Eurosport - Tue, 14 Jul 10:50:00 2009
Newcastle United, relegated from the Premier League at the end of last season, are "dying a slow, painful death" according to the club's goalkeeper Steve Harper.
Newcastle, preparing for their first season out of the top flight since 1992-93, were put up for sale for £100 million by owner Mike Ashley last month. They are still without a full-time manager while caretaker boss Chris Hughton continues to run the squad.
"What happened last season was desperately disappointing, but just when you think there's an opportunity for this club to put itself right, build and get straight back up, the opposite happens," Harper, who has been at Newcastle for 16 years, told the Daily Mail.
"We want it to be resolved so we know where we are and where we're going because at this moment the football club is dying a slow, painful death.
"For five or six years now it's been a gradual slow implosion. The situation is very, very frustrating for all of us.
"To be fair to Chris Hughton, Colin Calderwood and the lads, we have made the best of what is a dreadful situation.
"But at the moment the club isn't rebuilding - it's in a state of limbo and that is no good for anyone."
Newcastle tumbled out of the Premier League at the end of a traumatic season which ended with club favourite Alan Shearer appointed as manager for the last eight matches but he could not save them from the drop.
Shearer has said he is willing to take the job on a permanent basis but no appointments have been made since Ashley announced he was selling the club.
Comment 99 - 118 of 118
impactclean, your 119, hands up, I had a chuckle at that one. Very funny, quite sad, but funny.
Heyup barry.
You are correct.
Melvin 104.
You are so right mate:Ashley was sold a very expensive crock.
NUFC are finished,gone.
up the boro
................................WELCOME................ .........
..................................TO......... ...................
...........................THE..... .....NUFC....................
......................... .COMEDY........SITE....................
John con luv 111,
Bet you would like some eh!
Hey up Kevin,
You should be a financier,working for Ashley,im'e sure you will be a great help.Oh!"How much you putting in then"?
Hey up all.
Little birdie informs me Mr ash is going to change our home shirt to HORIZONTAL bars.
What do you reckon.
109, what, you and your friends, dont flatter yourself too much granny though I do sometimes wonder whats been going up your nose
If as they say they have had some bids reaching the asking price of M.A. Maybe these interested parties should push the issue by including in their bids a clause such as for every day after submitting their bids until acceptance the price drops by a few million it may force M.A. to act quickly or face a further reduction in cash back!
Hey up Con luv.
Am i getting up your nose luv?
Hey up Hutch.
Ill'e check it out.
How,s the mail bags?
the rot started at sjp when shepherd sacked sir bobby and replaced him with that @#$% sounes
desperate fat $ hit head
Kevin, comment-100
you're spot on mate; it's called retribution, or rather 'Ashley's Retribution'!
He blames us, the fans, for losing him his dough; obviously the appointment of dennis unwise had nowt to do with it, absolute zero investment in players had nowt to do with it, selling the best players and replacing them with cheaper, inferior ones had nowt to do with it! Yes of course the players must shoulder some responsibility, but the club's relegation ultimately comes down to ashley's dreadful mismanagement of the club from Day-One!
His ego won't allow him to take the blame, so we get it; and boy is he gonna make us pay!
The squad will be decimated by the time the season starts, a good thing perhaps that the deadwood will have moved on; but there wil be no new faces, and no time left for any decent preparation ergo no chance of a promotion push. He knows this, he wants to leave this club in as much a state of ruin as possible before he walks; irreparable damage if he can. I always said he was a vindictive man; come on man, how else does one explain away those embarrassing new away shirts - that was a deliberate act of a man on a mission!
Shepherd's transfer policy statrted the rot. I bet loads of you would have him back though. he walked away with 4o mil, lied to Ashley about the true financial situation, and left the club with cancer. Traitor..........
can somebody correct me if i am wrong Southampton,Notts County,Portsmouth all put up for sale around about the same time that Newcastle was all are now done deals, does that tell you that Mike (tXXT) Ashley has no intension in selling i may be wrong well i hope i am.
dean
It will be interesting to see the reception Harper gets in the pre-season games!! Seems to me that he has handed in his tranfer request, can't blame really.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Hey everybody, impacts got class. Yeh! We can tell by your spelling and Grammar, not to mention content, that you are a well educated, knowledgeable upstanding pillar of society.
Who's been telling you that anyway, was it barrygroves, BARRY, pianoplayerlive, your mamma or any of the other sad characters you have invented to keep yourself company in your bubble. By the way, have you been using your multiple ID's to give yourself thumbs up because nobody else agrees with your trollop, get the one out your backside and theirs another you can have.
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