One report from the mid-East says that the Arabs had put valuations on half a dozen Premier clubs, before ADUG bought Man City for £210m. The Toon was on the list and was valued at – £200m – less than half Ashley’s asking price, and less than he paid for NUFC in the first place. Arsenal, incidentally, by the Arab valuation, was £300m – and Ashley wants £480m for the Toon – I suspect that the Arabs’ knowledge of the English language has now been augmented by the phrase ‘get real’.

The other prospect is for 300,000 members of the Toon Army to stump up £1000 each and do a Fans Buy Out. (Should that be fans buy out?) I think 300,000 probably exceeds the number of households in the entire Tyneside conurbation, and certainly exceeds the number that could readily stump up £1000. The idea seems like a non-starter, especially in these credit crunched times.

So it seems that unless what I suppose we must now call former billionaire, Mike Ashley, is prepared to take an eye-watering loss of £50m, then we’re stuck with him and he is stuck with us for the foreseeable.

So what’s the way forward? I must say I was quite impressed with Ashley’s resignation speech – all apart from the timing – he should have told us most of that stuff about 8 months ago. It seems to me that unless he wants rid ‘at any price’, then he has some tough decisions to make. He had a strategy, the cronies he employed to implement it are still on the payroll – either he still believes in them or he doesn’t, and if he still believes he was on the right course he should surely press ahead with Plan ‘A’. (It’s very evident there was no Plan ‘B’.)

Time to come back, become a tad more communicative with the fans, insist that his way is the only feasible alternative – appoint a lapdog manager who fill fit in with the plan – and start to transform us into Arsenal (which is worth £300m Mike – you’ll be in profit by then).

Alternatively he can pay off the 3 Wise monkeys, and re-appoint Keegan which would buy him back into the hearts of the Toon Army.

So I see the alternatives as these:

1. Sell at any price – take a loss
2. Carry on regardless and appoint new manager
3. Sack the Wise ones and bring back KK
4. Fudge everything – appoint temporary manager – limp on and try to sell.

Any other alternatives? What is the best way forward for the Toon and what do you think Ashley will do?

What I want to write here are some of the emails that keep coming in my mailbox, their original name, company, and emails were not written here to keep their privacy except for one that come from other Toon Army site that you may want to visit and give your support to them.

“We have more affinity from here in the West with Newcastle etc than other areas. The Messiah sent my sister (aged 76) a wonderful card when she was in Newcastle Hospital (we wrote and told him as she adores Kev). As a head I would have been furious if I had walked in the staffroom and found new staff brought in by someone else. Don’t give us any “it’s the team that matters” boycott this one match and have the stength to do it just once. Thank you.”

“We have started a website supporting a fan buyout of Newcastle United. Please check it out and post a link to our website if you agree with our project. www.savenewcastle.com” – Peter Williams.

“Hi. I’m from (her company name) and would like to speak to someone urgently about some activity we are planning to support Kevin Keegan. Many thanks”

And couple more that come through to site comment form. Thanks for all your support Lads and Lasses. And Justice for Kevin Keegan!!! Howay the Lads!!!

Photo credits: Reuters, Scott Heppell and DayLife.

And just like most of the press always said, the Sun comes up with this report from a Newcastle insider who told The Sun, as I quote below:

Keegan is said to have asked Magpies owner Mike Ashley to fork out almost £200million on packages to land the three players. However, this audacious demand was firmly dismissed by Ashley, according to a source at the North East club.

Ashley was already known to have been told Keegan that he only wanted young unknown players that would have more biggest selling price and could give huge benefits to the club (this is rather questionable one) just like what Arsenal’s did.

And so below are the reactions for the article above from two of Magpies Zone contributor and friend, Clarky and Macbeth which I can believe as the truth behind the Sun’s report.

If the report were accurate then Ashley would indeed have been right. However, as in all aspects of man management, it would then depend on how Ashley dealt with the situation.

If KK’s target list was Lampard, Becks and Henry, the right thing to do would have been to sit down with KK, preferably over a beer, find out how serious he was, discuss the merits of each player, their cost and likely benefit to the club, and then be prepared to debate your own thoughts on transfer policy, for as long as it took.

The objective would be to do your level best to develop a course of action you could both buy into, which would almost certainly require compromise by both parties. If agreement proved to be impossible, and KK was just sitting there insisting the club buy Lampard, Becks and Henry, you would then have to make it clear that that was not going to happen, and discuss what that meant for his continued employment.

What you would not do is get some weazle surrogate to ignore the Manager’s list, buy a few players that he fancied and fit your preferred requirement, and then during the last day of the transfer window try to sell several players the Manager had insisted were important to retain, and sign two players the Manager had already indicated he did not want, in the certain knowledge this would cause the Manager to resign despite the fact he was otherwise doing a first-class job for you.

That would be called an abrogation of management, and would be the kind of thing done by a moral coward who was afraid to do his own dirty work.

-Clarky-

I can’t think of any instances where Keegan bought old players at the end of their careers for excessive sums.

When he had money he bought Ferdinand, Ginola, Warren Barton, Hislop, and Shearer. When he didn’t have money he bought Robert Lee, Beresford, Sheedy (for a tiny amount), Venison (for a small amount). He just didn’t do old, expensive players.

The Sun (!) article just looks like poor spin from the club to try and discredit Keegan’s judgment. It only takes one or two to start saying “no smoke without fire” for it to be the absolute truth by next weekend.

If it is a whispering game, expect a “friend of Keegan’s” to be quoted saying that Keegan wanted to buy Stephen Warnock for £2m but the club wouldn’t sanction it.

-Macbeth-

This result may not be genuine fact for most of them are from those site that supporting the Toon or love to see Keegan stay with us, but what I found here would give you a clear view that Kevin Keegan still a charismatic and important key figure for Newcastle.

Below is Technorati chart results for any posts that contain the keyword “Kevin Keegan” per day for the last 30 days.

As you can see, the chart shown a massive changes today from yesterday and even from last month daily charts combined into one! How about “Newcastle United” chart result? Below is the chart again from Technorati for any posts that contain the keyword “Newcastle United” per day for the last 30 days.

And again, the chart shown significant change from yesterday. So, let’s stick with Keegan and give him more room and freedom to develop this club to reach its glory again. Long live the King!

We are all would never know the truth behind all these messy news report but frankly I didn’t want to know, at least for now, because what I want and definetely all the Toon Army globally wanted too is now clear, Keegan stay!

Below is the club official statement:

Kevin Keegan – Official NUFC Statement

NEWCASTLE United can confirm that meetings between members of the Board and manager Kevin Keegan were held both yesterday and today.

Kevin has raised a number of issues and those have been discussed with him.

The Club wants to keep progressing with its long-term strategy and would like to stress that Kevin is extremely important, both now and in the future.

Newcastle United values the effort and commitment shown by Kevin since his return to St. James’ Park and wants him to continue to play an instrumental role as manager of the Club.

For the avoidance of doubt the Club has not sacked Kevin Keegan as manager.

Thanks to all Magpies Zone readers that has giving comments and come to visit this site to follow the news about our beloved manager. We are all save now, Kevin Keegan will stay as our manager forever!

Now, Dennis Wise out?

HOWAY THE LADS!!!