In hindsight was relegation good for the club?

[Dr Gloom 22187]

Quite a few floated this idea before we went down. I never bought it but now it's happened i can't help but think relegation and the things that came with it - stumbling across hughton, the new team spirit, getting the big egos off the wage bill and the return of the feel good factor that comes with winning - have put the club back on the right track.

 

Would things have been worse if we survived? Would we have continued to stagnate while employing players that didn't give a shit? I am genuinely optimistic about this season after what we've seen so far.

Edited November 9, 2010 by Dr Gloom

[Christmas Tree 4852]

Quite a few floated this idea before we went down. I never bought it but now it's happened i can't help but think relegation and the things that came with it - stumbling across hughton, the new team spirit, getting the big egos off the wage bill and the return of the feel good factor that comes with winning - have put the club back on the right track.

 

Would things have been worse if we survived? Would we have continued to stagnate while employing players that didn't give a shit? I am genuinely optimistic about this season after what we've seen so far.

 

 

Yes. Some shit about having to hit rock bottom before you can fly again.....

 

Players didnt care

 

Fans expectations were probably unreal

 

The baggage has gone and we are re-born under Chris......Amen

[Ketsbaia 0]

In hindsight yes, it doesn't look too bad but make no mistake we got lucky. Very, very lucky.

[PaddockLad 17700]

bit fuckin early for this tbh

 

3 good results does not a survival season make.

 

We're going to have another iffy run, this is NUFC we're talking about.

 

If we struggle to get out of it, we still could end up among the dead men, without even mentiioning how tight the league is at the moment. And if we do go down again, will relegation in 2009 be viewed as having been a good thing?

 

Calm doon folks, lets all be chilled out Chris Hughtons out there

[manc-mag 1]

By no means an 'I told you so' post, because this seasons got so far to go yet, but I think I was in a minority of about 3 people who saw some potential advantage in relegation. Was pretty much universally slated for expressing the view, but I never said it was a definite panacea, just an opportunity to do rebuilding work that probably couldn't be done in the Premiership and if we went down thats how we had to look at it and take the positives from that. To be honest, by the end of 08/09 I felt that the player culture we'd allowed to develop was so ingrained in the club that it needed something radical to drive it out. I do honestly think that narrow survival at the end of 08/09 and players not really learning anything worthwhile from the lesson would have been a waste of time overall, and as Ashley probably wouldnt have spent, we'd have gone down the following season instead with the same attitudes.

 

It's all speculation, but you can't get promoted from the Championship on ego alone. Hughton seemed to make them understand that they had something to prove; that appears to be continuing now and he deserves the credit for it.

[Howmanheyman 33918]

In hindsight yes, it doesn't look too bad but make no mistake we got lucky. Very, very lucky.

My answer would be similar to this ^

[sammynb 3517]

make no mistake we got lucky. Very, very lucky.

 

This would be my thoughts and for those that think otherwise just look at the smoggies at how it could have all ended up.

Edited November 9, 2010 by sammynb

[manc-mag 1]

In hindsight yes, it doesn't look too bad but make no mistake we got lucky. Very, very lucky.

My answer would be similar to this ^

 

Luck very much played a part because of the risk of not coming straight back up. However we'd have continued to do nowt in the prem anyway if we'd stayed up and would have gone down eventually anyway I'm pretty convinced of that. We'd been on the decline for years.

[Howmanheyman 33918]

In hindsight yes, it doesn't look too bad but make no mistake we got lucky. Very, very lucky.

My answer would be similar to this ^

 

Luck very much played a part because of the risk of not coming straight back up. However we'd have continued to do nowt in the prem anyway if we'd stayed up and would have gone down eventually anyway I'm pretty convinced of that. We'd been on the decline for years.

That's what could've happened, very plausible, but we could've been seriously fucked for years due to this oaf getting us needlessly relegated. Still reckon we got lucky. A clear out was needed but relegation wasn't.

[manc-mag 1]

In hindsight yes, it doesn't look too bad but make no mistake we got lucky. Very, very lucky.

My answer would be similar to this ^

 

Luck very much played a part because of the risk of not coming straight back up. However we'd have continued to do nowt in the prem anyway if we'd stayed up and would have gone down eventually anyway I'm pretty convinced of that. We'd been on the decline for years.

That's what could've happened, very plausible, but we could've been seriously fucked for years due to this oaf getting us needlessly relegated. Still reckon we got lucky. A clear out was needed but relegation wasn't.

 

Ideally you'd have had the clear out without relegation aye, I agree absolutely. It wouldn't have happened though.

 

And if we hadn't gone down then I'm convinced we would have done the year after.

 

All speculation of course.

[ChezGiven 0]

In high performance team literature that comes out of schools like INSEAD, there is this concept called 'break down to break through'. It basically states that the best performing teams are one that have suffered a virtually fatal 'break down' and a period of sustained adversity. The theory (based on observations and examples, its not someone making it up) is that once the team has broken down, a leader can make the team 'break through' by galvanising the team around the experience and using it to propel the team to levels of performance not thought previously possible.

 

I learnt about this on a management course in 2006 (at INSEAD funnily enough) and always thought that relegation and the Leyton Orient game and what happened after that sounded similar.

 

I also gave the opinion at some point that the business benefits of being able to rid an organisation of low productivity / high cost labour and re-hire from scratch, akin to a corporation nearly going bust, shedding loads of labour, re-skilling with a new mix and riding the upturn in the economy, was one of the opportunities of relegation. The challenges probably outnumbered the positives but they were still there.

 

I dont think its either of those things by themselves but these factors have been at play. Its also possible that Chris Hughton's philosophical approach to life (egalitarian / trotskyist) has had some very positive effects on individual players.

 

We also are blessed with a massively loyal support to keep the whole thing moving along and keep people inside the club believing in what they are doing.

 

In short, relegation presented challenges and opportunities, the key was to keep focussed around the challenges (belief, hope, finance) and to take the opportunities (re-birth, breaking through).

[The Fish 10972]

I don't think relegation is ever good. What Relegation has lead to for our club is impressive, but I don't think that b necessarily followed a.

 

Ashley has been remarkably fortunate in having a man who could shoulder the burden of expectation and a dissolving dressing room, already at the club. I think Ashley has been fortunate, as well, in having players who have the strength of character like Nolan and Smith to hue a team from the shell of the relegated squad.

 

So, yes, relegation was good... for us.

 

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else though.

[spongebob toonpants 4155]

I think you are all overestimating where we are at the moment. I have nothing but admiration for Hughton, and I am enjoying the spirit and mentality of the team at the moment, but we are miles behind where we could hae been at this point. If Ashley had backed Keegn over Wise, and invested fairly modestly in the team following Keegans advice during that ill fated transfer window I am absolutely crtain it would be us not Spurs laying in the Champions League this season.

 

As it happens relegation wasnt the disaster it could have been, but this is almost entirely due to the luck in having a man with the decency ability and patience of Hughton(a Keegan apointment) at the cub at the time.

 

I am pleased that Hugton is in charge now, but relegation a blessing, not a chance. The last two years have been a huge missed opportunity.

[ChezGiven 0]

Is now not believing we will get relegated after spending nowt getting carried away though?

[Problem Child 0]

Relegation cost the club something like £50m in lost revenue. It’s a very expensive way of starting a rebuilding process and as far as I can tell we could still have still spent the summer messing Shearer about before making Hughton temporary manager if we’d stayed up, and getting shot of Martins, Owen and Duff etc wasn’t dependent on getting relegated either. We might even have been able to hang on to Bassong and spend £20m on squad strengthening.

 

On the other hand relegation did end up creating some upward momentum. Bred confidence in a squad that might never have recovered mentally if they hadn’t had 12 months playing inferior opposition.

 

On balance it’s a tough call, but if relegation is such a good way of turning things around there would be half a dozen PL clubs desperate to get relegated every season. We’ve just been very, very lucky.

[spongebob toonpants 4155]

In high performance team literature that comes out of schools like INSEAD, there is this concept called 'break down to break through'. It basically states that the best performing teams are one that have suffered a virtually fatal 'break down' and a period of sustained adversity. The theory (based on observations and examples, its not someone making it up) is that once the team has broken down, a leader can make the team 'break through' by galvanising the team around the experience and using it to propel the team to levels of performance not thought previously possible.

 

I learnt about this on a management course in 2006 (at INSEAD funnily enough) and always thought that relegation and the Leyton Orient game and what happened after that sounded similar.

 

I also gave the opinion at some point that the business benefits of being able to rid an organisation of low productivity / high cost labour and re-hire from scratch, akin to a corporation nearly going bust, shedding loads of labour, re-skilling with a new mix and riding the upturn in the economy, was one of the opportunities of relegation. The challenges probably outnumbered the positives but they were still there.

 

I dont think its either of those things by themselves but these factors have been at play. Its also possible that Chris Hughton's philosophical approach to life (egalitarian / trotskyist) has had some very positive effects on individual players.

 

We also are blessed with a massively loyal support to keep the whole thing moving along and keep people inside the club believing in what they are doing.

 

In short, relegation presented challenges and opportunities, the key was to keep focussed around the challenges (belief, hope, finance) and to take the opportunities (re-birth, breaking through).

 

The old left wing pc dogooder sandalista in me loves the fact that we are being lead out of the wilderness by a black swp member.

I reckon all the great managers have been socialists, maybe I,ll start a thread on it when I'm sober

[manc-mag 1]

Relegation cost the club something like £50m in lost revenue. It's a very expensive way of starting a rebuilding process and as far as I can tell we could still have still spent the summer messing Shearer about before making Hughton temporary manager if we'd stayed up, and getting shot of Martins, Owen and Duff etc wasn't dependent on getting relegated either. We might even have been able to hang on to Bassong and spend £20m on squad strengthening.

 

On the other hand relegation did end up creating some upward momentum. Bred confidence in a squad that might never have recovered mentally if they hadn't had 12 months playing inferior opposition.

 

On balance it's a tough call, but if relegation is such a good way of turning things around there would be half a dozen PL clubs desperate to get relegated every season. We've just been very, very lucky.

 

It's nice to think that we'd have had some massive restructuring and sweeping programme of change if we'd stayed up, but we wouldnt. The club is a lazy bastard organisation and it needed to be fucking hoofed in the bollocks for that sort of change to be effected.

 

Relegation meant summat absolutely had to happen or we'd have been in trouble. That's not to say it definitely would have happened, and what in fact happened had a lot of fortune about it, but if it hadn't we'd have been down in following seasons anyway.

 

We're nowhere near established and this season's gonna be squeaky bum stuff at times, but we're Newcastle UNITED for a change and the emphasis hasn't been on the latter part of our moniker for a long time.

[ChezGiven 0]

The estimates of what relegation cost are so variable it could well have been £50m but i thought revenue would drop by about £20-25m after the parachute, from high £70's down to around £50m. If all the players leaving saved that much in cash then yes there is a loss but the benefit is then you can operate on a lower cost base. This makes sense if Platini gets his way and limits the ability of clubs to run losses. The only reason why penny pinching doesnt work is because you have to invest hugely to keep up with the saudis and the russians to even have a chance. If losses become limited then you want a tight run ship with a good academy. The big clubs are stuffing themselves on players as they can spend now with certainty. In two seasons time, this may look very different.

 

Dont worry, i'm not for one minute even contemplating the idea that Ashley planned any of this, his cock-ups are just so fucking outrageous every single time, the man is a massive tool and an idiot. Doesnt mean i cant see the glass half full though. We've been very lucky with Hughton, so i dont really need to link positives to Ashley, just to chance / good fortune and a good manager.

 

Lets hope at least some of this positivity is till here on saturday after the Fulham match, as quite rightly said it could still go tits up for us very easily. For me though a good mid-table finish would be great as i think that will present another set of opportunities.

[manc-mag 1]

The estimates of what relegation cost are so variable it could well have been £50m but i thought revenue would drop by about £20-25m after the parachute, from high £70's down to around £50m. If all the players leaving saved that much in cash then yes there is a loss but the benefit is then you can operate on a lower cost base. This makes sense if Platini gets his way and limits the ability of clubs to run losses. The only reason why penny pinching doesnt work is because you have to invest hugely to keep up with the saudis and the russians to even have a chance. If losses become limited then you want a tight run ship with a good academy. The big clubs are stuffing themselves on players as they can spend now with certainty. In two seasons time, this may look very different.

 

Dont worry, i'm not for one minute even contemplating the idea that Ashley planned any of this, his cock-ups are just so fucking outrageous every single time, the man is a massive tool and an idiot. Doesnt mean i cant see the glass half full though. We've been very lucky with Hughton, so i dont really need to link positives to Ashley, just to chance / good fortune and a good manager.

 

Lets hope at least some of this positivity is till here on saturday after the Fulham match, as quite rightly said it could still go tits up for us very easily. For me though a good mid-table finish would be great as i think that will present another set of opportunities.

 

Aye. Taking absolutely nothing for granted with the next two fixtures apart from seeing what a glorious opportunity they present to keep on building this team's belief in itself and beginning to turn SJP back into a stronghold again. Hope Chris is thinking the exact same way and has the right approach mapped out for channeling the positives from the last few games while keeping their feet on the ground.

 

Really hope so, the guy's been genuine class.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle6962309.ece

 

During his regular Friday press-call, it emerged (long story) that during his formative playing days at Tottenham Hotspur, Chris Hughton, Newcastle’s manager, used to pen a column for News Line, the daily newspaper of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). To quote from their website, the WRP are the “British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, founded by Leon Trotsky. We are Marxists and fight for the principles founded by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.”

 

This, to put it mildly, felt unusual. Footballers tend to shun politics, Hughton is generally undemonstrative and Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, is probably one of the country’s most notorious capitalists. It would, if you were pushing it, explain why Newcastle have been such a strong collective this season, although, ironically, it is Middlesbrough’s matchday programme which is entitled ‘Red Square’.

 

“You've been doing your homework,” Hughton said. “This was as a very young man and they had a football column in the paper. It was my first venture into journalism and probably my last. It was for a short period of time and it was actually through someone I knew who was associated with the paper. I had a friend who said, ‘Do you want to have a column in a paper?’

 

“It was an opportunity at that stage and something different. It was quite some years ago, shall we say, but it’s true. I wasn’t politically involved with it, it was purely football. I was aware of what the paper was, but the bigger interest for me was, as a young man, it was quite nice to have my own column. It was nice at the time, but I don’t think many people read it, though. Did I try to get Spurs to play in red? Something like that.”

 

Despite his denials, a copy of Das Kapital was spotted in Hughton's office, and according to sources close to him he has a hammer and sickle tattooed on his left testicle.

[spongebob toonpants 4155]

The estimates of what relegation cost are so variable it could well have been £50m but i thought revenue would drop by about £20-25m after the parachute, from high £70's down to around £50m. If all the players leaving saved that much in cash then yes there is a loss but the benefit is then you can operate on a lower cost base. This makes sense if Platini gets his way and limits the ability of clubs to run losses. The only reason why penny pinching doesnt work is because you have to invest hugely to keep up with the saudis and the russians to even have a chance. If losses become limited then you want a tight run ship with a good academy. The big clubs are stuffing themselves on players as they can spend now with certainty. In two seasons time, this may look very different.

 

Dont worry, i'm not for one minute even contemplating the idea that Ashley planned any of this, his cock-ups are just so fucking outrageous every single time, the man is a massive tool and an idiot. Doesnt mean i cant see the glass half full though. We've been very lucky with Hughton, so i dont really need to link positives to Ashley, just to chance / good fortune and a good manager.

 

Lets hope at least some of this positivity is till here on saturday after the Fulham match, as quite rightly said it could still go tits up for us very easily. For me though a good mid-table finish would be great as i think that will present another set of opportunities.

 

Aye. Taking absolutely nothing for granted with the next two fixtures apart from seeing what a glorious opportunity they present to keep on building this team's belief in itself and beginning to turn SJP back into a stronghold again. Hope Chris is thinking the exact same way and has the right approach mapped out for channeling the positives from the last few games while keeping their feet on the ground.

 

Really hope so, the guy's been genuine class.

 

One of the things that has really struck me is the focus Hughton has installed. Barton was asked after the Arsenal match about being fifth in the league and he immeidiatly said the only thing that matters is Blackburn Rovers. After the Sunderland win Hughton said we've got to concentrate on the Arsenal match.

 

Back in the day when Liverpool won everything going their absolute and utter mantra was take each game as it comes, These days everybody talks about the end of the season and who will win the championship/get relegated after 3 maches. It does my old heart proud to hear Newcastke being the ones who are only interested in the next game.

 

Hughton said something along the lines of not getting too excited when we win, not getting too upset when we lose the other day - I really think we have lucked out with him. Hope Ashley doesn;t fuck it

[Craig 6700]

Quite a few floated this idea before we went down. I never bought it but now it's happened i can't help but think relegation and the things that came with it - stumbling across hughton, the new team spirit, getting the big egos off the wage bill and the return of the feel good factor that comes with winning - have put the club back on the right track.

 

Would things have been worse if we survived? Would we have continued to stagnate while employing players that didn't give a shit? I am genuinely optimistic about this season after what we've seen so far.

 

I mentioned the idea about 4-5 years ago (Souness era) and remember getting absolutely blasted for it. We needed it and if we'd survived, we'd have only have been delaying the inevitable.

 

The Mackems did something similar when Quinn took over as chairman.

 

EDIT: Found it... much more recent than I thought

 

http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?showtopic=18250

[Dr Gloom 22187]

Quite a few floated this idea before we went down. I never bought it but now it's happened i can't help but think relegation and the things that came with it - stumbling across hughton, the new team spirit, getting the big egos off the wage bill and the return of the feel good factor that comes with winning - have put the club back on the right track.

 

Would things have been worse if we survived? Would we have continued to stagnate while employing players that didn't give a shit? I am genuinely optimistic about this season after what we've seen so far.

 

I mentioned the idea about 4-5 years ago (Souness era) and remember getting absolutely blasted for it. We needed it and if we'd survived, we'd have only have been delaying the inevitable.

 

The Mackems did something similar when Quinn took over as chairman.

 

EDIT: Found it... much more recent than I thought

 

http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?showtopic=18250

 

there was a lot of luck that we ended up the way we have but i'm pretty sure we're stronger now than we would have been if we'd continued to drift under the likes of of jfk but we were very fortunate to bounce straight back up and find hughton.

 

if keegan had been given a proper chance to manage, who knows where we'd have ended up?

[Guest alex]

Think Ketsbaia is right buy I did agree with manc-mag that the consolation of going down meant that it precipitated a clear out. That's not saying it was a good thing per se, rather that it wasn't all bad. I also have to say, in hindsight, Alan Smith and Kevin Nolan were right to tell the likes of Beye to fuck off if they didn't want to stay here and fight even though at the time I was worried they had too much influence and that Hughton was effectivey being undermined. Early days yet though and we need investment, albeit sensible investment, if we want to progress. We're an injury crisis away from being right in the shit again imo because of the lack of depth in certain key areas.

[Kid Dynamite 7182]

It also makes me love Enrique, Jonas and Colo that little bit more. All 3 could have gone back to Spain but instead they were happy playing games on pissy wet midweek nights at Doncaster, Barnsley, Scunthorpe and the like. I love how they are getting the rewards though, smashing 5 past our local rivals in front of 52'000 and beating Arsenal at their place.

 

Makes it all the better the fact that Ola is a bench warmer in Russia, Viduka has disappeared off the face of the Earth, Owen is still crocked and Insomnia has to live in Wigan