Master Ashley and His Puppets on a String

you go round having pops at people but never come up with a solution (if you have I've not seen it) so could you explain to me what your course of action would be/or recommend,or are you just a wind up merchant.

 

As I don't have enough money to buy the club off Mike Ashley there is nothing I can do - there is nothing anyone can do except stay away in protest whether you have paid for your season ticket or not.

Just because you dislike me, try not to let your blinkered view affect your judgement.

Do you mean to tell me you're happy with what's happening? As for being a WUM...

 

who said i didn't like you (bit of a odd thing to say) quite the opposite really as for a blinkered view wasn't a view at all was asking your opinion as you seem never to give one bar criticism.No i'm far from happy with what's going on and haven't been for a long time (read my posts)
staying away in protest is the only answer but as it would **** us up way before it ****ed him up (sale of players/assets etc) i wouldn't say that was the best way forward and thought you'd have something different to add to the mix alas it seems not.
As for the Wum thing you just come across that way no offence intended

 

Is it really "this attitude" which is stopping Ashley selling? What a brilliantly self-important point. Surely the amount of debt that the club has and loans Ashley has leant are stopping him selling up. Nobody would buy our club, it is a total financial mess and has been since shepherd ruined it years ago.

The goings on of the past few weeks that have got a few keyboard warriors knickers in a twist aren't ashley doing anything wrong, simple as that. We can try to blame everything on him but it's simply not true. Perhaps the head in the sand attitude that everything that goes wrong at NUFC is because of some imaginary cockney mafia out to rob the poor innocent Geordie public, is actually the most damaging. It is a definite hindrance to any sort of progress being made and makes perfect ammunition for the press.

Ashley has done a lot of things wrong and is a PR disaster zone but he is quite simply not to blame for everything. I'd love to see newcastle signing big name players, but that's not reality under this regime, or indeed most premier league regimes, and like Wigan, Everton, Bolton and Stoke we must soldier on, cashing in when applicable and making sensible, boring decisions. Sadly, unlike the majority of these sides we have vociferous, passionate support AND a rich recent history that has us baying for success. This combined with owners who are reclusive and insensitive to said fanbase's needs is a bad combination that I would to see fixed but I think in reality is unrepairable.

 

Mike Ashley is using this football club to make money - which ever view you have on that fact, whether it be to reclaim the massive amount he spent buying the club in the first place or simply to 'milk' the Newcastle United cash cow makes little difference. The truth is that the Geordie public,(including myself up to December 2010), will continue to walk through the gates of SJP because of the passion for THEIR football club. Mike Ashley and his cronies have followed one gaff after another with horrible frequency but are also consistent in the knowledge that despite no major silverware since 1969, the adoring Geordie public continue to bank roll the club in the vain hope of finally securing some measure of glory.

Of course I don't want to see any more 'trophy signings' like Michael Owen or Patrick Kluivert but what I do want to see is the club making more of a commitment to keeping the better players that we already have. Andy Carroll came through the ranks here and was sold off at the first time of asking. Good business? I would always say no. The Ashley plan was to develop the academy players and bring them through - how much longer until the next bright prospect is sold off? It is a fact that the top players will earn top money and the reluctance of our board to pay Andy Carroll, Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton & Jose Enrique what they think is fair will be reflected in our league position this season.

Mike Ashley's plan is too simply survive in the division with as little outlay as possible.

If that is "keyboard warriors" who adopt the "head in the sand attitude" then I would suggest that you must be related in some way to Mike Ashley.

ANYONE who looks back across his time as owner could not fail to be utterly appalled by his simply awful decisions. Dennis Wise, Derek Llambias & Joe Kinnear() were/are terrible appointments who must take more than a fair percentage of the blame for many of the tragic decision making that has gone on.

I honestly don't know how anyone who has been so closely associated with Newcastle United since Ashley arrived could have anything other than contempt for the man.

 

When we see some sort of upturn at our club... that's the time to worry, it's merely a watershed moment for what's about to happen.

Why? Because it's happened before with this guy and it going to continue...

I remember when KK went to court with MA and the court papers were released and i remember one particular thing that MA and his goons were guilty of, and that was; Deliberately misleading the media and the fans about the goings on at the club - and it seems a though they are still guilty of that even as we speak!

It's a very cowardly thing to do but by no means the worst thing he's done to date (you never know what levels of deceit he will go to with this bloke)

 

I literally can't stop agreeing with you .

 

Good grief. I said the last few weeks incidents that have the Internet nuts getting worked up are actually not totally Ashleys fault. The clubs stance on Barton is the correct one, you're average football fan wouldn't expect not to get a heavy reprimand for behaving in the way Barton has. Nolan wanted a ridiculous amount of money over a period of time that would almost have certainly seen him become a hindrance to the club - I'd say he was a hindrance on the pitch for the latter part of last season, and I went to every game.

My point is that we are stuck with our owners, and yes they have made monumental errors but not everything that goes wrong is their fault and people need to address this or we will continue to appear to be reactionary, sheet waving Neanderthals on SSN. I also think they are quite spiteful, or at least like to prove a point and I think the feeling of contempt is mutual now.

I can't see Ashley leaving, it's as simple as that, mainly because he's not making any money out of NUFC, rather he's lost a lot due to his own errors when he bought the club. And this seems to be the story of the Ashley regime, make mistakes and be too stubborn to go back, hence compounding them. The mistake with Keegan was hiring him in the first place, a misguided ploy to win the fans around, he would never be the sort of manager they needed but they continued anyway. The mistake with Hughton was the way he was dismissed, and the fact Pardew was the 'experienced manager' that replaced him, Hughton may have been a lovely guy, but he was a very, very limited manager who had no control over the strong characters in the dressing room - we had 4 players suspended for disciplinary reasons at the same time, something that no good manager would stand for! They could have handled the situation much better but it was a public mess that the board made worse with their handling of it.

Believe it or not, I'm not an Ashley fan, but I'm a realist, he's not leaving and he's not as bad as people would like to believe. We genuinely could have worse in many ways, in the sense that I don't think he'll ever let us go down again, and we have signed some pretty good players so far in the window. As I've said, if we don't buy a striker I will be furious, until then, this particular chapter - eg the transfer window a - has not been the disaster people would have us believe. But this is NUFC under Ashley.

 

This. Very very totally this!

 

aye we could have owners again like Seymour mckeag
there's a lot of people remember the Seymour mckeag eras so when something like this happen it's a case of same old so to speak (eg beardsley/gazza/waddle being sold) Ashley isn't the first **** owner of this club and believe me Seymour/mckeag were a hell of a lot worse.

as for the 35m being spent wasn't it said that some will be kept back to strengthen in jan if needed i could be wrong (or naive)

 

Thank you, when I first began supporting the team this hated duo were in charge and they WERE taking all they could from club. Horrible greedy individuals intent on assets stripping for their own gains. Ashley is a stubborn buffoon who doesnt understand our club, he's not in the same league as them two crooks...

 

The problem is CA the Ashley haters don't want to listen to reason regarding any decision which could be laid at Ashley's door. Barton acting like a spoilt child, throwing his toys out of the pram because he didn't get his contract is obviously MA's fault. As is Enrique's ambition to want to play for Spain and in the CL. The massive debts and enormous wage bill built up by Shepherd were his fault too, it goes without saying.

I still marvel that fans wonder why MA doesn't make announcements. Why would he bother, there are far too many who don't want to see anything he does in anything but a bad light.

I also don't like the man and accept that long term the club will be better off without him (fan relations more than anything) but I judge his actions on individual merit and he has done nothing wrong in regards to Barton or Enrique.

 

If Mike Ashley was losing money he would cut his losses and sell up. He's making his money back and will continue to do so.
Joey Barton has told the truth on-line and is now being 'punished' for it - although many would say that considering the complete lack of ambition being displayed by the board, he's being shrewed by getting himself pushed. Would you want to see out a job that you knew you weren't wanted in?
Kevin Nolan was our joint top-scorer last season and our club captain - I don't see that by granting him a 5-year deal we would have to keep him for that length of time - people get sold on all the time whilst still being under contract. I think it's foolish to see the exit of Nolan as anything other than political. He's very vocal and very passionate in his pursuit of what is best. I seem to recall Nolan, Barton, Harper & Smith being the main driving force behind our promotion from the Championship and the main characters in keeping the squad unity going after numerous players were sold after our relegation.

No, not everything that goes wrong is Ashleys fault - in no way can I pin him to the terrible happenings in Somalia... i'd written on me Mam's sheets an al. Like.

Keegan would have been quite capable of doing a really good job if he hadn't been undermined - I guess we'll just have to disagree on the managerial skills of KK.
Chris Hughton got us promoted as Champions from the CCC and had us sat in 11th place in the Premier League - it was nothing but a very bad joke to sack him, especially so close to his birthday as well. Yes, the WBA result and performance was terrible but that happens sometimes. Did you see us play away at Swansea? That was SO bad it was unreal but we moved on and won the league. Chris Hughton needed to be given the chance to earn more experience in the job that he was doing very well under very difficult circumstances.

 

can you remember being in a packed ground for them to say over the tannoy that there was at least 5k less (cup game against leeds springs to mind)just so they could pocket the money without paying tax greedy ****ers hate ashley but hated those ****ers more

 

You are rapidly becoming one of my favourite people on here! I think we just need to accept that Ashley is primarily a businessman who wouldn't want us relegated as that would be bad for business. Nice to see more rationality spreading on this forum!

 

Of course Ashley is losing money! He has £282m tied up in the club interest free. Spend five minutes tomorrow phoning round banks or investment managers pretending you have that much to invest and see how much income they will guarantee you over a three year period. It is ill conceived comments and opinions like this regarding Ashley that prove that the Ashley haters have their heads up their arses when it comes to an honest assessment of his actions.

 

So you're suggesting that Newcastle United, as a business in it's own right, is losing money?

If that's the case then Mike Ashley will simply slip further and further into 'debt' wont he?

Ironic really as it's quite clear whose arse you've got your head stuck up...

 

Look up the accounts if you don't believe me. The club just about broke even in 2005/06 (due to player sales) and has made a loss every year since, usually in the region of £30m each year. 2010/11 haven't been published yet, but it is thought that the club will just about break even due to reigning in on the wage budget.

Yes he has been putting more and more money in each year hence the massive debt to him. Do a bit of homework before you act the wise ass Joker otherwise you just end up looking like a twat!

 

Right, so Mike Ashley is keeping our 'money pit' club afloat out of the goodness of his heart or his deep love of the Geordie people? Right?

What a legend he is - it seems i've had him pegged all wrong.

 

The majority of the 4000 at Leeds singing Pardew give us a wave, and at Chelsea, are the puppets/muppets!

**** anyone that Ashley hires!