Except Roy, that is, he came in has had little support in the transfer market for an aging team, that he largely inherited from previous Managers.He has not walked like other before him, because of lack of investment in the team, accepted 50mil transfer of one of our best young defenders in a long time without that money being ploughed back into the team. Despite this, he has kept us up for three years and by doing so, he has earned the club substantial income, this I suspect was his tasked brief from Parish. Now some want him to go, he deserves more respect than that. As I have said many times here you will be hard pressed to find a replacement whilst we have such a dysfunctional board, no manager who is any good and worth his sorts would want to come to a club, whilst the board will not invest in the long term future of the team.

We have had 9 Managers in the last ten years, 5 have been sacked if you include Holloway who left by mutual consent. Freedman left because he was expecting a better life at Bolton and both BFS and Pullis left because they were unhappy about lack of investment in the team. Roy came to our rescue three years ago after FdB with his expansive possession football nearly got us relegated before Christmas. Roy took over a team that was full of choices of other managers and improved our defensive ability and consequently saved us from the drop and has since installed stability that included our best ever PL points total of 49 points. The income Roy has earned the club by keeping us in the PL seems not to be appreciated by some, okay I accept that sometimes the football is a bit frustrating but staying in the PL is far more important for the club's future and you have to accept that the current squad are being played to the best of their ability and balance. We are lucky to still be in PL with the current squad and lets just hope that the board realise this before its too late, you have to invest to stay in this league and maintain the resale value of the club.

Maybe they are just not prepared to open the chequebook FULL STOP

Net transfer spend (except for the BFS window) seems to be around £20m every summer. That seems to be all their is available and it wouldn't be wise to invest more at this time.

We've got the 9th biggest wage bill and the 34th biggest stadium in England.

We have just gone a decade without going into administration. Financial, the club is operating at it's limit. Roy has shown enough self preservation skills to acknowledge that. It must have been a very tough call to tell Pullis and BFS that there is no money in the pot and they aren't going to put the clubs future at risk. Pullis and BFS were confident of getting jobs elsewhere after Palace which could have been the driver for a more forthright approach.

Fulham and West Brom are going to really struggle. We have to outperform one team to stay up. It should be the minimum expectation.

Edited by jeeagles (09 Oct 2020 3.53pm)

It’s impossible to be relegated by Christmas as there are a possible 57 points still to be played for in half a season. Just saying.

Very correct.

Well they might have been sleeping for a long time, but I would say that being four times league champions, six time FA Cup winners and a couple of (minor) European trophies, does put them in that category, yes.

"Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt."
Mark Twain.

Newcastle are huge sleepers, for too long now they've been wearing them on the pitch.

Edited by Tickled pink (10 Oct 2020 11.17am)

No league titles in 92 years doesn’t make you "sleeping giants"

"Look at that. Accident blackspot? These aren't accidents! They're throwing themselves into the road gladly! Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness!"

Maintaining a regular crowd base of 50,000 plus probably does. They don't seem to have recovered from the Kevin Keegan nearly years when they blew the PL title to Manure. They also had a couple of good years in Europe in that period but have struggled to perform since and especially during the current ownership period.