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Opinion

A Cautionary Tale For Newcastle Fans

5 years ago
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The narrative is changing with regards to the new season for Newcastle fans and their club..

In the aftermath of Rafa’s very public leaving, which was announced without his knowledge, there was a real groundswell of support for the cause of the fans against the owner.

In the following days various pundits, players and journalists actually seemed to finally get it and publicly call out the owner for his absolutely ridiculous stance on (not) supporting our world class coach to bring the club forwards.

Momentum though is starting to turn, the goalposts are being moved and the narrative is being restructured.

The new accepted position of much of the media now seems to be shifting towards a stance of “How can the Newcastle fans reject one of their own?”, or “exciting times ahead as Newcastle SMASH their transfer record once AGAIN!”, then there’s the rewriting of history with “Rafa left for the massive money of China”.

These are the disingenuous misnomers being peddled regarding the club in order to take the wind out of the sails of both sympathy and support from the football world, and in an attempt to take the fire out of the belly of those who may be on the edge of boycott.

Amongst fans here on the Mag and other platforms, I have also seen a focus for many shift away from the real enemy, Ashley, and onto his latest human shield, Steve Bruce.

Let us be very clear here, Bruce is not fit to manage Newcastle United but he is nothing more than an irrelevant distraction from the real villain, the only real villain, and the place where all our efforts of anger should target, Mike Ashley.

There have been numerous articles about players frozen out under Rafa being given a clean slate, like this is a positive thing. Let’s not forget that some of these players were involved in an altercation at a Morpeth pizza takeaway in the early hours before leaving for the pre-season tour to China. It seems that Rafa’s judgement was more than likely spot on in regards to those at least.

There have been defeatist posts regarding “Ashley will win again, people just can’t stay away”, we all have a responsibility to try and educate these Newcastle fans and ask for them to support the protests with the same passion they have for the club. We have a responsibility to get them to try, and not just once, to keep the protest and boycott going for a sustained period of time and then to see if their defeatism is based in reality or not, because currently we simply do not know.

What the arrival of Steve Bruce has done, is proving that the owner will stick to his two proven tactics for riding out the bad feeling from the fan base, namely, using an unpopular manager as a distraction for the fans fury, and secondly to once again lower expectations.

Anyone remember what happened in the transfer window after Pardew fluked a 5th place finish? We “strengthened” by adding only Vurnon Anita to the squad, defeat once again claimed from the jaws of victory. This is Mike Ashley’s stock in trade.

Money will be spent this summer, but not real money, not an amount which damages Mike Ashley’s bottom line profits. The money will either be borrowed, loaned or found down the back of the sofa from all the previous sale instalments. I expect the spend to be around £75m when complete but sales may also be similar and possibly more, if we lose Longstaff and/ or Dubravka. The financial model has seen no change whatsoever, the illusion of spending to distract the incompetent whilst actually maintaining profit.

For the sake of the club the fanbase needs to re-focus.

Who the manager is – irrelevant.

What club employees say – irrelevant.

The tropes pedalled by media stooges like Richard Keys and Kevin Nolan – irrelevant.

All that matters is boycott, protest and resist!

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