Newcastle United are third in the league, were even in second place for a couple of hours, and all is well on the football field. Fear not Toon fans, Mike Ashley and cohort Derek Llambias are always here to bring us crashing back down to earth. Sure enough, they are going to rename St James’s Park to Sports Direct Arena.

The benefits? According to Derek Llambias, the benefits will be in the region of £10 million, or enough for a striker. Wait a minute? What happened to the £35 million that we got from the Scousers back in January which we were promised would be invested back into the playing squad? Regardless, Mike Ashley’s tacky Sports Direct Logo will be plastered all over St. James’s Park.

I think back when I was a kid, and I used to sit on the concrete barriers in the Gallowgate, and getting knocked off every time there was a surge. We all have our own memories and remember our first game in the stadium we’ve come to know as ours.

The two blokes currently in stewardship of our club cannot remove 120 years of history and memories from our stadium, and that’s why it will always be St James’s Park.

When Andy Carroll left Newcastle United back in January the fans were told that all of the £35 million would be invested in players. Here are the players we’ve signed since then:

• Yohann Cabaye (around £5 mil)
• Demba Ba (Free transfer)
• Silvain Marveaux (Free transfer)
• Mehdi Abeid (Free transfer)
• Davide Santon (Undisclosed – thought to be about £5 million)
• Gabriel Obertan (£3 million)
• Rob Elliot (Thought to be around £250k)

In that same time period, we have let go or sold the following players:

• Sol Campbell (Free)
• Sheki Kuqi (Free)
• Kevin Nolan (£4.5 million)
• Joey Barton (Free transfer)
• Jose Enrique (£5.5 million)
• Wayne Routledge (£2 million)

Newcastle’s outlay on players appears to be pretty good, certainly Obertan, Cabaye and Santon are young, quality players. However, when you consider that our top goalscorers for the past season are no longer at the club, then goals become a concern – at least to everyone except Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias that is.

The one thing that has me infuriated with our inability to land a proven goalscorer during the transfer window is that we have had eight months in which to do so. I don’t hold Alan Pardew completely from blame because he’s been the one saying “judge us on September 1st.” Well Alan, it’s September 2nd and we’re no closer to having a proven goalscorer than we were when Andy Carroll left. Yes, Mike Ashley and Llambias are the money men and ultimately they’re the one’s striking the deal, but did Alan Pardew underestimate how tight fisted Mike Ashley would be? It certainly seems like it – I doubt even silver-tongued Pardew would spout the nonsense about judging the club after transfer deadline day if he didn’t expect significant progress.

Either Mike Ashley considers our good start to the season a sign of the future, or that he’s just unwilling to spend. Even still, it’s been 8 months! Putting in deadline day bids for someone who was pretty much a done deal is just the sort of desperate thing Ashley would do.

The worse thing about this though is that Mike Ashley has Newcastle United fans where he wants us. We keep going back for more, and he still continues to take advantage. Unless someone meets Mike’s valuation of the club, this could go on for a long time yet.

#AllWeCareAboutIsNUFC

When you have players who are playing well, and who make up the core nucleus of a team, the last thing you would do is sell them, right? But guess what? This is Newcastle United and apparently anything and everything out of the ordinary is capable of happening.

According to this article on Sky, the St James’s Park heirarchy (aka Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias), are prepared to let Mr. Joseph Barton leave the club on a cut-price £1.5m transfer in the January transfer window – West Ham and Villa are said to be monitoring the situation carefully.

Barton has been the creative spark we’ve needed this season, and has shown through his performances on the field that he is a fine footballer and that the plight of this club matters to him. Letting him go at all would be bad for the club, but a poultry £1.5m? That’s just outrageous. If the club want to sell players to raise money for funds, and cut the wage bill, why not sell the following players?

• James Perch
• Xisco
• Alan Smith
• Leon Best

Selling one of our most capable players just shows the arrogance of Mike Ashley. When Nolan, Barton, and Carroll have played, we’ve won more than we’ve lost. To take Barton out of that mix would be nigh-on admitting that you want the club to fail. Even Barton haters have admitted that he’s settled down this year and has played some decent football. But come on, just what has Alan Smith (40k p/week), Xisco (40k p/week) contributed to Newcastle United this season? And they’re going to be staying? (By the way, those weekly estimates are conservative – I reckon both Smith and Xisco to be on closer to 50k p/week)

If true, this is just one more reason why both Mike and Derek need to leave out club before it turns into even more of a farce.

Howay the Toon

Alan Pardew, the man who was sacked by League One side Southampton for being mediocre, has been named the new manager of Newcastle United. Pardew has agreed to a five and a half year contract, which is currently one of the largest managerial contracts in European football.

I think a lot of Newcastle fans would have reacted differently to the news if Chris Hughton was replaced by someone who had experience, someone who had won leagues or cups, and who’s teams had been successful. But no, Alan Pardew got the Newcastle job because of his social relationship with Derek Llambias and Mike Ashley.

Make no mistake about it, Pardew will have no grace period, no honeymoon, nor the respect of the players. The man is on a hiding to nothing, and in our eyes, deserves every bit of hiding that he receives. To those fans saying we should back Pardew, I couldn’t disagree more. Pardew has knowingly negotiated a contracted while Chris Hughton was still Newcastle United manager. Pardew is just as much to blame as Mike Ashley and his cronies.

This now begins our boycott of all things Newcastle United. No merchandise, no shirts, no season tickets, nothing – until Mike Ashley, Derek Llambias and Alan Pardew are well clear of St. James’s Park.

The Journal today published an article with quotes attributed to none other than our favorite cockney geezer, Derek Llambias.

With most sane Newcastle fans venting fury at the clubs efforts to sell naming rights to St. James’s Park next season, the club appear to be trying to alleviate some of the damage.

Llambias, when speaking to Sky Sports, explains the decision:

`We are just looking to explore and maximise all our revenues.“We’ve got a great opportunity at the moment because our sponsorships are coming to an end. So we have a kit sponsor, we have shirt sponsors and then we have stadium right sponsors.

“So our intention is to put a package together that would include for instance stadium rights with a jumbo screen included in that sponsorship which is great for the fans as well.

“Our intention is to have – for instance sportsdirect.com@ St James’ Park.

“We were never going to lose St James’ Park, it was always going to be @ St James’ Park.

I shouldn’t need to point out the obvious here, but why are we supposed to believe this load of guff when all they’ve said in the past has been total bollocks? Even if what Llambias has said is true, let’s say they only want to put the sponsorship name in front of St. James’s Park, it’s still making money off the the history and heritage of this fine football club.

We can’t let Mike Ashley continue to ruin Newcastle United. Support the lads on the field, give the fat blokes upstairs a protest like they’ve never seen before.

We’ll say this once if we have to say it a thousand times – it’s St. James’s Park or nothing.

Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, news tonight emanating from St. James Park is that Mike Ashley has removed Newcastle United from the market and the club is no longer for sale.

Here is the press release in full from the club’s official website:

It seems as if the past eight weeks have meant nothing to Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias. Newcastle United means something to us, with the consistent “we’re confident something will happen next week” bollocks it appears that this fine football club means less than dirt to those in charge at St. James Park.

Llambias, Newcastle’s Managing Director appeared on the radio show Total Sport today and said that the Barry Moat bid was ‘there or thereabouts’, but that there were others further down the line than the proposed Moat takeover deal. So if the Moat bid is ‘there or thereabouts’, surely the other consortiums are almost ready to put pen to paper? What a ridiculous state of affairs this is.

What’s even worse is when numpties like Graham Roberts play to the media with quotes like ‘They want to run their own football club’ (‘they’ being the fans) and heads up a consortium. Can’t he see that any further delay in the takeover process means more misery for the fans? I couldn’t give a toss who was running the club as long as they have decent business sense, but don’t patronise us with utter tosh – we’ll just loathe you even more than we already do.

On Total Sport, Derek’s final comment to the fans was to be patient. Patient?? This has been dragging on for eight weeks! We have no manager, a threadbare squad and owners who have made one bad decision after another. If this doesn’t end soon, the atmosphere surrounding our decent start to the season could become a thing of the past, and that could cause even more heartache.

The Police had it right, only for Newcastle United, nobody seems to be listening. If our humiliating 6-1 defeat against Leyton Orient this afternoon wasn’t signal enough for Mike Ashley that he needs to get out of Toon and quick, then I shudder to think what will.

Ashley, who is holding out for 100 million pound bids, surely must be sweating now. Potential buyers of the club are going to point to this defeat as justification for not paying out the full amount for the Toon. If the club can’t beat Leyton Orient in a friendly with their first choice eleven, how on earth are they going to compete in the Championship?

It was at the beginning of last month that we heard from Seymour Pierce’s Keith Harris that the club would be sold before the end of June. We’ve also heard from Derek Llambias who said that NUFC had received more than two bids of 100 million. So what on earth has happened since then? We shudder to even think – it’s unbearable and unacceptable.

The only thing we can cling to now is hope. Hope that a deal is just around the corner and hope that Alan Shearer is still around when the new owners come calling, because if nothing else, he can get this club back on its feet again and headed in the right direction.

Finally, a bit of news that doesn’t involve more he said she said bollocks.

In what could turn out to be the best bit of news received on Tyneside since Michael Owen slung his hook, word came today from Managing Director Derek Llambias that “more than two” bids of 100 million had been received. Here’s the full quote:

“There have been more than two bids at £100m. At the moment, we are in the hands of lawyers, and it is all ongoing. We are giving interested parties all the help that they need.”

Hopefully, if everything goes smoothly (and we have no right to think that it will), we should be hearing further news this week. Don’t bank on it though. Mike Ashley’s recent history suggests that nothing more than utter confusion and chaos will descend on St James’s Park.

As we blogged about yesterday, the fact that there was nothing published in the national newspapers was a sign that there could be positive things in the works for Newcastle United.

Only hours later, several media outlets published news that Wednesday and Thursday could be pivotal for the future of the Toon, and even more so, Alan Shearer. Quotes from current Managing Director Llambias mitigate that Shearer could be appointed as boss no later than early next week – possibly as soon as Thursday, the 18th.

The books are due to be opened on Wednesday for consortiums who have proven beyond doubt that they have sufficient funds to be able to complete their respective takeovers. We are led to believe that the consortiums are all in favour as appointing Shearer as manager so as far as this blog is concerned, the sooner the better. Let’s get the preparations for next season underway please, we’re already way behind.

Howay the Toon