It happens to Spurs as well until recently, I guess they are the teams hanging around the top 10 that believe they deserve better. Everton have suceeded where Newcastle can only dream of right now, Portsmouth too. By sticking by the man in charge. Everton weren’t always pleasing on the eye and Portsmouth can be all over the place but what Newcastle is really lacking is an identity, a style of football, a real star player (not Owen) and urgently need a kick up the arse.

I do also wonder why teams sack their managers before the Manchester United game? Whether it’ll be better for us come Saturday who knows, Curbishly beat us in his first game for WH and Chelsea looked shell shocked when they came to OT.

Some people think SAF should have retired years ago, I dread it happening and I think he does too.

Unless you have Chelski billions and have Mourhino as manager, there is no instance success. By my reckoning, every manager should be given 5 seasons to build a team – unless of course you get relegated or something. Newcastle were comfortably midtable and he should have had lots more time to build a team.

Like I say, slightly shocked but not surprised, perhaps rueful… slightly embarrassed yet defiant – the excesses of the previous administration are consigned to history where they should remain; there’s nothing we can do to alter that, and it should not be allowed to impact upon the decisions made by the current administration.

Now, let’s get this business of “we’d rather lose 5-4 or 4-3 rather than win 1-0″ out of the way… whoever said that – if they ever did – was a moron, period. Most Newcastle fans would be satisfied – not happy, but satisfied if the team played well but lost. The fact of the matter is that if you play well you will more often than not get something out of the game. What is totally unacceptable to me and I expect a great many football fans – no matter who you support – is to adopt insipid tactics resulting in few if any scoring chances. Do we want the Keegan-era back? No. Do we want to score four and concede five? No. Do we want to play well and lose? No… but we’ll accept they’ve at least bloody well had-a-go and perhaps have been unlucky – honest endeavour – we’ll applaude that any day of the week.

but my main point is that i do truely believe that it takes a couple of years for a managers plans to come together, by chopping and changing things like clubs do these days a club will not have success. This will become a problem man utd will have to face in a few years when fergie decides to call it a day. I hope that fergie can work with untied to find his successor, and that it can be as seemless as possible. To me, it looks as though united are already putting things into place to have carlos q take over when fergie retires. He’s more and more involved with the media and with big money decisions involving signings.