How , after so many times repeating the same thing, are you failing to understand the difference between aim and achievement? None of those teams aimed to be below Newcastle, did they?
People contextualise Leicester's unlikely Premier League win all the time. I contextualise Newcastle's unlikely 5th placed finish too. People are contextualising Liverpool's likely title win this season. Other Sunderland fans contextualise your relegations.
Again, aim v achievement is tripping you up. None of those players were to make a loss on.
And that's despite little to no investment in the academy, imagine how many young local lads we could have brought through for buttons and either played or sold to cover investment in the first team.
It wasn't that solid, we were fighting against relegation because the squad wasn't deep enough.
“I tried from the summer of 2012 to sign a new contract with Newcastle but it never worked. It was always ‘We will give you this, but only if you play games’. I kept saying to them ‘It is the same – I will play’. But they wanted that in the contract. I kept saying ‘Don’t do this to me.’ ”
Direct quote from Ba. Of course when Chelsea found out about his pittance of a release clause they came in for him, but he was playing regularly, playing well, so why didn't they give him a new contract? Well because they gambled that we'd survive without him.
You wouldn't be in League One, I think he'd be a decent owner for you. He'd get you back in the Premier League, he'll have learned a lot of lessons from owning us. Don't pick a fight with club legends, don't rename the stadium without paying for it, don't get embroiled in constructive dismissal cases with cancer sufferers, don't antagonise the fan base, and so on...
Thing is Ashley is worse than you make out, but not as bad as is made out by the caricature Newcastle fan you invent to serve a purpose.