bigchrissamba

Couldn't watch it for a whole season that's for sure, just anti football, continually foul to break up play and feign injury every so often to stop any flow of the game and kill it dead as a spectacle and continue niggling away at people all the time. that said i didn't think they were in anyway a long ball team which i was expecting, they were relatively neat and tidy in their play for the most part, just awful in respect to spoiling. Its up to refs to stop the fat sams of the world wrecking the game, crack down on their continual fouling with cards from the off and it stops, ignore the fake injuries and they'll soon get up and get on with it, but it doesn't happen so teams will continue to do it. But as awful as they are to watch doing that, they took their two chances, we took our one, so they earned the win. Fouls last night - Newcastle 16-15 Blackburn. Where was the ref when Barton punched our player?! Some of you lot are truly unbelievable. You didn't make our keeper work once last night apart from the goal. That at home against any team other than the big 4, City and Spurs is very poor football. Check the Barton thread, i said it was a red and he should have gone and in this thread i said you took your two chances we took our only one created so you deserved the win, and pretty much everyone on this thread has said we played poorly, so anything else bothering you? And if you're trying to deny fat sam's tactics are to spoil and break games up and denying that your players continually feign injury to slow the game and waste time then you're unbelievable, its what he has always done and will always do, because it works for him. The feigning injury is bollocks - we have a few that do it but then every team does. We don't foul any more than other teams do. It's not pretty football I'll give you that but you're just making things up now.

You are in the bottom half. When we come to your place will you be expecting to win or lose? You'll be expecting to win. As last night demonstrated, there is very little between the sides. So if you expect to win at yours, we'll expect to win at ours. Deconstruct the logic in that or shut the fuck up tbh. Table now means fuck all. We're two points off fifth, where you are FFS - you're clearly not a top five side are you? We're a point behind Spurs but they're a much better side than us (and yourselves). Last night you were the team at home, we were the team away from home. If there's not that much between the sides when you're at home, and if you can only trouble our keeper once over 90 minutes at home then we should beat you pretty comfortably at Ewood. Oh dear, have you not even thought before writing that! The whole point of this thread is we struggle to break down teams like your lot at home, away from home we've beaten Arsenal, West Ham, Everton, Chelsea in the cup and drawn at Wolves because we are set up to do that. At home even fat sam might try and actually play for a win and we'll try to take advnatage of that. And bookmark this if you like, i'll happilly say right now we'll finish above you come the end of the season, though we won't stay in fifth! Our away record under Sam on the whole has been fairly poor, however under Sam we've lost 5 matches at home in just under two years. Good luck with that whole winning at Ewood thing...

Looking at individual results is pointless - Hull won at the Emirates a few seasons ago. Looking at recent history is far more appropriate and you lot are a newly promoted side. You're doing pretty well still for a newly promoted side but don't get ideas above your station and expect to beat teams like us who've had a very good record over the last few seasons in the league. Especially ones that have now won their last FIVE in a row at your place.

Couldn't watch it for a whole season that's for sure, just anti football, continually foul to break up play and feign injury every so often to stop any flow of the game and kill it dead as a spectacle and continue niggling away at people all the time. that said i didn't think they were in anyway a long ball team which i was expecting, they were relatively neat and tidy in their play for the most part, just awful in respect to spoiling. Its up to refs to stop the fat sams of the world wrecking the game, crack down on their continual fouling with cards from the off and it stops, ignore the fake injuries and they'll soon get up and get on with it, but it doesn't happen so teams will continue to do it. But as awful as they are to watch doing that, they took their two chances, we took our one, so they earned the win. Fouls last night - Newcastle 16-15 Blackburn. Where was the ref when Barton punched our player?! Some of you lot are truly unbelievable. You didn't make our keeper work once last night apart from the goal. That at home against any team other than the big 4, City and Spurs is very poor football.

You are in the bottom half. When we come to your place will you be expecting to win or lose? You'll be expecting to win. As last night demonstrated, there is very little between the sides. So if you expect to win at yours, we'll expect to win at ours. Deconstruct the logic in that or shut the fuck up tbh. Table now means fuck all. We're two points off fifth, where you are FFS - you're clearly not a top five side are you? We're a point behind Spurs but they're a much better side than us (and yourselves). Last night you were the team at home, we were the team away from home. If there's not that much between the sides when you're at home, and if you can only trouble our keeper once over 90 minutes at home then we should beat you pretty comfortably at Ewood.

You're bottom half now and last season you finished mid table. So you're a bottom/mid table team. It was poor match but you came set up to stop "free flowing football" as acknowledged by BFS in his post match interview. But you aint a top half team, much like we cant be classed as one and like it or not, Blackburn at home is a game many teams would hope to win. We still finished top half last season and for 4 of the last 5 seasons (and much of our side is still the same) - the current table is very tight so you can't read too much into it. You may be 5th now but there's two points separating you and us in 13th. You're a newly promoted side remember and a newly promoted side should be happy with a point at home to top half/mid table teams. Granted a fair few of your fans on here said they'd be happy with a point before the game but there's so many posts saying "we should be beating shite teams like Blackburn at home" - it's those fans that are getting ideas above their station. Don't compare yourselves with us, you haven't finished top half for years, we do it consistently and have a good chance of doing so again this season. Sam did not say he was trying to stop free flowing football, Sam correctly identified you pretty much had one main line of attack this season - get the ball from out wide into Andy Carroll - and if we stopped that we'd stop Newcastle. It worked a treat for the most part (bar Samba's loss of concentration), but it was hardly stopping free flowing football.

I love all the comments from you lot describing us as a "bottom half team". We've finished top half 4 out of the last 5 seasons, the only exception being when we inexplicably hired Paul Ince one summer, though good job we had Big Sam to save us. Last night was a fairly poor match all round but it's hardly like we played "anti football" - we were comfortably the better side in the first half, yes you were on top in the second but we won thanks to us having a much better defence than yourselves so it was fully deserved. Where was your free flowing football last night? As I recall Robbo didn't have to make a single save apart from the goal you scored. I'm fairly sure punching someone in the chest is "anti football" and you were very lucky to get away with that. Big deal, you won at the Emirates. Hull did that one season and almost got relegated (and did the season afterwards). Burnley had a great start last season and got relegated too. Don't get ideas above your station, you've started the season well no doubt, but losing against a TOP HALF team every now and then at home should be par for the course for you lot right now.

Fair enough if it was just Ashley's decision, but I see plenty of people defending the decision to sack him. I've seen people say he wouldve taken them down that season. If it was something the Newcastle fans didn't support, I'm surprised that my criticisms of your club's decision to sack him is met with such opposition. I wouldve thought there'd be more people who'd say maybe you were wrong to sack him when you did, as in the eyes of many educated neutral fans (and don't give me this Sky Sports nonsense), it was one of the key points in your downfall. Not the absolute pivotal one, but one of the important bits. Because you're so full of shit about everything else. He wasn't getting you relegated that season yet I have the likes of you telling me he was. You needed 11 points from the remaining 17 games to stay in that league that season. EVEN if your shit form over those 12 games had continued at exactly the same rate you wouldve stayed up. I didn't say he was going to get us relegated, I said it was relegation form. If he had've stayed then we would have finished lower mid-table imo. The point is that we weren't showing any signs of improvement. As CG says, it wasn't the fans who got Allardyce the sack, the team were applauded off in his last game away to Stoke, it was Ashley who wanted him gone. But really most reasonable clubs only sack their manager if there's a sign of marked decline, or if the club has been stagnating for some time. You might not have said he wouldve got you relegated that season but one chap in this thread has and the last time I was on here I saw it said then too. It's an unbelievable distortion of the truth.

Because you're so full of shit about everything else. He wasn't getting you relegated that season yet I have the likes of you telling me he was. You needed 11 points from the remaining 17 games to stay in that league that season. EVEN if your shit form over those 12 games had continued at exactly the same rate you wouldve stayed up. To the previous poster- saying that you weren't getting relegated because you were 11th in the league and 8 points off the drop zone isn't "statto bollocks", it's a fair assessment of how good your team had been that season at getting results over the entire season. Breaking up your season into 12 games and using that as a marker whilst totally disregarding the other bit of the season is something closer to "statto bollocks". Teams go through poor runs, your team had gone through a poor one under Allardyce, but he'd also shown he could get results with that team too.

Yeah, I'm actually a Blackburn Rovers fan from Tuvalu (that's the flag on my profile). Use your head son.

Are you going to ignore my point about 9 point from 12 games? That's relegation form. I'll take your silence as a yes. Allardyce - 9 points from last 12 games = 0.75 points average per game Ince - 12 points from last 15 games = 0.8 points average per game But we're the deluded ones? Yeah the difference being that Allardyce had produced good enough form for you before - 15 from 9 games (1.5 points per game) and at the highest level with Bolton to suggest that this was just poor form. Ince had never managed in the Premier League and in his final 8 games achieved a grand total of 0 points. Thats 0 points per game. Some difference. Either way they're both relegation form and both had to go. No, 12 points from 15 games = relegation form = sack. 26 points from 21 games = unspectacular form but not sackable. You can't judge a manager over 12 games - it's even more batshit mental than judging him over 21. Even Ince - we wouldnt have sacked him unless we'd lost 8 in a row and were actually IN the relegation zone at the time.

No one said that one manager was going to do, as someone else has said in this thread we wanted progression, even if it was from 13th to 12th. Under Allardyce we were going backwards at an alarming rate. By the by, WE realised football had changed, WE realised we needed a change from top to tail, followed by a periood of stability, investment in youth and a scouting system of note, we knew we needed to stop buying players just for their name, we knew all of this, unfortunately WE don't get to make the decisons, that falls to the mororns at the top. A back line hasn't always been poor and he did more to make it pourous than many others. Robson and Keegans (neither defensively minded) had better defence than your Fat Sam, we didn't have steel we had thugs, whats the point in a steely midfielder when he can't pass the ball once he's got it? Just as you're saying it's harsh of us to judge him after so few games,it's madness for you to think he'd have done any better if he'd stayed. 9 points from a possible 36. That's relegation form. So Newcastle United or Blackburn will never again challenge for the title? Fuck off. If it takes a decade or it take four I'll still be cheering us on. I'm quite happy to take the long view mate, but it seems you aren't You might be content with a top ten place, but that's not enough I want more. I want glory. If that means waiting until I'm 65, then so-fucking-be it. I wonder, do you have an opinion of your own, or do you just use Sky Sports? Barely watch Sky Sports except for the actual matches, and even then you can never take a panel with Jamie Redknapp on it very seriously. 9 points from a possible 36 - I guarantee you I can pick out a good third of the league who will have similar runs next season. It's a very poor run of form but you can't sack a manager for a poor run of form, especially when you weren't in any imminent danger of relegation. He'd picked up 15 points from his first 9 for a team that had finished 5 points from relegation the season before, or do those games not count in your overall assessment? You weren't going backwards under Sam, if you went backwards from 5 points from the drop you wouldve been around the drop zone at that point. It's complete madness to think he wouldve been relegated that season, whereas to think a manager who has got good results at his other two clubs (and who had started the season well with Newcastle) mightve made things better is perfectly reasonable thinking.

Are you going to ignore my point about 9 point from 12 games? That's relegation form. I'll take your silence as a yes. Allardyce - 9 points from last 12 games = 0.75 points average per game Ince - 12 points from last 15 games = 0.8 points average per game But we're the deluded ones? Yeah the difference being that Allardyce had produced good enough form for you before - 15 from 9 games (1.5 points per game) and at the highest level with Bolton to suggest that this was just poor form. Ince had never managed in the Premier League and in his final 8 games achieved a grand total of 0 points. Thats 0 points per game. Some difference. Still, while we're playing this game.. Shearer: 5 points from 8 games - 0.63 points per game. Kinnear: 20 points from 18 games - 1.11 points per game.

Utter shite, we as fans had nowt to do with Allardyce going from what I remember at the time we tried but nothing happened Ashley kept him so people begun to just accept he was staying then out of nowhere he was sacked. See Kitmans post as to what Allardyce was like for us. You keep bringing up this 8pts clear crap aye after we'd played hardly any of the decent teams in the league, like ewerk pointed out we started taking a nose dive losing to Derby, drawing via last minute penalty with Fulham I can definitely see Fish's point that relegation could have been a possibility for us that season. "shore up your backline which has always been poor" Wahey! another myth iirc we had the 2nd best defense in the league under Keegan when we finished 2nd. You really do just recite the media perception of us. We want stability but we can't get it with Ashley nothing us as fans can do about that. Congratulations, you've disproved my point about you having a poor defence with a stat from 96-97.

Name me another League club in the area that's Tyneside. If anyone in that 880,000 area wants to support their local club, it's Newcastle. Therefore your catchment area (note I didn't say the size of the actual city where your club is located) is 880,000 people. Boasting about the size of your crowds therefore is a little foolish, as one would expect crowds that big.

Mate, you won't get much patience on here if you start repeating stereotypes put about by the press. If you speak to grass root fans, not the mongs on Sky Sports, you'll find that most people don't want champagne football or anything approaching it and there's no expectation of winning things. We want stability, an owner who invests and a team that shows progress year on year. Sam's football was quite simply appalling to watch. The team showed none of his supposed virtues and was clearly going backwards. His Bolton teams could mix it up between long and short football, were agggressive and well organised. Our team played hoof ball, was badly organised, the set pieces were a joke, couldn't score, couldn't keep the ball, leaked goals for fun, was dispirited and went to places like Derby aiming not to lose and failing. Sam was totally out of his depth and responded by bullshitting and making excuses. He had clearly lost the dressing room, training was acknowledged by the players to be a shambles and there were complaints of lack of fitness. We still had injury problems depsite his legion of assistants. He had a terrible record against the weaker teams in the league, the majority of which we'd played by the time he was sacked with the difficult games to go. It's not fanciful at all to say we would have been relegated under his watch and he would have been sacked imo by most clubs. I understand how things look to the outsider but you honestly don't understand just how bad things were under his leadership. I'd bet you didn't watch most of the matches at the time. Giving him more time wouldn't have solved a thing. He was hopelessy out of his depth and had given up by the time he got the bullet. You weren't far from relegation the season previous to that. If he had a terrible record against the weaker teams in the league, did he have a decent record against the stronger teams in the league? Only he left you in 11th place. He must have done decent against one set of teams. After Sam left you had 19 games left. These included games against Bolton, Boro, Rovers, Birmingham, Fulham, Spurs (who were in massive decline), Reading, Portsmouth, Sunderland and West Ham. Under Sam you would have picked up 11 points from those 10 games alone to get the 37 needed for safety that year, let alone the matches against the top 6 teams where you mightve scraped a point or two. You would not have got relegated that season under Sam, and yet you sacked him when you desperately needed stability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyneside Sorry, 880k. Unless you want to name any other League clubs on Tyneside?

That's the problem with you though. You needed stability at that time more than anything. You singularly failed to realise (and still fail to realise) that no one manager was going to take you from your state post Roeder, to a state where you'd be up there challenging with United again. You failed to realise football changed completely in the 10 years from 1997-2007. If you thought any club could get from where you were (5 points from relegation after Roeder) to even come close to challenging for the title in anything less than 7 or so years, without a Man City like cash injection, then you successfully satisfy all the deluded Geordie stereotypes. You want the one manager who will take you on that journey, when in fact you probably need a succession of managers. The reason why Sam would have been good for you was that you needed someone to get you in amongst the top half again, pushing Europe, shore up your backline which has always been poor, instill a bit of steel into your side which you badly missed last season. He's not an amazing manager by any stretch, but he's bloody effective at what he does. And when he left you were 11th. You mightn't have finished top half that season but you wouldnt have been relegated either considering you were 8 pts away when he left. And no, we don't just strive to stay in the League. We've seen two more trophies this generation than you folks have, we finished top 10 the previous 3 seasons to this one (and has top 10 form in the 21 games that Allardyce took charge in) and have been finishing above your team for the last 4 or 5 seasons. We have every reason to believe we should be challenging amongst the top 10 (though new money for the likes of City and Villa makes this task difficult), and considering we've bettered that a good few seasons and won a domestic trophy it's not an unrealistic aim. You guys need to put those ambitions of being up there with United to bed, since it's about as likely to happen for you as it is for us.

Anyone can pick out individual results. He didn't improve you after 6 months (well you were further from the relegation slots but not that much further granted), so therefore he had to go. Jesus, if only every club had the same thinking! Well if we hadn't sacked him then you wouldn't have him now so you should be glad we did. If you want to post something constructive then please do, if you want to take the piss then kindly fuck off. I'm only taking the piss when greeted with such ridiculous logic that a manager has to go after 6 months if he doesnt markedly improve a team.

So you would have gone from being 8 points clear of the drop zone in January to getting relegated that very same season under Sam? Despite the fact he'd been keeping Bolton in the league for years and kept us up this season?

What rubbish. We're not going to win things full stop, apart from the chance of the League Cup, possibly the FA Cup if lots of the favourites get knocked out early. That goes the same for most of the clubs in this league. But if we win matches, we stand a greater chance of winning things. Was I imagining Sam's Bolton side in the League Cup winning 3-2 at Anfield and 5-2 vs Villa in the semi final? Granted they lost in the final but that pretty much negates your viewpoint doesn't it? And we get about 22,000 in a 125,000 catchment area (without the promotions etc which get a few more in). You got 48,000 in an 800,000 catchment area. I know what's more impressive. It has very little to do with the quality of the football.

Anyone can pick out individual results. He didn't improve you after 6 months (well you were further from the relegation slots but not that much further granted), so therefore he had to go. Jesus, if only every club had the same thinking!

The point we're making is that we had neither under Allardyce. You were desperately poor the season before too. If you'd given him a little longer he might have produced the first scenario. You shouldve given him the benefit of the doubt given he'd shown what he could do at another club. God knows your club needed stability at that point.

You finished 5 points from relegation the season before. He was 8 points from relegation in January when he left you. He didn't do great, probably slightly below average, but you should have given him more than 6 months FFS. I bet you're sick of hearing the "if you'd stuck to Sam you wouldn't have been in this mess", but that's only because it's so blindingly obvious to the rest of us it's not even funny.

You seem a good lad and i bear no ill will to you but fuckin hell man - he is gonna knacker your team Like he knackered Bolton right? I bear no ill will to any of you - but fuck me there's plenty on here who know fuck all about football. Oh, and this is highly unlikely to happen. Thankfully. So you think Bolton were a great team to pay money to watch then? Fuck that shit, they were shockingly boring to watch. He continued that with us by buying shite like Smith he'll do the same to you lot it's his style boring wank long ball football. Fucking hell, Newcastle fans in the Championship being condescending about a side who had multiple top 10 finishes (and I fucking hate Bolton as a rule). This is one of the reasons other fans call you deluded, you think you have some god given right to watch champagne football. Which of these two scenarios is more entertaining? a) Watching your team play a direct "long ball" style of football, win games, give you something to celebrate a lot of weekends, hold their own against some top teams and give you something to be proud of.. or Watching your team attempt to play pretty football, pass the ball in nice triangles which dont really go anyway, scoring a few beautifully executed team goals but still losing most of their matches and having their leaky defence obliterated by any half decent attack? I'd rather pay money to watch my team win and do well, than watch my team do what your team have been doing. Or what West Brom have been doing, since they seem to be the buzzword for pretty but failing football. After that happens, then a team can talk about the luxuries of pretty football. But when you've got little money to spend like us and Bolton did, finding effective players who fit into a side playing good football on the cheap can be hard to find. Still, if he brings talent like Okocha and Anelka to Ewood, we'll be happy enough.