Originally Posted by bongojack FA have announced any Everton player found man marking Andy Carroll at Wembley will be booked for wasting time Found this on the Swansea board.....Made me giggle.
Serious question lads/ladies. I'm being fed to the wolves on the SAFC forum for stating opinion at the minute, so no doubt they'll hunt me down to tell me Sessegnon is worth £30m at some point on this thread...anyway I don't make my own threads on here, don't know how to, probably wouldn't if I did either, but it ties in with the title. Obviously everyone can see what a very good season you lot are having, and most of us hope you will trump Chelsea/Arsenal or both to a CL spot, but no matter what, prepare yourselves for every sports journalist in the UK to throw their two pennies worth into the mixer on "Why Newcastle have had a great season". So before each and every unqualified muppet tries to give their fantastic professional insight, I'd like to give mine. Two reasons. Andy Carroll and Joey Barton. Whilst neither of these players can or could have been considered as dead wood, they were poisonous players evidently. Carroll was hitting the headlines, mostly for his off field behaviour and he also smashed the face off his fellow Geordie team mate Steven Taylor. Since Carroll left, Taylor has been up until his injury, a very solid defender, looking confident and commanding. More importantly though, the sale of the 7ft tramp has allowed for investment across the entire squad. This was a master stroke by your owner, chairman and manager - that kid was forced out, and now you're seeing the benefits after a year. Joey Barton, nobody can doubt he has talent in abundance but he really wasn't worth the hassle. His ego was ballooning out of control, he seen himself as a Citizen Smith type character within your club and fought against the regime, when in fact he was standing in the way of development. He was shipped out to a new home who are now having trouble controlling that same ego. His departure has allowed for every other player to forgive and forget what the "regime" had done, be mature when necessary, and help your club move on. So my question is this...If your owner/chairman decides to cash in on one of your stars again during the summer window, say Tiote for example, would you have enough faith in him to make sure that you carry on progressing, or would you collectively relapse back to hating the owner of your club? From where I'm sat, he has moulded your entire club into an Arsenal-type setup, which is commendable but any Arsenal fan will tell you that they've watched their best players leave year after year to the detriment of their trophy cabinet. Henry, Fabregas, Vieira, Nasri, Toure, Ashley Cole, Overmars, Petit...Van Persie?...that list will carry on, and on.
Good read Terry. I'd definitely agree with most of what you say after seeing what's happened this season. It's actually widely-accepted that Hughton was fired because of his inability/unwillingness to put the reins on the 'player's committee' consisting of Nolan, Barton, Enrique and to a lesser extent Harper, who were relentlessly vocal against the brass and in their view poisoning the dressing room. All have been turfed out and now with the exception of Ashley still acting like a twat with our stadium and club tradition everyone's now pulling in the same direction. Coloccini as captain epitomises this, he leads the team with an understated authority and most of the players seem happy.
If we sold Tiote for 30+ million then i would probably let it slide. With the majestic Graham Carr on board we could probably find a half decent replacement. If he went for anything less than 30 million I would be very annoyed at the decision, hes a top player, still a good age and he can get better. I like the team we have now, I would be content with maybe one marque flair player and a couple defenders in the summer.
£30m would be a good price for Tiote, but for the majority of your fans who have taken to him I doubt the money would soften the blow. We had to witness Ronaldo exchanged for £80m and it meant nothing to us, but it was his dream and we couldn't stand in his way any longer. I think your owner has a lot to thank your chief scout for, probably his greatest achievement was bringing him to your club. Anyway, good luck for the rest of the season. You comprehensively handed us our arses in January and I respect any team who does that to us convincingly. I hope you manage to mix it up with the big boys once again.
Firstly I'd like to say the difference between us and Arsenal is that Arsenal had the fortune to see their team winning the Premier League / FA cup / progressing in Europe year in year out before it was pulled from under their feet like a rug and they seemingly turned overnight into a feeder club for 'bigger' teams (even though they have the same manager and just as good if not better finances than most clubs in Europe) 2 / 3 years ago we were in the mire and the only way was down, so to be where we are today is fantastic and I'm grateful to the board for it. Yes they made mistakes early on and essentially put us in that position, but the seeds had been sown years before by the previous board. Ashley and co weren't footballing men so it was always going to take them time to find the right people to surround themselves with who would know how to benefit the club. I think the bulk of fans would accept being a club that sells a star maybe once / twice a season and invests the money in younger hungry players with potential that will continue to see us play the sort of football we have been playing at times this season and that sees us finishing between 6th and 10th in the league. Only City and Chelsea can afford to splash the cash and Man United & Spurs have always spent well so competing with them on the pitch and financially is out of the question, so I guess we'd take being in that pack that's dubbed "the best of the rest"
I have no faith in Mike Ashley whatsoever, but I have faith in Graeme Carr and the scouting staff to seek out a replacement. Concerning 'going back' to hating him, I never stopped hating the odious **** and won't until he stops desecrating our great stadium and ****ting all over our tradition. All Ashley's really done in essence is tighten the purse strings when he realised he'd bitten off more than he could financially chew and told everyone to deal with it, what he has done right though is get Graeme Carr and Pardew in and got rid of the likes of Dennis Wise. The Keegan business, renaming the stadium and approving Kinnear's appointment however I can never ever forgive him for but I'm willing to tolerate him, seeing as first of all I've got no choice and second it's nice to have everyone at the club pulling in the right direction for once.
I'd wholeheartedly disagree on the Carroll and Barton being poisonous influences. Carroll was under control whilst here. Yes he smashed Saylor for making comments about the mother of his child, but to be honest Saylor brought that on himself. That all got put to bed long before he left. He did have a few scrapes but was pretty much seeing the light. he was no Nile Ranger. There is no doubt though that the money from Carrolls sale has helped us in our endeavours this season. Barton whilst here was not a poisonous influence. He was a problem to the board. But Pardew was quite happy with him, and he got on really well with all the players. The reason for our good season is the scouting team, Pardew, and the board for backing him. The scouting team is one of the best around. When you look at the talent we have picked up, and the fees we've paid, we're getting just about the best value for money in the PL. A manager can only ever do so much, at some points its the quality of the players which progresses you. We have increased our quality without spending very much money. Whe expectations are very low, which they were, the pressure is much less. Pardew has benefitted from a pressure free scenario not many Newcastle managers have been afforded in the past. But you can't knock how well he has done. Tactically he is still learning and tweaking his management, but in terms of man management he has been outstanding. Ben Arfa is the perfect example. The latest enfant terrible to cross over the water was said to be very high maintenance when he arrived. Somehow Pardew has managed to persuade him to wait until he is fully recovered from his injury before giving him his wings. Some don't like to give the board credit but they could easily have sold Carroll and spent zero. Yes we turned a large profit so you could say we've spent **** all but that is too simplistic a way of looking at it. Its about squad management and turnover in terms of numbers. We have more players, deeper quality. It just so happens we've managed to get this and make a profit. No harm in that. As for having faith in them finding replacements. You'd have to think we'll find quality but to be honest, losing Tiote would be a monumental blow. He isn't just a good player, he's a top drawer player who would look at home in the best sides in the league. I have faith that the board and our scouting team would find good replacements. Can they find equal or better players? Possibly but it wouldn't be easy. Do I blame them if they do go? No if the big sides come calling there is little we or the board can do. I have faith that we'll replace them, how good the replacements are is the unknown. No one can predict that, even the best like Ferguson have dropped massive clangers when it comes to transfers.
Also Terry, our trophy cabinet has been bare for quite some time so unlike Arsenal, we'd lose little sleep over that
@Terry I think you're right about Carroll, Barton etc leaving being a boost this season but not for the poisons factor. I think both Hughton and Pardew are good man mangers but while Hughton plays the team to suit the players Pardew gets the players to play the tactics and what time at Liverpool and QPR have shown is when not playing the way their are comfortable you don't get the most out of those two. I'd like to make a comparison between Carroll under kenny and HBA under Pardew, both came back after an injury to be gaol scorers and makes (although in different ways) but while Carroll only could be played as a striker HBA and enough versatility to play on the wing to get back in (assists build confidence without the pressure of messing it up). If you came here in jan it was 50/50 whether HBA should play and "most" of us would say AC just needed games. Now Carroll has the games and still no goal scoring record to speak of but HBAs confidence is at full and he has earned his start in the front 3.
