That comment may come back to haunt him but I bet if we lose it will be another specter that will be the excuse, the injury to the ghost of Teddy Sherringham.

138. No preview I’m afraid. There are lots of those all over the place and if I started writing again, I don’t know if I’d do them anyway, they’re not worth it.

     When the police tipped off the media that they were searching Cliff Richards’ house, the BBC sent used taxpayers’ money to send a helicopter to hover over Cliff’s penthouse and get the best shots of the search. Paedophilia is very good for viewing figures.

     “I am not saying he is guilty, but the housewives of the 70′s and 80′s didn’t seem make very good choices when it came to their entertainers.”

     Even John Peel was brought into the current witch hunt when he was alleged of having a three month relationship with a 15 year girl, making her pregnant and giving her VD after they met at a Black Sabbath concert in 1969. The police and the media have worked very closely together on ‘paedogeddon’ because it’s good business for both of them.

     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2216453/John-Peel-got-pregnant-I-15-Woman-claims-month-affair-DJ.html

139. @138: no preview, but a prediction? I watched Man U, they were terrible. Watching Spurs, they are terrible.

140. GS says:
     August 16, 2014 at 4:49 pm

     “@138: no preview, but a prediction?”

     I think Man City might edge it, GS. How about a prediction for the next entertainer to get a knock on his door from a Police squad? Sir Tony Blackburn? Sir Terry Wogan? Sir Bruce Forsyth?

     On Man U, I didn’t see the game but it wouldn’t shock me if they were a bit dodgy in their first few games with van Gaal.

141. Dame Judy Dench?

142. It is actually quite weird that these entertainers were hiding in plain sight and that nobody said anything. People can point to it happening in Greece and Rome but kiddy fiddling was still horrible then if you ask me.

     We are being flippant about it. I said Judy Dench for fun but I hope Sir Terrance of Wogan etc. weren’t really up to it as well. Abuse of power with children is such a horrible thing.

143. You know that fatty will be a Sir soon? They gave Sir Terrance Trent Darby (Fred Goodwin) a knighthood about a week after becoming chairman of RBS, why not fatty? Every ICI chairman got a “Sir”.

144. Lord Sugar :)

145. GS says:
     August 16, 2014 at 7:48 pm

     “People can point to it happening in Greece and Rome but kiddy fiddling was still horrible then if you ask me.”

     We could do with tunyc for the best insight into the ancient world. I know that Pederasty in ancient Athens was with pubescent boys from around twelve to seventeen, it was also a kind of mentor / mentee, teacher / pupil relationship, which had to have the full permission of the boy’s father. It should also be remebered that people passed into adulthood much earlier in those days. Girls would be married when they were about the same age too.

     Back in the seventies you used to get Paedophile porn from the Scandinavian countries as it was legal in Sweden and in Denmark too. ‘Color Climax’ was a dirty Danish film purveyor who put out a fair bit. There is even child porn in the Swedish National Library according to this story from 2009.

     http://www.icenews.is/2009/01/29/child-pornography-in-swedish-national-library/

146. Lord Coe :) The thing about him was that his shorts were so, well, short … and his c@ck still didn’t fall out. I don’t think he has one.

147. GS says:
     August 16, 2014 at 8:13 pm

     “Lord Sugar :)”

     He sounds like a coke dealing pimp from a 70s ‘Blaxploitation’ movie. He should wear a big white fedora and have a purple seventies American limo instead of a Rolls Royce.

148. I don’t think fatty will get a knighthood, he isn’t the right kind of crook.

149. Sir Elton John !!! So I wouldn’t doubt it. Everybody is their kind of crook, by the way.

150. Dirty old goat Sir Mick Jagger wrote an extremely lewd and detailed ditty about shagging a 15 year old for the album ‘Beggars Banquet.’ It’s a classic and they still play it, or they did in 2009 anyway.

151. Well it’s the big day today. Pardew has talked about the need to “throw some equations” at the big teams, but WTF does that mean?

152. He said we have 2 wingers on the bench so he will have the ability to change tactics. Oh no, he’s going to try to do tactics. Why not just keep it simple and not pick Dummett.

153. You know Jimmy Page supposedly kidnapped a 15 year old and held her captive for months (I read it in a Guardian article about despicable stuff you don’t know about the rich and famous).

154. Well to be fair, we’re not doing too badly so far. I haven’t seen quite as many C*nts Direct adverts as usual too.

155. Well we didn’t do too badly there even if we are losing by a goal.

156. I can’t really complain so far. This is exactly what I expected. Every time we have played City recently they have beat us without getting out of second gear.

     Cabella is the new king of the stepovers.

157. How the hell did Fiorentina get Mario Gomez? There are players out there we could get if only we showed a bit more ambition.

158. There are alot of ads for “soccerscene.com” in this game. Guess who owns soccerscene.com?

159. Well I couldn’t complain about that performance really.

160. I am not sure what to make of that, we looked OK. We need a goalscorer or maybe de Jong will be able to provide some support up front. Pardew did bring on the wingers which at least was a positive move.

161. I talked to me Mam and she said she always thought Sir Cliff was a “bit dodgy”. So there’s the take from a 71 year old Geordie grandmother :)

162. And after 1 game – Cabella farts around on the ball as much as ben Arfa and doesn’t track back. So, we bought another ben Arfa, why didn’t we just play the first one?

163. GS, did she say that about Cliff before his place was searched?

     On Cabella I think he did defend a bit to be honest. Monaco Riviera was a bit like an overenthuastic puppy.

164. to be honest i never expected nothing from that game and was we actually seemed pretty good, cant complain with that. riviere looked nervous we need a striker or 2

165. Worky @163, funnily enough she did. Not about going after kids, more the “confirmed bachelor” being a euphemism.

     Cliff can be as big of a puff as he wants, I am much more worried about his evangelical side and statements.

166. It is the press though Worky. They know about the Jimmy Savile stuff for years and then when it comes to light they act like they didn’t. It must be some sort of code that the Daily Mail and Sun editors have to not disparage their same types.

167. I know today’s game was against the defending champions but i wasn’t that impressed to be honest.
     No one expected Newcastle to beat Man City so they didn’t have anything to lose.
     After Pardew’s constant clap trap about playing attacking football it was a case of After The Lord Mayors Show!
     I would have rather them have a right go at City from the off but it just didn’t happen.
     We could have lost four nil having a go rather than try and contain them, And have a go at them for the last ten minutes and still end up losing the game.

     The most disappointing thing for me was City looked leggy but were able to dictate the pace of the game.
     We gave them far too much respect and sat deep and tried Pardew’s typical contain and counter attack.
     The game was played at a snails pace and Newcastle just didn’t up the ante in the first half.
     After the shameful second half of last season the players owed the fans but it was similar to what was served up last season.
     Pardew as usual couldn’t lift his side from the start and we were treated to the similar languid one paced disjointed nothingness that is his hallmark.
     Nothing has changed in my opinion and i can see only trouble ahead.

     Colback looked tidy in the middle.

     I have no idea of the role Sissoko is supposed to be playing but it doesn’t work.

     Riviere is no way a 20 goal a season man and i can see trouble there because Pardew will have little to no idea how to use him.
     I noticed that Krul was starting to knock it longer in the second half but that kind of service is never going to produce anything for Riviere.
     I know Remy is a mercenary but they could have done with someone like him today.
     They still need another striker to play with Riviere or i can see him becoming a non entity in this team.

     Cabella looks like a skinny version of Hatem Ben Arfa and gives you more or less the same sort of game as he does.
     He looks like another luxury player so i think Pardew is trying to con people there.
     Not saying the lad is a bad player but you have Ben Arfa sitting on his backside doing nothing whilst they spend 12 million on him.

     Janmaat looked the part and was calm and assured.

     The defence has to be the biggest worry because the first goal today can off a long ball up the middle which Dzecko back heeled and took four of them out of the game for Silva to slip in without to much fuss!
     Ayoze Perez was unlucky with his effort but he seems to have pace to burn which you need in this League.

     Pardew was trying to take the positives as expected and thought his side was the better but i have to disagree with him.
     In all honesty i think a lot of people are glad we didn’t get pummelled by them and will take the 2-0, And valiant loser title.
     We have become accustomed to Newcastle being able to give the so called big boys a game.
     It seems to be the bread and butter games that they tend not to do well in.
     I think the French lads come here to play the Chelsea’s, Liverpool’s etc but balk when they have to get physical with the Stoke City’s and Leicester’s of English Football.

     So it is going to come down to Villa away again for Pardew to save his backside.
     Can he luck out and get the result three years in a row?
     They took the 3 points at The Britannia and that is no mean feat.
     If they lose to Villa then the pressure will be on and the game against managerless Palace will become a must win game!
     Pardew reckons he has learned from his mistakes but i don’t think he has and is incapable of change.
     Being kind to him i can only see his getting 7 points from a possible 18 in the first six matches.
     So it will be an interesting time to say the least.

168. Margaret Thatcher had some really nice friends. She was Pinochet’s best mate and gave Jimmy Savile the keys to Broadmoor via Edwina Currie. A totally unqualified man was allowed to have a major position at Britain’s most famous high security mental institution. He even admitted improper sexual relationships in his autobiography, but no-one seemed to notice at the time.

     In 1978, Johnny Rotten told Radio One:

     “I’d like to kill Jimmy Savile; I think he’s a hypocrite. I bet he’s into all kinds of seediness that we all know about, but are not allowed to talk about. I know some rumours. I bet none of this will be allowed out.”

     It wasn’t allowed out.

169. Joe @ 167, you will see I agree with you as I said @162. Pards had a bit more respect for a better manager today, what did he call him last year, an “old cnut”?

     We have about 2 weeks left to get a goalscorer, otherwise we have to get used to scoring nil each week and hoping for 37 nil – nil draws. We might just be ahead of shite like Burnley, Leicester, QPR and Palace.

170. Joe @ 167 – 7 points from 6 games will probably keep him his job though. They are shooting for 48 points FFS. Average is the new normal for NUFC.

171. GS, I’m just putting that out there for his first six games and what i think he might get.
     Whether or not that is acceptable for other fans i don’t know.
     I haven’t got a clue what he might accrue after that but it might be enough for fans to start getting at him again and he could lose the plot.

     He was making similar noises after the game about him being happy with what he’s got so that could mean no more recruits which would be a huge mistake imo
     They could definitely do with a target man who will make the ball stick up top.

172. He’s off again with his usual garbage in asking patience from the fans.
     He reckons you should not judge him until November, Do you ever get the feeling that you have heard something before?
     Fair enough it was Man City yesterday but the brass tacks of it show yet another defeat on the record of Pardew.

     I know most will say it is early days but i think the fans are being conned again by this chancer.
     I’m never going to be a Rocket Scientist but i will not have the intelligence i do have being insulted by this moron!
     “Our Fans Are Good Judges And They Have Seen Enough To See We Can Have A Good Season”
     All he is doing again is typical Pardew trying to curry favour and begging the fan base to leave him alone.

     The fans should not let this ingrate of the hook and let him walk away from last seasons debacle!

173. Joe, we’ve had nearly four years to judge Pardew now, isn’t that enough?

174. Joe
     Don’t know. which game you saw, but it certainly wasn’t the one I watched.
     There was both pace and organisation than I haven’t seen in years and Citeh were never allowed time on the ball.
     Look there’s no greater critic of Pardew than myself, but yesterday’s game certainly was nothing to be ashamed of, with the crowd continually on their side cheering every effort.
     The game could have easily ended in a draw, and neither side had that many opportunities to score.
     Face it until proven otherwise Citeh are the best side in the league,but were given a serious test by a side recently throw to-gether.
     As for Cabella, it’s obvious he is a flair player who can both score pass and track back, whereas Rivière has both pace and strength up front.
     We still lack a midfield general, perhaps DeJong can fill that role, it should be obvious to all Sissoko must be utilised as a box to box midfielder, plus imagine having players on the bench like HBA, the new Obertan,our 19 yr old winger who has pace to burn, plus having Tiote in front of the back line, there is both a lot of pace (which we have to utilise) and skills available.
     Too bad we don’t have an adequate manager to get the best out of them.

175. Personally, I think Pardew has a point. We fielded half a dozen players (if you include subs) who’ve never played in the Premier League before and I think it will take time for them to settle. Furthermore, we kicked off the season against the reigning champions, which was never going to be easy.

     That said, I think he has a point only in the isolated case, if you see what I mean.

     I suspect he’ll still find a way to screw things up anyway. He’ll probably continue to use his ever-failing “contain” strategies, try and sit on one goal leads against rabid scoring sides, thus turning them into losses, and fall out with any flair player that doesn’t defend enough.

     I do however think that if he really screws things up and there’s any hint of a relegation fight he’ll get the boot this time round. Not that that will do us any good in the long run because Ashley will only employ another manager on the cheap who will be chosen for his low wage demands and pliability rather than his technical acumen and successful history.

     But, if all I’ve said is only due to me overdosing on my pessimism pills this morning and Pardew somehow squeezes us into the top eight this season, I’d say he’s achieved a position commensurate with our Premier League oomph. I don’t think top eight would be “fantastic” or anything (top six might be) but I’d say he’s done “okay.”

176. Chuck, I know what your saying but i am not buying into it!
     Yes you can give them some credit for the second half but my main gripe was the way they started the game.
     Why does this team only have a go when they are behind?
     Here’s a novel idea for them, Why don’t they play like that from the start of a game?

     They had nothing to lose and could have went for it from the kick off.
     In the end they still ended up losing the game by trying to be cagey and stay in there until the last knockings of the match.
     They might as well have been beaten by six and having a right go at them.

     Sorry lads for being cynical but i just cannot buy into this latest crap from Pardew.
     This could be the biggest false dawn in the history of false dawn’s so i will keep my stand point.

177. Worky, His words and he is off again!

     He said at the end of last season he would have to build a side which was full of established players who could hit the ground running “For The Fans”.
     What has happened though is players brought in who you have no idea whether they can cut it in The Premier League or not.
     Fast forward 3 months and now he is asking for more time for his new players which is fair enough but he has been caught out lying again!

     I’m just sick and tired of the whole souless lacking in identity this club has become.
     What atmosphere was there yesterday?, Very little imo and they should change the name of the stadium to “The City Library”.
     All i could here was the chants of the City fans apart from the tributes to the two lads who were killed in the crash!
     The City fans out sung us for most of the game ffs!

     My uncle who has been a die hard for years has now thrown his ticket in and will now only concentrate on the local non league scene.
     I mentioned Newcastle to him the other day and he stopped me in mid sentence and said, “I Honestly Couldn’t Give A F**k About Them”!
     Ashley has more or less killed Newcastle United in my family to the point where we do not want to hear about them anymore.
     I am basically on the verge of cutting all ties with them altogether!

178. sorry typo

179. Joe: for once I think the silver pox got the tactics right. If we had gone for it and got slaughtered it would have been so negative for the next 7 winnable games.

     If you think about it, none of our players would make it into the City starting eleven, so we did OK to almost hold our own.

     Still, I am not listening to Pardew’s blather. We have lost 8 of the last 9. It is good that we freshened up the side, but why not the coaching staff? If the local chip shop had served up 8 greasy, undercooked savaloy and chips out of the last 9 you would expect somebody to get the sack.

180. Chuck, don’t you ever give up?

     Rangers fans are worried that if Mike Ashley increases his stake in Rangers, they would be banned from European competition under UEFA rules, but wouldn’t that be the same for Newcastle too?

     http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11788/9428155/scottish-championship-rangers-fans-wary-of-mike-ashley-underwriting-share-issue

181. Do politicians not understand irony? The Missouri Governor says that Police using military tactics in Ferguson exacerbates the situation. What does he do next, brings in the actual military (National Guard).

182. Even on this side of the pond, you don’t have to be Einstein to know that cops in Missouri are going to be violent racists.

183. In case we get excited about a 2-0 loss as Pards seems to be doing, here are our last 9 results, starting with yesterday:

     0-2 L
     1-2 L
     3-0 W
     0-3 L
     1-2 L
     0-1 L
     0-4 L
     0-4 L
     0-3 L

     You don’t get points for moral victories and Pards just seems happy we didn’t get hammered.

184. I looked back at what I wrote about the match and I may seem like I am being contradictory. I think that is a function of how low my expectations are under Pardew. I am actually OK that we didn’t go 9-0-1 and didn’t ship another 4 goals. Sad, really.

185. We didn’t have one shot on target, except for maybe one which was deflected over a Man City players leg.

186. I have watched a few matches from this weekend and us and Ars* seem to be wearing skin tight shirts (I think it is a Puma thing). Hopefully this trend will not spread to Refs and the middle age spread of Mark Halsey and Jonathan Moss.

187. And Jack Wilshere is probably the most overrated footballer in history! Oh maybe not, that would be Amdy Faye. But, Jack the lad is made of fine China and falls over at the touch of a butterfly’s wing.

188. GS, the very tight shirts aren’t just fashion, they are harder to pull too.

     What about Phil Dowd?

189. @188 Cheers, I never thought of that. Skrtel makes a living pulling players’ shirts in the box and never being called for it. It makes a lot of sense, I always thought the rugby players were just showing off their massive physiques but if they aren’t pulled back as much it makes the game flow better.

190. Aye the really tight shirts appeared in Rugby first.

191. And Worky, why have you changed your avatar to a picture of Chuck?

192. OK, I am watching the Ars* again because I lived in Islington and want to keep an eye on my good buddy Jack. I had to turn the commentary down because of Alan Smith. Why do him and Roy and others have that strange affectation where they cannot pronounce an R? I have lived in the US for 24 years and not a single non-English person has that (except Elmer Fudd, and he was a cartoon character). They have accents and drawls.

     Why cant Alan Smith just sit down with a tape of himself and say, right, today I will say the letter R correctly and not p*ss off GS on Worky’s blog?

193. BTW, at 32 minutes against Basiktas Jack has managed a few back passes and knocked it out of play once. He has done a fair bit of pointing as he is supposed to be a midfield general. I swear he is the new Butch Wilkins except he does even more square passes.

     Sorry if I am dwelling on Jack, but nobody else is on here so WTF.

194. Alright Alan and Roy, it is R as in are, it is not too difficult. It is not “vrw”. Lets try it in a sentence -around the ragged rock the ragged rascal ran.

     No, no, no Alan. It is not – avound, the vwaged vwock the vwraged vascal vran.

195. Wilshere keeps getting injured though, and now he has Ramsey to deal with.

196. Worky: that’s why I said he is bone china that gets knocked over by a butterfly wing. I have watched him today to make sure I am not jumping to conclusions about how bad he is. He is total shite, all he did was the Butch Wilkins passes and a lot of pointing.

197. GS, on the subject of the Butch Wilkins generation, there’s been talk of Glenn Oddle returning to management, either replacing Harry Redknapp at QPR next season (from ‘Arry himself), as manager of Crystal Palace, or even England again when Roy Hodgson goes.

198. GS, the not being able to pronounce your Rs is called a ‘Rhoticism.’

199. @198: So it is an actual affliction not an affectation? It just seems so easily fixable.

200. Actually, I didn’t spell it quite correctly there, it’s ‘RhotAcism.’ As well as his famous stammer, King George VI also had a rhotacism. I’m not an expert at all but I’ve always thought of it as a condition rather than an affectation.

201. Worky
     If I’m supposedly banned, then why Iam I allowed on the blog anytime I wish, looks to me like you need commenters desperately, regardless of the content.
     Plus I’m sure all three other commenters are highly impressed with that historical reference to HRM George no. Six, suffered from both a stammer & RhotAcism.
     It’ information like this, plus an insiders look at sexual deviates that are essential for a good football blog.

202. @201 it is related to football because I was asking about a football commentator. It is certainly more applicable to a football blog than the Mau Mau. Anyway, this blog has always gone off on tangents, many of them contributed to by you, so I don’t know what you are complaining about.

     Anyway, is it Tiote out and Sinclair in, or Sissoko now to the middle? It wouldn’t surprise me as we seem to have a zero net transfer policy which includes wages.

     I watched the City match again and Pardew didn’t chase the game or go into his shell and we played very well in the second half. I hope this means that his survival instincts are kicking in as he surely must know that he will be sacked if we continue like last season. Palace and Villa, if we go a goal up, will tell if this leopard has changed his spots. I doubt it is possible though, as the d*ckishness displayed by @201 shows a leopard rarely changes his spots.

203. And C: why don’t you just be nice for once. Making snide comments is not about football you know, but you never see the irony in what you say. How about some insults about me being high, or drunk or lying? That would be about football. UUrrggghhh.

204. GS, I let his last comment but one go because it was the only one which didn’t contain some kind of insult(s), he couldn’t keep it down for long though. I don’t know why he goes to all the effort if he dislikes everyone so much.

205. Some random thoughts loosely related to football (since nobody else is commenting):

     * wouldn’t it be good to be Alan Shearer? Get paid lots of money to watch football and comment on it for 2 hours a week. Some people lead a charmed life of doing f all and playing golf.

     * banter should be banned. It seems that it is an excuse to be a w@nker, made by w@nker types like Rio and ‘Arry. The word “banter” should also be banned.

     * Balotelli and Brendan, like that’s not going to end in tears?

     * Chuck’s a bit of a c@nt, I really don’t get the antagonistic attitude. I actually don’t get how he still has all of his teeth, as if he acted that way is most bars he would have been punched in the mouth a lot of times.

     * We have the two Robbies as commentators over here (Earle and Mustoe). The best export Britain ever made because watching wood warp would be more exciting than these 2.

     * Luckily, Steve McScouse was sent home, can you take Arlo White back as well? He is one of these new school commentators who have to tell me that Man City have won 34% of the games against the toon since they were founded in 1894.

     * Did I mention Chuck is a bit of a c@nt?

206. Are we playing in those dreadful grey kits tomorrow?

207. Good to see you on here again maze. I don’t know about the shirt, but I recall that Manchester United once banned a shirt in a similar shade of grey because the players said that they couldn’t pick each other out, so that’s another excuse Pardew can add to his portfolio if we wear it and get beaten by Villa.

208. One point against the mighty Aston Villa who had a lot of their players out today.
     2 games in and not a goal scored but Pardew reckons his team is full of goals.
     Siem De Jong went close towards the end but it was straight at Guzan in all fairness.

     Williamson was sent of for two yellow cards and that was basically it after Newcastle had the lions share of possession with Villa happy to counter attack Newcastle, In the second half.

     I suppose it was a point but Newcastle will never get a better chance to get three against a side who were missing two goal scorers from there first team.
     They looked poor Villa but Newcastle also looked like an abjectly poor side who were devoid of any ideas!

     Not much in this one and it was a cure for insomnia though i expect nothing more from an Alan Pardew team!

209. that was utter tosh! bring back shola lol

210. Joe: it wasn’t that bad. On this evidence Villa will struggle much more than us. It will be good to get Cisse back as I don’t think he is a bad player, just is streaky.

     There was the comedy moment when big Mike tried to break his scoring duck – 134 games now I think.

     Roy Keane just needs an aran jumper and he can start selling Findus fish fingers and saying Yar Matey.

     It is possible that we just played one of the relegation teams with another one coming up. We have to stuff Palace, and who knows we may have a new striker by then.

211. On a positive note, we took the game to them and at no point did they have a sustained period of possession – which is very unusual in away games.

     We are probably upper mid-table and it is far better than the cr@p served up at the tail end of last season. I just couldn’t get through a post without mentioning HBA :) He would have won that game for us today as a 2nd half sub, the way Villa were backing off.

     We had the Waddler commentating over here and he was insightful and funny.

     I am surprised that they are advertising for Pukka Pies at Villa Park as it looks like Darren Bent is consuming all of their inventory by himself.

212. GS, That is the point though!
     Villa will struggle this season no doubt about that but what does that say about us?
     We couldn’t take 3 points against a side that were there for the taking.
     They had two strikers missing for a start and it could have been a lot different if Benteke had been playing.
     We we under no pressure at the back and had nigh on a full squad to pick from.
     All Pardew’s jabber about us being in good shape and having a good window etc is absolute crap!

     We huffed and puffed against a side that were down to their bare bones and we couldn’t do anything with them.
     It was inevitable that it was going to happen after everyone’s excitement at getting beaten by City.
     This is a team managed by Alan Pardew so nothing is going to change until he is relieved of duty.
     The Palace game will be exactly the same and they took us all the way to injury time last season before we got a goal.
     Pardew cannot do it week in week out against our so called peer teams.
     The only thing you get from Pardew is the odd win against the big boys.

213. Pardew promised us exciting, Cavalier football in the manner of Keegan’s ‘Entertainers’ this season with all the new attacking talent; the project seems to have been delayed so far though.

214. The most overused phrase in the English language is “think outside the box”. Mediocre Managers and Celebrity Chefs use it all the time. I bet most are not even aware that it comes from a matchstick puzzle.

     How does this relate to NUFC? Well, Pardew and his coaches are not good enough to be looking for innovation. They should be thinking “inside the box” if this is even a phrase. I assume they have coaching badges and should be aware of the formations and tactics that have been used to win games. They should be stealing from the great innovators of football, or maybe even employ one as a consultant.

     Our set plays are an example. How can we be so shite at them regardless of personnel? Just steal from other teams’ playbooks FFS and mix it up a bit. Don’t just lump it up to Williamson to knock down whilst Coloccini waits on the half way line for the counter. This is an example of our clubs rigid thinking and the ineptitude of our coaches. There must be millions of hours of video to look at to get set play ideas and our lot seem to have one tactic.

     To use another cliche, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Learn from what others have done. COPY THEM, it cant be any worse than we are doing now.

215. We did have a short corner on Saturday which really shocked me :)

216. I mean, what I would do is bring in an old, just retired successful manager for a weeks coaching and strategy during international breaks. They are probably a bit bored watching Dutch or German Jeopardy and would jump at the chance of getting away from the wife for a week. Juup Heynkes and Ottmar Hitzfeld come to mind. Pardew shouldn’t be threatened as he could easily spin it that he is learning from a master and they wouldn’t be threatening his job. And to use another cliche he could say that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

217. And @216: that is not thinking outside the box. Kung Fu, Star Wars and even The Karate Kid did it.

218. That Photograph of Gazza is shocking!
     He looks like one of the aliens from the film “Fire In The Sky”.
     Gaza is in better shape than Gazza and that is saying something!
     It looks like we are going to lose another wayward genius like George Best and the many others of the “Self D

219. Ironically, the kind of people who can’t stop using trite cliches like thinking outside the box are usually the ones who have the most trouble doing that. One of the most annoying ones over here currently is the Ronseal advertising slogan “It does exactly what it says on the tin.” David Cameron likes that one.

220. “Self Destruction Brigade”, Hit the wrong button.

221. joe hawkins says:
     August 25, 2014 at 11:04 am

     “That Photograph of Gazza is shocking!
     “He looks like one of the aliens from the film “Fire In The Sky”.
     “Gaza is in better shape than Gazza and that is saying something!”

     Joe, I haven’t seen them, though I’m not shocked that there are shocking pictures of Gazza, sadly.

222. On Gazza: I saw something that he had been using botox as well. It could be just tabloid shite, but that always gives people a strange look to their face.

223. Worky: a lot of stuff doesn’t do what it says on the tin. For example, the tin of “delicious” Heinz Ravioli when I was a kid made the dog f@rt summink rotten after he was given the leftovers. Maybe Politicians should consider unintended consequences more.

224. And Joe, since you mentioned Gaza/Middle East – leaving 10’s of billions of dollars of US military equipment in Iraq wasn’t going to be a problem? A blind man, with a mole for his guide could have seen that coming.

     A thousand years plus of religious nuttery and now all these new toys to play with. It wasn’t like there was any f#cking history of them blowing stuff up – embassies, US warships, car bombs, shoe bombs, airplanes, suicide children…

225. GS, countries like Iran, Iraq and Palestine were very secular until recently, and still would be if it wasn’t for the malignant influence of the US and Israel.

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

     What are suicide children, GS?

226. Worky: the suicide bombers who are very young and have been indoctrinated to blow themselves and others up for a cause. I should have said child suicide bombers, that’s much more of a generally used term.

227. GS, have you been watching alot of Fox News recently?

228. any links for the game tonight worky? i cant see any

229. @227: They are batsh@t crazy and quite a few actually believe their radical talk. I see some clips on Jon Stewart but can’t watch their propaganda for more than about 2 minutes.

230. dokky says:
     August 26, 2014 at 7:04 pm

     “any links for the game tonight worky? i cant see any”

     I had a look earlier and didn’t see anything, Dokky. There was just Man utd vs MK Dons and Southampton vs Millwall.

231. thats all i got too gonna watch the celtic game i reckon

232. Live stream on youtube allegedly, but it isn’t working:

233. cheers mate not working here either tho :( good few minutes for us 1-0 up and gosling just scored lol

234. Well we are leading 1-0 so far anyway, through an own goal. I’m just listening to this.

     http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_newcastle

235. well it had to be an own goal

236. Dokky, are you listening to Radio Newcastle?

237. GS, I suppose you have the game in sensurround sound on a constant loop over there?

238. nah worky im on bet365 it just shows a little graphic of who got ball and where and on bbc live feed to see who scored

239. Cant get Radio Newcastle except if I pay for NUFC Official Site subscription. I had it for a while but now they show ALL our league games live in the US it is not worth it. For once, I don’t think the Radio Newcastle block is fatty’s doing as the BBC seem to block all radio sports (I cant get Test Match Special either).

     They have a text update from fans on the Gillingham official website which I think is from fans’ phones who are watching live.

240. Worky: they have MK Dons against some mid-table Premier team on live here. It has been pretty even so far. No NUFC.

241. Dokky, people were saying there was live streaming to Bet365 users with a balance on their account. I thought they were just lying to get some commission though. They obviously were!

242. MK Dons lead.

243. Aye GS, you can watch Man U and Southampton, but there’s no Newcastle. Maybe Ashley has clamped down to stop fans seeing it, or Newcastle United are so boring now no one wanted to cover it on TV?

244. I know this is NUFC not MUFC but it would be a big upset for MK Dons. Man U have De Gea, Evans, Anderson, Kigawa, Welbeck, Hernandez and Januzaj. It is not like they are playing only their kids.

245. nah worky they stream every game in french german leagues in HD too depending on internet speed they don’t show any english ones tho, i got well into ice hockey thanks to that it worth it really only need 1p in account to stream

246. Why are we playing in the Second round? Haven’t we entered later in other years?

247. @GS Probably to try get people to care about the milky carling coca cola thingy

248. GS, we entered in the third round when we were in Europe. When you’re in the Premiership it’s second round and if you are in europe as well, it’s third. Hence, we have Man U in the second round for the first time in a long time.

249. MK Dons 3, Man U 0

     Plus there was a definite penalty turned down.

250. One of Pardew’s big tasks this season is to turn Mapou Yanga Mbiwa around and hope he just had a rocky first season in the Premiership. He didn’t even play him in a League Cup game against Gillingham though, he played Taylor instead.

     As someone rightly observed during the game, Newcastle United’s top scorer is now John Egan from Gillingham.

251. 4-0 this is incredible lol

252. Good that we won. I wondered about MBiwa and Tiote possibly being held back for late transfers.

     4-0 now. I occasionally read the Guardian reports and the Scouse and Mancs get into a lot of trolling.

253. lol worky you got some spammers on your site

254. Your manager walks out, your first choice is involved in a texting scandal and then you appoint… Neil Warnock. All things being equal this should be a good time to play Palace.

     Let the battle of the journeymen commence. I looked up Warnock’s playing and managerial record and it is very similar to Pardew’s. A lot of skipping about and a few fallings out and they both talk too much for their own good – a cockney banter boy and a non-plain speaking Yorkshireman.

255. Well another night of paint drying non entertainment from Fraudew’s hapless charges!
     We might have got through but the manner of the result was classic Pardew!
     Not a lot on display apart from sheer luck getting them to the next round.
     400 ans odd minutes have elapsed and Pardew’s full of goals team
     (His Words), Have failed to hit the back of the net with a legitimate goal.
     An own goal had Fraudrew waxing lyrical about his team again…
     Post game was full of Walter Mitty’s left field take on proceedings and spinning things better than Alister Campbell could ever do!
     I cannot even be bothered to get into what the clown had to say but his team couldn’t net against a side who unfurled a white flag in a 4-1 surrender to Barnsley in their previous game.

     Well Neil Warnock takes the reigns at Crystal Palace in time for the fixture at St James’ Park on Saturday.
     Like i have said previous, The only entertainment on display this season is watching Pardew dodge the bullet.

     In another riveting episode from Pardew’s “Houdini Act” could he yet surpass his own unwanted records?
     Could Warnock smash the record of turning Pardew over despite only being in the job for a short time?
     Messrs Di Canio and Poyet were able to do the feat with ease within a couple of weeks of their tenures starting.
     Could Warnock now go one better and do it within 3 or 4 days?

     According to Fraudew’s clap trap Pre-Season he has been armed again by Mike Ashley this summer.
     So far that has only amounted to some of the script from “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels:
     “Armed With What?, Errr, Bad Breath, Colourful Language, Feather Dusters”…

     On that note we wait with bated breath to see what other depths our fearless manager can plunge to in another action packed episode of “The Perils Of Pardew Pitstop” come Saturday afternoon!

256. Jack Colback’s in Roy Hodgson’s new look England squad so fatty will be rubbing his hands together with the consequent increase on value for a player who was free from Sunderland.

     Debuchy was sent off again when Arsenal played Besiktas and they had to hold on. I saw a march of Besiktas fans down here in North London before the game, they made alot of noise.

257. Too true, The cash registers will be going in his mind!
     I wonder if Fraudrew will try and take credit for his call up?

258. So you’re bit of a ‘maverick’ Pardew hater then Joe, going with ‘Fraudew’ rather than the more usual ‘P45due’ insult which is much in vogue ATM?

259. I swear I just heard Roy Hodgson refer to Jack Colback as the “Ginger Pirlo.”

260. Worky, I cannot take the credit for this one as it is another one which is doing the rounds, And has become part of the vernacular these days.
     Pardew has just as many names as Llambias went on to have!

261. Oh aye, it looks like Stoke got Chuck’s favourite, big Douglas, the big nutter who headbutts referees.

262. I liked the moniker i came up with when he first arrived but i doubt dictionaries will become required reading on Tyneside anytime soon!

     “Parvenu” describes Alan to a tee imo:

     Social Climber.

     Upstart.

     Arriviste.

     Vulgarian.

     Parvenu: A person who has suddenly risen to a higher social and economic class and has not yet gained social acceptance by others of that class.

     I think that sums Alan up in the fact he is mixing with managers who operate at Premier league Level while he has no business being there.
     Added to the fact he will never gain any acceptance by his peers in any meaningful level.

263. I think even Ashley got confused while looking for a new manager when Pardew’s name was mentioned.
     He phoned the Donkey Sanctuary because he though he could pay £ 2.00 per month!

264. typo

265. Oops! I was wrong above in my haste, Stoke have signed another player with a similar name.

     Joe, I like Parvenu too, but how many Geordies could tell you what it means without the help of a Dictionary?

266. Worky, Not many lol

     I thought it wouldn’t take long for stories popping up with Pardew involving himself in Colback’s call up.
     He even had the cheek to utter that Sunderland could take some of the credit!
     He’s saying things like i told him when he come here he would play for England, And it has come around quicker somehow implying that he himself has had something to do with it.
     He is without a doubt a shameless con man who will use any angle to steer the truth away from his poor management of the team, And latch on to anything feelgood to avert people’s attention!

     Another all too predictable tale has just appeared in “The Chronic” with Pardew being frightened of losing one of his heavy hitters towards the end of the window.
     It looks like the rotor on Ashley’s helicopter will be being primed as we speak.
     What the odds of a nice helicopter ride for Tiote and a non existant 10 to 12 bid for Loic Remy or Lacazette that comes to nothing?
     There are rumours flying around about another move for Remy so i wouldn’t put it past them for one of their “We Tried” statements come Tuesday morning!
     Lets be honest they have no chance of getting him so this looks like another nothing move to hoodwink the fans.

     Lets all get the violins ready for Pro Pardew Brigade who will want everyone to feel sorry for Alan, Because after all he has his hands tied behind his back.
     That must be why he cannot knock on Ashley’s door to ask him for money!

267. Just been catching up on some of the nonsense spouted by Pardew.

     His waxing lyrical about how Cisse is going to come good can only mean he doesn’t think we are going to get a striker in.

     With Ben Arfa still on the Naughty step, and Pardews complete lack of any Managerial ability to get him playing as he did before he was Pardewed, I think it is safe to assume Cisse is Pardews new Ronaldo.

268. Pardew will never learn with another swipe at Sunderland fans who were furious that he was trying to cut them out of Colback’s rise to the England squad, And take the credit for himself.

     He has responded to their rancour by adding fuel to the fire by saying he was never their player and they had only stolen him for a while.
     So he has set himself up for one almighty fall fall the Derby Games now.
     Another cack handed attempt to try and curry favour with Newcastle fans has backfired on this try hard yet again!
     Why doesn’t this pathetic fool just keep his stupid mouth shut!
     It’s bad enough having this trumpet heed as a manager without all the rest of his all round inane ramblings!

269. Joe.
     His Ego is such that I don’t think he is capable of “Keeping his stupid mouth shut”.

     I don’t know which is worse. His self delusion or his ego.

270. The commentators for the Villa game over here were laughing that Roy was there wondering who could he be watching as there were only 4 eligible players. They wouldn’t even speculate on who he might pick and then he picked 2, Colback and Delph.

     He hasn’t done Colback any favours with the “Ginger Pirlo”.

     There’s not much competition if Cleverly and Wilshere are it.

271. Sean Dyche is the ‘Ginger Mourinho’ and Ray Parlour was the ‘Ginger Pele’ and ‘Romford Pele’ too. I don’t think ginger versions are quite as good as the real thing though. Colback could be the ginger Paul Scholes.

272. According the Pardew he is too good to manage Crystal Palace and he should be aiming higher.
     I wouldn’t have him managing Tow Law if it was down to me!
     He really is a deluded knacker who has delusions of grandeur!
     I think i watched Star Wars too much as a kid for that one!

273. According the Pardew?
     According to Pardew i meant to type ffs!

274. Pardew’s comments about Jack Colback and Sunderland are just embarrassing (again), he was there for four years.

275. With Apologies to Bambi’s Mother for Misquoting her, but in my view if P45due can’t say anything remotely sensible, or self serving, then he should refrain from speaking at all.

276. Disillusioned Toon says:
     August 29, 2014 at 3:12 pm

     “With Apologies to Bambi’s Mother for Misquoting her…”

     I think you went into that one half cocked and without adequate fact checking, Disillusioned. I don’t think it was Bambi’s mother either, it was the rabbit, Thumper who said “If you can’t say anyhting nice, don’t say anything at all” (or something like that). :-)

277. My apologies WT. The Classics were never my forte !

278. In his press conference he is now saying that the roster is full up and they will only act if someone goes out.
     Apparently he has said he is going to stay all boring and neutral on this one!
     What a shambolic, Useless, Non entity, And no mark this tosser is!
     I cannot wait to see the back of this horrible “Sawdust Caesar”!

279. Joe: now Pardew is confusing football and baseball. The roster is full up! Send someone down to the minor leagues then (reserves).

280. And we all know it is the payroll that is full up. We have to shift someone in order to get their wages off the books because Ashley has a self imposed salary cap (another US sport term). I doubt we will even get a loan without M’Biwa or ben Arfa being loaned but their wages, and how much NUFC are willing to subsidize them, are the sticking point. I am sure most people familiar with Pardew’s prattle can read between the lines and already see this.

281. Well seen a story that spoke of Loric rejecting a bid from us. If true then PArdew is desperate.

     What I have seen this season including pre-season has been uninspiring. Worse attacking wise than last season. Loric carried us and Pardew hopes he will carry us again this season because this time he has no lack of transfer excuses which was his biggest excuse last season.

     He has bought ‘his players’ and can clearly see from the games so far that no one is stepping up to take or even create goals.

     I exposed him even when we finished 5th now he is going to expose himself as having a poor opinion on players.

282. Remy will want the Arsenal gig.

     GS, don’t they use ‘roster’ for soccer over there as well?

283. Apparently Loic Remy is having talks with Chelsea.

284. NUFC have the chance of getting a premier league player for nothing before Tuesdays deadline. He is an attacking mid-fielder who can play on either wing or off a main striker. In 86 games he has 14 goals and 18 assists. Sounds like a great deal to me considering the lack of premier league experience we have up front.

285. Worky @282: I don’t follow MLS, so I am not sure. When I do watch it, it is decent but I have Premier League, La Liga, French and Italian Leagues all live so I am spoilt for choice without MLS.

286. @284: I nicked the stats from Ed’s blog so dont blame me if they are wrong.

287. Joe, this will get you radged :-)

     http://www.utd111.co.uk/blog/2014/08/30/in-defence-of-alan-pardew-one-fans-view/

288. GS says:
     August 30, 2014 at 12:20 pm

     “NUFC have the chance of getting a premier league player for nothing before Tuesdays deadline. He is an attacking mid-fielder who can play on either wing or off a main striker. In 86 games he has 14 goals and 18 assists. Sounds like a great deal to me considering the lack of premier league experience we have up front.”

     That sounds like Hatem Ben Arfa?

289. Yup

290. You know, I bet the ben Arfa stats stack up well against Robert and even Ginola. They didn’t track back either.

     Hopefully a win today to stop my b!tching.

     Watching Man U and you really cant tell who has the 150 million pound attack and whose was assembled for 150 pence.

291. I forgot about Young and Valencia. The Man U attack is 200 million.

292. Worky, I seem to remember UTD 11 from another blog and he used to be very Anti-Ashley from what i can remember.
     He has lost the plot with that though because he reckons we play better football than we did under Hughton.
     Okay it wasn’t exactly champagne stuff with Hughton but at least there was method and application and most importantly an end product.

     Pardew plays nothing football for me and it mostly relies on staying in there with loads of luck to try and get a result.
     All he tries to do is contain teams and hit them on the counter attack which 9 times out of 10 doesn’t work.

     I always have a chuckle to myself when i see Collicini pick the ball up in the middle of the field only to see no one making a run or moving.
     He looks right then looks left and the ball goes out to the wing where the opposition just fan out and thwart them.
     The ball then goes back into the middle to Williamson or Collincini and then back to Krul who launches it up the field.
     The ball then comes straight back at them then they repeat the process.
     Sometimes they try this kind of reverse pass which hardly ever comes off to try and get the winger or forward in behind the defence.
     Along with the predictable set pieces in which Mike Williamson is the target, They still haven’t scored one in four years.
     Pardew’s response to that was: “We aint got any ‘edderer’s in there” and that was that and nothing has been done ever since.
     That sums up Pardew’s football in a nutshell and UTD 11 thinks that is acceptable ffs!

     Well i’m expecting another riveting afternoon of Pardew’s nothingness and another dire struggle to try and get the points.
     I mean they ran us close last season until a certain Hatem Ben Arfa came off the bench to put a pin point cross onto the head of Cisse.
     Even if we do get the 3 points it will be some fluke or luck involved somewhere as the football will be painful to watch as per usual!

293. Joe: I think Utd111 is playing devil’s advocate and has a guest blogger. Utd111 has been scathing of Pards in the past from what I have seen.

294. GS says:
     August 30, 2014 at 1:24 pm

     “Watching Man U and you really cant tell who has the 150 million pound attack and whose was assembled for 150 pence.”

     I was quite impressed with the Burnley right back, Kieran Trippier.

     Joe, Utd’s always radged about Cockneys, ie people from south of Scotch Corner like Pardew and Ashley.

     WTF? Crystal Palace scored.

295. what a start lol

296. I hadn’t even started to watch the game properly.

297. Hi Lads!

     Joe – I didn’t write the above article, it was one of the other lads.
     I don’t agree with what he says but he’s entitled to his opinion!
     Interesting (sad?) how many fans are supporting him in the comments….

     Cheers
     Mick(UTD111)

298. UTD111 says:
     August 30, 2014 at 3:19 pm

     “Interesting (sad?) how many fans are supporting him in the comments….”

     You’ve been invaded by Ashley fifth columnists, Mick!

299. well another OG in the books

300. I think Janmaat actually scored that one, dokky.

301. I don’t want to complain too much BUT the set pieces… You would think by the law of averages, by good luck or even God forbid something worked out on the training ground that we would be able to get it past the first man once in about the 15 we have had?

302. We’ve just scored from a set piece, GS.

303. IRON MIKE!!! HE BROKE HIS DUCK

304. FECKOFFF

305. Both teams are crap at defending set pieces.

306. Palace won the game really because Zaha was onside so it should have been 3-4.
     Pardew was made to look a numpty against a man who had been out of the game for 3 years.
     He’s actually doing worse than i thought he would because he should have beaten Palace at home.

     Palace will struggle this season no doubt but they took the slash out of us at times today and cut us to ribbons.
     You have to start worrying when you score 3 goals against one of the struggling teams and you still do not get the win.

     Ashley was watching in the stands and he has to get rid of that waste of space Pardew!

307. We have a 2 footed winger.

     Even though we didn’t deserve to win, it was hand ball on the line for Mike’s goal and the Palace player should have been sent off (actually how does that work, if you give the goal but there was an obvious foul/handball on the line for which the player would normally be sent off).

     I agree with you Worky that both teams are useless at set pieces but we had so many more. Sack all of the coaches.

     I am not sure about Cabella. Early days, but his tricks didn’t come off and he seems to lack pace.

308. It’s the fans’ fault (again) this time. Surely the Pardew must realise how much ridicule his ridiculous excuses have inspired by now? Even if he realised, I don’t think he’d be able to stop it. He’d need therapy.

     http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/alan-pardew-reckons-home-crowd-7695116

309. In that article he said we had worked on the defense during the week and maybe should have concentrated on what we are good at. Hmmm, in 5 of the last 7 league games we have shipped 3 or more goals. The man should maybe look at the facts before opening his mouth.

310. We and Pardew could be in trouble. Our next fixtures are:

     Southampton (A)
     Hull (H)
     Stoke (A)
     Swansea (A)

     We lost ALL of the corresponding fixtures last year I think. We could easily end up taking only 3 points from all of these leaving us with 5 points after 8 games and a very good chance of being in the bottom 3.

     Sack Pardew now and get a centre back and centre forward in.

311. GS, Stoke beat Man City yesterday and Swansea are joint top of the league with Chelsea. The other two aren’t doing so badly either.

     On Southampton, despite selling all their most valuable players, they have (like Everton) still overtaken Newcastle United in terms of their squad value and now have Ronald Koeman as their manager. We are now ninth, though we do have the biggest first team squad in the Premier League now with 31.

312. After today we know what we have in terms of players. BUT we can fire and hire coaches – Stone and Carver please, and a Manager! There is still hope that the fatman will come to his senses.

313. GS says:
     September 1, 2014 at 8:24 am

     “There is still hope that the fatman will come to his senses.”

     No there isn’t, Ashley won’t change. That’s just wishful thinking. If you want a vision of NUFC’s future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.

314. Waiting and wondering to see if we have 4 cr@p centre backs or if 1 goes to Roma and we only have 3.

     Is the boot stamping from “1984”? I read it like 30 years ago and that seems to ring a bell. I remember the rat cage – they used that on Game of Thrones recently.

315. Aye it was 1984, GS.

     Benny to Hull, that could be interesting.

316. What should be interesting is the ironic chants of Hatem ben Arfa next time we get beat 4-0. That will probably be soon.

     It beggars belief that we intend to get to January with our centre backs. As Worky has mentioned, if you combine the attributes of Williamson and Coloccini you would have ONE decent player, although still a bit slow. If Saturday didn’t show us that we are short in this department, I don’t know what will. Maybe bottom 3 by Christmas will?

     Sending ben Arfa to Hull is a big gamble. If he succeeds, it will cause questions to be asked about Pardew’s judgement. And for what? Saving a few quid?

     And from the very little I have seen of Cabella, be seems a slower version of ben Arfa. Pardew must have supreme self confidence to have engineered this situation.

317. Aye, if Ben Arfa is a big success at Hull, that will make Pardew look daft and Bruce look good (if anyhing can make Bruce look good with a boat race like his).

318. So we were desperate for a CB so we loan one of ours out and now loan out our best player. This club baffles me. Another season of nothing and endless crap and rubbish from Pardwho then.

319. Looking good Pards, looking good!!! We have 2 weeks for him to confuse the defense even more. BUT…

     Here are last years results against our next 4 opponents:

     Southampton 0-4

     Hull 2-3

     Stoke 0-1

     Swans 0-3

     That’s zero points, 2 goals scored and 11 against. Looking good Alan.

320. i was out on the piss last night checked this morning and we loaned out ben arfa and mbiwa and got nobody????? seriously whats the point following this drivel

321. Like most people I guess, i was disappointed by the 2 outgoings and zero incomings, but definitely not surprised.

     The transfer of HBA to Hull is very likely to show once and for all that the problem is not HBA but Pardew. I say that because I believe HBA will be given the chance to demonstrate his natural abilities with a team that will be asked to play to their strengths.

     I am confident that P45DEW will have to go eventually, if only to buy some time for MA, but once even Ashley realises that Pardew is in danger of getting us relegated, I have serious doubts about who Ashley would bring in to replace him.

     He has certainly demonstrated that he will not tolerate any criticism as has been proved with his handling of some National & regional newspapers. Therefore anyone brought in to replace P45Dew would have to be another “yes man” who will do MA’s bidding Anyone with a mind of their own is unlikely to even want to come to the club.

     Despite P45DEWS inane ramblings, I think the squad is actually weaker now than it was last year when we still needed a replacement for Loic Remy and a better defence.

     Will wait and see, but I seriously worry for the future.

322. Reasons to be cheerful:

     1. He cant pick Gosling or Shola.

     2. Erm… after 14 losses in 20 games I cant think of anything else

323. So, we have two in the stakes of “get your hair cut you tw#t”:

     Cabella – you are not Christiano

     Coloccini – it is not 1975

     It is getting to the Keegan and Souness perm point now and the Waddle and Hoddle mullet.

     They don’t recognize how bad they looked until about 20 years later.

324. Here are a few points that Georgio made on Toonsy’s blog:

     2014 record:

     Played 22
     Won 5
     Drew 3
     LOST 14

     Failed to score – 14 of 22, 66% of the time.

     Conceded 3 or more goals – 8 of 22 matches.

     AND NOW, THE MOST DAMNING STATISTIC – WE HAVE NEVER WON A GAME UNDER PARDEW WHEN WE ARE BEHIND AT HALF TIME. Could have something to do with him bringing Shola and Gosling on FFS?

325. I tend to agree with Disillusioned Toon that Pardew will get the boot this season if he doesn’t perform. He just scraped into his target position last season. I have no idea what position Ashley has set him to achieve this season but I think Ashley’s patience may wear thin if we look like we’re in trouble at around Christmas. Ashley will feel he’s backed Pardew in the transfer market this summer and will act if he sees his precious Sprouts Direct advertising in danger of taking a hit through relegation.

     Although I also agree that Ashley will probably appoint a new manager based on his low wage demands and willingness to scrape the floor clean with his tongue on demand.

     Or at least those are my thoughts for what they’re worth (which isn’t much, I admit).

     I suspect HBA going to Hull wasn’t Pardew’s preference. I think Pardew would have liked him to go to some out of the way place overseas where he would be less noticeable. If Bruce gets him playing some decent football without any personality clashes, it’ll cast more doubts on Pardew’s man-management and coaching abilities.

     On haircuts, I had a centre-parter in the 70s, a Spandauesque, floppy side-parting in the 80s and then my hair started disappearing at an alarming rate. I’m considering going for a Jack Charlton style comb-over because that seems to really annoy people.

326. GS says:
     September 2, 2014 at 6:51 pm

     “So, we have two in the stakes of “get your hair cut you tw#t”:

     “Cabella – you are not Christiano”

     Cabella’s hair is more like that brat from Brazil, Neymar. Personally I hate any gadgies with hair that looks like they’ve just been in a gay porn film and someone’s just ejaculated on the front of their hair and it’ has been rubbed on, or just as bad, the idiots who have a little ‘mountain range’ of hair going straight down the middle. This is the sort of thing:

     http://hairstylenames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/zac-efron-short-to-medium-hairstyles-2014-zac-efron—–hairstyle—easyhairstyler.jpg

     In time, styles like that will look no less ridiculous than Dave Hill’s from Slade.

     I felt stirrings on the blog front today, I don’t know if it will lead to anything but it’s a possibility.

327. Olivier Bernard just said what I said about ben Arfa. I am not a gambler, but if I was, I would take bag pusses side on this one.

328. @323: and Brian May still looks the same! Can you imagine Coloccini as an old man with the same daft hair cut? His grandchildren will be asking him what it was like to play for PSG and Chelsea.

     I am guessing he will say good as he will not want to be associated with wor Alan.

329. Is everyone spitting feathers after this latest outrage?
     I have just been on The Chronicle’s board the last couple of days trying to do a bit of rabble rousing with the rest of them.

     Anything that can be done to crank up the hatred against this charlatan is a good thing to hopefully finally get rid of him.
     I know that fate is in the hands of Ashley but it cannot do any harm to see repeated scenes of what went down in the final game of last term.

     Well it looks like “The Peasants Revolt” is back on although we all know what happened to Watt Tyler lol
     I’m glad the idiot has engineered his own downfall and there has been a short turnaround in hostilities returning to the surface.
     I thought he had conned his way out of the corner he was in with his talking up of his new players which some knackers fell for among “The Sky Sports Specials”!

     I am also glad to see some rebellion against Sky Sports and echo “The Mag’s” sentiment in getting back at those evil gits and their stage managed transfer deadline day!
     Nice to see one of those idiots get a dildo stuck in his ear, Well they are a bunch of dick heads after all!
     Apparently one of the reporters at Arsenal had to lock himself in a room to escape.

330. I heard that before Hatem went to ‘ull he gave a big thank you for all the fish he would receive. Douglas Adams was quite a funny man.

331. I think that AndyMac and Joe might disagree with this:

     “Despite this opinion, I must say I disagree with those fans who belittle Pardew by calling him by various nicknames. I might agree with the points being made, but I don’t agree with the name-calling. It’s childish and deflects from otherwise sensible arguments. ‘Pardwho,’ is not the man’s name. Neither are ‘P45ew’ or ‘Parsnip.’ It’s not funny to call him these things; it shows a basic lack of respect for the bloke who, despite what we may think of him in terms of his managerial capabilities, still deserves it, just like everyone else.”

     http://www.true-faith.co.uk/true-faith-korea-opportunities-4/

332. “Rangers investor Mike Ashley bought naming rights of Ibrox Stadium for just £1”

     http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/prospective-rangers-owner-mike-ashley-4161063

333. Worky @331: how can they talk about having respect for a guy who makes a pathetic attempt to head butt a player? It is also a harmless bit of fun, well not in AndyMac’s case, I really believe he hates Pardwho, and probably has a hit out on him.

     Anyway, Ed is writing today that Pulis might succeed Pardwho but might not be accepted by the fans. He suggests that unlike P45due he will not play “attacking football”. What matches has Ed been watching?

     And the player that Pards wanted to build his team around is injured again, the man just can’t catch a break. I remember when he was saying he wanted HBA to be the focal point of the team – how did that turn out?

334. GS says:
     September 4, 2014 at 4:14 pm

     “Anyway, Ed is writing today that Pulis might succeed Pardwho but might not be accepted by the fans.”

     Ed’s completely wrong about this, of course. And Hugh’s wrong in suggesting that Pardew’s job is in any kind of jeopardy.

     Pulis left Palace on a matter of PRINCIPLE over a disagreement on transfer targets. P45due/Parsnip/Pardwho doesn’t seem to know what that word means, which is why (as I’ve said many times before – I know) he’s worth his weight in gold to The Owner.

     Pulis would actually ASK for stuff. He wouldn’t ridicule himself by constantly making toady excuses for the Junta (and I doubt having a press officer constantly hovering by his shoulder would suit him). He’d insist on people keeping their word, and he’d speak out if he was being shafted.

     Tony Pulis wouldn’t last five minutes at the toon.

335. And for another entry in stupid comment of the week, this is from Joe Hart as described in The Guardian:

     “Joe Hart labelled Wayne Rooney “the pin up boy of English football” and a “born leader” after he captained England to a 1-0 win over Norway”

     Where do you start with that comment? Beating Norway is now considered a success. A man with a hamster on his head is a “pin up boy”? A thick scouse granny worrying tw@t is a “born leader”?

336. GS says:
     September 4, 2014 at 4:14 pm

     “Worky @331: how can they talk about having respect for a guy who makes a pathetic attempt to head butt a player?”

     What about the things Pardew said to Martin O’Neill and Manuel Pellegrini as well? He can’t just keep going around fighting with opposing managers and calling them c**ts. He shouldn’t even be doing that in the Blue Square League, never mind the Premier League as a manager of Newcastle. Then there’s the constant cowardice with all the lies, excuses and blame etc…

337. And when Rooney first started out they wouldn’t even let the moron go on TV. It just goes to show that it is possible to polish a turd.

338. When I was growing up they would have Beatles films on TV. The four Cheeky Chappies all sounded very pleasant. Now we have the Rooney and Gerrard scouse throatal w@nk fest of an accent. Where did it all go wrong?

339. I know some people might disagree and say why am I criticizing an accent when Geordie is so strong? Well, Geordie is sing song-y and sounds OK whereas the current scouse sounds like they are going to hockle off a bridge.

340. De do doh don’t de?

     Were you over here for the era of the ‘Scally,’ GS? They were a a band of marauding brigands who spread terror wherever they went, much like ‘ISIS’ today. I remember the year the Scallies discovered Glastonbury all at the same time because I was there. Gangs of scousers were mobbing people like piranhas until they had stripped them clean and lots more people were getting their tents robbed that year. They had such an awful reputation and that’s what the Sun and the Police fed into with all their lies about Hillsborough.

341. Worky @340: Sorry to pollute your blog with my annoyance at the Rooney type scousers and me stereotyping them. It was Joe Hart saying Rooney was a born leader that got me worked up :)

342. This is getting quite funny now. You don’t write any blogs Worky, but Ed still produces at a prodigious rate. Now he is saying Tiote is like a new signing / extra player because he wasn’t transferred like M’Biwa and ben Arfa. You can’t make this stuff up :)

     And I will call Pardwho/P45due whatever the f@ck I want regardless of what True Faith say.

343. Newcastle buy a star player who was out for most of last season with muscle and groin problems and guess what? He’s been out all ready with a calf problem, comes back as a sub once, then injures his groin in training and is injured for the rest of year.

     I don’t get it? As an Eredivisie viewer who knew that Newcastle had been linked with Siem De Jong (as well as his brother) I thought I hope they don’t go in for him, not because he’s a bad player but because his muscles seemed to tear like paper and he was knacked all the time. I’m not saying I’m clever at all, most could have worked that one out but why couldn’t Newcastle United’s scouting team? WTF are they paid for? I could have told them that his brother was hardly going to score too and once again, those who had watched him not scoring at Borussia would probably say the same.

344. Talking about England captains, I was reminded of an old VIZ letter, it said:

     “David Beckham is a great footballer but people say he is as think as two short planks. You never hear anybody say Professor Steven Hawking is a genius but is rubbish at football though”.

345. I have read a few of the blogs in recent days and the consensus seems to be that Pardwho is living on borrowed time although some doubt Ashley will sack him before we are firmly ensconced in the bottom 3.

     It is quite amazing that we have 3 centre halfs that wouldn’t even get in the West Brom team. Well maybe Coloccini if he had someone decent alongside.

     We have no plan b. It is so shortsighted to let Marveaux, ben Arfa and M’Biwa go and see de Jong and Colback get injured. Who knows what has happened to Tiote and Facundo as well.

     Last year’s plan b was Shola and Gosling and that didn’t work at all. Now all the eggs are in the Aarons basket but Pards doesn’t usually trust youth.

     I hate to say it, but we are probably f@cked whether he stays or goes. We are left with a forward line that is either injured or has no premier league experience and a defense that looks like they will fold at every corner and free kick.

346. How does the ROSTER look now Alan, now that 5 of your best players aren’t on it? Cabella has to be one hell of a player to carry this team on his back.

347. So here we go, my assessment of the probable team, if anybody even cares anymore:

     Krul: overrated and makes mistakes. Good shot stopper but bad distribution.

     Janmaat: too early to tell but looks good

     Hadaira: very promising going forward, still young and Pards will probably play Dummett anyway.

     Coloccini – flatters to deceive, slow.

     Williamson – good in the air, slow.

     Anita – serviceable

     Sissoko – makes great runs with the ball but his final pass or shot are almost always lacking.

     Cabella – he has certainly perfected the art of step overs but so far little else.

     Reviere – looks like he would be a good second striker or late sub.

     Aarons – looks very promising.

     Facundo – who knows?

348. Subs:

     Eliot: Championship quality.

     Steven Taylor – headless chicken.

     Obertan – I don’t think he is as bad as AndyMac says, but that would be impossible.

     Gouffy – not on his bike so far this season.

     Abeid – Who knows?

     Armstrong – Didn’t Pards give him like 2 minutes at the end of a game last season and preferred to play Shola and Gosling when it was the ideal time to test the young kid out?

     Perez – looks promising but how many Tenerife players actually become stars? Maybe he is the second coming of Peter Beardsley who was overlooked in his early days and always seriously underrated (not by NUFC fans I have to stress).

349. The other thing is that we have no back-up. What have our academy produced in the past 10 years? We have had “next big things” like Chopra. Campbell was the last one but he doesn’t seem to have produced in lower divisions and Scotland. So that leaves us with Dummett and maybe you can count Krul. It is too early to judge Aarons and Armstrong and Sammy seems to have fallen down the pecking order.

     So we have half a squad of untried players from abroad, a couple of former outcasts (Obertan, Abeid), and some young unknown quantities.

     Pardew dug this hole himself and he is going to have to get seriously lucky with the academy to get out of it. Maybe Aarons is the new Raheem Sterling and Armstrong the new Michael Owen. We have to hope so because otherwise we will struggle.

350. There is still hope, we can get another free agent like Shefki Kuqi to rescue us. Remind me how that one turned out? This is just shambolic mismanagement on behalf of everyone – from keeping coaches that cannot design a play to score from a corner for 2 years to Pardew sending on subs to “LIMIT” a thrashing to 3 or 4 nil.

     Now I know how it must have felt being a Villa supporter with Alex McLeish as manager.

351. Makes you wonder why we were able to obtain the services of a player like De Jong!
     It’s definitely “Sods Law” or is it Karma that the player has broken down.
     That’s what you get when you act like a petulant child just because you don’t get on with a particular player.
     There is a kind of “Poetic Justice” to it but we will be the one’s who will ultimately suffer because Pardew is not fit for purpose!

352. joe hawkins says:
     September 6, 2014 at 4:45 pm

     “Makes you wonder why we were able to obtain the services of a player like De Jong!
     “It’s definitely “Sods Law” or is it Karma that the player has broken down.”

     It doesn’t though, Joe, we got De Jong number one because he was a striker who couldn’t score and De Jong number two because he’s always knacked. That isn’t Sod’s Law or Karma, it’s stupidity.

353. Yeah, it seems de Jong might have Darrenandertonitis whereby a player just gets numerous seemingly unrelated injuries/illnesses. He has had a collapsed lung, ankle “knock” and now thigh tear in the past 9 months.

     Of course, we have had direct experience with this before with Michael Owen and a few others. Some players just seem to be unlucky or their body can’t take the strain of heavy training 6 days a week for years and years.

     The real problem is trying to build a team around such players. That was Pardew’s stated goal, and now he has to go to plan b which we all know he doesn’t have. We should probably have learned this lesson from Owen, and I think Pards had experience of this with Dean Ashton.

354. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aarons and Armstrong bail Pardew out (even though this contradicts what I have said earlier). The reason I say this is that he seems to have led a charmed life – window fitter to average journeyman footballer – but that is still more than most of us could ever dream of given his very limited talent.

     He then parlays his gift for talking absolute shite into many management jobs, each of which he fails at. Somehow he keeps getting other jobs though. Then just when he looks to be on the scrap heap he fortuitously meets Mike Ashley in a casino. The rest is sad history for us, because even when we finished 5th we most often played turgid football.

     I didn’t often agree with my good buddy Chucky but he was correct about the recycling of useless English managers and that is how we find ourselves in this situation.

     By the way, I wonder how the “In Carr We Trust” t-shirts are selling?

355. GS says:
     September 7, 2014 at 2:50 am

     “Yeah, it seems de Jong might have Darrenandertonitis whereby a player just gets numerous seemingly unrelated injuries/illnesses.”

     Apart from the collapsed lung, I think it has been strained / torn muscles and hamstrings, GS.

     I’ve always said the Netherlands is a good place to look for players but they are being absolutely picked clean now. The great Ajax, four time European Cup winners are turning into something like a League One side with a big, fancy stadium now.

     As for Carr, that was just another case of daft Geordies getting too carried away.

356. We don’t get any international friendlies here so I have checked out the blogs and the messages on the Chronic articles. The mood has changed to a mixture of anger and despair. The funny thing is that we haven’t played THAT bad compared to the second half of last season. We were actually OK against Citeh, should have beaten Villa by a couple and allowed an equalizer in the 5th minute of extra time against Palace. Admittedly, letting Palace score 3 is inexcusable.

     I have been caught up in general negativity, but it is not really for what has happened on the pitch. It is a realisation that nothing has changed and a sense that the sword of damoclese is hanging over us.

357. GS says:
     September 7, 2014 at 12:19 pm

     “The funny thing is that we haven’t played THAT bad compared to the second half of last season.”

     That’s like saying gonorrhea isn’t as bad as syphilis though, GS.

358. The Daily Hate Mail has a piece comparing current cost of Premier League teams. It is mainly to trash Man U, but I wont get into that – their player cost is 380 million.

     This is NOT net spend, it is transfer fees.

     Other examples are Spurs 170, Southampton 90 and NUFC 70 million.

     NOW TO MY POINT. Lets think about the cost of some of our players:

     Coloccini 10 mil*
     Jonas 7
     ben Arfa 5
     M’biwa 7

     So that is 30 million of players on the books but with no value. In an era when TV is paying 70 million a year our total usable squad cost is 40 million. Huh. We must be there or thereabouts with Palace so no wonder we only scraped a draw.

     Every club makes mistakes, but our current USABLE squad transfer cost is pitiful and relegation/bottom 5. Add in Pardwho and we are f@cked without a miracle.

     * I know I cheated with Coloccini, but he is basically finished and needs replacing.

359. Just for the hell of it I added up the cost of our team + subs against Palace, which is really our full squad now. It was 47 million without Colocinni and about 57 with. The only players that were missing and cost anything really were Santon, Ryan Taylor and Tiote, so that’s another 10.

     We are competing on a shoestring when you consider the TV payments and commercial revenue of teams that we were on a par with a few years ago.

     I didn’t include the Forest kids because they are not available.

360. So our squad cost about the same as Di Maria. I am not cutting Pardew any slack because he has made his own bed, but we are not even top 10 in terms of spending.

361. @360, I know Joe and Worky will say to me “no sh@t Sherlock” but I wanted to work the numbers through as all most people talk about is net spend.

362. GS, in terms of estimeated first team squad value according to Transfermarkt, Newcastle have gone down from seventh at £150 million to ninth at £110.88 million. Some of that has been selling the players who went up in value, but some has been the decline in value of many of the players who stay at Newcastle too long and get broken on the wheel of Pardew’s football (Cisse, Benny etc). Finally, players get injured quite alot at Newcastle running around chasing long balls and clattering into opposition players instead of stroking the ball around.

     http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/newcastle-united/startseite/verein/762/saison_id/2014

363. Cheers Worky: I forgot Cisse. There are a couple of strange valuations in there such as Gouffy at 8 mil and Facundo at 6 (I thought he was a loan). And transfermarkt assign values of 3 mil to both Taylors and 1 mil to quite a few players who would get released.

     My guess is they are about 30 mil high on their estimate.

     Anyway, thanks again, it has just reinforced what I already knew, that we have a cheap squad in terms of transfer value and cost.

     We would like to compare ourselves to Spurs and Everton but we are nowhere near them at the moment.

364. I will give you another example, Transfermarkt assign value of 2.64 mil EACH to Coloccini, S Taylor, and Williamson. I bet Colo and Taylor would be available for free to get their wages off the books.

     The more I look at it the closer the value of our squad comes to the cost of Di Maria. Maybe Fatman is preparing for another trip to the Championship :( He certainly would have to assure a new manager that funds will be available in January to attract anyone decent.

365. So by my count and adjusting for Transfermarkt high side mistakes we have a playing staff with a cost and value of about 60-80 million. We were in much worse shape than I thought we were.

     Worky, last year you looked at our squad value and concluded we were a 7-9 team. I think the situation has deteriorated even more than the tranfermarkt numbers suggest. Their values for even our most marketable players like Krul, Tiote and Sissoko seem about correct so I think my minus 30 mil adjustment for Gouffy/Taylor etc is correct.

     And to think there was so much optimism on Ed’s site and in The Chron only a couple of weeks ago :)

366. Swansea, Hull and Stoke are now our peers or betters. What a comedown for such an historic club. I didn’t realise this until I looked at the numbers more closely. We really are f@cked unless:

     a) a couple of young uns are really good

     b) Fatman gets his wallet out

367. In the spirit of Hugh’s original piece we are in a position to assess the transfer business:

     Cabella: at least Pardew will use him unlike with HBA

     de Jong: Frank de Boer said he will not be missed because he was crocked

     Perez & Riviere: do not equal one Remy at this point

     Colback: hardly a replacement for Cabaye!

     Janmaat: probably a small step down from Debuchy

     M’Biwa out, Facundo in – who knows?

     I think we are playing up to the maximum of our capabilities and have 2 points. We might be in trouble when other managers realise we have no goal threat without our 2 most experienced strikers (Cisse & de Jong). Aarons better be one hell of a player.

     Champions League as the target as Pardew told de Jong :)

368. GS, where they get it wrong sometimes is on young players when they value goes crazy all of a sudden, or someone just buys them at a crazy price. There are youngsters like Luke Shaw but the worst of course was Andy Carroll, who was valued at around £3 million on there and about to go up significantly, but still would have been only a fraction of the £35 million he went to Liverpool for. That was nuts but they’re usually in the right area.

369. Hey Worky: I trust your judgement as you followed Transfermarkt’s stuff and I haven’t. However, there are glaring errors with Gouffy and Facundo, so I think I am close on valuation unless Aarons is the next Carroll.

370. Pardew has lost 104 of his 166 games in charge. How does he survive with that record? Obviously, Alan doesn’t do draws very often given that stat.

     He has two speeds – if we go a goal down we chase the game and get hammered. If we go a goal up we shut up shop and hang on desperately and hope for another on the break or from individual brilliance.

     As an opposition manager, I think it would be easy to set up your team, manage your tactics and choose your subs given you know exactly what Pardew will do and how he will react.

371. Has anyone looked at the new website sackpardew.com?

372. Jaanmat’s just killed the Dutch in time added on with a daft header back to the keeper – picked up by Pilar to give the Czech’s the win.

     Glad he did that for them and not us. He won’t be doing it again (hopefully).

373. From sackpardew.com:

     “Pardew has never won a game in the last two years in which Newcastle were trailing at half time (0 wins, 2 draws and 24 defeats.)”

     They also add that Pardew’s average points per game ratio over the last two years is 1.18. If you times that by 38, it is 44.84 points per season.

374. Did you all like the new Sackpardew.com?
     I must admit i was in hysterics when i seen it and if nothing else it lightens the mood.
     According to The Chronicle he is going to break his silence tomorrow on the transfer window in which i have already given my view on the situation.

     I mean why couldn’t he front up straight away if he had something to say?
     All this looks like him waiting nearly two weeks to come up with an excuse for why again?
     Either that or Wendy will keep him quiet tomorrow and his only dialogue will be the pre-match for Southampton with her interrupting the interview when probing questions are asked.

     Has anyone got any idea who set up the Sackpardew.com website?

375. It is surprising that Fatty and Pardew met at a casino. I imagine Pardew is the worst poker player in the world as if he does what he does at NUFC he would telegraph his moves and use the same strategy every hand. Any decent opponent would be able to see his “tells”. Maybe it is true that Fatty employed him because it was the only way he could pay off gambling debts to him?

376. Next up we have Southampton, another lesson to the clowns running Newcastle. They were a team in chaos with all the best players deserting the club at the start of the season. Now they’ve brought someone we couldn’t even dream about, Ronald Koeman. He’s won eight major trophies so far as a manager in the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

377. One thing on that sack Pardew site which amused me was something I knew already from when I was researching Pardew’s euro record, as well as his awful last season at West Ham:

     It’s interesting that one of the worst performing teams in our table is the West Ham 2006-07 side, the only team in our list to be knocked out in their first European tie. Even without any European commitment after September, they still only managed to accrue 14 points by December and were 3 points from safety when they sacked their manager – Alan Pardew.

     http://sackpardew.com/articles/europaleague/

378. Mark Douglas is a journalist at The Chronic but I think he fancies himself as a comedian. These are the five issues he says Pardew MUST address at his press conference on Thursday:

     1. HBA

     2. Getting on the front foot again

     3. Rolando Aarons

     4. Where’s the new striker and central defender?

     5. Where are the goals coming from?

     I am not sure if any of these questions, except number 3, will be allowed to be asked let alone given a straight answer.

379. Aye, doesn’t surprise me at all. Chubby Brown’s from Redcar and he’s one of the more polite ones.

     http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2014/sep/10/redcar-tweeting-rude-swear-on-twitter

380. Poor Ashley gets it from Simon Bird about Sports Direct, Newcastle United and Rangers.

     Mike Ashley Q&A: Read full transcript of Newcastle owner’s exchange with our reporter:

     http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mike-ashley-qa-read-full-4199070

     Pardew’s going to get a grilling today too. I wonder if Wendy Taylor will have to step in and protect him again.

381. It’ll be Krul vs Lurch on Saturday.

382. I believe Ashley is looking to sell up and buy Rangers for next to nothing. Although there isn’t the premier league money what Ashley does get is a golden ticket to the Group Stages of the Champions League. With that money he could assemble a decent squad and have the club break even or better. Meanwhile Sports Direct gets free European advertising and profit from shirt sales.

     Sports Direct have conquered Britain and are moving into other markets – Europe and Australia first. There are many ex-Pats there and in the US and Asia that he could advertise to if he bought Rangers.

     I know here in Chicago that a couple of Pubs show Celtic and are packed.

     This is a sound business strategy for Ashley and I just hope it means he will sell NUFC at a reasonable price and we can be shot of him.

383. I think the latest sale story is from Luke Edwards in the Telegraph but he doesn’t provide any details.

     What it means for Pardew, I don’t know. But NUFC as an asset is obviously much more valuable in the premier league so this may force Fatty’s hand.

384. On the other hand, this is not as easy a business decision as it seems because the premier league gives Ashley the world-wide advertising he craves. Here in the US there is a game on NBC every Saturday, meaning major network coverage that previously only showed US sports. The only Champions League game on a Network is the final.

     Ideally, Fatty would want both NUFC and Rangers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

385. There are mutterings of player power, and especially Captain Colo being the reason for HBA’s departure. That doesn’t make any sense either. Why would you listen to a player whose skills and pace are obviously on the wane and wanted to f@ck off back to Argentina until he found out the money it would cost him. Coloccini was pretty close to going on strike at one point to get his way and may even have exagerrated a back injury. Who is the unprofessional one here?

     Smacks of another Pardew excuse, even if there is a hair of truth in it.

386. Which other senior pros could have objected to HBA calling Pardew out?

     Taylor? On the outskirts of team anyway.
     Williamson? They tried to sell him.
     Tiote? Rumours that he wanted out.
     Gouffy and Anita? Not guaranteed a place anyway.

     That really only leaves Krul and Sissoko and ben Arfa had seniority over Sissoko.

     I don’t think Alan is completely telling Porkies, but there aren’t that many senior players left (or worth listening to) to form an alliance against HBA. Obviously, Pardwho was the main mover in this when he felt his tin-pot dictator authority being challenged.

387. GS says:
     September 11, 2014 at 1:58 pm

     “There are mutterings of player power, and especially Captain Colo being the reason for HBA’s departure.”

     This is just the standard smear story the club put out when there’s a controversial departure of someone popular in an attempt to discredit them. See Hughton totally losing the dressing room to cabal of senior players, the madness of King Kev demanding a team of super Galacticos, Nolan’s unreasonable contract demands blah blah, it’s just standard practice for them. I’ll bet it’s all “an unnamed source close to Ben Arfa said… A source close to the club said…” etc.

388. GS says:
     September 11, 2014 at 11:30 am

     “I believe Ashley is looking to sell up and buy Rangers for next to nothing. Although there isn’t the premier league money what Ashley does get is a golden ticket to the Group Stages of the Champions League. With that money he could assemble a decent squad and have the club break even or better. Meanwhile Sports Direct gets free European advertising and profit from shirt sales.”

     There’s no comparison, GS, even with the Champions League. Ashley’s just a vulture moving in on something else which happens to be in trouble because that’s what he does, that’s how he makes his money.

389. You’re right, the premier league has such international exposure that he would be mad to give it up. The rules on owning both Rangers and NUFC seem a bit convoluted. I saw something about not being able to own 2 clubs that could/do play in Europe together.

     Don’t Barcelona have a 2nd club in a lower division?

     I also saw something about the SFA giving Ashley special dispensation to own 20% of Rangers so it is all a bit confusing.

     Still there are rumours of him selling up.

390. I was having second thoughts @384 about the veracity of Edwards’ story especially since he has no inside knowledge and I think he might have even been banned from SJP.

391. GS, Ashley says he will not be participating in the Rangers share offer (he owns 4.6% currently). Newcastle and Rangers are in different leagues obviously, but they wouldn’t be able to compete in Europe at the same time.

     On his past record, it’s usually best to assume Edwards is full of shite unless he produces some actual evidence.

     http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/u/mike-ashley-i-am-not-buying-rangers.1410515062

392. There is now a statement released by the club which states Newcastle United are not for sale at any price until at least 2016!

393. I think he is going to wait and see what happens at Rangers until the Champions League money comes in then make his move.

394. Well, it looks like The Daily Telegraph are all banned now, so whether Luke Edwards was before is moot :)

395. Disappointing that we have at least two more seasons of Ashley (possibly a lot more) but not unexpected. He’ll only sell if he can getter better value for Sprouts Direct from somewhere else. The club costs him nothing now and he can sponge free advertising off it for his tacky clothes shack.

     Personally I’d have thought it a conflict of interests that he’s on the board of NUFC and SD when SD profits from NUFC but I can’t see how NUFC gets a reciprocal benefit from SD. The law says that the directors of a limited company must make decisions for the benefit of the company, not themselves. I can’t see how giving SD free advertising benefits NUFC.

396. Hugh, isn’t NUFC a private company now with Ashley as sole owner?

397. GS, it’s a limited company. A limited company is a legal entity separate from whoever the ‘owner’ is and the director(s), by law, must make decisions that benefit the company, not themselves, regardless of whether one of the directors is essentially the ‘owner’.

398. Hugh de Payen says:
     September 12, 2014 at 7:12 pm

     “GS, it’s a limited company. A limited company is a legal entity separate from whoever the ‘owner’ is and the director(s), by law, must make decisions that benefit the company, not themselves”

     Ashley has made decisions which have benefitted Sports Direct by tens of millions at the expense of Newcastle United. Even the ads which aren’t Sports Direct explicitly are usually for brands which have been recently taken over by Sports Direct. Then there is the the merchandising and other stuff. Together it adds up to quite a few million every year.

399. Aye Worky, I know. I’m sure it’s fudged somehow – perhaps they claim it ‘benefits’ NUFC to keep Ashley happy, given his interest-free loan. But, technically and legally speaking, directors should make decisions that benefit the company they represent.

400. Hugh @399, funny though how the directors quite often worry that they might have to give up their cushy job and easy money and suck the c@ck of the CEO. Look at RBS and former Chairman Fred Goodwin. There is basically no oversight even in a very high profile public company let alone one where the single shareholder calls all the shots.

     I am not saying this is the way it is designed, or should be, I am saying it is the way it is. They are all a bunch of ars@lickers looking after their own self interest. The so-called watch dogs meanwhile look the other way.

     I think I saw in that Daily Mirror piece that SD benefitted by about 3.5 million pounds from NUFC merchandising.

401. From another piece by Simon Bird on September 10 (sorry my computer is playing up and I can’t link it):

     “It can be revealed that he (Ashley) hived off the Magpies’ sports retail business to Sports Direct. An Aide confirmed that it was worth 3.4 million of Sports Direct’s revenue. While that sum is not regarded as significant in terms of Sports Direct’s revenue it would significantly boost Newcastle’s 96 million turnover”.

402. GS says:
     September 12, 2014 at 9:07 pm

     “It can be revealed that he (Ashley) hived off the Magpies’ sports retail business to Sports Direct.”

     Not quite MI5 stuff from Bird there, GS. It was obvious a long time ago as soon as the merchandising wing renamed itself “NUFC Direct” and started using the template of the Sports Direct site, along with all those SD style “24 Hr Delivery!” signs all over it.

403. Worky @402: agreed, but it was the fact an “Aide” put a value on it that I thought was surprising.

     Also, that doesn’t sound like much money for merchandising. Shows how far we have fallen in terms of visibility and “monetizing the brand” – I put that last phrase in for you Worky as I know you will cringe reading it :)

404. I seem to recall that it’s in the accounts somewhere.

405. @404 Probably, but I thought I would mention it since I saw it in that recent article.

     I am finding it quite amusing how the Chronic are pretzeling themselves when it comes to Ashley. One minute they are decrying Ashley’s threat to the freedom of the press, the next they say how great our summer signings were and now again Ashley is the devil. They deserve each other.

406. It was easy to predict that when Pardew’s football actually entered the mix, all that pre season optimism would just be blown out of the water.

407. Well, only a few hours until we see if “the Group” are indeed “pulling in the same direction”. Admittedly, his “roster” is now depleted but he had created room on it to bring in the promised (and not delivered) extra players.

     I wonder if he will use the excuse of injured players? It would be hypocritical even for him given that he said he was satisfied and the roster was full.

     I said in an earlier post that Pards might get bailed out by Aarons and Armstrong because he is a lucky SOB. Then Aarons is ruled out for a month. Maybe his chickens will come home to roost.

408. For the hell of it, here is the team he will play:

     Krul

     Janmaat Williamson Coloccini Haidara

     Sissoko Anita Colback Gouffy

     Cabella

     Riviera

     It is not that terrible, but you have to wonder where the goals will come from and realise who the manager is.

409. Southampton’s new dribbly winger Tadic is a good player worth watching. I’ve watched him with Twente and would have wanted him with Ben Arfa leaving. I didn’t watch Cabella though.

     Koeman will be the opposite of Pardew, he will play exciting, attacking football letting the ball do the work with lots of crisp passing. 2-0.

410. Well we couldn’t have picked a worse time to visit our arch nemesis Southampton who have given us some right (As Barry Mcguigan would say) some right shellackings over the years!

     Can Pardew pull one of his customary wins out of the fire which i have seen him do when his back is against the wall, Or has the old bulls**tter finally lost that luck that he carries?
     This fella normally goes winless for weeks at a time but somehow gets the odd win when he’s up against it.
     Southampton should have enough about them to beat us and after watching them look good in defeat at Anfield, It’s going to be another tough afternoon!

     I wonder if “The Village Idiot” will throw caution to the wind because he has nothing to lose, Or will he revert to type and try to stay in there as he can trade for another week with a draw?

411. Have you seen our bench? Says a lot about the Roster:

     An exhausted Tiote, the 3 other senior players were surplus to requirements or want away (Taylor, Obertan, Eliot), and no premier league experience – Perez, Armstrong and Sammy.

412. I want Armstrong to get a chance, and he might get it if we are being hammered. Wait, Pardew had the chance to do that last year and gave him 2 minutes.

413. I dont know much about the S’ton new players but they must be OK if they keep Ward-Prowse and Wanyama on their bench.

414. Nearly 1-0 down in under 30 seconds.

415. Really casual there by Colo. He’s the last person that should be doing that.

416. And we got away with a penalty.

     Oops! 1-0 as I was typing that.

417. I don’t think Citeh or Chelsea could do a better job of cutting through us. This might be embarassing.

418. Colo was sh|t again there.

419. As I mentioned earlier, that Tadic gadgie on the left wing is shit hot.

420. We matched them after we were 2-0 down :) As Pardew always says, he likes to get off on the front foot :(

     Pardew could have done with Pelle, at least he would fit his preferred style of play.

     Did we all see the only free-kick in a decent spot was lumped to Williamson for a knock down. FFS.

421. Shocking defending from Williamson there for the third goal. Bet Colo’s relieved.

422. Nice to see chubs in the crowd watching this debacle.

423. Another 4 goals let in.

     1 win in 12.

     Another goaless game for us.

424. Shocking.

425. 2nd bottom but only by virtue of scoring one more goal than West Brom.

     That Cabella fella tracks back a lot :)

426. what else can you do but laugh? it’s ridiculous lol

427. The commentator over here, Tony Gayle, was saying that Pardew couldn’t be blamed because he had a lot of new players who needed to gel and there was a lack of continuity at NUFC. He couldn’t see the irony that we were facing a team who had lost half their squad and had a new manager.

428. Sorry, I just saw an undated table WE ARE BOTTOM.

429. What game was it last season when he said if he was on the touchline we wouldn’t have lost? Well, you had your chance today Alan and your ars@cheeks were firmly glued to the bench. He talks so much shite, you just know it will eventually come back to him.

430. Bottom of the league and candidates for relegation, great I love it !

     This before we play the sides who have spent more on one player than NUFC have laid out for an entire new squad.

     Ashley is no fool, a control freak, sure and he being at to-days game is significant, so what to do ?

     First dump the chump and replace him with someone who can manage, there are plenty of decent candidates available and yes if offered both the funding and a free hand would be available.

     Though being a control freak it may go against his instincts.

     Hopefully he is smart enough to realize you cant expect to succeed in the PL and enjoy it’s monitory rewards with second rate players, like those acquired during the last window.
     In Carr we trust ?

     Question is, if we are still in the relegation zone to-wards the halfway mark, will he recognize the fact it’s not the number of players bought, but the quality.

     (Yeah I realize he’s made a fortune in buying and selling “cheap” crap)

     One of these days he will realize, that even the successful clubs have to spend big bucks, just to remain in place (Man U. etc.)

     Sure it’s a vicious cycle, but to believe you can exist as a mid table mediocrity, by importing cheap player and expect to both sell them on for profit, while collecting the rewards of PL membership, is absurd.

     It could take another season in the second tier before Ashley realizes this, lets hope not.

431. To be fair to Pardew, he was completely outthought and outclassed by someone who has always been in a completely different league to him and will be a really good manager in the Premier League. Koeman is very intelligent and an excellent tactician who was taught by the best. He was the coach who inspired the Van Gaal’s use of the 3-5-2 / 5-3-2 formation used by the Netherlands side in the World Cup. Like Laudrup at Swansea a couple of seasons ago, I was really pissed off that we didn’t get him when a club like Southampton, even when they were in the midst of chaos could get him. It boils my piss faster than my new Kettle because Koeman was another hero of mine.

432. So “The Peasants Revolt” is back in full swing?

     Chuck, I told you i wasn’t buying into this team and Pardew’s last desperate talk up over the summer.
     It was obvious all you were going to get was a continued downward spiral.

     They should have got rid of him over the pathetic attempted headbutt because he wasn’t worth the hassle of keeping him on.

433. Worky, He would have probably jumped at the chance to come here.
     Pardew has “Buckley’s Lance” of getting anything from the players he has now.

434. joe hawkins says:
     September 13, 2014 at 8:24 pm

     “Worky, He would have probably jumped at the chance to come here.”

     He may well have jumped at that chance, joe, but he would never have been offered the job under any circumstance, even if there’d been a vacancy (if Pardew had died of shame, say). In any case, he wouldn’t last five minutes with Ashley.

     What Ashley wants in a manager is a supplicant, spineless, eternally grateful yes man with low personal expectations and just enough nouse to keep us out of danger.

     What Ashley definitely doesn’t want is a manager with the potential to raise the quality of the team’s performance to the point where they’re challenging for one of those troublesome Euro berths or even a domestic cup run, God forbid.

     I can’t beleive that people still aren’t getting this.

     Ashley wants to spend nothing. Ashley want’s to win nothing. He needs an unquestioning toe-toucher in charge if the team to be able to do what he wants. He has the man he wants in place. He won’t change a thing unless we’re rock bottom at the start of the new year.

435. Same bloody crap year after year.

     No end in sight.

     F*cking hell.

436. I liked the Match of the Day stat that was on just now, players who have scored the most goals in their first four games in the PL:

     1. Diego Costa
     2. Sergio Aguero
     3. Micky Quinn.

437. When one looks at the recent history of NUFC, it has been an era of both chaos and total mismanagement.

     Certainly in the case of the Ashley regime, one resulting in a policy of squeezing as much profit from the club as possible, from the early reduction of stadium staff, to the recent privilege for certain staff to receive complimentary tickets.

     Most knowledgeable fans saw the writing on the wall in regard to football the appointment of Pardew.

     Ashley continued to run things behind the scenes and delegated the responsibilities of those cheap hirelings, even allowing infighting between Pardew and Carr, but always weighing in on the side of Carr, who provided him with cheap French imports, to be sold on for a quick profit.

     Pardew being hung out to dry, though had he been given the entire real Madrid side to manage, he wouldn’t have known what to do with them, with his lack of understanding of anything but the direct football of his playing era and the few unsuccessful attempts at innovation

     And I assume the coaching staff are much the same, one goal in two years from corner kicks sez it all.

     The present situation doesn’t look good, soh! what to do ?

     Recent report’s suggest the hiring of both Bruce and Shearer as manager and assistant, while axing Pardew, knowing full well from a recent poll, he is detested by 85% of the fans and is already a dead man walking.
     that followed by continuing with the same policies.

     Puhleez !

     The real cancer at this club is Ashley himself and until he sells the club, nothing will change perceptibly.

     It will be interesting to see what happens come midway through the season, if the club remains in the danger zone, even under new management.

     Will he be forced into spending on talented players, to avoid the drop ?

     I believe most fans wish he would either sell and head north to Glasgow, where I believe he would find the locals less accepting than those in Newcastle.

     Not I’m afraid a bright future for the club to look forward too, anyone see it any different ?

438. Kath the Tea Lady would be heartbroken if Pardew was sacked. She said the Silver Fox was her favourite manager in all the decades she’s been working there, and that she gets moist every time she thinks about him.

439. The only thing that could possibly be moist about Kath at her age are her teacakes (and I mean teacakes, that is not a euphemism for anything else).

440. Can you recall people from a loan? I mean more for M’Biwa than ben Arfa, although both would be appreciated when the Silver Pox is sacked.

     They are still our players and if the other team didn’t pay a fee I don’t see why we couldn’t take them back. It probably doesn’t work like that.

     As for a new manager, probably Moyes would be a good choice given the mess we are in. He was used to slow starts with Everton and he will have to get over half a season with a paper thin squad and then see what late Xmas presents Fatty gets him.

441. Darth, I get it alright!, Look even if Ashley does get rid of Pardew we know his replacement will be another stooge.
     I accept that fact that he will more than likely be another Yes Man but that is okay as long as he has a philosphy of football, And can get them playing.

442. If we are looking at desperado’s and journey men if Pardew gets pedalled then what about old stiff hips himself Mark Mcghee?
     He knows the club, The area etc and i seem to remember him doing a decent job at Brighton in similar difficult circumstances.
     He would probably do as he was told and accept the framework , And would be given an opportunity on a big stage.

     I’ll probably get shot down in flames for this but i have got my Ashley head on here, And this is the sort of thing we are looking at with him as owner.
     It will be another bargain basement appointment and i think Mark could well tick the boxes.
     I would rather try someone like him than getting Joe Kinnear out of mothballs to do a Jock Stein with the pressure!

443. GS says:
     September 15, 2014 at 12:45 am

     “The only thing that could possibly be moist about Kath at her age are her teacakes (and I mean teacakes, that is not a euphemism for anything else).”

     Best not to meditiate on that one really, GS, though Pardew really seems to press her button judging by the way she gushes over him.

     I remember a FIFA representative saying once a few years back that players cannot be recalled from a season long loan. Of course, things also depend on what’s written in the contract too.

444. I’m not remotely interested in Moyes. If teams like Swansea, Southampton and even Brighton and Watford can get Cruyff proteges like Laudrup, Koeman etc, that’s what I want. We won’t get someone like that with Ashley though.

     http://thepremierleagueowl.com/alan-pardew-will-be-replaced-at-newcastle-by-another-alan-pardew/

445. Oh aye! I was reminded by someone commenting in the Chronic about Dennis Wise. I watched the gane on Setanta where he was one of the pundits and he said on Pardew being sacked:

     “I don’t think Mike will get rid of Pardew, and I’d like to think I know him better than most, But I think he’ll give him time to earn his wage.”

446. GS, returning to the recalling players from loan thing, I think other managers can recall players from loan depending on the terms of the contract I suppose but Chelsea probably couldn’t because it was the time they were banned from making transfers at the time.

447. I am asking about the loans because my best case scenario with our thin squad was that Pardew gets sacked and a new manager reinstates ben Arfa and M’Biwa to the team. The loans scuppered that although it looks increasingly more likely Pardew will be gone.

     I think we need at least 15 points by Jan to have any hope of staying up. There is a glimmer of hope that we played OK in other games before that capitulation at S’ton. We also beat Hull last time out. Also, I don’t think it is possible for Cabella to be as bad as he has looked so far, so he should pick up a bit.

     Saturday will likely be a pantomime with Pardew still in charge. We have the added intrigue of Carver setting to with fans. I think they have finally reached the point of no return with the fans, if not Ashley.

     For all Pardew’s bluster he showed what a coward he is by staying on the bench on Saturday. Sure, he will have the excuse that he said he would after the head butt, but that is just another one of his excuses. Now, I doubt Carver will be able to substitute for him. Come on down Steve Stone!

448. GS says:
     September 15, 2014 at 12:49 pm

     “Come on down Steve Stone!”

     The man who, after being defeated 2-1 at SJP by the dashing elegance of Michael Laudrup’s Swansea gave the lads a pat on the back declaring:

     “We were tighter as a team. We kicked the ball longer. We tried to get as many bodies around the ball as we possibly could to make it difficult for their passing game.”

449. Again from Stone, for those of you who know about daft Yank sports, a major influence on Pardew is top NBA coach, Phil Jackson. He hands out Jackson’s autobiography, “More than a Game” to his assistants. Then again, Glen Roeder used to read “The Art of War” but it never quite made him into football’s answer to Sun Tzu.

450. Thinking more about loan recalls – there might be a problem with having to announce the 25 man squad and them not on it, I don’t know. I am desperately clutching at straws here because of the fact we had so few options on the bench on Saturday, nevermind the team he picked playing so appallingly.

     I hate to say it, but it might be time to give Dummett a chance at center back. We are running out of options fast.

     At least if Dummett replaces Williamson it will remove our only free kick play of lumping it to him at the corner of the box to knock down. This was sussed 2 years ago.

451. I see the BBC is reporting that Pardew is “backed by club owner Mike Ashley,” although they don’t directly quote anything from Ashley or anyone else in the echelons of NUFC. I think it’s a supposition based on the fact that he’s training the team today.

     I do think Ashley would sack Pardew if he thought relegation was a genuine danger, simply because getting relegated would have an impact of the exposure of the free Sprouts Direct advertising he sponges off the club (as well as shirt deals and the like).

     But I don’t think we’re there yet after only four games as far as Ashley is concerned. One thing’s for certain though: Ashley won’t give two hoots about what the fans think.

452. The hounds can really smell the blood now. Once they can smell the blood, it’s hard to pull them back.

453. Well, well, He has had the chance to mold a team in his image which he has now and yet he continues to fail. We have players and he him self said:

     “We have a strong squad, perhaps the biggest and best I’ve ever had in terms of options so we’re in a great position.”

     “We have more depth and more quality… I’ve nothing to moan about now in terms of what’s happened this summer.”

     Now it is the fans mood that cost us the win yesterday. Pardew was outclassed out thought in every respect. Still trying to play the way we did when we finished fifth but he does not know how we were doing it.

     Worst manager I have ever seen. No tactics whats so ever just sets up with as many new players as he can. He does not know what he wants to do so does not buy players with the attributes that suit his style he just buys players then tries to fit them into his style.

454. michael12 says:
     September 15, 2014 at 3:09 pm

     “Worst manager I have ever seen.”

     Graham Carr had a record that makes Pardew look like Pep Guardiola, Michael, though he did lead Northampton Town to the Fourth Division title once. That was the zenith of his career though, the rest was usually relegations and sackings. Ironically, he was criticised for making very poor and baffling signings on more than one occaision.

455. Now the National Media are beginning to see how bad we are and there are not just stories from ex-NE journalists like Luke Edwards.

     In the winners and losers section of Football 365, they have identified our football as dross and went on a stat fest, probably inspired by all of the stats seen on Blogs and local rags. Their’s are:

     5 points from the previous 12 games

     lost 16 of the last 24

     Failed to score in 16 of the last 24.

     I will add another – lost by 3 or 4 nil, 23 times under Pardew. That shows that capitulation is a very common event under Pardew (as if anyone on here didn’t know that already).

     Have some humanity Fatty and put Pards out of his misery before this weekend. Nah, he deserves all he gets and let’s watch one more weekend of contempt and vitriol for the out-of-his-depth gobshite. I just want to hear the Hatem ben Arfa chants, and see his face. THEN SACK HIM.

456. In addition to the 23 times we lost 3 or 4 nil we can add other humiliations such as 2-5 to a sorry Fulham team under Martin Jol and 3-7 to the Ars*. I can probably count on one hand the number of good results that were also good performances, but have run out of fingers, toes and all other appendages to count the drubbings.

     6-0 to Liverpool was my last straw and I said so. I have had to endure more than another season of the silver pox since then. Please leave Alan, you know you want to beneath your increasingly fake bravado.

457. The problem remains that Fatty has been shown to have very little ability to select management at NUFC. Worky mentioned “in Carr we Trust”‘s record above but we have also had:

     Llambias
     Wise
     Jiminez
     Kinnear after a long absence as Manager
     Kinnear after another long absence as DOF
     Keegan after a very long absence as Manager
     Shearer with no experience who appointed Dowie
     Hughton who got us out of the Championship, but also had no Managerial experience
     Pardew after a long absence from football and very iffy record.

     There is nothing in Fatty’s appointments that should give us any hope that we can get out of this mess.

458. AND, DID ANYBODY ELSE NOTICE OUR DEFENDERS WERE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT PUTTING THEIR HANDS UP AND LOOKING AT THE OFFICIALS FOR OFFSIDE THAN ACTUALLY PLAYING FOOTBALL? Krul included.

459. I don’t get it ?

     How many times have we read, “Pardew has (x)number of games to save his job”.

     FFS do it now and put him and everyone else out of their misery.

     If it’s about his pay-off, better to pay him than be relegated.

     And if he does get the push, who then ?

     Hopefully none of the recently mentioned retreads.

     Also if he’s off, can he take his coaches with him, please.

     Over he last few seasons we have seen something of a revolution when it comes to introducing the new brand of good younger managers to the PL.

     Introducing the modern game to match the skills of those foreign players. who now if not in the majority are close too it.

     Though the news media seem to just love mentioning the names of those many times sacked retreads, either that or they were unaware of those recently appointed managers currently introducing an innovative modern game to the league.

     Unfortunately for NUFC, they are stuck with an owner who doesn’t really care, a man more interested in acquiring big bucks than results.

     Yeah! to him mid table mediocrity is like winning the league, big bucks, from tv revenue, plus an assembly line of cheap continental players , many being sold on for a good profit.

     With a fan base, who like it or not, are willing to put up with anything and show up every weekend home and away.

     So why change a business profile that’s working perfectly?

     Fear of relegation is one reason, which if the present course is followed will definitely be the end result of buying quantity as opposed to quality.

     The other is fear of a drop in bums in seats, when enough fans recognize they are being taken for granted.

     Where we have seen numbers (though not enough) of fans walk out.

     It’s really up to the fans to put pressure on the club(Ashley)to change his policies, obviously the players have given their response to the present situation, failing to put in any kind of effort and Pardew is quietly sitting in the dugout awaiting his pay-off.

     Which will be a nice piece of change and keep him in comfort for his retirement.

     We await with baited breath to find out what will happen next, better than the soap opera “Geordie Shore”, I imagine.

460. In professional sports now the difference between hit or miss, win or lose is often a fraction of a second. Look at swimmers, or 100 meter racers! Our lot waste that fraction looking at the linesman when they should be getting the ball away. Their instinct is to put their hand up and not to defend,

     Often, a goal is prevented by an instinctive reaction and our first reaction is to surrender.

461. Do not know what I’m doing on here as I gave up when I realised Ashley and Pardew had killed NUFC and replaced it with a very cheap and useless imitation Sports Direct un-united. Thousands have been predicting this situation for years but no one is listening. Well its here and its going to get worse. I will be making one of my all to rare visits to the North East this weekend but one place I will not be visiting is St James Park. I would hope those that do let those responsible know how you feel. Then please stay away it will do more good than all the shouting at them that will not listen. This “Backing the Team” will not save it your just signing up for more of the same. That’s my last cry to the deaf I suppose. Good Luck you’ll need it.

462. Nutmag says:
     September 15, 2014 at 9:48 pm

     “Do not know what I’m doing on here.”

     Cheers Nutmag! :-)

463. Well, Lee Ryder has written a joke of an article saying Coloccini might replace Pardew. In it he says Colo may have had a hand in the loans of M’Biwa, ben Arfa and Marveaux. So, is anybody really suggesting that Pardew’s stooge who f@cked off to Argentina should replace him? If Coloccini wants to see what is wrong with the defense he should look in the mirror.

     Our options at center back are sadly lacking. Coloccini can’t play with any of them though. He seems to have lost a step and has always flattered to deceive because his ball playing ability made up for his bad positioning. The lack of pace has now done for that.

     It is well documented that Williamson has many shortcomings (especially by one person on here). We all know this, but there has usually been room for a big clogger in the English game who is no-nonsense and good in the air. We all knew Williamson wasn’t good enough and didn’t need to be reminded every day. However, the partnership sometimes worked and was better than the alternatives. That seems to have changed. Maybe the game has passed them by, probably we are now being outcoached.

     I would contend that Coloccini is as much at fault as Williamson for our recent decline. In an ideal world we would get rid of both.

     What is clear is that we should be offloading Coloccini for being Pardews b!tch/stooge. If we want a purge of Pardew’s influence and ideas then Coloccini has to go as well. The fact that he is no longer the player he was makes it all the easier.

     I know it wont happen :)

464. I keep seeing people harping on about Pardew being a good manager because he finished 5th 3 years ago. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while after that, but everything he has shown before and after has proven his true level (Championship)

     I will put my Sid the Sexist hat on and give you an analogy. It is like you meet this very attractive lass who unknown to you has lost a lot of weight. You get along well and she moves in with you. Then she gets comfortable and before you know it she is tucking in to KFC and ice cream every night. The pounds pile back on.

     This is what is happening to Pardew, he is reverting to type. He can play the passing game for a while but will always revert to negative tactics and hoofball – just like the formerly fat girls who have been on a crash diet.

465. I am actually enjoying the abuse and hatred being directed at Mr. Pardew. I used to look forward to watching our games on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but he has taken that away from me during at least the last 9 months. I haven’t even been to the Pub to watch a game because I knew it would just be 90 minutes of futility. God knows what people with season tickets feel like?

     Maybe now that Carver’s family have to pay for their own tickets they will see the dross on the pitch for what it is. Praps they may be unfurling some Pardew Out signs soon.

466. I read my post @364 again. It looks like I am saying that the fat girl is reverting to hoofball and negative tactics – only if she is listening to Pardew!

467. GS says:
     September 16, 2014 at 3:38 pm

     “I keep seeing people harping on about Pardew being a good manager because he finished 5th 3 years ago.”

     That’s a phenomenon though, GS. Do you remember the thing I did about all the Cinderella managers who came out of nowhere, did really well for a season, won manager of the year then turned back into a pumpkin and got relegated, sacked etc?

468. @467: I do remember that piece worky, post it again so I can see the details. Pards was manager of the month as recently as last November.

     We are not totally shite, 15 points and a decent manager will see us have a chance to fix things in January though.

     The atmosphere is so toxic now that Pards, Carvs and Stoner have to go. Even Fatman has to see that.

     (and take your little dog Colo with you)

469. Here it is, GS:

     https://nufcblog.org/2013/01/are-the-manager-of-the-year-awards-a-managerial-kiss-of-death/

470. Wow, Moyes got it 3 times. Funny how they are all British and what you would call mediocre looking back. I would still prefer Moyes over Pards though.

471. I assume the full list of Manager of the year includes Fergie and Mourinho? Still, it does go to show that it is quite often a flash in the pan.

472. I suspect Ashley will give Pardew at least another half dozen games, unless he caves in to vociferous fans, which I think is unlikely. That’ll take us up to the game away to Spurs and then we’re into November. If we’re still bottom or thereabouts after 10 games I reckon Pardew could get the boot.

     December’s a bit of stinker: home to Chelsea, Everton and the mackems; away to Arsenal, Man Utd and – one easy one (on paper at least) – Burnley. I can’t see us getting many points in December, assuming our poor form continues, and I reckon Ashley will want someone new in before then.

     This weekend will be telling though. Not so much the result, important though it is, but the attitude of the players. Last week they just didn’t seem bothered and it’ll be interesting to see if Pardew’s managed to motivate them in any way. I fear that if Hull got an early goal on Saturday we could cave again.

473. Watching Pardew against S’ampton was like watching a beaten dog, resigned to his fate, afraid to leave the dugout.

     What has happened to all that make friends and impress people psycho-babble he was so fond of up until recently.

     No matter how detestable he has been over the last four years, no one likes to see a pathetic figure like that.

     Though few will regret his departure.

     And anyone awaiting his resignation will have a long wait, as he is not about to threaten his final piece off.

     I’m sure Ashley will eventually bite the bullet and call him a cab.

     Question is who will be bold enough to step into the job, no one of any stature, it being a gig that requires a slavish yes man, but the also-rans and never-did’s will no doubt begin to jockey for position.

     I would think most self respecting candidates will regard it as a poison chalice, but who knows, it would be difficult to find another like Pards.

     I cant believe Ashley will consider a non English replacement and if that’s the case perhaps the best of the bunch may be Steve Clarke, (no not the Geordie at Brum.)who I believe was never given a real chance to manage and may turn out to be decent.

     But I’m sure each of us have our current favorites and their will be plenty of speculation as to who will end up with the gig.
     Poor Bastid, whoever it is.

474. Geordie at Brum is Lee Clark, Scot that was at the West Brom part of Brum was Steve Clarke. I would take Steve Clarke at this point. I am not criticising you Chuck, misery loves company and heaven knows I’m miserable now (about NUFC anyway).

     Look at Leeds, they have applications from Robbie Fowler, JF Hasselbank and James Beattie. Maybe even Dennis Wise again. That’s probably the pool we will choosing from as well if it goes on like this, so Steve Clarke would be a step up from all of them AND Pardew.

475. The out of work managers that might be considered (apart from Dennis Wise) are:

     Steve Clarke
     Roberto di Matteo
     Michael Laudrup (I know he is in Qatar, but still)
     Tim Sherwood

     The silly season suggestions were Bruce and Shearer as a tandem.

     On crazy NUFC boards I have also seen Benitez and de Boer. We missed our chance with Koemans so let’s settle, that’s what we do now apparently.

476. @473 Whilst I admit it is not a good sight to see a beaten dog it is very satisfying to see a brash, arrogant gobshite get what he deserves, whether that is from the fans or ultimately the sack.

477. Terrible news about Jonas. Worky, you can ban me if you want but I have to say it – I thought he was only joking when he said he would give his left nut to get away from Pardew.

478. literally give his left bollock.

479. Now to see what will happen on Saturday given our roster is full. My guess is Tiote, Taylor, Dummett and Facundo start. A last roll of the dice for Pards, with Obertan as his desperation move.

     This is it then:

     Krul

     Janmaat Taylor Coloccini Dummett

     Tiote Colback

     Sissoko Cabella Gouffran

     Facundo

480. I have no idea what will happen at corners and free kicks if we lose the default bang it to Williamson to knock down? Maybe just kick it straight out of play again as that would serve the same purpose? (without the counter threat).

481. Did anybody else see that they were going to loan out Sammy as well? He is in the last year of his contract so it was another penny pinching move. Aarons gets injured and they keep him. Lo and behold, our fearless leader plays the previously surplus Sammy ahead of Armstrong and Obertan on Saturday – it reminds me of Baldrick from Balackadder, “I have a cunning plan”…

482. From what I have seen so far, Cabella is the poor man’s ben Arfa. That is pretty sad really considering we had the actual ben Arfa.

483. Back to my point about Sammy. They want rid but play him ahead of players in his position, Armstrong and Obertan. It shows you that Pardew is clueless or has no say whatsoever in transfers. I opt for clueless as he was playing Shola and Gosling last season when there was nothing to play for and it was obvious they had one foot out the door.

484. Even after his operation, Gutierrez still has more balls than Pardew.

485. And… And !!! Siem de Jong is on crutches for 6 weeks. The estimated 3 months out is a minimum. He will be like a new signing if we get him back in February (In Carr we Trust, where’s my t-shirt).

486. “The truth is Mike Ashley remains committed to Newcastle United,” said a follow-up club missive. “For the avoidance of doubt, this means that for the remainder of this season and AT LEAST until the end of next season Mike Ashley will not, under any circumstances, sell Newcastle United at any price. The club cannot be stronger in stating its position on this matter.”

     ‘This was a rare revealing of intent but suspicions continue. That summer 2016 date coincides with Rangers’ possible entry into the Champions League, should they return to Scotland’s top division and win the league at the first go. Such summations are strictly guesswork, since in his eight years in control of Newcastle, Ashley has surprised at almost every turn.’

     http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/345221.html

487. Thank God we are only playing Hull. I watched them against Wet Spam and they were cr@p.

     We will play 6-3-1, with 4 de facto center halfs. Tiote and Colback protecting the other center halfs.

     Since Bagpuss is an inherently cowardly manager I see a nil-nil and another reprieve for Pards.

488. GS says:
     September 17, 2014 at 1:25 pm

     “Thank God we are only playing Hull. I watched them against Wet Spam and they were cr@p.”

     They’re doing alright for being crap though, GS. They were FA Cup finalists last season, currently 10th in the league and through to the next round of the Europa League.

489. Wigan and Brum got relegated after cup finals. Bagpuss was in charge of a woeful Sunderland team (which is one of the reasons I don’t want him to manage us). PARDEW got to a cup final and almost won it.

490. Your point is? See your post @ 469 :)

491. If the vote goes for Scottish independence does that mean that Scotland’s biggest export will end – Commentating on The English Premier League?

492. GS, can they understand anything they are saying over there?

493. Carver has issued a statement basically saying “they started it” about his fracas with fans. He was the one that walked over and told them to take the signs down, I don’t know what he expected.

     This non-apology apology was bettered by Woodman who said “my response was a reaction to significant personal abuse from a number of fans which I felt exceeded which was fair and balanced”

     OK

     1. when was a football crowd “fair and balanced”?

     2. “fair and balanced” is the Fox News tagline.

     3. He is also essentially saying “they started it Dad”.

     What they should have said is that they unreservedly regret their actions. These excuse laden apologies are not apologies at all.

494. What this shows is that we employ clowns – from the Pardew headbutt to the Carver idiocy in thinking he would reason with fans with a Pardew Out banner – “Haway man lads, I one of you, lets put the banner away and support the team” W@NKER. Even the PR team seem to be getting caught up in the comedy with their non-apology apologies. Arn’tya just sick of their platitudes, it just shows how deep their contempt for the fans really is.

495. And there’s more – who does Carver think he is to ask for a Pardew Out sign to be taken down? It is not only directed at Pardew it is to the whole coaching staff, including Carver, Stone and Woodman. They are the ones that cannot get the team to score from a corner in 2 years, they are the ones that have the same free kick design day after day, month after month, year after year.

     He now wants to be one of the lads when he is part of the problem. The T*sser even asked the fan to go to the training ground on Monday (I assume for a fight). Hard man! Do we want a coach or a blustering fool?

     Carver is supposedly on the same contract as Pardew. Ashley should have sacked him for misconduct as he should have sacked Pardew for the headbutt.

496. GS, you might not understand this very well as you’re over there but Carver plays the same role as ex deputy Prime Minister John Prescott once did with ‘New’ Labour over here. He’s a big local bumpkin who seems like an old fashioned Newcastle United type who likes a good punch up, a useful idiot who helps to build trust with the natives, just like Prescott seemed like an old fashioned, working class old labour type who counterbalanced the slimy middle class lying scum like Blair, Mandelson and Milburn.

497. I just watched Pardew’s press conference and he said even the best teams like Ars* get beat by big margins. Not usually Alan, and by extremely good teams like Citeh when they are at the top of their game. It is most often an aberration in an otherwise good season.

     This year we have been beaten free or four nil a few times and to use Ars*’s occasional implosion as justification is yet another Pardew lie. This year is not an aberration:

     Mackems 3-0

     Chelsea 3-0

     Spurs 4-0

     Everton 3-0

     Man U 4-0

     Southampton 4-0

     Arsenal 3-0

     Southampton 4-0

     The one constant is that we score nil. These were all hammerings as well, when we never looked like scoring (maybe Mackems excluded). On Saturday it even looked like Southampton were easing up on us, content to play on the counter as they knew they had another goal when they wanted it.

498. I went back and checked and those 8 results this year are of 23 league games played (including this season).

     So, we get p*ssed on in over a furd of our games and we are like Arsenal?

499. Can you imagine the coaching sessions with Carvs and Stoner – yeah, 4-0 at St Mary’s but Man U beat the Ars$ 6-2 two years ago so its not our fault. Happens to all the good teams.

500. GS says:
     September 18, 2014 at 4:10 pm

     “I just watched Pardew’s press conference and he said even the best teams like Ars* get beat by big margins.”

     When was the last time Arsenal were bottom though, GS? And when did they last finish a season in 16th place?

501. Worky: That Ars@ get beat by a large margin occasionally is pretty much unrelated to our current predicament and the job Pards and his staff are doing. Is that a straw man argument? I have never really fathomed Aristotle and all that stuff.

     As you said, he should be pointing out the last time Ars@ were bottom to make a fair comparison.

502. Some good things:

     * I thought it was funny that the Southampton fans were joining in with the chorus of “you’re getting sacked in the morning”.

     * the idiot Troy is backpeddling on his Pardew support on .co.uk

     * Ed still has the “In Carr we Trust t-shirt” up. You have to admire his tenacity in the face of all reason.

     * I think I am enjoying this a bit too much because this time I can see the end of Pardew. I was shocked he didn’t go in the summer, but even Fatty can see his time is up?

503. Excerpts from Pardew’s press conference:

     “We have a different squad this year – like all players in the PL they are finding the environment tough…

     We’ve spoke to the group about it, but I am not going to offer any excuses”.

     Well, you offered an excuse that they were new to the premier league about 30 seconds before you said you wouldn’t offer an excuse – TW@T.

     You also said the ROSTER was full and that this team had “goals in it”. Yeah, 4 for Southampton and 3 for f@cking Palace.

     Shola was good enough for this “magnificent” club and is now in the Turkish second division.

     WHEN WILL YOU REALISE THAT YOUR WORDS ARE ALL HOLLOW?

504. Has Diego Costa found it tough? What about the new look Southampton side with several new overseas players that trounced us? They’re two examples that contradict Pardew’s assertion for a start. It will be interesting to see how Hull get on in the Europa League this season. According to Pardew’s Law, they should be definitely be relegated beyond any shadow of doubt this season though I would bet they actually finish in a higher position.

505. I just read in the Daily Hate Mail that Pards says NUFC supporters are suffering from mass hysteria.

     Here is a definition of hysteria: an uncontrollable outburst of emotion, often characterized by irrationality, laughter and weeping.

     Yes, I have gone through these emotions because I have been watching your team, who wouldn’t? But I know the cause and I think it is perfectly rational to blame Pardew for the problems. Not irrational, therefore not hysteria, Alan.

     NEXT.

     They show the flyers that will be handed out saying “sackpardew.com”. They are in the colours of the Sports Direct logo which I think is pretty funny/clever.

     This has to end now. We are becoming a National joke. They seem to only allow one journalist to ask questions at the press conference and he doesn’t ask any follow ups for fear of being banned. We now have 3 stooges, Colo, Carver and Woodman, two of whom are making lame excuses for their indefensible behavior. And meanwhile, we cant even put together a subs bench that would be lucky to get in the Mackem reserves (sorry, U21s).

506. MORE:

     Here are quotes about/from Chuck’s pal Roberto Martinez:

     “Everton boss Martinez believes the Europa League will help delevop his squad”

     He said:

     “Reaching the knockout stage is a prime objective…our fans know we are not going to stand still”

     “I get satisfaction from how good we can be as a team and part of that process is how good we can be in Europe. We need Europe for us to be as good as we can be”.

     Compare this to NUFC. I always liked Martinez ever since he commentated on the SA World Cup here. I only gave Chucklebunny a hard time about him because he had elevated him to Bob Paisley heights when he was struggling with relegation every year.

507. And more from The Guardian:

     “Pardew…has pledged to fight for a job he knows is under threat and emphasised he has a RESILIENCE IN MY SOUL”

     They continue – So far Newcastle’s owner has resisted sacking Pardew after Saturday’s 4-0 defeat “it wasn’t a performance I am proud of” said Pardew.

     NO SH!T SHERLOCK

     “All I know is that I signed a long contract here for good or bad”

     F@cking bad for us matey and good for your bank account.

     Admittedly, Mackem Louise Taylor wrote The Guardian piece, but she is not far off the mood that we are all in at the moment.

508. People should read the Martinez statements (my computer is playing up, otherwise I would post it). But, what it shows is a man with ambition.

     He is in a 2 club City where Everton are the poor relation and yet he embraces Europe and somehow gets the Chairman to spend 28 million on Lukaku – essentially our whole transfer budget on one player.

     Meanwhile, we have Pards saying his target for us is 48 points, one less than last year. Europe doesn’t matter because it only brings in 3 or 4 million and we can get that by selling out to WONGA. The Cups, a distraction. We don’t want anything shiny to take away our fans’ gaze from the beautiful Sports Direct logos bestrewn around the ground!

     The “Group”, the “Roster” are better than ever though. Is a group, a roster with Sammy, Taylor, Perez (2nd div Spain) and Obertan good enough? Is that a roster for NUFC who fill a 50,000 seat stadium and have a 100 million pound turnover (more if Fatty didn’t cook the books and had ambition)? We should at least be the equals of Spurs and Everton but we are falling further behind – what are we, f@cking Mackems?

509. Since I am the only one posting, I may as well continue :)

     In see a few people saying that Pardew is in an impossible situation, that his hands are tied by Ashley. Why then did he say that this is the best squad he has ever had? He is either a hypocrite or a liar, perhaps we will never know which as Ashley will probably have a gag order on him.

     What is unfathomable is that we loaned out 3 first team players, at least two of which because Pardew fell out with them. I have read that we are actually paying the majority of ben Arfa’s wages as well. This is just bad management, regardless of the restrictions that Ashley has placed on the budget.

     Anybody could see we had a thin squad even before that fateful transfer deadline Monday. I have said it before but you only have to look at Saturday’s bench to see the trouble we are in.

     When Pardew goes, then what? We have to hope that some of the new arrivals are not as bad as they have looked. Cabella has a very good reputation in France and Janmaat was the Dutch World Cup right back but has looked anything but so far (Palace did most of their damage down his side). We have to limp to January and then hope Fatty comes to his senses and brings in what we need. I don’t see us being out of the bottom three by then whoever is manager.

     This is in no way a defense of Pardew because he just makes a bad situation worse. For someone who prides themself on their ability to speak and motivate he doesn’t half put his foot in his mouth sometimes. Saying there is mass hysteria is idiotic, and as I said earlier it is only hysteria if it is unjustified or unreasonable. Clearly Pardew should have been sacked in the summer so this a perfectly reasonable reaction to his continued employment.

     And saying it affects the team. Get your excuses in early and often Alan, that’s all you have left.

510. This Hull game could be tragi-soap like that other Hull game at SJP post Keegangate. The Sack Pardew brigade are planning a day of rage too or something like that.

511. Pardew is a Prick.
     The 3rd kit is Tat as well.

512. You posting a blog at the weekend?
     Hopefully the End for Pardew.

513. It’s my belief that Pardews most recent criticism of the fans, (mass hysteria) is based on the realization that his cab is on the way and will hopefully hasten the process, that plus a parting shot at the fans.

     As it should be obvious to all any chance of a rapprochement between he and the fans is presently impossible.

     He will end up with a nice piece of change and may even end up with the job at Craven Cottage, next to his home in West London.

     As for Ashley, he should be concentrating on finding the missing ingredient for this club to be any way successful, or for that matter remain as a PL side.

     Talking bout a Director of football, no not a JFK type bullshitter, someone with a track record, who in turn could point the club in the right direction, by hiring the right type of manager, someone he could work in tandem with, getting rid of the present chaotic system.

     Though Ashley’s micro management style (read control freak) and distrust may make that a no starter.

     It appears not only Pardew but the entire coaching staff, should be replaced and both fans and they are well aware of that fact, following the recent confrontations at S’ampton.

     It’s up to Ashley and if he doesn’t understand the fact that these problems will not just go away until he hires the right people, instead of con men and chancers, who it appears he feels comfortable with, because they will “yes” the hell out of him.

     A successful club is not about spending large sums of money, but like every well run football club by using talented people to both coach, scout and negotiate.

     But if he insists on his present hands on approach, refusing to delegate or trust those who he appoints, we will end up with the same chaotic situation.

514. SJT you would think that Ashley being a billionaire sports merchandiser he would have come up with a decent kit. The odd thing was that they consulted with a fans/focus group and still came up with that – you would have though common sense would have prevailed.

515. Getting in a DOF who would then hire a coaching staff will be very difficult in the middle of a season. You would think that when Pardew gets the push his coaches will go too. The alternative is Carver as interim boss with him knowing he will be sacked when a new coach comes in.

     Di Matteo has a record of coming in and calming things down. If he would come, he would be our best option I think.

     Chuck, I don’t even know what our current organisational structure is. Carr identifies them, but is he even a full time scout? We supposedly beefed up our scouting in South America but nothing has come of that. Charnley seems to be only the contract Guy and Pardew only has a say in outgoings.

     From what I have seen, Coloccini is the main man now :) He identified Facundo and was ring leader in the Great ben Arfa Mutiny.

     This is very reminiscent of the season we were almost relegated where Pardew said he was happy with the squad and then after a league cup game turned on the Youngsters and said they weren’t good enough. If you look at our “Roster” we have very few senior players and quite a few have been on Pardew’s scrap heap before – Taylor, Williamson, Obertan at least, maybe Coloccini when he was in his big sulk.

516. Excellent article from the Independent.

     “Comment: Alan Pardew is just a stooge for Mike Ashley who runs Newcastle like his shops – cheap foreign imports and a tame manager”

     http://tinyurl.com/na7th4w

517. The pr|ck’s stirring the sh|t before the game’s even started

     http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-manager-alan-pardew-7802970

     Apparently, he’s not the slightest bit concerned about getting stick from the crowd (it’s “not an ego or an arrogance thing, that’s just the way I am wired”). He will, however, be keeping an eye out for the welfare of those delicate souls in his charge out on the pitch.

     “I don’t really know the answer to what they [the crowd] are going to be like. The one thing I think is important is that on Saturday, I will look for players who I think are struggling with the situation, more so to protect them.

     “It may well be that at half time, I make an early change. It might be that the situation has got too much for that individual player, not because he is necessarily playing poorly.”

     What a prize c*nt.

518. Darth: in that article he says that the Cardiff game he experienced being booed for the first time. I find that very hard to believe since he was hounded out of West Ham and Charlton.

     I also have complete faith in the changes he will make at half time :) I think the stat is that when we are behind at the half we have drawn 5, lost 39 and won none of 44. He is an utter gobshite, does he even think before he opens his big yapper?

     Now he is the kindly uncle looking after his put upon players!!! You really cant make up the shite that he comes out with.

519. GS: Had to laugh at this:

     “I had some really testing times last season, as we know. It’s about being a manager who can control certain situations.”

     So. Having no option but to cower in the dugout at home games while the crowd question his competence/parentage/sanity for ninety minutes is being in ‘control’ as far as Pards is concerned.

     The guy’s a loon.

520. GS says:
     September 20, 2014 at 1:30 am

     “Darth: in that article he says that the Cardiff game he experienced being booed for the first time. I find that very hard to believe since he was hounded out of West Ham and Charlton.”

     What a liar he is, and the lying is so bad, it’s comedy. Here we go for a a start. Of course, according to Pardew, Charlton were getting booed because of the players. I wonder why Pardew teams become so unmotivated after a while?

     http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11684/4370018/pardew-accepts-charlton-boos

     Here’s a little video evidence of Charlton fans booing him and chanting “w@nker! w@nker! w@nker!” as he walks past.

521. sirjasontoon says:
     September 19, 2014 at 2:03 pm

     “You posting a blog at the weekend?
     Hopefully the End for Pardew.”

     SJT, I’ve tried. It was supposed to be for amusement or whatever but I just can’t get into Sports Direct United anymore. If I am going to write some more, they will be more like opinion pieces or bits of research I’ve done rather than the match banter type things.

522. I follow from a distance now Worky I think you can only hate something so much for so long and realise it’s just a waste of Energy :)

523. Worky @520: you could substitute NUFC in that article and it sounds exactly like what he is saying now. I know I have written a lot of stuff about Pards this week but he broke his media silence and did a lot of interviews and stuck his foot in his mouth when he did. He just says stupid stuff that leaves him open to ridicule.

     Plus there has been a bombardment of stats everywhere, each one of which would probably get a manager sacked at any other club.

     I am watching all of this with a mixture of bemusement and laughter because that’s all you can do. It is hard to get angry anymore because you can predict what is coming – maybe have a drinking game at his press conferences :) “Resilience in my soul” is a new one though, perhaps he would be better served being The Archbishop of Canterbury?

     I am still a bit mad at the lies, lame excuses and the non-apology apologies because all this does is stir the pot and make fans question management’s judgement even more.

     Roll on 3 O’Clock. The really amazing thing is that people are looking at this game as his chance to save his job when he should have been out long ago. I see people saying that any manager would struggle under Ashley, but this is what has happened at every club Pardew has been at.

524. I have seen in three separate interviews this week Pardew say it is not “arrogance or ego” that drives him. If he has to repeat that so often it probably is and he knows that is how people think of him! Shifting the blame, outright lies, constant excuses are his hallmark and the sign of an arrogant, egotistical and delusional Tw@t.

525. GS, Football Focus had a big montage of Pardew awfulness followed by a discussion. It’s constant now and it’s reached that tipping point where everything gets sucked into the vortex of inevitablilty.

526. There’s a scathing article on sackpardew.com about his default plan when we are in trouble being to to change the left back. Well, it is Dummett for Haidara today, who has probably been our best attacking player bar Aarons.

527. Even the Yank pundits on the stream I’m watching are mauling him “Pardoo’s a dead man walkin,’ a broken man” etc..

528. Is this the battle of the loan sharks? I am guessing cash converters is another payday loan company. I don’t see many signs as yet.

529. Hatem’s in with the NUFC fans :)

530. GS says:
     September 20, 2014 at 3:00 pm

     “Is this the battle of the loan sharks? I am guessing cash converters is another payday loan company.”

     Not quite, they go back quite a long way. It was an old pawn type shop full of stereos, tellies, music gear etc that would cash cheques too. I remember that lots of Junkies used to pawn their stereos and guitars in there to get more smack, an ex-junkie mate of mine used to call it ‘Smack Converters.’ They’ve branched out into payday loans and such since the payday loan revolution though.

531. i am falling asleep! what a crock of shite

532. We weren’t too bad be honest, except for having almost no goal threat whatsoever as usual.

533. They were filming one of the stewards at St James’ Park, then the camera panned over to Lee Charnley and he looked exactly the same. Is Ashley cloning NUFC staff now?

534. You never can tell with Papiss Cisse.

535. It was a decent game. Cisse is a streaky player so I hope this gives him confidence. Still don’t hold out much hope for Pards as we gave a run of tough away games.

     At least I don’t want to stick my head in the oven this weekend.

536. Just saw Pards’ after-match interview and he said he didn’t want to say much because he has been accused of making excuses and being arrogant and egoistic. Has the penny finally dropped?

     Also, Ashley appears to have put on the weight he lost and more.

537. Not much of a game football-wise, neither side about to create headlines unless it’s about a struggle to remain in the league.

     What happened to the fans and their planned anti-Pardew display ?

     A bit like the Scots who hadn’t the courage of their own
     convictions, all talk and no walk.

     An act of desperation, bringing on, an as yet unfit Cisse, plus young Sammy and the would/will be sensational teenage striker.

     A masterstroke or a desperate move, you be the judge.

     Certainly didn’t take Pardew long to go from what appeared to be total dejection, to an arrogant air puncher, hell! ya gotta smile.

     That for a draw against a mediocre side ?

     The soap opera continues.

538. It could be that the most important thing from that game was Cisse’s return. Injured or not, he hasn’t looked like that for a long time. He was all over the place and provided more of threat on goal in 30 minutes than the whole of the rest of the squad have over the whole season so far.

539. Depends on what you mean by the most important thing ?

     For Pardew it certainly was important.

     For Newcastle United, it was a disaster, being a two zip home loss would possibly have ended this soap opera.

540. Supposedly, Ashley said he wouldn’t sack Pardew regardless of the result. I don’t know if that is true or not.

     What I don’t get is that Pardew’s survival instinct hasn’t kicked in. Why hasn’t he sacrificed Carver or Stone? There are plenty of coaches out there. I don’t think the Man U veterans discarded by Moyes have jobs and Moyes’s Everton coaches don’t have jobs. Anything to freshen up the set pieces and change some tactics that haven’t worked for a long time.

     Even Fat Sam has recently employed Teddy Sherringham as an attacking coach at the prompting of the bongo boys wanting more attractive football. It shows an old, ugly, fat dog can sometimes learn new tricks – so why not Pardew?

541. Pardew said after the game that the only reason Cisse got to play yesterday is because the Newcastle United club doctor “was on a course this week so he didn’t get a say.” Maybe it was good that he did play, but what does it say about Newcastle United and the way it is being run? One of the larger Premier League clubs preparing for and playing an important game in the Premier League, they don’t even have a doctor on duty and Pardew is making medical decisions on the hoof.

542. The writing is on the wall, for all to see.
     We are heading for relegation, possibly the worst side in the league.

     Instead of rebuilding the side with a decent back line, (face it we don’t have one decent center back) and at least one decent striker, we cheaped out buying sick notes and other sides casts-offs.

     Instead of bringing in quality, we bought quantity.

     Our one possibility for a quick profitable re-sale Cabella, has been shown as a lightweight flop.

     So much for both Charnley, a fugging kna nowt beancounter plus “in Carr we trust” do we really ?

     Gonna be interesting what Ashley’s reaction will be come the holiday season, when it comes obvious if action is not taken, due to a combination of ignorance and arrogance, he is once again facing relegation, with all of it’s implications.

     Will he once more splash out as he did a couple of years ago, or risk loosing the riches of the PL.

     Time for him to reflect on the entire operation and why it’s not working.

     I would suggest he have a clearout of both playing staff and management and use the time between now and the opening of the winter window to educate himself on who to replace them, unless of course he continues to believe he knows how to run a football club.

543. chuck says:
     September 19, 2014 at 2:57 pm

     “Talking bout a Director of football,”

     You still have people who say they aren’t the English way, that they do not work in the Premier League blah blah… However these people shouldn’t be writing about football if they are so ill informed as three of the five top teams in the Premier League have Directors of Football, Technical Directors or whatever you want to call them and have for some time now. Chelsea have Michael Emenalo, Manchester City tapped into the exodus of the Cruyff / Laporta mafia at Barcelona and brought in Txixi Begiristain and Ferran Soriano, Tottenham have Franco Baldini with Manchester United and Arsenal being the exceptions.

544. Chuck, I was reading some pieces about Roberto Martinez and his relationship with his coaching mentor Johan Cruyff a while ago. They’ve known each other since Martinez was 14 and very good friends with Jordi Cruyff.

545. Yes naturally Cruffe was an influence, due to his innovative tactics, but also Sacchi and the Welshman John Toshak, (no man is a profit in his own land) who was fairly successful during his time in Spain.

     However his father Martinez snr, having been a coach, may have been a major influence in directing him to-wards management.

     He being nothing special as a player, apart from desire and determination.

     He mentions his stint in Scotland playing for ex Celtic player Pat Nevin at Motherwell also played a major role in his career.

     The fact unlike people such as Pardew, he has not wasted his time, gaining degrees in physiology and a post graduate degree in business, which gives him an understanding of player injuries and a better understanding of the business side of running a club.

     That combined with both tactical nous, a positive psychological approach and a determination to be successful, makes him IMO a very good manager.

546. The so called Newcastle United Foundation in association with Wonga are going to be running courses for the long term unemployed. Judging by the photo, the staff will all be walking around wearing big Wonga logos and I would dare say that won’t be the only place they will be displayed.

     According to NUFC accounts, Ashley has only put around £10,000 in over the last two years and most of the money comes from donations by fans, who are in effect paying for Wonga to advertise their wares to the long term unemployed who need Wonga like a hole in the head. How is one supposed to support a load of vile, unscrupolous bastards like that?

     http://www.nufc.co.uk/articles/20140922/foundation-to-help-unemployed-young-men_2281670_4163442

547. The average attendance for the three games at St James’ Park so far this season has been 49,720.33 recurring.

548. And yes, it should be obvious by now that a good DOF has become a necessary role in the successful running of to-days top football clubs.

     Unfortunately we have an owner who is not interested in success, only in remaining in the Pl, with it’s enormous revenues.

     That and a free billboard for advertising his main business.

     Following a couple of seasons of no expenditure on players, which ended in a succession of defeats, due mainly to the selling off, of our best players, he suddenly splashed out as he had done previously.

     Unfortunately buying more quantity than quality.

     The usual scenario, where his cheap-ass chiseling approach caused acrimony with the clubs he attempted to deal with.

     But such is the attraction of the PL for players (read shop window and higher salaries) many player’s agents forced the deals through, no doubt with a little persuasion from Ashley.

     When examined the present business plan just doesn’t work, as it takes time to bed in players, to then sell them off for profit sounds good, but is unsustainable and can only result in inevitable relegation.

     My point is, if in fact Ashley is interested in the remaining in the PL, he needs a decent DOF, who will run the operation (with constraints if necessary) and slowly rebuild the side, buying quality players/player, each season, not a panic buy of eight or nine no-bodies.

     It will put an end to the constant squabbling between himself and the fans, relieve him of the micro managing role and hopefully have a competitive side, a win win situation for all.

     But who knows, perhaps he enjoys sticking it to the fans, sad in a sense following his early start on the terraces and in the pubs, the man could have become a hero on Tyne-side, now he’s no more than a despised figure, who generates nothing but acrimony.

     Where and when will it all end?

549. Wasn’t Dennis Wise the NUFC DOF though? Then they told Keegan he would have final say in transfers and then went over his head to the DOF, ie. Wise/Jiminez?

     Ashley picking a new DOF would probably be on the same basis as his choice of manager – a fans favourite, one of his cronies, or he was out of options (Hughton). Changing the managerial structure is not going to make a difference unless Ashley lucks on a good choice.

     Charnley seems to be the fee and salary negotiator with strict rules from Ashley. He seems suited to that role although the mandated low-balling means we lose out on good players for relatively small sums.

     The part time scout “in Carr we Trust” seems to have too much say/influence. And there seems to be no understanding of what players our current manager would be suited to manage. If you have Pardew, you buy two giant centre halfs a target man (like Bony or Pelle) and Charlie Adam to ping it up to them.

     There is an obvious disconnect between all levels of the organization, but do you trust Aslhley to select the correct person to fix it?

550. Pards is talking about Cabella today and giving him both praise and criticism. You have to give the lad a chance and he is being barged off the ball and no fouls given. I suppose unless your name is Wilshere that is allowed, and he might have to get used to it. Those giant Brucie midfielders fouled him at least 3, and probably 5, times in their half and nothing was given.

     Maybe he is not suitable for the premier league, but give him more than 5 games.

     Have you seen the joke about Man U spending all that money and not replacing their most essential element – Howard Webb.

551. I was looking through the client list of Ashley’s PR guru, Keith Bishop the other day. No Pacino or Bill Gates. Seriously though, I’m not joking, he has Les from the Bay City Rollers and Pat “the mullett” Sharp on his books.

     Also, it was incredibly stupid for Bishop to go to a football game with his client in front of 50,000 people and a TV audience around the world . As a PR guru, he should have known that when he becomes part of the story, then it’s all gone badly wrong. Ashley’s so greedy, even though he’s a multi-billionaire he’s got a two bob spin doctor who is shite.

     http://www.kbapr.com/

552. Just checking out to see exactly what size our current squad is and and found we have a total of forty five players on the books, two of which are yet to arrive from Forest

     Excluding the kids here’s the list and a brief personal review of those listed.

     First those on loan excluding the youngster.

     HBA- the victim of a personal vendetta with Pardew, who on his day is undoubtedly one of the leagues best players.

     Marveaux- always thought he was a decent player, but obviously for some reason not a favorite of Pardew, therefor lacked playing time.

     Yanga M’Biwa, played well prior to his arrival at NUFC, gaining international honors with France, but for whatever reason, never showed his capabilities at the club.

     Krull- good goalie, possibly poached by M.U., this coming season.

     Colo- a good servant, passed his sell by date, let him go home.

     Santon-great attacking full back,however, a defensive liability at times.

     Taylor-not a fan favorite and has his defensive liabilities at times, but adds a bit of physicality to the defense.

     Williamson- a liability who doesn’t belong in the PL.

     Sissoko- can run all day, a good box to box player.

     Anita- by now it’s obvious, he’s no more than a fair squad player, lightweight.

     Cisse-bit of an enigma, had a great first season, then couldn’t buy a goal, but last weekend saved Pardews ass
     and undoubtedly better than any striker we have bought so far.

     DeJong- appears to be a sick note, arrived with a rep. as a playmaker/scorer, lets see ?

     Gouffran-decent player, but no winger, where he usually ends up playing.

     Colback- a Geordie kid, decent defensive midfielder, hopefully will improve.

     Ferreyra- apparently from reports “a pig in a poke”

     Aarons- impressive, got pace to burn, can score, hopefully the real deal.

     Perez- bought as one for the future, hopefully it’s the case.

     Jonas- gave it his best, but was one dimensional, good luck to him.

     Haidara- given time will no doubt be decent.

     Cabella- bit lightweight, gets pushed around and has yet to show why we spent so much money on him.

     Elliot- decent goalie, but nothing special.

     Janmat- good buy, could be as good as Debuchy, hopefully.

     Vickic-sick note, never lived up to his potential.

     Tiote- play him in the right role(sweeping in front of the back four) and he’s good.
     Anything else and he becomes a liability.

     Sammy- has size, pace, technique, but has failed to use his talents effectively ?

     Riviere- like most strikers, a lonely victim of Pardew’s inept tactical game starved of the ball.

     Abied- apparently had a good last season in Greece, but hasn’t been given an opportunity by Pardew.

     Dummett- still learning, but will no doubt have a career, whether here or elsewhere.

     Bigirimana- showed he can play in this league and has a future in the game, unfortunately Pardew has no given him that opportunity either.

     Ferguson-good young winger, a bit lightweight, but has the skills, better off elsewhere, as he’s not rated by Pardew.

     Conclusion being we need to shed a few and badly need more quality especially in central defense.

     As for our manager and his coaches, “taxi please” !

553. Chuck: I did an assessment @346 and 347 on Sept 6th of the team and subs and it wasn’t far off yours – see we don’t disagree on everything.

     On Dummett maybe, I think he is a centre back and too slow for fullback. Also, Williamson is all we have got at the moment who can head the ball from a hoof or corner from the opposition, so we need him.

     Now to Gouffy. I think if our staff had half a brain they would repurpose him as an attacking central midfielder. Box to box as they say, but not a number 10. He can run all day, likes to get back and defend and has an eye for a shot. The shots may not always come off but at least he offers that threat. He can also get in dangerous positions in the box. HE IS NEITHER AN OUT AND OUT STRIKER NOR A WINGER, so make the best of his talents. If everyone is fit I don’t think he is a starter but he can offer something to this team if we play high tempo pressing football.

554. @553: they did it with Jonas, I mean put him in the middle. Gouffy is a bit quicker and not as mistake prone so I think it would work. Why the hell not, our options are severely limited at the moment and it would open up a spot for Sammy or Aarons. Pards might consider rotating and not playing Cabella away to Stoke or Hull, for example. That’s beyond him though, the only time he ever considers the opposition, he goes for a 9-0-1 formation.

555. League Cup team? I am going to give it a shot in the dark:

     Eliot

     Janmaat Taylor Dummett Haidara

     Sissoko Abied Tiote (Captain) Sammy

     Perez Armstrong

     We don’t play again until Monday so i think Riviere might start instead of Armstrong.

556. I know I am dwelling :) But, what has Cabella shown that makes him 1st name on the teamsheet that HBA was not better at? It is early days and Cabella is still settling in, but Pardew is giving him the chance that he never gave to HBA – a run in the side. They both cost about the same and are probably on the same wages. I just don’t get it.

557. If Cisse isn’t completely knacked, and if he was he shouldn’t have played him on Saturday, Cisse should get another game now he’s got his eye back in. I don’t just mean for the game itself but in terms of psychology, man management and such.

558. @557: not tomorrow though Worky? They said he had only trained 3 days and he had muscle atrophy. They obviously shouldn’t have played him Saturday, it was desperation from Pards. Hopefully, he will be OK for Monday as we don’t have many options.

     D@mn it. Obertan will start tomorrow and I forgot him @555. Easy to do :) Now I have no idea of what formation we will play. They have talked about resting Riviere but we don’t have another out and out striker who is not young (Armstrong), from the Spanish 2nd Division (Perez) or supposedly cr@p (Facundo).

     Obertan it is then, our new number 9.

559. I think I am watching too much football.

     In the Ars*/S’ton game the commentator said that so and so from S’ton was born exactly 3 days after such and such at Ars*. Who the f@ck cares?

     They keep coming up with the most inane stuff now. I swear Arlo White said if you divide the titles that “United” have won over the past 26 years you would get the square root of Liverpool’s comeback in Istanbul times that night in Barcelona.

     Honestly, I have to turn the sound down for the 1st 20 minutes any game Arlo White is on because he just spouts shite instead of telling you what is happening OR SHUTTING THE F@CK UP. I think the old time commentators had it right – they knew when to keep quiet.

     They should take a class from Richie Benaud or that tennis guy who just said Hmmm when someone hit a good shot.

560. @559: the commentator actually said the Ars* player was born in Chelmsford exactly 3 days after the S’ton player was born in Barcelona. He must have had it written down on a pad to mention after one of them did something good/bad. It is a nothing fact though and I am sick of hearing them.

     I know people are obsessed with stats and facts now, what with fantasy football and championship manager. But at least make them interesting and don’t interrupt the flow of the game with them. Arlo has to finish his f@cking point (pointless fact) even when a team is about to score.

561. Here’s an example of this inanity:

     Arlo: Ooh, that almost went in and if it had, Lukaku would have been the first to score a hattrick in his first game since Dixie Dean scored 70 goals in a season in 1938.

     Graham Le Saux: That’s why we make a good team Arlo, you know all of these facts.

     Arlo: Thanks, Graham. And by the way, Liverpool just scored. Liverpool 1, Everton nil.

     Graham: get in, glad we talking about Dixie Dean just in case any of the viewers thought we didn’t know our history.

     Arlo: yes, oh, it is 1-1 now. What happened there Graham, I was looking in my notebook for more interesting facts? Last time the Merseyside derby was deadlocked at 1-1 Steven Gerrard won it with a screamer from outside the box.

     Graham: indeed he did Arlo. That was an interesting fact and is why we make such a good team.

     REALLY, I DID HEAR ALMOST THIS EXACT DIALOGUE FROM THESE TWO IN A RECENT MATCH.

562. What I mean is that the match is almost a sidenote for some of these Arlo and Le Saux types. They just want to prove either how much they know or that they have a life after football. The jocks are even worse as they want to out-Andy, Andy Gray and show that Scotland is still meaningful with all of their yelling.

     Believe it or not, the Yanks are better commentators because they stick to the game and don’t promote themselves or have obvious favourite teams.

563. My favourite commentators used to be James Hunt and Murray Walker for the Grand Prix and Geoffrey Boycott and David Gower for the cricket with Richie Benaud in charge. Both of those pairs were opposites and that’s what made them so good together.

564. Don’t get me wrong, if the facts are interesting and relevant then it adds to the game. It is when you have an anorak (trainspotter) type giving it information overload.

565. Worky: Do you have any links to the game? I am torn on this one as I think we are in such trouble in the league that not prioritizing this particular cup might be the correct action. God knows what will happen if Tiote or Cisse get injured for example.

     Taking a look at the team I expect is troubling. You would think that we should be competing against the likes of Everton. However, do you think the likes of Dummett, Riviere, Perez and Obertan would get anywhere near their first 11?

     I also watched Southampton. Their team was torn apart in the summer and they lost their manager. They did the right thing in bringing in Koeman and reinvesting 60 million. If you compare that to us it makes you want to cry.

     I don’t know who the executives at Southampton are but if I was Ashley I would poach them. If I was to follow Chuck’s suggestion of changing the organizational structure at NUFC that is what I would do, throw a ton of money there way and give them power to hire and fire and a decent transfer budget. It is all pie in the sky though.

566. GS, there could be some on here, they claim there’ll be 3. Sometimes when the number is that low however, all of them might be shite, or just completely dead. Of course though, that is usually a blessing in disguise with Pardew:

     http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=282508&part=sports

567. Thanks Worky.

568. GS says:
     September 24, 2014 at 2:15 pm

     “They did the right thing in bringing in Koeman.”

     When I heard that Southampton had got him, I felt as sick as a parrot, just like I did when Swansea got Laudrup. It would be a dream come true for me if Newcastle had got him but they’ll never get anyone like that with Ashley.

569. GS, this link might be ok later. The Bundesliga one they have on now seems pretty watchable and hasn’t broken down or anything like that.

     http://www.wiz1.net/channel4

570. Worky: that’s a strange saying – sick as a parrot. I wonder where it came from? Similarly – p*ssed as a newt.

     I will give the links a go. Good to see Armstrong starting and Tiote and Cisse not starting.

571. Actually, that Bundesliga game is only due to finish after the Newcastle game starts, so I divven’t knaa if it will be on that channel.

572. workyticket says:
     September 24, 2014 at 7:05 pm

     “It would be a dream come true for me if Newcastle had got him but they’ll never get anyone like that with Ashley.”

     I’ve got a list of some pretty uninspiring names (bloody desperadoes) he might go for in the event Pards dies of shame, worky.

     I’ll spare everyone, though, seeing as I’ll be repeating myself yet again – and he might be producing an aggregated list of the names that we’ve already said would p|ss us off most.

     I tell you, he really hates us :)

573. DarthBroon says:
     September 24, 2014 at 7:33 pm (Edit)

     “I’ve got a list of some pretty uninspiring names (bloody desperadoes) he might go for in the event Pards dies of shame, worky.”

     Is Big Ron on there, Darth? Or Peter Reid perhaps?

574. Link that actually has the right game on:

     http://www.firstevents.us/live11.html

575. The names I most fear:

     “H___y” B____t
     B___y G___d
     L____e S_____z

     I’d take Big Ron or Monkey’s Heed over Pards any day, worky. Actually, I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Peter Reid.

     Wouldn’t mind ‘El Tel’ having a go either if we can’t have a prodigy like Potchetino or Koeman.

576. some shite links up tonight! (not here just in general)

577. Darth: I would take Little Jimmy Osmond and Jimmy Krankie over Pards and Carvs at this point.

578. @578: I was trying to think of who would be the worst people to be manager of NUFC who hadn’t already been a fascist dictator.

579. Darth, knowing Ashley’s talent for usually doing the thing that will piss off Geordies the most, a Sunderland cast off like Monkeyheed would fit the bill there. He did a Pardew at Sunderland ie on cloud nine, fighting for Europe and awarded manager of the year with Sunderland one season, then totally stuck in the mire after that.

580. Just as well Pol Pot’s dead, GS, or he might well make the shortlist. I might struggle with the genocide thing for a couple of weeks but I’d probably take him over Pards.

     Oh. Here we go. 1 down.

581. Well that’s one down. Will Pardew blame “science” like last season if we go out?

582. The internet feed is shite. Did Pards do his fist pump when we went one down?

583. when was the last time we won when going behind?

584. Dokky: in the league, if behind at half time, I think it is LOST 39, DREW 5, WON 0 out of forty f@cking four.

585. That’s Pardew’s record at NUFC, Stellar.

     Actually pass me a Stella, I am sick of that c@nt.

586. You could have one of mine if I had longer arms, GS :LOL:

587. We scored, I take everything I just said back :)

588. Would anyone swap Pards for ‘Marmite Man’?

589. You know, I much prefer wanting us to win and not just making fun of how bad we are and what a w2nker our manager and staff are (apparently, even the tw@ts for hire stewards). I am sick that it has come to this.

590. well could be lucky 45! this cant be real?

591. Standard. Pardew with his defensive ways and as usual we concede again. This prick has to go soon.

592. I was quite enjoying it anyway so another half-hour won’t kill me, I suppose. Would have been nice to close the game out, obviously, but we just can’t defend at all at the moment.

     Man City for the winners anyway :)

593. A sending off, loving the luck we have tonight. What a crap season this has been and it has only been a few games haha.

594. You know, I am happy we won. It makes a change and I really don’t want to feel bad about our team all of the time.

     We can beat Stoke, it is not that hard FFS.

595. Signs of optimism breaking out there, GS. I might have to ban you if this carries on! :-)

     I’ve been doing some research on Emmanuel Riviere. I have seen him score some goals for Monaco but the theory that he doesn’t get support playing with Pardew might bear out a bit. At Monaco he had excellent players like James Rodriguez and Joao Moutinho loading the bullets for him. Although his record in terms of goals per game seems quite weak on the surface, he would usually only come of the bench for short sub appearences because of Falcao and his actual goals per minute ratio wasn’t bad at all in his last season at Monaco (they were in Ligue 2 the season before that so that doesn’t really count). He scored a goal every 166 minutes last season in all competitions.

596. Worky, we will still be bottom whatever happens over the weekend. There, normal service resumed!

     I don’t want to be negative about NUFC. If Pardew had ever done anything in his managerial career I would see his arrogance as confidence. Like I do with Mourihno.

     It is quite funny that he is talking about people saying he is arrogant and an “egoist”. If he has some self awareness now, who knows what is next – humility? Sacking his 2 useless coaches?

597. GS says:
     September 26, 2014 at 12:39 pm

     “It is quite funny that he is talking about people saying he is arrogant and an “egoist”. If he has some self awareness now, who knows what is next – humility?”

     Aye GS, but he was only talking about people SAYING he was arrogant and an egotist. Surely it wouldn’t be self realisation until he admitted himself that he was arrogant and an egotist?

598. This is just ridiculous behaviour for a football club owner of it’s true, a bit like Llambias with the fans in the bar on to a reporter.

     http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/vivek-chaudhary-how-i-bumped-into-mike-ashley-outside-a-soho-pub-9759064.html

     Lawyers insist Ashley’s promise to sack Pardew a joke

     http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/lawyers-insist-ashleys-promise-sack-7842395?

599. Well, it is the battle of the Chucksters buddies in the early game. Whichever way it ends el Chuckerihno will be satisfied – a blow job for Brendan or one up the back passage from Roberto – makes no difference, Chuckles likes it all ways from these two.

600. @599: we can but dream.

601. Aye, Chuck will have his box of tissues ready in the middle of the night for that one.

     GS says:
     September 27, 2014 at 1:45 am

     “@599: we can but dream.”

     Or can we? There are some good managers around, but Ashley will probably only bring in someone like Big Ron or Peter Reid to replace Pardew.

602. Since there isn’t a NUFC game I will comment on England’s chances at the next tournament – nil. The captain of Man U is an idiot. I always thought he was a bit slow witted but he continues to show it with his shouting and now a really dumb sending off.

     Next on the teamsheet is probably Jack the Lad. I watched him closely again today and he looks like he is running in mud. He is probably the only player in the premier league that Mike Williamson could beat in a footrace (well maybe Coloccini). He should have been sent off today as well. He is a 2 trick pony, being able to do the occasional one two and he is very good at pointing. Taken off after 60 minutes again, when will they just see that he is sh@t?

     I wonder if Ashley was serious about sacking Pardew?

603. Worky, your link wouldn’t work but why are lawyers involved. There’s the old saying that many a true word was said in jest. Let’s see what happens after Stoke.

604. Just because Ashley has described his rant about sacking Pardew as a joke, doesn’t mean he wont fire him.

     I’m sure by now he’s not that happy with the side being bottom of the league, with no relief in sight.

     Especially following his recent buying spree and the possible believif in doing so, he had ensured PL survival.

     If in fact he had once believed Pardew was the man to manage NUFC and bring some success ,it should be obvious
     by now the reality for the majority of Newcastle fans, plus most pundits, is that he’s no more than a con man, with little in the way of managerial skills, other than a belief in his own psycho-babble.

     The possibility is, Ashley having an adversarial relationship with the fans, has backed Pardew, as a way of angering those same fans at the same time believing he may still be, the man for the job, though Ashley being no fool, I very much doubt that and believe Pards.is on borrowed time.

     The question is, what to do ?

     Seems obvious, get out of the micro-managing business and hire a GM/DOF, someone with a track record who in turn would bring in his own people to run the club on a professional level and get rid of the present chaotic structure that exists.

     But make sure it’s the right one, it could be the most important decision he makes as owner of NUFC.

605. Chuck @605: do you have any suggestions for a GM. I suggested throwing a pot of gold at whoever does it for Southampton, but I don’t know that side of the game well enough to offer much.

     There shouldn’t be much to this. Ashley has the finances sorted out except we don’t really know if he is skimming off the top for whatever reason. You would think someone of his wealth wouldn’t be bothered about doing that.

     The rest of the infrastructure is set as well, the ground is developed and we have the fan base and almost a full house every home game and the most fanatical away support in the country. The youth team could do with someone to run it but apart from Southampton nobody seems to be producing much homegrown talent nowadays anyway. Man City and Chelsea had these vaunted systems that have so far produced nowt.

     You would think it would be easier than this. Don’t hire a poisonous little dwarf as DOF who once punched someone in their sleep and broke their jaw and don’t hire a manager who has been fired from all of his previous jobs. Fire the coaches who are just stale at this point, Carvs and Stoner. Then give Frank de Boer a sh@t load of cash and say do what you want.

     We tried with Gullit, Dalglish and fat Sam so I might be oversimplifying :)

606. There’s still quite a few pundits and a few fellow managers backing Pards – Bruce and Souness for example, probably ‘Arry as well, although I haven’t seen it. The press have definitely turned and so they should. We are bottom of the league with the most appalling 2014 record you could imagine. Add in the 2 Southampton spankings and it is unbelievable the man is still employed and not strung up at the gallow gate. That is about the only thing that would shut his gob :)

607. GS says:
     September 27, 2014 at 10:38 pm

     “Chuck @605: do you have any suggestions for a GM. I suggested throwing a pot of gold at whoever does it for Southampton”

     Martin Hunter is the technical director for Southampton. He isn’t some great football bigshot that’s been brought in from the continent or anything like that, he was the under 21s coach, a bit like Pedro or Donachie at Newcastle. For some reason, Southampton decided to have a major reassessment of how they managed the club after they sacked Pardew :-)

608. How about Venables for DOF? He is qualified for it, being a cockney :) Seriously though, he could split time between London and Newcastle, its only a 1 hour flight anyway. He could still do his punditry and he is quite well respected.

     He would have the press on his side (unlike old Joe) and seems like a glad hander so might do OK in the transfer negotiations. We definitely need a “football man” on the board to balance the accountant types on there now.

609. It cant be good for the players with all of our dead men walking. Not just Pardew, but Carvs and Stoner will be gone. All that pressure must translate to the players. Add in the mood of the crowd and city who wanted them gone in the summer and I don’t know what the new players are thinking – “what have I gotten myself into” probably?

     I really can’t see us off bottom after 10 games and that is what Pardew wanted to be judged on. Do him a favour though and sack him now. Even a win at Stoke shouldn’t give this clown a reprieve, we have been too bad for too long for that to make any difference.

610. Following on from my point @610, the pressure is obviously getting to Carver with his outburst and non-apology at Southampton. That cannot be a good atmosphere.

611. There must be plenty of decent candidates for the DOF position, as many continental sides use that system, as do the successful PL clubs.

     However I don’t necessarily believe it’s essential in cetain cases.

     Having a manager like Martinez, who has an post graduate degree in finance I believe, could certainly handle both roles.

     However having both a good manager plus a director of football would lighten the load on the manager and hopefully improve the operation, as each could concentrate on their particular roles.

     On saying that it would require both to work in tandem, to ensure they are on the same page, not in adversarial roles which appears to be the case at NUFC.

     Apparently Pardew has does not necessarily have control of who is bought and sold, with Carr and Ashley probably making those decisions for the most part.

     The bean counter I believe just relays Ashley’s bids, another yassuh ! man with no real authority other than signing the checks.

     And yes Southampton appear to be a well run club, with an excellent youth system, but the success and failures of clubs appears to run in cycles, look at what happened to Man U.

612. Well, we’re off the bottom for at least 24 hours on goal difference. I noticed Stoke only have 5 points from 5 games and still I am pessimistic. We should be looking at this as one of the more winnable away games.

     Actually it is perhaps a win win. I always want us to win but if we lose and Pardew is sacked that will give us a better chance in upcoming matches. Whatever happens and whoever is manager we are in for a relegation scrap because the whole staff has to change, probably even as far down as Beardsley. We will then have to adapt to a new system.

     Having Carver as an interim manager would be a joke though. He should have been replaced by Pardew and we may as well have Kath the tea lady in charge. Even she must know our default on all free kicks is to hoof it to Williamson just inside the corner of the box :)

     Who I would really like as Manager is Jurgen Klinnsman. I doubt he would give up California for the Bigg Market and Ponteland though.

613. Chuck, I know you think he can walk on water but I think that’s another Roberto Martinez.

     What I do think though is that alot more bairns of intelligence get involved playing football overseas than in England, and the result is the current dearth of managers, ie there are lots of Wayne Rooneys and Andy Carrolls with f all between their ears but how many Johan Cruyffs and Franz Beckenbauers are there? Then of course there’s the ones who were shite footballers but still went on to become top coaches like Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger etc. As for England, they said that Graham le Saux read the Guardian once but that’s about it.

     Almost in the present, it’s just one example I know but when I was researching Jan Vertonghen and writing stories saying that Newcastle should buy him, I watched a video of him at home in his flat in Amsterdam. I noticed that there were bookshelves in his flat and they had books on them too. I looked at the titles on the spine and they weren’t daft ones like ‘Coleen: My Story’ too, they were real books.

614. The recent poll of fans regarding a replacement for Pardew , indicates Moyes would be that choice, though not many names were given besides his, mostly retreads.

     I thought he was on his way to bigger and better things when managing Preston.

     However in retrospect, he fitted well with Everton, who’s owner basically wanted much the same as Ashley, a continued sharing of those increasing tv profit’s.

     His stint at Man U. exposed him as having neither the stature or nous required for such a role.

     He was questioned by everyone, from owners, who didn’t want to spend the required amount to rebuild a side, which had deteriorated under Ferguson, making the job something of a poison chalice.

     With both ex coaches and players conspiring to make sure he was unsuccessful.

     When it became apparent the club was in real trouble, possibly loosing sponsors and taking a hit on the stock market, the Glazers stepped up and not only made the funds available, but hired what was possibly the biggest name available (Van Gaal} being it was essential for the club to regain it’s stature as a top world class side.

     As for Moyes, such was the blow to his ego, he decided to take a sabbatical and lick his wounds.

     Would he take the job at Newcastle ? sure if he was offered the right deal and so would many others.

     Would he be good for NUFC, if given a fairly free hand, he could turn things around, however there are IMO others who could do a better job, as I think he lacks the tactical nous of some of the up and coming young talent.

     With Moyes we could end up as a sixth to tenth place
     side, not much better than he accomplished at Everton.

     Also it’s well known his sides were not really that entertaining to watch and one thing that’s appreciated by Newcastle fans is a bit of flair.

     Face it, it’s show business, would you pay to watch a side bent on only PL survival playing boring football if so get a BSA or Pulis and INO Moyes is not that much different.

     On the other hand he would (Moyes) be the ideal candidate for Ashley, fit perfectly, out of the frying pan into the fire.

     Wouldn’t be my choice, but would fit well into Ashley’s scheme of things

615. Worky, I hear what you are saying about Wazza etc. It seems Colleen has the brains, as she has been able to promote several sideline businesses from being a WAG. Wayne seemed to get both captaincies by default in my opinion as he was one of very few experienced players who would be guaranteed a start if fit. He shouldn’t even be captain of a Pub team.

     I am not absolutely sure if Moyes really is the fans’ choice. He is a name they know and the bookies’ favourite. That causes speculation and a sort of bandwagon effect, and the bookies aren’t in the losing money business. So, I think Moyes is a name that comes to mind first for a lot of people but if they thought about it more they would see we might be in for safe and boring and not much entertainment.

     Of the others, I would take Di Matteo or Laudrup. I think there is such animosity to Pardew that top of the list now is ABP – anyone but Pardew. He has been in a long downward spiral and he has shown in the past he cannot get out of it.

     I am glad that sackpardew.com put all of the stats in one place because it allows you to focus on how truly bad a manager this man is, and that’s with a decent squad. Of course Worky has been helpful in bringing his deficiencies to light especially from his time with previous teams. I didn’t know he was so despised at Charlton for example.

     I am hoping this is his managerial obituary, so to speak. I fear his influence will live on though because we have been left with a slow and shot-shy team that will undoubtedly struggle to January. His legacy for the next manager is in letting go of 3 players on loan and despite his bluster not having the authority with the owner to lobby for a center back and center forward. I will be shocked if we have more than 15 points by January, regardless of the Manager (C’mon Papisse prove me wrong and go on a tear).

616. GS says:
     September 28, 2014 at 9:26 pm

     “I didn’t know he was so despised at Charlton for example.”

     Maybe you should have read the stories I wrote on here then, GS! They had the same dream team as Newcastle, Iain Dowie to get them relegated from the Premier League, then Pardew to send them hurtling towards League Two.

617. The Sun says “Here wed go, here wed go. Prem ace Tiote has two wives and a mistress (Lucky he gets £45,000 a week).

     http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/wags/newcastles-cheick-tiote-exposed-as-having-two-wives-a-mistress-the-sun/

618. I only noticed the other night that Crystal Palace are now sponsored by Azerbaijan, a country with an absolutely awful human rights record.

619. I bet we play the same starting lineup as Hull, Williamson in to combat Crouch. Shockingly, Dummett doesn’t seem too bad but I think Haidara has much more potential. Dummett is more defensive and that is what Pardew likes, considering we are playing with 2 defensive midfielders and Gouffy in a track back first/attack second role.

     This is not a terrible team as I have said before as long as Coloccini is confident and we don’t set up with Riviere as the lone striker. It will be interesting to see if Cabella gets knocked off the ball a lot like at Hull. I think that Ref was very lenient and we could have had quite a few free kicks in dangerous areas that would have been hoofed to Williamson and wasted.

620. Evening Lads…Expecting a defeat so we are going to win haha :)

621. Evening SJT. Well, there will be a good link for those who don’t have Sky or Yank TV this time.

     http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=274029&part=sports

622. i predict a 2-1 loss also why the hell won’t he change the team? it clearly not working

623. dokky: I don’t mind the team, it is how he sets up with the lone striker and sitting back in our own half.

     Stoke aren’t that good of a team in my opinion so this is a chance for Pardew to save his job for another week.

624. Welcome to Stoke on a Monday Cabella! I think there will we an oil slick on the pitch as his hair product washes out.

625. Bloody hell. Crouch gets most of those chalked off for climbing on the defender – which he did there.

     That’s spoiled a pretty good start from us.

626. What a waste of electric – on wiziwig decent stream Worky

627. We are playing quite well but as usual the final ball and finishing aren’t there. Also, as usual we are leaving ourselves open to the counter – they had 4 on 2 when Crouch mis-controlled.

     Will Cisse be the savior again? We have to be desperate to play him with no training and the dodgy knee in this weather.

628. On cue, here he is :)

629. Whatever happens in the game, I want to see Ashley getting more abuse in the second half.

630. Ashley has looked miserable every time they have shown him.

     I am surprised it was a like for like swap Cisse for Riviere. Or am I?

631. Iron Mike Williamson has saved more than one tonight. Colo was shite for that goal though.

632. It might be fitting that Pardew’s last roll of the dice is Obertan.

633. Last Roll Sammy haha

634. I thought there was going to be a ‘battle of the giants’ earlier when Williamson had a go at Crouch and Krul got involved.

635. Pardew must be touching cloth now.

636. I said it before the season started we are going to get more of the same regardless of all the new players. 6 games 3 defeats 3 draws and not looking like scoring.

637. Martin Tyler said we have scored 1 away goal since March 1 and that was an OG.

638. Pardew has always had a knack for making reams of really bad statistics when he goes into one of his death spirals.

639. Pardew said again to Sky after the game that he’s never been in a situation like this before, ie crap run of results, fans calling for his sacking etc.

640. It was the same pattern we have seen, only we didn’t lose 3-0 and that is down to Stoke being cr@p as well. We go down to a simple goal – chase the game – no end product – they hit us on the break. We were lucky not to concede a penalty and that Crouch’s first touch was so bad.

     Should we talk about set-pieces? How many times did we hit the first man? Different personnel, same results.

641. Aye Crouch could have taken more chances if he’d been as good as Moses supplying the chances to him.

     On a desperate positive note though, Obertan doesn’t seem to cross the ball straight at the body of an opposition player every time now.

     I would rather have an endoscopy than discuss Pardew’s set pieces.

642. Obertan looked our best player and was only on for 20 minutes. Actually, he has looked OK since they tried to sell him. Maybe, he just said f@ck it, I am not listening to the coaches anymore and I refuse to be Pardewed.

643. I had on a highlights show while doing something else. I caught a game out of the corner of my eye and thought who is that team with the stupid lime green and blue strip – of course, it was us.

644. If we lose at Swansea it is hard to see a way back, even at this early stage. The reason is that we have not played any of the “rich” teams yet – Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, and Spurs, plus Everton. That would be 14 games of the remaining 31. That is 45%, bloody hell.

     I know Southampton have had a great start and they beat us but they are one of the teams you would have hoped we would be on par with.

     I am hoping we limp to January with a new manager. Hopefully, he will show tape of Silva to Cabella to show what an undersized player can do, and show pictures of a barn door to Sissoko to show him what he couldn’t hit with a banjo.

     An observation on set pieces. Late last season they had Dummett taking corners and even some direct free kicks. Now, it is Colback, Cabella and Tiote who were awful at it. I think we had 16 set plays and 1 reached one of our players. My point is, do they just draw straws to see who takes the set pieces? And my conclusion is that it the one who gets the short straw that gets the job because they have to work with our coaches and will probably never be the same again.

645. Chuck @615: you always get caught up in up-and-coming young coaches like they are always the answer and their new ideas could save us. I really don’t think age comes into it. Mourihno, Pelegrini and Wenger are no spring chickens. You are either good or shite, and we seem to employ shite more often than not.

     I think we are beyond the point of taking a gamble on an up and comer. That is the reason Moyes is favourite and Pulis second. In the long run it may condemn us to mediocrity but that has to be better than this. That is Ashley’s vision for the team anyway, and his lackeys have come out and explicitly said it in the recent past.

     I understand your point about retreads and setting the bar low but I fear that is all we are left with at the moment.

646. I’m certainly not knocking the likes of the older managers, who have had positive careers in the game.

     Unfortunately they are presently gainfully employed by successful sides.

     What I am in favor of is a search for a youngish manager who understands how the modern game is played.

     Certainly Southampton had little difficulty in finding a good replacement for Pochettino.

     But my main point was, first and foremost we need to replace Ashley with a trusted and successful DOF.

     Because therein lies the problem, take Ashley out of the equation and the problem can be resolved.

     Easier said than done, unfortunately.

     One doesn’t have to have a BSA, Pulis,Moyes, or any of those long ball types who concentrate on defense and rely on set pieces to score, in order to escape relegation

     An archaic game and I just believe the majority of Newcastle fans relish a bit of flair, combined with a solid effort, being they understand the game and will reject the hiring of what have been middle aged burn- out’s as managers who haven’t learned anything new in years.

     This has certainly been true in the case of BSA-Souness-Pardew and others.

     It’s not a case of age, however recently the EPL has improved the quality and entertainment value of the league, by hiring younger and better managers, many who are the result of a serious study of how the modern game is played.

     But time is of the essence, better to make a move as soon as possible, being new management have no majic cures and need time t