Interesting statement from Mike Ashley - here. I bought Newcastle United in May 2007. Newcastle attracted me because everyone in England knows that it has the best fans in football. When the fans are behind the club at St James' Park it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It is magic. Newcastle's best asset has been, is and always will be the fans.
^Oh that makes me laugh. Have to say I've never bought the 'best fans in England' lie. I still recall Newc getting crowds of 8000 when they were in the Championship/div1/div2 whatever you want to call it! They just seem to think they have a god given right to win something (even more so than most fans) Be interesting to see what Newcastle fans would be like if team did a Leeds. Would they still turn up in their tens of thousands like Man City fans did when they were down there? I don't mean to denigrate Newcastle fans, but there is no reason that the team has to be successful and has to win things, and until they stop 1/ getting rid of every manager after a season. 2/ Worshipping Kevin Keegan as some kind of footballing genius 3/ Expect the team to instantly become brilliant and win every game 4-3 Then they won't ever do any good. Jeez you just know even if Wenger or Ferguson went there they'd end up sacked after a season! Ah well, now Derby have finally won a league game again (yay) hopefully the media will leave us alone and just concentrate on Newcastle as the biggest joke club!
Don't worry Calderwood will have Forest take that award come the end of the season (and we started so decently)
Newcastle were always a bigger joke than us anyway. Even the shittest Premier League club of all time still managed to take 4 points from Newcastle, and let's be fair, it should have been 6! Look forward to us retaining the BC Trophy Mark.....
Yeah, if we could have played Newcastle every week we'd be in the Champions League now Mark, you've only had a couple of poor games, surely not time to throw in the towell already??
Despite promotion I am not a fan of Calderwood, his tactics away to Wolves (4-3-3 against top of table at there own ground ) shows his weakness plus we didn't buy enough in the transfer window.
Hmm, I do wonder if he's your Billy Davies- both men seemed to become somewhat un-sackable by virtue of getting promotion, though both obviously have their faults. We never really played good football under Billy, and by the end of the season his transfer signings were starting to appear a bit ropey (spending the January window buying loads of midfielders and fullbacks when what we needed was cover in the centre of defence and up front.) That's not to denigrate what he did, but his limitations were already there, add in his attitude after we won at Wembley and his snotty relationship with the board and in an ideal world we should have parted company there and then. I do wonder how long CC will last at Forest, I suppose he'll be fairly safe so long as you don't look like relegation candidates.
I can't see us being anything else but relegation candidates though Earnshaw may be the key to survival (he's had a very good start). What we need to is replace Kris Commons who annoyed me since last season he said he would stay if we got promoted ex players always scores against us so Derby will get at least 1 goal against us I want Nigel Clough who unlike CC has earn't his way through managment taking Burton up several leagues and was denied in the playoffs last season in the Conference. Peter Taylor would be another manager I would love to see take over, as I rate him highley. Might as well add Stuart Pearce to that list but he would never take Forest job at moment, he's busy being the best U21 coach in the world.
Everything Mike Ashley says can be boiled down to: "I bought the club without doing proper due diligence. I'm an idiot." I understand that Barazite is looking pretty useful.
^ I've said it before; I'll say it again. When Robert Earnshaw is the key to your club/country's success, you are fucked.
Hands off. Eventually, when he's finished cutting his teeth in the lower leagues, Clough jr. will be returning to the family's spiritual home. One of the reasons that I love the East Midlands derby, despite a fierce rivalry between the two clubs, at the heart of it all, there's a deep respect between the two clubs and their fans, largely down to one man, Brian Clough. He did more for East Midlands football than anyone else ever will. You have to feel sorry for Leicester fans, he firmly planted Derby and Forest on the footballing map, establishing them as the pinnacle of East Midlands football. Leicester, have never been, and never will be, a major force in the East Midlands. Re Barazite, a very useful player. I'd be very surprised if he doesn't start tomorrow night at Swansea. Think we've got him until Christmas, hopefully we'll be able to extend that until the end of the season. Re Earnshaw, I never really thought that we got the best out of him TBH. I thought that he'd bang in a load of goals this season. Just keep him off the pop and out of the bookies and you'll be alright.....
Interesting comments from Eric Gerets and Emilio Butragueno ahead of this season's opening CL matches; http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7614900.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7615673.stm Geret's opinion can be respected. Butragueno can just shut the fcuk up. Didn't hear him complaining when Real Madrid were assembling the Galacticos.
Someone from Real Madrid complaining about massive amounts of money in the game. I can barely see to type this through the tears of squealing laughter.
Real Madrid's alternative means of bringing investment into the club's coffers; http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...tigates-real-madrid-property-deal-572010.html Could only sound dodgier if George Graham and Terry Venables brokered the deal, complete with brown paper envelopes stuffed full of cash!
What a joke. So it's ok when the Spanish and Italian clubs spend huge, but once England enters the fray, we've got "uncertainty" for the future and might have to look at altering the current system (ie salary cap). The anti English bias in football get more prevalent as time goes by, I have to say.
Instead of "prevalent" I think I would say "obvious". It's always been there, as far as I can tell. On a lighter note, Spurs lose again. Only team on one point rooted firmly to the bottom of the table.
What are you, a thesarus? Selling Defoe, Keane and Berbatov probably wasn't the best idea. Hindsight is 20/20!
Speaking of English dominance of CL, it also comes ot having tactics and using them... Rijkarrd complained how Utd were more defensive but they won, why because going gung ho with your players running out likk headless chickens for 180 mins does FUCK ALL You should play to win and not to look good though having both is good.