peasepud

You've got to keep Leazes in check tbf. One minute you can say Ashley deserved a chance upon arrival and the next he'll tell everyone you said "Anyone but Shepherd, I hated the 90's at NUFC". This is the crux of it for me. His recent digging up of old threads (in response to your posting that one where he predicts that Ashley will probably now go on to better Shepherd/Hall’s Champions League achievements) is a typical obsessive overreaction too. Digging them up to try and re-assert when he ‘first called Ashley’ or whatever misses the point spectacularly; he’s shown later to be saying he thinks we’ll be back on for Champs League under Ashley. Now only the other day he was agreeing with OBG that it was a Sports Direct model and this was all obvious to him from the start of his reign-well no it clearly wasn’t as he changed his prediction about Ashley’s ambitions when Keegan was appointed. There’s nothing wrong with this per se (a shifting narrative where you constantly re-evaluate based on current information), in fact Chez does this and it stimulates good debate on here imho, but on the other hand if you’re Leazes and what you’re essentially doing is trying to claim some sort of clairvoyance it makes you look a tit- because what you claim you’ve always had some sort of intractable belief about is shown to be something that in reality you’ve also argued the complete opposite of at intervals. “Oh yes, I’ve always claimed he was doing this the Sports Direct way, and before anyone else might I add.....apart from the time when I thought he was going to beat our Champions League achievements to date. Can you just all ignore that bit please? Ta.” Classic cake-and-eat-it. Going back to what you said above, that’s the essence of his “I was right you were wrong” nightmare patter. It involves re-inventions of the past both in terms of what he’s said himself and what other people have said about a subject. What’s even more tragic is that nobody else is arsed, and yet he’s been genuinely obsessed with it for 4 or 5 years now. Have to admit I see it differently. The post from LM that keeps getting dragged up to me seems to be a potential admission of being wrong. ie it wouldnt read badly if it had started "well looks like I was wrong all along about Ashley...." yet people are pulling it out and using it as a "LM backed Ashley" type of post. tbh its exactly the same thing that LM does to the likes of yourself and Gemmill ie has a memory of a post or two from the past that show you to have one view and then uses that to say you were that way all along.

Bloody hell, thats mad stuff, hope youre both ok mate. *right, now the serious stuffs out the way.... I didnt know you were moving to Liverpool though next time, wade in with a Jackaroony hex that should stop them in their tracks *2 pee-takes in 1, reeeesult

Handy for Benton Hypermarket like. Just next to Backworth. *shudders

I cant access the actual stats at the mo but from memory I host 19 sites and the other 18 collectively dont register on the percentage of usage, its well over 99% is Toontastic.

a wrongun if Ive ever seen one

Pretty spot on, all of these questions tbh are ones that the club have already answered in one way or another via the statement and Pardews press conferences. Will be interesting to see if they contradict any of them.

I have a mate who hands out his business card. I only wish I was joking. Id hand mine out if I didnt think it would get me lynched

Bollocks, that time in the Trent, it was every other fucking word, especially when you were on the pull

Why did you not say owt then? strange that isn't it. and that's where leazesmag's whole "i was right, the rest of you were wrong" argument falls apart. the only difference between leazesmag and everyone else is he thought shepherd was doing a great job. i'm sure he'd secretly admit that, just like the rest of us, he was excited at the prospect of a billionaire owner with deep pockets coming in. he didn't know ashley would be shit from the start. no one did. but it was equally obvious to everyone as soon as it started going tits up. it's not like he's some mastermind that called it from the beginning, so why he continues this crusade to persuade to prove to the rest of the board that he was right and everyone else has come around to his way of thinking is beyond me. tbf Leazes did, I vividly remember a warning from LM when Ashley launched the takeover, and subsequent argument from me where he stated "the grass isnt always greener", my reply was along the lines of "yes its a gamble but Id rather take my chance with this new bloke than the current fat bastard".

Would be the best move Ashley could make but it wont happen. The cock ups of the striker situation may force a re-think in transfer negotiation or personnel but I would be surprised if that but Llambias under threat. This is who we should be directing any protest at.

The timing of the first official press conference after the transfer window shut tells a different story. Conspirator or sap, disappearing off the radar for a week and hoping everyone forgets he fed the supporters a load of bullshit again isn’t on. I dont think he's backed away from confronting anything to date. Certainly the way it comes across and the way he's described by Caulkin, Bird and co. Im sure at the next scheduled presser he will rightly say he is disappointed, frustrated etc or words along those lines. Not much else he can say. He's already said he wanted one and we needed one. He's also said he just helps make up the short list and after that its out of his hands. Some seem to be implying he knew that we wouldnt get a striker in this window and just played along. I dont buy that. Me neither, I said it when the statement came out that I feel it was forced by Pardew, whether thats him now burnt his bridges with Dekka we'll have to wait and see.

I cant see HFs diagrams (stupid firewall, upload them via the http://www.toontastic/stokoe link man!) so not sure if what hes drawn relates to totally different stuff so apologies if this isnt relevant however the fanbase is a very important aspect to how healthy a club is. I would argue that in every aspect except payment of interest on bank loans this club is no better off than it was pre-Ashley, I could well easily be wrong on that but feel free to prove it with something.

I'd imagine that there is some rule requiring the crossbar to be completely white? I dont believe there is any rule on the colour of posts and bar but I would have thought that anything which distracted players could be deemed illegal.

The game v QPR is in Shepherd's Bush, Alex. Hes moved the ground to London? is there no end to this mans stupidity? and that was the point I was making, its all well and good to use the last complete season attendances but that one shows it far more than anything.

So you see the one league place as a higher sign of quality than the fact we competed in Europe that season? Using your logic then its clearly not. Premiership position: +1 in 10/11 UEFA position: -2 in 10/11 Overall: -1

To an extent you're right which is backed up by my thread about match by match positions however on attendances I think its fair to say that the averages are ok to use regardless of number of gates. Just to be sure though lets look at the gates for the two games weve played so far: Arsenal 06/07 - 52,293 Arsenal 11/12 - 46,894 Difference - 5399 Fulham 06/07 - 50,365 Fulham 11/12 - 42,684 Difference - 7681 Average loss since 06/07 = 6540 Unfortunately that way is too unreliable and my year average is better. eg in 06/07 Blackburn 51,000 last year Blackburn 41,000 That would imply a 10,000 drop yet the yearly average still worked out at only 3,00. You are correct and also understand how averages work. Hold on, we're not arguing how many per season have buggered off, its how many have gone since Ashley took over full stop. My average is based on the average of the 2 games we've played so far. As for it being too unreliable, bollocks. Its far more reliable to take the actual games weve played so far than the yearly average. If 6,000 less turn up to watch us play Arsenal then thats a better indication of how badly weve dropped. If we'd played Wigan and Stoke so far then compared the average of those 2 against the average of a full season youd not take into account the higer gates against Mackems, Man U, Liverpool etc. Put it this way, last season we had an 8 goal thriller against Arsenal, if anything is a good advert for the first game of the season that would have been it.

To an extent you're right which is backed up by my thread about match by match positions however on attendances I think its fair to say that the averages are ok to use regardless of number of gates. Just to be sure though lets look at the gates for the two games weve played so far: Arsenal 06/07 - 52,293 Arsenal 11/12 - 46,894 Difference - 5399 Fulham 06/07 - 50,365 Fulham 11/12 - 42,684 Difference - 7681 Average loss since 06/07 = 6540

If half those worshipping Beardsley had seen Milburn play then theyd understand the word legend.

In 07/08 we finished 12th. In 10/11 we finished 12th. So that’s debts up, attendances down and no progress at all on the pitch. So, based on facts not soothsaying.... no. Hold on cowboy, iirc, when he bought the club we had just finished 13th. The question was compared to when he bought it, not compared to his first full year in charge. (if I am wrong I will humbly apologise). It’s a fair cop but makes little difference. Thinking about it another way – are supporters happier today than they were the day before FMA took over? It’s safe to assume the lost 10,000 aren’t and probably not the 3000 who got kicked out the LC. Sorry to be a stickler, but the average crowd the season before he took over was 50,000.....last year it was 47,000 so thats 3,000 I think the happier points a no brainer because of all thats happened. sorry to be a stickler but you said "are they happier today?" so its about 6k.

you fucking mentalist

wanker

Doing a quick straw poll of attendances over the last 4 complete years and most clubs have lost a negligable amount apart from us (-7.02) and Villa (-7.09). Interestingly Bolton have bucked the trend seeing 10/11 attendances over 9% higher than those in 07/08, coincidence that they were in the FA Cup semi last year? I think not.

In 07/08 we finished 12th. In 10/11 we finished 12th. So that’s debts up, attendances down and no progress at all on the pitch. So, based on facts not soothsaying.... no. Hold on cowboy, iirc, when he bought the club we had just finished 13th. The question was compared to when he bought it, not compared to his first full year in charge. (if I am wrong I will humbly apologise). We had attendances over 50k Our squad included Owen, Duff, Emre, Martins, Butt, Dyer, N'Zog, Parker, Solano, Given & Milner among others. We had won the Intertoto Regardless of how well/shite we did, we had been in Europe. We were the 14th highest earning club in the world so ermmm no

I pay just by being on here mothafuka! Theres no winners there