HOWAY THE LADS 2005-2006

hello gents

i hope you all had a good chritmas and new year, apart from the football that is of course.

when we lost to wigans reserves in the league cup i said that we had reached a new low, but we were mighty close to falling further yesterday. boro had more injuries than us so that excuse didnt wash yesterday and it seems that avoiding relegation will be the sum total of our achievements this year. the only saving grace is that there are worse teams than us in the league which is remarkable when you think of the crap that we are serving up.

the thing that struck me most about the state of the whole league though was the fact that when we played spurs at their place they were shite and the game was going nowhere until we obliged with our customary defensive lapses. and they are 4th in the league. there truly is a complete shower of shite from 4th downwards in the premier league this season.

souness has to go (and take shearer with him) but a replacement needs to be found first. pearce i guess is the only choice (assuming o'neil is a non starter) and i think he is someone who has got the bottle to take on the pressure of the job. i think that is the key to the problem of managing us - nobody wants the hassle.

pearce can either take the easy option and stay at city where the supporters will not put any pressure on him as long as they are mid table or above or he can be given transfer funds and a target of consistent european football. allardyce didnt want that pressure and i guess there are a lot of managers who dont.

i see the newcastle arent a big club jibberish is doing the rounds again. in terms of trophies we have not won anything in an awful long time, which is true, and i have never known so many supporters from other clubs take such delight at a team falling on its arse as when newcastle do. but newcastle have the 2nd largest attendances in the league despite not haveing won a domestic trophy for 50 years so the loyalty of the supporters is admirable. no other team would get this support given the lack of success.

the stadium is one of the best in the country and financially we are only behind chelsea and manchester united in terms of turnover. newcastle is a big club because big players and managers keep coming despite the lack of success. the real problem, as mentioned, is the fact that the boardroom do not have the intelligence to take a long term forward thinking view the way that arsenal did with wenger, liverpool with benitez and manure with ferguson. until the board stop pandering to the press with the managerial appointments we will always be the headline news for the off field circus and soap opera that we are becoming.

as for when things change, i will not hold my breath as my father and grandfather tell me it has always been the same.