Can Lascelles restore his reputation after insulting fans (and women)?

Posted on November 2nd, 2018 | 2 Comments |

Jamaal Lascelles
Lascelles: Big mistake.
Newcastle United are expected by the bookmakers to challenge for the top 10 this season – you can use this unibet bonus code to sign up – but they can do without off-field issues that keep cropping up with alarming regularity, such as the latest one involving the club captain.

In the wake of his signing a new extension on his contract, Magpies’ captain, Jamaal Lascelles severely damaged his reputation among fans, along with half the population of the world when he stated that Football is “a man’s game.” For this piece though, I will concentrate on his comments about Mike Ashley and the fans as this is a Newcastle United ‘blog, rather than a specialist on feminist issues!

On Ashley he gushed:

“I know fingers are being pointed at him, but the meal (Ashley’s meet the players night at Rialto’s in Ponteland) was really positive. He’s a nice guy. I like him.”

He then stuck the knife into fans, adding:

“If everyone in Newcastle stopped the negativity and tried to form a unity it would help. It’s important that everyone’s together, especially when we’re down at the bottom of the table.”

Digging an even deeper hole for himself, he then continued with perhaps the worst insult of all by seemingly blaming fan’s for the club’s poor form, adding:

“When there are problems off the pitch it does affect you as players. It would help if everyone came together and put all that bad energy into positive energy, helping us get three points. If you’re always hearing negativity and you’ve got the fans against Mike it just creates a big negative mess. It doesn’t help. It affects the chemistry in the changing room.”

Being nice about the boss is one thing, that’s in the contract, but to juxtapose this with insulting comments about the “bad energy” allegedly coming from fans, who have already suffered over a decade of abuse from Ashley is a disastrous PR move which will not be forgotten in a hurry by fans. Seeing the way we have backed the team from the terraces despite an absolutely woeful season so far, not to mention all the other bad seasons and relegations through Ashley’s tenure just makes this doubly insulting. Now I can’t write for all the fans out there, but to me, the first name which comes to mind when I think of disastrous PR moves (apart from Ashley himself of course) is the world’s worst ‘spin doctor,’ Keith Bishop. I would not be surprised at all if Ashley and Bishop had something to do with these remarkably ill-judged comments, but they will be forever associated with Lascelles, and he’s going to have to do a lot to restore his reputation.

Looking forward, it will be interesting to see how fans react in Saturday’s game against Watford. If you are looking for the best odds on that game, you could try NetBet Sport. Currently lying in 8th, Watford have had a good season so far and besides finding a scoring touch which has deserted us this season, our best hope is that Watford perform as they did in their biggest blip of the season so far, when they were taken apart 4-0 by Bournemouth.

NUFCBlog Author: workyticket workyticket has written 1093 articles on this blog.

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2 Responses

  1. Now then, Worky, long time no speak! Hope you’re well. Good to see you still care enough to keep the blog going. I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, spurred on by Ashley-induced apathy.

    I hoped he might have f••ked off by now but unfortunately he’s still there, plundering away at the cost of the Geordie Faithful. The man is a megalomaniac. Zero interest in the club he nicked. House of Fraser after the last transfer window and now Evans Cycles (a chain close to my heart for good quality and service). What next? Could he be the next Donald Trump? Prime Minister of UK by 2030?!

    Anyway, back to your article. I think you’re maybe being a little harsh on Lascelles. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but still a little wet behind the ears with regard to the u-turn in fortune NUFC have endeavoured since Fatboy took over with his ‘5-year plan’.

    I don’t blame him at all for mentioning the negativity. Fair enough, shit rolls downhill and inevitably it’s the c••t at the top who should take the blame, but, all he wants as captain is positivity from his teammates which is hard to attain when surrounded by protests, animosity and booing (albeit aimed at Fatboy) – it affects the players.

    Fatboy will f••k off when he’s good and ready, which ain’t gona be any time soon. He’s sat on a nest egg with free advertising and a annual windfall to fund his next £70m+ purchase, which ain’t gona be a fkn centre forward, left back, winger and No.10.

    Peace out. : )

  2. Rod! great to hear from you again! I don’t spend as much time on the blog as I used to, you have to keep on the hamster wheel down here in London as it’s so expensive to live. I think that Ashley’s going against the grain buying all the shops up as everybody’s moving into internet sites and big warehouses where workers are treated like robots, pending their replacement by real robots. There’s always a method to his madness though.

    I just went with the flow on that blog, it was very crass to slag off the fans after gushing about Ashley like that. Like many footballers, he looks like he’s no Einstein though and as I said in the blog, maybe Ashley and Keith Bishop were trying to pull the strings.

    Cycling hurts my arse but I watch a lot of documentaries on BBC4 and read lots of drivel on the Internet and I think that Evans Cycles was founded by a dashing RAF war hero who was also a cycling nut? And now it belongs to Ashley. I watched a thing about the history of Raleigh and its competitors recently too, which was interesting.

    Good to see a win today as the last one seems like years ago now.