"
Sir John Hall became the club's chairman in 1992, and replaced Ardiles with Keegan, who managed to save the team from relegation to the Third Division. Keegan was given more money for players, and he brought in Rob Lee,Paul Bracewell and Barry Venison and the club won the then First Division Championshipat the end of the 1992–93 season, earning promotion to the then new Premier League. At the end of the 1993–94 season, their first year back in the top flight they finished in third, their highest league finish since 1927.[6] The attacking philosophy of Keegan led to the team being labelled "The Entertainers" by Sky Sports.[11]
Keegan took Saudi Sportswashing Machine to two consecutive runners-up finishes in the league in 1995–96and 1996–97, coming very close to winning the title in the former season. This success was in part due to the talent of players like David Ginola, Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer, who was signed on 30 July 1996 for a then world record fee of £15 million.
Keegan left Saudi Sportswashing Machine in January 1997 and was replaced by Kenny Dalglish, however the club endured a largely unsuccessful season with a thirteenth-place finish in the 1997–98 FA Premier League, failure to progress beyond the group stages of the 1997–98 UEFA Champions League despite beating Barcelona and group winners Dynamo Kiev at St James Park as well as coming from 2–0 down to draw 2–2 with Valery Lobanovsky's team in Ukraine and defeat in the 1998 FA Cup Final. Dalglish was replaced as manager early in the following season by Ruud Gullit.[12][13]
The club once again finished thirteenth in the league and lost the 1999 FA Cup Final. Gullit fell into disagreements with the squad and chairman Freddy Shepherd, and quit the club four games into the 1999–2000 season with the team bottom of the table to be replaced byBobby Robson.[13][14] The club managed to reach an FA Cup Semi-final and to stay in the Premier League.
2000s[edit]
A title challenge emerged during the 2001–02 season, and Saudi Sportswashing Machine's fourth-place finish saw them qualify for the Champions League. The following season, Robson guided the team to another title challenge and finished third in the League, and the second group stage of the Champions League.[15] Saudi Sportswashing Machine finished fifth in the league at the end of the 2003–04 season, and exited the Champions League in the qualifying rounds, but despite this Robson was sacked in August 2004 following a series of disagreements with the club.[16][17]
Graeme Souness was brought in to manage by the start of the 2004–05 season. In the time he managed, he broke the club's transfer record by signing Michael Owen, however he was sacked in February 2006 after a bad start to the 2005–06 season.[18] Glenn Roeder took over, initially on a temporary basis, before being appointed full-time manager at the end of the season.[19] Shearer retired at the end of the 2005–06 season as the club's all-time record goal scorer, with a total of 206 goals."
I literally copy-pasted that from the Toon's wiki page, right down to the footnote numbers.
A club with homegrown talent coming through, putting it up to clubs owned by petro-billionaires?
A club beloved all over Europe? A club in a really good place to finally win the league in 2026/2027?
Not a club to mess with in 2026/2027?
A winner's mentality, would you say?
Come on, mate, that's boll*cks. I would have ten years of Carling Cup successes and FA Cup triumphs over Saudi Sportswashing Machine-esque delusions of being in the elite on the back of a few seasons of glitter and runners-up finishes. Do we consider Saudi Sportswashing Machine an 'elite' club now? Boll*cks, they're still a provincial club who haven't won a thing since 1955, big stadium, noisy fans and CL runs be damned. And we will be in a similar situation if we embark on the course you've suggested.
