When Roeder came out last week and slammed fat cat millionaires who join clubs just for money, people automatically thought that was directed at rumours linking us with Saviola but I don’t think that was the case, the rumours linking us with David Beckham would probably be more like the reason for his outburst and I also think it was a slight message to Freddy Shepherd not to pursue that kind of target under his nose because let’s face it, it wouldn’t be the first time that Freddy Shepherd has taken transfer dealings into his own hands.

Shepherd has a tendency to please the fans, or try at least, but his real aim should be to influence the building of a team and not the building of a group of individuals. David Beckham would be a great signing, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think he would be a player to help Newcastle move forward as a team and I couldn’t agree more with Roeder’s comments about players that move to Newcastle should only join if they see it as a step-up, but the problem with that is, is that not a lot of the great players would see Newcastle as a step-up, hell, we can’t even beat off Lillestrom SK in an InterToto cup tie, regardless of the players’ fitness - that will say alot to potential signings…

Moving upstairs, Fat Fred doesn’t seem to have any wage structure here, no signing fee structure, no rules or parameters, what the hell has he got in place for fuck sake,. This club is ran by a load of monkeys and until that changes this club is not going to move in any forward direction.

He wants “glamour” players at the club and thinks that offering wages in excess of £80,000 a week will get his man for him, what we really need to be saying is “Here is your contract offer, you have been offered £30,000 a week elsewhere so we are willing to offer you £35,000 and for the chance to play for a great club with a lot of potential, take it or leave it”.

But it seems FS’s head works differently to everyone else, I’m sure his negotiations go more along the lines of “you have been offered £30,000 a week elsewhere but we are willing to offer you £60,000 a week and the chance to play in front of 53,000 fans every other week” which is absolutely pathetic and a sign of a poor businessman who has no bargaining skills.

The same goes for signing fees and negotiating fees with other clubs for their players, while I was over the moon with the signing of Michael Owen at the same time £17,000,000 is again a silly fee, regardless of the quality of the man, Liverpool were clearly only going to offer £10-11m for Owen and so Freddy should have got the ball rolling with a respectable bid (£12-13m), but no, like the wages he has gone crazy and blown all on one deal. I really don’t see Freddy Shepherd as a chairman, he is a joke who lives In a dream world. Either he gets out of that dream world (unlikely) or he gets out of this club.

Moving back down to pitch side, I love Roeder’s ambition in words but as far as things on the pitch go, it’s a completely different story, Roeder talks a lot of sense about signings but surely leaving it this late will only work against us, like it did last season, I could clearly see that Souness was going to need at least a season for all the “late” signings to gel as a team with the rest of the lads and at the same time finish in a top position which frankly wasn’t going to happen, again that is a fact that a lot of fans still won’t accept to this day.

Roeder and Shepherd aren’t going to work if the truth is known, from my point of view they want 2 different things. Roeder wants players who are striving for success and want to help this club win something, he wants discipline, he wants commitment, he wants effort and heart being shown every time a player puts the black ‘n’ white shirt on.

Shepherd on the other hand wants a fairytale Newcastle team, he wants showbiz stars, he wants Newcastle to be in the Champions League year in year out, yet he runs the club in such a way it makes this aim impossible, he wants Geordie fans to love him for spending millions and millions on an individual and thinks that will make the fans back him and like him more and the biggest joke is that he thinks he knows what the fans want, yet if he knew that he would have packed his bags a long time ago.

Take note Fred, this season is going to be very long if you don’t make the right decisions with this club.