Llambias: “You guys don’t ­understand how f****** ­horrible we can be”

Llambias goes on a rant
You would think that Derek Llambias would be keeping a low profile after the renaming debacle that has dominated the news this week.

Not so. Instead we wake up on a Sunday morning to headlines such as “Toon chief blasts heroes Shearer and Keegan in foul-mouthed rant” which is a bit dramatic in fairness, when you look at the actual content of the article the headline is about.

Apparently Llambias has been recorded by fans responding to questions that they posed to him. The problem, for me anyway, is not his answers to the questions, but the way he answered them. It’s seems that Derek may have been on the sauce this particular night so let’s hear what he had to say.

First off he opened up some old wounds with Kevin Keegan who made an ill-fated return to St James’ Park which ended in a much publicised fallout.

“Kevin Keegan can’t take pressure. His f****** head is all over the place,” said Llambias, before revealing that Keegan was only appointed to appease potential buyers of the club.

“Mike was selling to the Arabs and they wanted Kevin Keegan. The Arabs wanted him, the fans wanted him — perfect!”

Personally speaking I never wanted Keegan back. I don’t think many fans wanted him back as such. I certainly don’t remember there being any notion of returning to Newcastle which is why the news shocked so many when it started trickling through. Llambias is wrong on that one, although I do think he is right when it comes to Kevin Keegan and pressure. His job history shows that he tends to walk when the going gets tough.

Moving on, and next in line for a roasting is Alan Shearer.

Llambias said: “Shearer was my choice and I have to hold up my hands — the wrong choice. Shearer, for this, destroys us. He gave all the responsibility to Dowie. Rubbish!”

A supporter then suggests that “It wasn’t the right time” for Shearer. Llambias agreed, and then took it further by saying: “It would never be the right time. Shearer? There would never be a right time in football.”

When one of the onlookers hinted that Shearer is arrogant, Llambias agreed and said: “You guys have given him that arrogance.”

There is a reason why Shearer hasn’t picked up another managerial job since his ill-fated time in charge with us. Personally I don’t like the fact that he seems unwilling to drop his level too low and go manage in the lower leagues as a kind of apprenticeship but it’s up to him I guess.

The man who replaced him, Chris Hughton, was next in line for a roasting.

“He would never have taken us where we want to be. That’s my decision by the way,” said Llambias when asked about the sacking of Chris Hughton.

“Chris can’t make decisions. If I am asking about a player, Ben Arfa? he says ‘I’m not sure, blah blah’.”

“With Chris, he couldn’t cope with where we are mentally. We are aggressive. You need to be aggressive. I don’t want a manager below me who can’t argue. You guys don’t understand how f****** horrible we can be.”

This kind of fits in with my view of Hughton. He was too nice and the players had too much power in my book which would have lead to problems in the long run. However it should be remembered that he did a great job for us and learnt his trade which will hopefully stand him in good stead in the future.

Finally, Andy Carroll was the last target for Derek Llambias’ lyrical weapons. He claims that the striker is worth “f*** all” and that Newcastle got the better of the deal. In fact he goes into more detail about the deal. We’ll pick it up at the point where Liverpool offered £30 million for Carroll on transfer deadline day.

“I have to admit that £30m for Andy Carroll is a lot of money.”

When one supporter asked him “Is he worth £30m?” Llambias responded: “No — he’s worth f*** all.” He then explains that after rejecting the £30m offer, Newcastle refused to sell even for £35m unless Liverpool paid the entire fee up front.

“It is about control.

“We had the control. We knew the Torres deal was there. We drew that f****** deal, perhaps the ultimate,” explained Llambias.

“So £30m? F*** off! Don’t waste my time and I slammed the phone down. £35m? Everybody including Pardew all agreed.”

“But the £35m they wanted to pay over four years. It was rubbish. Mike (Ashley) said — and he is a brave boy Mike I promise you — get all the £35m up front.”

“We got it all up front and then they never paid us on time and we charged them 12 grand f****** interest.”

I personally like that last one.

So what is in here that we don’t know? Is it really worth the sensational headlines that it’s been getting in the national press? Personally I don’t think so if you look at what is actually said, and we already know that Llambias is a buffoon.

– Keegan can’t handle pressure. This is true as his entire managerial CV proves. It should be remembered though that pressure wasn’t the reason why it all went wrong the second time round.

– Shearer is arrogant. This is again true and many of our own fans will say that.

– Chris Hughton was too nice. Again it’s true although it sounds harsh to say. Too many rumours of player committees and so on…

– Andy Carroll isn’t worth £35m. Can that really be argued? Not at the moment it seems. Granted I think he is worth slightly more than “f*** all” but I don’t think it can be denied that our club got the better of the deal.

So there you go. I agree with Llambias on most of this although I do feel that he should have picked his words more carefully. Mind you, alcohol can be a bad thing and from the content of these ramblings I’d guess he was sloshed as he sounds a bit like that drunken old man sat in the corner having a moan about anything and everything.

These quotes are taken from the Sunday Mirror nd you can read the original articles here and here, Of course people will say that “it’s only the mirror”, which is true, but they would be getting themselves into sticky territory if they started printing quotes without basis knowing full well that Ashley and Llambias would be on the phone to lawyers almost immediately. Money money money remember.

What do you make of it though?

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

86 thoughts on “Llambias: “You guys don’t ­understand how f****** ­horrible we can be”

  1. Seriously can’t stand the guy, but I agree, there’s nothing sensational in his comments. Perhaps the chairman of NUFC should conduct himself better in public, but we have a history of pissed up members of the board mouthing off in public.

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  2. Toonsy

    As you already know mate I agree 100% with what you said here.

    This article shouldn’t be isn’t a condemnation of Lame-****’s behaviour – the guy is to be congratulated.

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  3. I think we realise how horrible Ashley & Llambias are. We’ve seen them in action for four years.

    Money first …
    money second …
    money third …

    Thatcherism on ********.

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  4. Hate the guy, but I laughed at these comments. Must definitely have been drunk comments. Truth, somewhere in there, but surely there are better way to put this across. Without the crass language.

    I think it was mentioned somewhere that these comments were made after the spurs game, before the stadium rebranding. The journos seem to have decided that this is a good time to bring it up.

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  5. How this bloke and Barton couldn’t get along I’ll never understand…
    It’s a doubled edged sword. This attitude is what’s putting the club back on its feets whilst also tearing a divide between the board and the fans.
    I swear the club could just make a reality tv show and make enough money to fund a champion’s league squad.

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  6. Ok, give an egotist and audience and watch him lap it up. That said, the candid blunt nature of the responses is appreciated. The guy has gone right up in my estimation. Thought the Keegan comments are a smokescreen to save face. The courts saw through that one.

    Very, very pleased with how they handled the Judas deal.

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  7. GEOFF777
    November 13, 2011 at 08:26
    I think we realise how horrible Ashley & Llambias are. We’ve seen them in action for four years.
    Money first …
    money second …
    money third …
    Thatcherism on ********.

    ——————-

    Same as every club that wants to compete…..

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  8. first time the club has had something honest to say and i must say its about time

    like it or not he never sugar coated it and told us what we all want to know

    (what does actually go thru these guys mind)

    hope more honesty comes but not as much as i hope to see different ppl in charge…. MORE HONESTY PLZ !!!!

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  9. I agree with him 100% everything he said is true even if he did come across as a right c*nt.

    Loved the bit about Carroll the most 😀 Would love to see king kenny’s face after reading that 😆

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  10. Off-Topic but has anyone seen all the reports about us getting bojan? are we scouting him or something or has this just come out of some journalist’s ***?

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  11. See the latest is the Nike are one of the interested companies that Ashley is talking to about sjp sponsorship. £10m is peanuts to those guys. Can’t see them wanting to sponsor a Puma shirt. Would it mean Nike kits an ditching puma?

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  12. What a c***, i despise this man he is a f*****g scumbag, the pair of them.
    Disappointed that some are passing this off as acceptable behaviour for the chairman of NUFC.
    We’re a laughing stock again and its all down to these f*****g aholes.

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  13. No one seems to be picking up on the fact that, he is saying that in the appointment of Keegan, Ashley was actively trying to sell the club to Arab investors within 6 months of taking charge, well before any supporter unrest.

    So that takes any doubt out of the fact that he bought in the first place because he thought he could make a quick sale at a profit.

    He didn’t check it through properly, got his sums wrong and now is making sure that everyone pays for it except himself. Carroll was only worth f*** all to Ashley. Now the club is a top striker worse off and Ashley’s bank account is 35 million better off. Great deal for him, not so much so for the club.

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  14. Complete and utter load of bollocks! Glad twitter seems calm about the whole episode – was worried the bed sheets were going to cone out for a minute. This was probably said ages ago and the paper have sat on it waiting for some controversy to attach it to – the naming of the ground. Typical southern media – remember sensational headlines sell more papers. Agree with 95% of this article and DL

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  15. LOL. Can’t argue, he’s spot on with his comments. Could be delivered with a lot more class, but hey ho class and Llambias don’t exactly go hand and hand. Still not sure if he is better just keeping his mouth shut. At least he’s not slagging off the fans unlike the previous chairman during one of his rants.

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  16. Micky Toon
    November 13, 2011 at 09:46

    See the latest is the Nike are one of the interested companies that Ashley is talking to about sjp sponsorship. £10m is peanuts to those guys. Can’t see them wanting to sponsor a Puma shirt. Would it mean Nike kits an ditching puma?
    —————-
    Micky, the Puma deal ends at the end of this season too, their deal was only for 2 seasons……so nike could be a good option for all concerned – nike stadium and nike shirts + also probably leaves shirt sponsorship available for more £££

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  17. Where’s these fckin Arabs now!?

    At least we know his intention was to sell. He’d only had the club 6 months…

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  18. A question in my head is who exactly is the scumbag here? The media for holding the story back & publishing after the name change (as already mentioned) or the ‘fans’ who recorded the conversation probably without knowledge or consent & then give it to the papers? They’re the ******* scumbags in this & why we’re on the back pages!!

    Okay the language was a bit choice but for fcuks sake who doesn’t swear when with the ******* lads. Reet I’m gonna make me ******* brekkie, think I might have ******* cereal! 😉

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  19. Although i hate the guy and can’t stand his ugly mug , he was just about right in every thing he said . Amassing he has to get pissed to get something right .

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  20. @ Stuart

    We already knew Ashley didnt want to by the club by himself he was in with other people and they pulled out so he had to buy the whole thing. So it makes sense that he wanted rid early.

    lol @ witters what the f*ck i think im going to get some f*cking coffee as f*cking well

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  21. I can’t believe some fans on here are actually supporting this? How can anyone ever agree with him slagging Keegan off. Without KK, we’d be lucky to even have a club. The gratitude of some fans to him is for them to agree with a foul mouthed drunk masquerading as the person responsible for running the club. ‘People don’t know how horrible we can be’ he says. So that’s good then? Being a parasite and treating everyone like s**t is acceptable then?

    I am totally disgusted at any fans agreeing with this guy who must look in the mirror everyday and cannot believe how lucky and privileged he is to be running NUFC. He should have more class, and his heart should be bulging out of his chest with pride as the ‘chairman’ of NUFC. He has no affinity with the fans, our tradition or our heroes of the past.

    He has just wiped away years of history renaming SJP so Ashley can pocket a few more quid. This money won’t go on players…learn from experience for god sake, however people on here are actually supporting him???

    I am ashamed to be a fellow fan today.

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  22. Perhaps if Mr Lambias concentrated on his own shortcomings he would understand when he just needs to shut up. He does not deserve and his actions do not warrant a position of power within our club.

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  23. Im actually shocked. I really honestly thought this would kick up a shitstorm and people would be after Llambias for it when in actual fact people appreciate the honesty 😯

    There is not really a word he has said that I disagree with although its the way he has said it that comes across as crass. Hey ho, I can live with that if ut means more truth 😆

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  24. Not sure if this has been asked before.. If a new sponsor is found, does this mean all the ugly Sports Direct signs littering the stadium will be removed?

    Also, couldn’t a new sponsor come in and buy the rights and then decide to leave the name St. James’ Park intact? I’m sure this would endear them to the fans and it wouldn’t hurt their replica shirt sales either. But this is just my wishful thinking.

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  25. I also knew people would pick up on KK. What has Llambias said that history doesn’t back up? People should look at EVERY other job he has had and not just his two periods managing us.

    Fulham – walked
    Man City – walked
    England – walked

    Love Keegan personally, but it doesn’t distort facts I’m afraid.

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  26. It’s all well and good saying that they ripped the eyes out of Liverpool over the Carroll deal but that can only backfire in future dealings with the club.
    All of these things go on at every other club but professionalism prevents other clubs like man utd, arsenal, Chelsea leaking this boardroom information out.

    I’m surprised most of you are so forgiving. It’s absolutely disgraceful and quite rightly printed in a sensationalist newspaper. He’s feeding them and he can’t complain when the headlines are printed.

    Embarrassing that he puts himself in that position.

    Was Keegan aware that Ashley was negotiating
    with the Arabs or was he going to double cross
    him like he has with the fans over the renaming
    of the ground.
    He knew that it was to be renamed but never told the 4k fans who purchased cheap tickets of the plans.

    It’s the underhand way they act that makes us hate this regime and our lack of trust with them.

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  27. It would be interesting to see the actual recording.
    It’s good print to say that he was pissed and it was a foul mouthed rant
    but it could have been just a normal conversation between drinking mates

    Degsy could have been doing some after hours PR.

    As for the foul mouthed stuff – loada ******* bollox

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  28. @toonsy

    When Keegan signed for fulham he had it negotiated in his contract that if England came knocking he would take the job. That was confirmed by Mo Fiad.

    At Man City, he had one year left on a 4 year deal. He said he would honour that deal but retire from Footy after that. It was the Man City board who felt that they needed a manager in for the long term and they agreed to go their separate ways. That’s not walking.

    He did walk from England.

    1 out of 3 toonsy. Get to your room and do your revision and don’t come out until it’s complete or there’s no X Factor for you tonight! 😛

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  29. Gazza’s Dressing Gown
    Just out of interest – are you saying Keegan COULD handle the pressure?

    Thing is, I very much doubt that Lame-**** just stood up on a table and yelled “Keegan couldn’t handle the pressure”

    Talk about out of context or what.

    By the way – re-naming the stadium does not “wipe away history”. That’s just an excuse being thrown around by people looking for something else to ***** about.

    The history is there. It’s written. It’s in the book.

    And as has been said many times, it will continue to be SJP no matter what it says.

    Ashamed to be a fellow fan?

    Get a grip man! It’s just a name

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  30. @archie

    Flippant comments by you .

    Newcastle United is just a name .

    Would you mind if that was changed? 😯

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  31. Llamsarse is a c@nt sober and a bigger one p!ssed, whether you agree with what he’s saying or not is irrelevant, is this how you want the representative of NUFC to act in public? Hope you felt the same when ffs was p!ssed and said Toon tops cost £5 to make and us mugs were buying them for £50, after all he was only telling the truth 😕 🙄

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  32. Another fantastic endorsement for all potential sponsors.

    Come into business with us as we publicly slate everything to do with the club, except ourselves.

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  33. @Gazza

    I’m with your sentiments.

    I genuinely believe those who aren’t bothered are those who aren’t true Geordies or are relatively young.

    😯

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  34. Can’t do anything but laugh really can you? Good to see our club is still a circus. Mind, I won’t argue with Lambias on Carroll, he is worth **** all 😆

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  35. Some people just don’t get it. 😯

    They don’t get the history thing. 😯

    We are represented by buffoons. 😯

    @Moreno

    I agree. Would potential sponsors want to be associated with this regime wondering what the next gaff is going to be? 🙄

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  36. Agree Toonsy @32. We all know Lamearse is a thoroughly unlikeable character and the way he expresses himself in this rant is not the way the Chairman of the Toon should be talking – the man is a t*t and shouldn’t be in charge of our club.
    As to what he said there is some truth in all of it. I don’t doubt Lamearse and Ashley would be “nasty” to deal with at times – they are both ruthless. Keegan was a fantastic manager and gave us some of the most exciting football we have seen at SJP and he certainly rescued the club but he also has a history of walking away when he doesn’t get his way or the going gets tough.Carroll was not worth £35 million, Hughton was too nice and wouldn’t have taken us to the next level IMO. Whether Shearer is arrogant or not I’ve no idea – he may make a decent manager one day but not sure he has what it takes.
    The worst thing about this is that Lamearse has managed to make the wrong headlines again and the chairman of our football club should act with a lot more decorum – mind you we should be used to it by now Fat Freddy said a lot worse.

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  37. I am still livid about the renaming.

    No calming down and reflection for me. There is no other sense behind it other than to plaster Sports Direct across the world, it is to the detriment of the club….how can people not care about this?

    I did a bit of research the other day on what money we were losing due to not putting bums on seats….I have it on a notepad at home so will post it later.
    It will be interesting to see if all the fans who have boycotted sports direct (of which there are still many – whether you agree with it or not) start to boycott St. James. Fans are fickle.

    Even more money the club are missing out on.

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  38. Ashley is in talks with interested parties, most in the USA, including Nike regarding the stadium’s naming rights. (Sunday Express) #NUFC
    1 hour ago

    Well we’ll wait and see 😥 – got to be better than the SDA though – maybe they could call it something like St James’ Nike Arena?

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  39. I’m guessing that since Llamsarse said Puma needed the name of the new sponsor for the shirts that the 2 year deal with them which expires at the end of the season has been renewed, that being the case I can’t see Nike being the sponsor on a Puma shirt.
    Unless he was lying about Puma needing it….no, surely hje wouldn’t 😯 🙄

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  40. Llambias is a **** and his delivery of this is a bit crass but the papers have had this for weeks and have waited for the first bit of bad news to try and whip up a fan frenzy
    Can’t really disagree with most of the comments although KK never dealt well with pressure he had a valid constructive dismissal claim this time as proven in court
    All a bit of a non story and the headline could easily have said “Llambias swears a lot!”
    Agree with most of his comments to be honest

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  41. he’s a **** but a good business man if its true.
    Apparently Nike r sniffing around the naming rights for SJP.

    this also would be good business. 10mill a season would be a great move.

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  42. Mark,

    In the short term maybe. Yet if you continue to conduct yourself in a bulldozer, underhand manner you will quickly find that people won’t want to actually do business with you….

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  43. There is not going to be any new or extra money coming into the coffers if SD are our sponsors. Ashley has to pay money into the NUFC bank by way of loans at present. This will stop. SD probably pay tax at 20% if they pay NUFC £10 million. They save £2 million tax and Ashley doesn’t need to make any loans personally or inter company.
    Cannot see a company suddenly deciding to spend 8-10 million on advertising on a whim. Companies with this type of expenditure have budgets for years ahead

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  44. Just got back from the gym and read this… didn’t even know this happened so it was a surprise.

    Again, correct toonsy, nothing sensational about the things he said. I love sheare to bits but he’s probably right, we have made him arrogant but then you could argue that he deserves to be arrogant as he’s been the top goal scorer in the premiership and he’s a geordie so… leg-end.

    I think his glasses make him look like a sexual predator. 😆

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  45. TLR,

    An excellent point.

    The SJP name is priceless anyhow, screw the 10 million. Our owner is a billionairre for crying out loud 👿

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  46. It’s not what he’s said it’s the fact he’s said it outside the boardroom.

    I bet we don’t hear Liverpool board laughing at Chelsea over Torres.

    It’s totally unprofessional and will have destroyed future relations with Liverpool and can’t do any good in trying to persuade sponsors to strike a deal.

    Absolute dross of man!

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  47. I agree with Troy 100%.

    Very unprofessional, and it’s ironic that the one time this **** is honest it could affect a lot of future transfers and other deals for the club.

    Would you want to do business with these people in a multi million pound deal of any sort? I wouldn’t. Unless I was buying the club off them. Which I’m not, so don’t get excited :mrgreen:

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  48. The only plus point for me is that it makes a deal with Liverpool for Collocini less likely.

    The swearing isn’t the point – the contempt for ex-employees and other clubs is. Not classy, not smart , big or clever. All from a man who couldn’t get the necessary paperwork/visas for several players on the US tour.

    It’ll be interesting to see if DL is charged by the FA with bringing the game into disrepute.

    The point also needs to be made that if it hadn’t been recorded then it would have been impossible to prove or print and we’d have lost this valuable ‘insight’ into how nasty this little sh*t really is.

    It’s a bad day for the club if this is acceptable behaviour from the club’s MD. Yes, he’s allowed to get p*ssed….but if he shoots his mouth off in a public bar then he can’t complain if he gets grassed up in the press.

    He’ll probably have to fine himself now in line with the treatment of Best and Ireland for that night club photo.

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  49. No wonder there is a wall of silence around Ashley and Llambias. The role of anyone in authority is to act as an ambassador for those they represent. Never can there have been such a more unpleasant character as this, in any business.

    If some fans are proud of him then that’s an indication of their view of life, and something which they will carry as a permanent scar, an indication that society still has a long way to go before it can call itself civilised.

    Foolish children intoxicated on their own ego, and half a cider, the lot or you,
    It’s a close call who brings the most shame!

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  50. The papers always rake up **** on nufc before we play any of the big boys. I wonder who our next 3 fixtures are

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  51. I wonder what Mike Ashley makes of this Llambias outburst ? At the end of the day Llambias has actually brought a bunch of negative publicity down on Ashley’s Sports Direct product… 😯 😯

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  52. Naive to think that these sorts of conversations don’t happen…it’s unprofessional definitely but they happen across all industries.

    I wonder whether it was actually legal to tape the conversation assuming Llambias didn’t give consent. Taping the conversation wasn’t unprofessional, treacherous yes. I suspect it was someone from .org. :mrgreen:

    And if it does affect the relationship with Liverpool (which I doubt anyway) then hopefully they’ll keep their thieving hand off our players?!?

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  53. if theyre true then theyre tru

    the truth cannot hurt you

    I dont like DL/MA but what they said here (reportedly) looks/is true

    Let AP get on with it

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  54. If, in one of the alternate universes, the team were exactly where they are today and nothing was different except that Jabba and this **** were decent-seeming human beings that knew how to communicate, would we be happy?

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  55. the problem here is he was caught. Of course these conversations happen. Hes a crass casino owner ffs.

    I know a guy high up with Sage who used to get quite close to Fat Freddy on match days, he constantly ridiculed Sir Bobby, calling him all the names under the sun sometime with bobby in ear-shot.. referring to his age, forgetfulness etc.

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