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Slipperduke

The Camden Cad
Joined
Aug 24, 2004
Messages
4,333
Location
North London
Here on Tyneside, the hangovers are just beginning to clear. Sunday night may have been spent at the bar, defiantly pledging allegiance to the cause, but Monday morning saw the fuzzy-headed realisation that there will be no more trips to Liverpool or Arsenal for a while. Instead of Premier League opulence, Newcastle fans will have to experience the dubious pleasures of a trip to Peterborough or Plymouth instead.

Everyone knows why this has happened. Five years ago, Freddy Shepherd dismissed Sir Bobby Robson early in the season after the 'disappointment' of finishing fifth in the previous campaign. Since that pigheaded act of gross incompetence, seven managers have failed to get anywhere near a level that, for Robson, was deemed to be a sackable offence. With no stability, no common sense and no leadership, Newcastle have slowly rotted from the inside out.

But that is all in the past now. Cursing Shepherd or his equally clueless successor Mike Ashley will not take this club back to the Premier League. Only a complete overhaul will achieve that. The question is whether or not anyone at the club will be patient enough to see it through. Make no mistake, an instant return will not be easy. Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion, both of whom intend to retain their managers, will start the season with far more stability and cohesion. Like Leeds before them, Newcastle will have to suffer the '46 Cup Finals' syndrome, as every opponent raises their game against them. This will not be a quick recovery.

Ideally, they need at least three seasons to rebuild. The first must be spent taking a flamethrower to the piles of deadwood in the dressing room. If those supposedly top class professionals couldn't motivate themselves for the Premier League, they will be annihilated in the Championship. According to the BBC, there are 15 players at the club on more than GBP50,000 a week, none of whom have reduction clauses after relegation. They must all be shown the door. Such an exodus will leave the club relying on youth and hastily arranged replacements who will take time to settle. The owners and the fans will have to accept that, under these circumstances, mid-table will be quite an achievement.

With the wage bill decimated and the club's debts limited, in the most part, to loans from Ashley, there is nothing to stop them rebuilding at a natural pace. Unlike Leeds, at least to our knowledge, there are few outside organisations banging the door down for money. A proportion of support, the fairweather wedge that every club attracts, may ebb away, but if the cost of tickets comes down then they will be replaced by those who were priced out of the Premier League. If the board play their cards right, the club could still be able to attract 50,000 fans.

By season two, Newcastle will have more supporters, more TV revenue, more matchday income and, vitally, more of an ability to attract players than any of their rivals. Patience, however, will still be their most valuable resource. Good teams take time to build and if the board react to play-off failure, as Leeds did, by sacking the manager shortly afterwards, they'll destroy all of their progress.

If Newcastle can reach the third season of their exile with the same manager, having allowed him to put foundations down as he pleases, while resisting the urge to hurl millions at flavour of the month transfer targets and without dragging the club to the brink of oblivion with silly salaries, they will have a chance. These are the conditions that Alan Shearer must demand when he speaks to Ashley this week. We will know from the result of those talks whether Newcastle have what it takes to return to the Premier League.
 
Great read and completely agree, it's only got worse since they sacked Sir Bobby
 
Good summary Slip, the $64k question is whether there will be enough patience to see it through, whoever it is.
 
Loved an Aston Villa flag yesterday saying "Whos your next messiah? Is it Ant or Dec?"
 
Who is to say whether the " Big club syndrome" affects them in the same way as Leeds, and they go down even further.

The days of players wanting to wear the shirt with pride has long gone,and money is the motive, similar to Shearer reported to be on millions to keep them up, surely with his money and so called pride in the club, he could have done the job for nothing, if keeping them in the premiership was he real drive.

I have allways loved Newcastle as a second team, but somehow this is just not about Mike Ashley, like many clubs they cannot see 5th or 6 th place is a decent finish, when the so called big 4 dominate the league, they care about the premiership very little and want to be in the European Elite league when it comes and it will one day and small clubs like us will flounder as TV is pulled and we will swim against the tide.

Newcastle are not the first big club to suffer Forest and Leeds can claim this and they willnot be the last, but when the elite European league comes about, they will be the first to go in and sod the rest of football
 
In my opinion the worst thing Newcastle could have done was sack Allardyce.

Sheperd appointed a manager that would never endear himself or his football to the Newcastle fans. It took Ashley a while, but he finally grew the balls to get rid after Allardyce was castigated by the fans.

Ashley's and Newcastle's biggest mistake was to hire Wise. Not only did he unsettle Keegan and the squad after it became clear noone knew quite what his position was or how much power he had, but he wasted copious amounts of money on utter garbage...

Keegan might have pulled his old trick of jumping ship when it got difficult, but he wouldn't have left, plunging Newcastle into doubt, if Wise was never hired.
 
Excellent summary, however, i dont think you have factored in the reduction in TV money that Newcastle will suffer, as i understand it this year they received around £45/50million TV money, next season all they will get is the £2.5 million and the parachute payment of £11.2 mllion thats a shortfall of around £35m. As they already get excellent crowds they cant afford to reduce prices. I really fear for them if they cant get rid of most of the aquad they have or find a VERY rich buyer very soon.........
 
A great idea but in reality of todays modern fanbase combined with the size of the club I couldn't see them riding it out for 3 years.
 
A great idea but in reality of todays modern fanbase combined with the size of the club I couldn't see them riding it out for 3 years.

Very true, but they are gonna be in dire straits next season and probably the one after aswell so they might not have any choice about it!

But IF Shearer stays and is given a fair crack then the fans would be a little bit more patient I feel.
 
I'd be quite happy to see them continue on downwards to the conference
 
I'd be quite happy to see them continue on downwards to the conference

Same here, I have a real dislike for Newcastle.

The Club has so many problems its unture. They had the 5th highest wage bill in the Country this season, that is one of the biggest problems. Unfortuantely, I think relegation will be the best thing to happen to the Club. The 8 or so players on £50,000 + a week will move onto other Clubs, they are likely to have Shearer in place, and I think the whole town will get right behind the Club.

I don't think they will head straight back up, they will have the 46 Cup Finals that has already been pointed out, but I can't see them in the Championship for much longer.
 
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