Don't Blame Chris Hughton For Mike Ashley
Football is all about timing and Newcastle United have predictably managed to get it all wrong. Chris Hughton is in line to become the club's permanent manager just as the first major cracks in his management structure begin to appear.
Whether a run of four games without a win will change Mike Ashley's mind about appointing Hughton on a full time basis remains to be seen. But I doubt it. That ship looks like it's sailed and Alan Shearer wasn't given a boarding pass.
It is too early for everyone to start rushing for the emergency exits, but you should probably at least have a quick look round to check where they all are because if Newcastle get into trouble they will crash quicker than a stock market which has just been told a meteorite is on a collision course with central London.
What it has done, however, is give Hughton the first must win game of his tenure at home to Doncaster Rovers on Saturday.
Lose that and the whole thing might come tumbling down around him the precise moment he is able to take the caretaker bit away from his name.
Newcastle's performance was much improved against Scunthorpe, but that isn't anything to celebrate. It couldn't have been much worse than it was against Nottingham Forest and Scunthorpe are hardly one of the Championship's most formidable foes.
Yet, it was the home draws against QPR and Bristol City which did the real damage, although I was not alone in failing to appreciate that at the time. Newcastle are always going to have to deal with the "cup final" thing whenever they travel in this division which means they are always going to be vulnerable to dropping points on the road.
Teams will raise their games - trust me I've seen it happen often enough with Leyton Orient when we take on big clubs ( it was 6-2 in the summer right?!) and shocks can happen. What must not be allowed to happen is that these sorts of results become the norm rather than an aberration.
When you have had two together you inevitably start to worry there are major problems behind the scenes. There could be, but we shouldn't just pounce on the manager because of a couple of bad results.
Emotions are running high at the moment because of the apparent collapse of Barry Moat's takeover and the seemingly inevitable decision by Ashley take the club off the market for the second time in a year, but let's not round on Hughton for the sake of it.
He is in the firing as a symbol of a deeply unpopular regime, but he did pick up the manager of the month award two months running at the start of the season and has the support of the dressing room at this stage.
Newcastle can still get promoted this season. Two defeats do not change that, but Hughton suddenly has a lot to prove again doesn't he?
It is no coincidence that these poor results have come when injuries have started to bite in the squad. Hughton has lost his two first-choice centre backs at the same time.
He has lost - in theory at least - his best midfielder in Joey Barton and his best striker Shola Ameobi. That is the spine of the team and as we have seen at Liverpool, that's tough for any team to deal with.
I don't think Hughton is the best appointment, he does not look like a manager who will take the club forward should they ever get back to the Premier League, but I'm still hopeful he can make the best out of a bad situation and get them back there in the first place.
There is something cool and calm about him which could be just what is needed this season given the constant drama elsewhere at the club. Talking of drama, I wonder whether Joe Kinnear has been sounded out about a return as Director of Football....
Stop it, don't throw that computer screen anywhere, I was speaking hypothetically!
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Luke Edwards - is Chief Sports Writer of The Journal and uses his blog to give a unique and entertaining insight into events at Newcastle United and Sunderland.
Why hasn't Ashley come out and said that he is taking the club off the market if that's what he is doing?
He will probably release the statement on Saturday morning sayin he will work with Chris to bring players in the January window. He said the same last year and he sold Given and Nzogbia and we got Taylor and Nolan!
Don't believe a word this man says and I say everyone should boycott home matches. It will hit him were it hurts! Then he'll think twice.
It's a poor appintment. The best thing CH can do is make sure his new contract has good pay off terms for when it all goes wrong .... and it will go wrong, in fact it's already started. He'll be gone by mid Jan.
agree with steve
hit ashley in the pocket and make him leave
we have demonstrated our loyalty to the team , and can continue to do so by packing out away ends.
but starve this cluless charmless man of revenue and his chubby little backside will be out of town before christmas.
Chris Hughton is a lovely guy but not the manager we need.
boycott everything that subsidises the club its the only way
A lot of people are forgetting that Hughton was proven to be well out of his depth as a manager last season.
The club is going nowhere but downwards until Fatso sells up anyway so why Hughton should risk his reputation by agreeing to be Fatso's fulltime puppet baffles me, he might as well just stay on in his present capacity.
Is this the best manager that Ashley can come up with? Houghton!! he is not a manager he has said so himself. Why are we not going for a up and coming young manager with something to prove if Ashely really needs to do it on the cheap that's what he should be doing. I also agree the time is coming when we need to boycott games and hit him in the pocket, otherwise we will be sunk without a trace.
It will be interesting to see how many people stop going when it's announced that the club is no longer for sale. Saying that, I don't think he'll bother telling anyone, it'll be another PR f**k up to add to a very long list.
I have been an NUFC fan for 26 years. I've been there through thick & thin, but after a very long self-consultation over the summer, I decided not to renew my season ticket this year. This was in no way due to disloyalty to the club being in the Championship. To be honest, I was looking forward to visiting the likes of Barnsley, Forest & both Sheffield clubs again. My decision was based purely on the fact that I didn't believe Ashley had (or has) the best interests of the club at heart, nor did I believe that my money would have gone into the running of the club.
Until the day he departs, I will not spend a single penny on that club, or in his cheap, jumble sale-style shops. This is the only way I can truly show my contempt for this overweight, arrogant, idiot.
I still love the team, but can't understand why everyone has started panicking. We haven't won in 4 games, but we're still joint top. They need to win on Saturday, but the league title won't be decided this year. Hughton's done a fantastic job and although I don't agree with his apoointment full time, I can understand why he's keen to take it. Good luck to the bloke, he can only be as bad as 4 of the last 5 managers ever were.....
I would rather remain in the championship in the coming seasons than be humiliated each week in the premiership with the current owner, manager and group of players we have at the club. For the sake of the club, Chris Hughton should turn down the contract offer.
As long as at least 30,000 turn up each week ...
As long as he can buy players on the cheap and sell at a profit ...
Ashley is going nowhere.
You want rid of him? Stop going to games until he's gone.
Wake up for God's sake, or we're stuck in this purgatory forever. The Houghton issue - and even promotion - are nothing more than a distraction.
Don't moan about him and then pay his ticket prices, buy his shirts and eat his pies. He's laughing at you doing it.
I agree with all posts above, we need to boycott all home games and show a meaningful protest to the rotund chump. A real drop in matchday attendances will hit the bottom line. And perhaps then he will finally dispense with the cloak and dagger stuff and sell the club without the undisclosed but multitudinous bells and whistles attached for him to recoup as much of his 'investment' as possible.
Totally agree with the above.
Southgate got sacked, at the Boro, with them only a point or two behind us. Why? Because the attendances have fallen to record lows.
Going along to boo Ashley won't bother him in the least. The only way to hurt him is in his wallet.
A boycott may harm the team, in the short term. However, desperate situations call for desperate remedies. Sometimes, a painful operation is required, to remove a malignant growth.
I've stopped going to home games. I live in York and gave up my season ticket last year. However, i still went to home games until QPR. It was due to other circumstances that i couldn't go to the Bristol City game. Anyhoo, i digress, I'm still going to away games to try and support the lads but the behaviour of Ashley is/has been so disgusting, disrespectful and selfish that it makes my blood boil and i refuse to go to home games. I hate him for what he has done, i really hate him.
I know i am only 1 person, but i genuinly believe we need to do something. Why are we letting this happen? We must be able to do something?! This whole thing has gone beyond a joke, it is actually effecting my daily mood!