Hughton: The stakes have been raised.I think it’s widely percieved that last season was great, fantastic in the end, and the size of points difference between us and the rest of the teams in the Championship is something that is seldom replicated.
I also think that Chris Hughton has been given a lot of credit for it over the last few months, and rightly so. We all know Hughton did a great job last season, certainly an effective one.
The lines have been read over and over again already, with praise popping up for Hughton with regard to getting the team united again, believing in themselves, not fighting with each other (too often), and most importantly, looking like they actually want to play for the shirt that I personally have such pride in wearing. Which is why it baffles me that our former manager, Glenn Roeder, believes that Hughton should be recieving more credit than he has done already. Why? Just, why? For me, Hughton needs to prove he can motivate his team in the Premier League next season before he recieves another widespread outpouring of fullsome praise. It appears my viewpoint is slightly different to that of Roeder however. (more…)
Mike Ashley - 3 years at the helm.Between the vast swathes of speculation in these last few weeks, I nearly managed to forget that a certain anniversary is about to be upon us.
That is an anniversary to mark Mike Ashley having owned Newcastle United for three years! Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun eh?
Technically, Ashley completed the sale three years ago this coming Sunday, but with me being faced with the very real possibilty of having a stinking hangover from Saturday night, and the fact the nearly all of us will be wrapped up in the World Cup by then, I thought it would be best to, errr, ‘celebrate’ this milestone prematurely and get it out of the way. To say Mike Ashley’s reign on Tyneside has been a turbulent one would be a wee bit of an understatement. His tenure includes having had five different managers in three years, two failed attempts at a sale, and one very big falling out with Kevin Keegan, and that is the one thing Ashley will probably find the hardest to come back from, plus countless others that I have probably either forgotten or haven’t got enough time to write about. (more…)
Ashley needs to communicate more.It’s a simple concept really, one that is free to implement, and one that has actually made me agree with something that is written in the Sunday Sun!
It is of course the concept of communication, or the lack of it. First off, from my perspective of writing articles on here, a lack of communication and information is less than helpful over these quiet summer months, but that really isn’t the most important thing.
The most important thing has to be communicating with the fans. We know Ashley is a recluse, or so it has been said, which makes you wonder why he bought the 4th best supported team in England in the the first place, but look past that and you will see that he is also a successful businessman. I know what people will say to that, but the guy started off with nothing and has made over a billion pounds selling sportswear, which is impressive whichever way you look at it. His escapades at St James’ Park though are yet to match up to his success as a sportswear mogul. (more…)
Kicking off the latest chapter in our one year retrospective of all things Newcastle United and NUFC Blog, we move on where we left off, with an Ashley rant from Hugh de Payen. This one is from November 4th of last year and is called “Random gripe about the random Toon“. The “random” in the second instance referring to Ashley’s seemingly random approach to planning and investment in building up the squad. It also contains a great line about Kevin Keegan (well I thought so anyway) “although it’s quite ironic that Keegan was constructively dismissed for not wanting to spend money on a player”.
Coming next, I am including a trio of stories about the NUST’s “Yes We Can” campaign for fans to buy the club from Mike Ashley, though in the end it a resoundingly a case of “No We Can’t”. The first story, written by Hugh de Payen once again and called “Are you the next Mike Ashley?“, covers the launch of the ill fated campaign and was published on November 11th. It also includes a paragraph I particularly liked about ‘fan owned’ Barcelona’s outgoing President, Joan Laporta: (more…)
Ashley's intent has fallen on deaf ears.It was a noble thought, a thought that was backed by many fans of NUFC, and a thought that was supposed to unite the Premier League.
This is of course the release of the statement a week or so ago in which Newcastle United stuck up for something that was in the national interest, by banning The Daily Mail and Mail On Sunday from St James’ Park, from press conferences, and from the training ground.
It was a move that was formed from the fallout of the Lord Triesman affair, and the impact that the whole debacle may now have on the chances of England hosting the World Cup in 2018. Mike Ashley cited this as a reason as to why such drastic acton had been taken, and urged the chairmen at other Premier League clubs to join in the boycott of the newspaper. They didn’t, and now it looks like it could be another blunder in the making for Newcastle United. (more…)
