Newcastle United 2015-16 season

[Boycie]

Macca ultimately failed. 

But he came within a heartbeat of possible success at Wembley.

Small margins I guess.

I thought that if we didn't at least get playoffs last year he would have failed, we didn't, he failed.

sacked and we moved on.

nothing wrong with that.

[Day]

Karma.

Pretty sure our bad karma will soon pass for sacking McClaren. Clement needs to power through it with another win tonight

[uttoxram75]

this is almost megalolz!

I'll try and give a bizarre analogy, but won't use the wife/girlfriend.

Imagine you have a 20 year old daughter, the apple of your eye, your princess. She's had a few boyfriends, mainly losers. Her new boyfriend seems a good match, but after a while, he notices another bloke eyeing her up. She doesn't really pay attention, but the jealousy consumes him. He eventually accuses her of planning to leave him, she denies it, having never even considered it, although she might have been chatted up by some bloke on a night out, but she definitely made it clear she was in a relationship and she was happy. Anyway, this jealousy is bad. He eventually starts verbally abusing her, really upsetting her, even starts arguing with her friends on nights out, accusing them of being unfit to be her friend, resulting in them being distant towards your daughter, perhaps not being the best friends they can be, but they've been intimidated by a bully. This goes on for six  months and your daughter is struggling to make the relationship successful, or even fun. Nothing she tries is good enough for the boyfriend, she becomes nervous and clumsy, and drops things and says the wrong thing every now and then. It's a struggle, but your daughter sticks with it, but the boyfriend is still accusing her of intending to break up with him and leave him for the bloke in the pub. She has no intention of doing this, in spite of the disgusting treatment from her boyfriend and now even his friends are giving her grief.

Then, out of the blue, the boyfriend dumps your daughter and gets it on with a virgin from Essex, on the premise that once she learns a few tricks, she will be pure filth in the bedroom.

Meanwhile your daughter is alone for a while, and the bloke in the pub has split up with his useless bint, and eventually asks her out, makes her feel wanted. She thinks to herself that he's been nice to her a few times and shown an interest and in all that time when her ex-boyfriend was making her miserable by being an ******** to her and her mates, and even his mates were mean too, this guy seemed okay. She decides to go on a few dates with him. It's not brilliant, but he tries hard.

Meanwhile the ex-boyfriend and his mates go around telling everyone your daughter is a filthy slag and deserves to get aids.

 

Something amiss here.

Virgin from Essex? Really Mostyn, sometimes you do talk absolute tosh.

Nice story though,

[nookiebear]

Mostyn talkin rubbish, I blame the fans?

 

[Dimmu]

Sidenote: He banned swearing form his players.

Maybe that's the reason Newcastle don't do well.

[eddie]

 

Thank you for using the past tense Eddie and adding weight to my point. 

I would never have thought during his golden years that I would accuse him in the future of being naive but yes, he clearly is at Newcastle and he clearly was at Derby.

Always happy to help

[blackNwhites]

What McClaren needed was Nigel Clough to go any tidy up the rotten mess within Newcastle before he got the job.

He's got a massive job on his hands there. When he came to Derby he had a solid team unit willing to play for each other, he didn't even need to add that much to it. We got a couple of tidy players that became fan favourites in Andre Wisdom and George Thorne and the season was in full swing.

What a season as well, the atmosphere was incredible that year. Such positivity in the stands. The guy I stood next to at Turf Moor was commentating on the whole game he was that involved in the team. Absolutely brilliant. We were 1-0 down with 10 men, who gives a ****.

Also, what's happened to that song? "One nil down, who gives a ****, we're Derby County and we're going up". Such belief.

That's what Mac bought to DCFC, unfortunately he lost it at the end for whatever reason.

Couldn't've done it without Clough's tidying up though. He's gone to a fractured Newcastle team in terrible form and it's up to him and him alone to tidy it up. Good luck with that one.

[TigerTedd]

this is almost megalolz!

I'll try and give a bizarre analogy, but won't use the wife/girlfriend.

Imagine you have a 20 year old daughter, the apple of your eye, your princess. She's had a few boyfriends, mainly losers. Her new boyfriend seems a good match, but after a while, he notices another bloke eyeing her up. She doesn't really pay attention, but the jealousy consumes him. He eventually accuses her of planning to leave him, she denies it, having never even considered it, although she might have been chatted up by some bloke on a night out, but she definitely made it clear she was in a relationship and she was happy. Anyway, this jealousy is bad. He eventually starts verbally abusing her, really upsetting her, even starts arguing with her friends on nights out, accusing them of being unfit to be her friend, resulting in them being distant towards your daughter, perhaps not being the best friends they can be, but they've been intimidated by a bully. This goes on for six  months and your daughter is struggling to make the relationship successful, or even fun. Nothing she tries is good enough for the boyfriend, she becomes nervous and clumsy, and drops things and says the wrong thing every now and then. It's a struggle, but your daughter sticks with it, but the boyfriend is still accusing her of intending to break up with him and leave him for the bloke in the pub. She has no intention of doing this, in spite of the disgusting treatment from her boyfriend and now even his friends are giving her grief.

Then, out of the blue, the boyfriend dumps your daughter and gets it on with a virgin from Essex, on the premise that once she learns a few tricks, she will be pure filth in the bedroom.

Meanwhile your daughter is alone for a while, and the bloke in the pub has split up with his useless bint, and eventually asks her out, makes her feel wanted. She thinks to herself that he's been nice to her a few times and shown an interest and in all that time when her ex-boyfriend was making her miserable by being an ******** to her and her mates, and even his mates were mean too, this guy seemed okay. She decides to go on a few dates with him. It's not brilliant, but he tries hard.

Meanwhile the ex-boyfriend and his mates go around telling everyone your daughter is a filthy slag and deserves to get aids.

 

Something amiss here.

I love a good analogy. Hats off to you, sir. 

[Mostyn6]

Virgin from Essex? Really Mostyn, sometimes you do talk absolute tosh.

Nice story though,

virgin = Clement lol.

Essex = guarantee of filth at some point. 

[Day]

Still early days for Newcastle anyway, 5 games in we hadn't won one either. Also had to play Arsenal and Man Utd in those 5 which are no easy games

[RamNut]

Schteve took Derby up a level

I don't really get the hate esp since most people seem to prefer PC

If newcastle are bottom then it shows how tough the premier league is.

[uttoxram75]

Steve took us up more than a level, he rekindled the fire and played some superb football. He turned Clough's team into a real, close knit, hardworking group, capable of real flair and was very unlucky not to take us up first time. I still think the travesty of Martin's sending off and denial of a stonewall penalty at Burnley cost us automatic promotion that season just as much as QPR's flukey win at Wembley.

 

There's just something about him that makes it difficult to like him as a person. I hated it when he was England manager and he came out with the "Stevie G" and "Lamps" bollux. He comes across as sycophantic and well, a bit false.

Don't really mean him any ill but i seriously doubt he'll do a good job at Newcastle. Ultimately, he doesn't appear to have the tactical nous or courage to change things or act decisively when needed.

[Van der MoodHoover]

You need to have some stones to manage/coach a car-crash like Newcastle and it looks to me as though its that tough "edge" that Mac lacks.

Not that I wish him ill, just can't see him getting success there.

[Albert]

I don't understand. He said he was going to stay. He had chances to join Newcastle and didn't take them. In the end he left by being sacked. I don't see why it's wrong to assume he'd stay based on that? Instead it makes more sense to hold a grudge based on the theory that something different might have happened? 

What did actually happen? Because I didn't go into meltdown with all the speculation. I thought what I think about pretty much every player/manager. If he goes then he goes but while he's here I assume it's by choice. He could take the move if he wanted it. 

Are people holding a grudge because he turned them into emotional wrecks when he didn't shout his love for dcfc from the rooftops? If so then that's funny to me. 

Are they holding a grudge because they believe it all derailed our season? Now this seems fairer but it completely discounts injuries. But he was sacked for it. He didn't stop trying to win games. He didn't leave the club. He shrugged at the speculation and carried on. After Reading he carried on. 

Believe me when I say that I'm not saying I think we were wrong to sack him. I personally would have liked to see him try and get back what we had. But I fully understand why he was sacked. So much went on.

But looking back at the whole picture, looking back on his results and knowing that, yes it ended ugly, he didn't leave until pushed... I don't see why people want him to fail. 

People are saying things along the lines of "bet he wished he'd stayed here" and basically laughing at his decision to join Newcastle. He didn't leave us for Newcastle. That's a fact. And as far as we know, he wasn't going to. 

He was never going to arrive at Newcastle and say "it's not quite Derby but it's better than Jobseekers Allowance."

What part of him only ever rejecting them when their own survival in the Premier League seems complex? It's clear why he stayed until after that. What doesn't make sense would be the club sacking him if he wanted stay and had no intention of going to Newcastle at all. 

If McClaren had turned down an approach from them after the season, that would have been an entirely different matter, but he didn't. He only turned them down while they were staring relegation in the face. 

You again go on to claim that he was sacked for results. We don't know that, that is just speculation. Him being sacked for either the results, or because he refused to commit to the club for the following season in the post season meeting with the club management both make equal sense, and I'd suspect it was a bit of both. The fact that he left after a meeting with the owners, and there being much talk that Newcastle didn't want to pay compensation, but would continue to chase him over the summer, the idea that he was sacked so they could replace him then, rather than weeks out from the season would make sense. 

[mcsilks]

I'm not buying into this 'McClaren took us up another level' like he was solely responsible.

He was given the means to take us to another level as he was given a very capable side and on top of that, was given transfer funds and a higher wage bill than the previous regime.

The worst manager in the world would have struggled not to take us to another level.

If the team is winning, fans will turn out in their droves and while Derby were winning, the feel good factor returned and everyone was happy. We could have had Basil Brush in charge and those same fans would have got behind him the way they got behind McClaren.

Macca got the boot because he was incapable of producing results against severely inferior opposition at the time when we needed it the most.

Clement will have to accept the same fate if Derby finish eighth this season. That's football.

[Mostyn6]

I'm not buying into this 'McClaren took us up another level' like he was solely responsible.

He was given the means to take us to another level as he was given a very capable side and on top of that, was given transfer funds and a higher wage bill than the previous regime.

The worst manager in the world would have struggled not to take us to another level.

If the team is winning, fans will turn out in their droves and while Derby were winning, the feel good factor returned and everyone was happy. We could have had Basil Brush in charge and those same fans would have got behind him the way they got behind McClaren.

Macca got the boot because he was incapable of producing results against severely inferior opposition at the time when we needed it the most.

Clement will have to accept the same fate if Derby finish eighth this season. That's football.

how much money did he spend in taking us from 14th to 4th before the January window opened?

[mcsilks]

how much money did he spend in taking us from 14th to 4th before the January window opened?

I'm assuming you know the answer to your question so why not answer it...

With loans fees, I'm guessing a pretty penny.

[mcsilks]

how much money did he spend in taking us from 14th to 4th before the January window opened?

He probably spent more from the time when Derby were riding high and clear at the top to a few months later when we were playing like a league two side and sitting in eighth.

[Albert]

how much money did he spend in taking us from 14th to 4th before the January window opened?

Quite a lot I'd assume. He brought in Dawkins, Wisdom, Keane and Cisse over that time. The key point I'd make though is that he took over a very capable squad early in the season. He got Martin, Russell, Eustace, Grant and Forsyth early in their Derby days, as well as an already strong squad. 

Equally, "14th to 4th" is meaningless regardless of the time of the season as position change to performance is much more complex than can be summed up like that. 

In any case personally I feel he did very well to get such a performance out of the club over that time, but to reiterate my point from last season, I felt he bred a culture of bottling it, as demonstrated by the team failing every time an achievement was there to take. We were incapable over his time of making either the top two ours, of putting the game to bed at Wembley when we were in control, and ultimately even holding onto a playoff place last year. Like a marathon runner who gets vertigo seeing the finish line. 

Overall though, he has been our best manager in a long time, and his time here will be fondly remembered, regardless of how it ended. That all said, my own feelings on his departure and how he handled it will admittedly mean I'll crack a smile if Newcastle are in trouble this season, but to be honest I wouldn't wish that on him or the club. I hope he does well there and gets the recognition in the top division he deserves.

[rynny]

I'm not buying into this 'McClaren took us up another level' like he was solely responsible.

He was given the means to take us to another level as he was given a very capable side and on top of that, was given transfer funds and a higher wage bill than the previous regime.

The worst manager in the world would have struggled not to take us to another level.

If the team is winning, fans will turn out in their droves and while Derby were winning, the feel good factor returned and everyone was happy. We could have had Basil Brush in charge and those same fans would have got behind him the way they got behind McClaren.

Macca got the boot because he was incapable of producing results against severely inferior opposition at the time when we needed it the most.

Clement will have to accept the same fate if Derby finish eighth this season. That's football.

All our transfers from the 13/14 season;

 

Players transferred in

1 July 2013  Lee Grant
1 July 2013 Chris Martin
1 July 2013 Johnny Russell
1 July 2013 Craig Forsyth
24 July 2013 John Eustace
9 November 2013 Kalifa Cissé
27 February 2014 Lee Naylor
 

Players loaned in

29 July 2013 Adam Smith
30 September 2013 Zak Whitbread
18 October 2013 Simon Dawkins made permanent in January 2014
22 October 2013 Andre Wisdom
28 November 2013 Michael Keane
3 January 2014 Patrick Bamford
30 January 2014 George Thorne

The ones in bold arrived whilst McClaren were in charge, hardly breaking the bank were they? 5 loans, 2 free transfers and a small fee for Dawks. He got a RB that could defend, an extra attacker that was needed for the formation change, cover for the injuries/suspensions at CB, and DM (twice), cover for LB as we had none, and Bamford.

He made some very shrewd acquisitions and that, along with the formation change, took us on to the next level. Not sure people are saying he was solely responsible but who deserves the majority of the credit? Clough? Rush? Evans wasn't here until end of Jan, IIRC, so can't be him.