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Yes, Mike Ashley isn't as villainous as the Saudis are. We've swapped a Dickensian villain for a Bond Villain. You'll get no argument from me on that.

But consider this, the fanbase was so divorced from Newcastle United that a normally sold out St James' was 10k down. That, to me, is the best measure of the disconnect between the fans and the club. We've consistently packed out home and away, so consider what the consensus must be to drive...

The examples I gave are deliberately not about success, they are both about the more abstracts of football fandom. The former is about ambition and reach, the latter about familial and communal ties. Neither is about success. Newcastle United aren't playing in the same theatre as Manchester...

You really are impenetrable to sense and reason, aren't you? Just trot out the same paper thin cliches without giving any effort to contemplate deeper considerations.

Another thing could be that while, yes, you're currently out performing xG you're still creating an inordinate amount of chances. So even if your attackers were to suffer in front of goal, the amount of chances you're making would still mean you'd be sticking plenty in the old onion bag. Your...

I refer you to what the late great Sir Bobby Robson once said;

Hardly any of that is true. He didn't sack Keegan, Keegan resigned and successfully sued for constructive dismissal. Ashley put nothing into the training ground, academy, stadium for 14 years. Allowing them all to fall into disrepair. He arbitrarily changed the name of the stadium to promote...

I have self-respect. I love my football club, and I think the owners are disgusting and shouldn't be anywhere near an community institution. If the UK Government decided tomorrow that no foreign states could own an English football club, then us and Man City would need to find new owners, just...

The Newcastle fans I know are capable of holding many thoughts in their heads at the same time. It's not Binary. It's reductive to suggest that it is. Proper back page of the Sun, or front page of the Mail stuff. No nuance, no gradations, just A or B. It's childish to view the world like that...

It's very easy to state that as an absolute, but until it happens to you, to your club, it's purely hypothetical. You have no earthly idea how you'd feel had this situation happened to your club. You personally may be someone who would make a stand, shout loudly, protest outside the ground and...

I think you're conflating two distinct topics there. I said that the club is what people are tied to, not success, and furthered that point by referencing our attendances have been high regardless of 5 decades without 'success'. And separately I said that Man Utd fans are clamouring for a Qatari...

? I don't understand your logic here, sorry. We protested and boycotted in an effort to oust him, but that didn't work. We didn't know ahead of time that it wouldn't work.

Not after praise, or vindication, or sympathy. I'm on here to get a view from outside the echo chamber, and address a few of the more wayward opinions without trolling or internet point-scoring.

It's not success, it's the club, that's why our attendances were still astounding in the second tier, that's why despite enduring garbage footballers playing garbage football under a garbage manager for a garbage owner, we still were filling around 50k of St James' seats. One of the recurring...

How myopic. Life, ironically, is not black and white. People make concessions and compromises all the time. People are well aware that the Saudis are using us to Sportswash their regime (the efficacy of this plan is very questionable, but that's for another day), they're also well aware that...

The second part of the first sentence is doing some pretty heavy lifting there. Every time we make an outlandish purchase sportswashing should absolutely be brought up, if we ever win something it should be brought up, every time Saudi Arabia holds an international friendly it should be talked...

No, they couldn't. We couldn't oust the previous owner, despite years of concerted effort on our part. Boycotts, protests, getting the message out in the media, 10k season ticket holders just walking away. What makes you think any similar protests would have stopped this takeover? The exit of...

No, they're not. The overwhelming majority would much preferred to be owned by a local businessman done good. Unfortunately we don't have a Bloom knocking about. The reason so many are going to games is because Newcastle United existed long before the Saudis owned it and it'll exist long after...

Exactly this. My mate who spoke so well about how he felt United with Pride let down the LGBT community, still goes to matches, still gets excited about new signings and all that. I've nothing but respect for those who walked away, but I'm not going to condemn those of us who couldn't/didn't.

Protests and boycotts did nothing to get rid of the previous owner. The very fact you state that they did shows how little you actually know about the subject. Ashley sold us when, and only when, he received a huge amount of money up front. He couldn't give a toss about the protests. Also the...