Keegan/Ashley: Whose psychological flaws?

Talk is cheap, as we all know, and I'm writing from London, among the southrons, so I defer to my honourable friends at nufc.com and true faith in terms of the smartest and most felt on-site reportage of today's hateful bloody shambles at Newcastle United. I'm not interested in what the national press have to say, unless they have more luck in getting either Keegan or Ashley/a crony of this on the line tonight. The Mail, though, says Keegan has been in heavy session with m'learned friends.

The nationals will give Keegan a good few digs, of course, some sharper than others. There's a certain crying-on-the-inside aspect to KK's personality that is like fresh meat to the ravening pack. But unlike a lot of NUFC fans I don't think there's a southron vendetta against the club: it's just the natural born schadenfreude of football fans, most of whom spend a lot of their time depressed over a lot of nonsense and need to get a laugh out of some other lot who appear worse off. And we do give 'em no end of material to work with.

Five words, but: 'Dennis Wise', 'dugout', 'next match.' No way. I hereby endorse any strategy of supporter-driven resistance to this skin-crawling prospect. If Ashley has the slightest understanding of that kind of broad-based sentiment, then he should get his effing jumbo-sized black-and-white shirt on and go explain his rationale over a pint to any fan he can find who doesn't feel like nutting him.