Last time we saw Newcastle owner Mike Ashley, he was tearing up Pink Elephant and buying 175 bottles of Cristal while Rome burned. Now fans are giving him a hard time for selling striker Andy Carroll to Liverpool. They need to back up off him like Ed Lover and Dr. Dre. The man has issues.

Newcastle managed to take Liverpool for £35M in exchange for Carroll. One would think the Scousers would have seen it coming considering how robbery is their forte. No way he’s worth that amount despite that being what the market will bear.

Carroll claimed he was forced out. Of course he could have refused to sign a new contract but everyone knows he’s full of shit like Harry Redknapp. He should be happy. He’s now in a city that embraces a criminal like him. Meanwhile Newcastle fans are left holding the team’s official calendar which features Liverpool’s newest striker as Mr. February.

That’s not the worst of it. Newcastle supporters should know better if they think Ashley is going to reinvest the proceeds from the Carroll sale. He would have bought another striker to replace him before the transfer window closed. He’s got more important things to do like lose nearly £1M playing craps.

The Newcastle United owner blew the cash on a night out with team manager Alan Pardew.

At first he hit a winning streak and was soon up £130,000.

Then his luck turned and after two hours’ further play at the craps table he was down an eye-watering £970,000.

Apparently Ashley didn’t care. He still has £889M to lose and he’ll get a decent payout from balloon payments when Newcastle gets relegated again. What’s the lesson here? Alan Pardew makes everything he touches a loser. Somewhere Chris Hughton is laughing.

Seriously, Ashley is going to ruin the club he claims to love through idiotic decisions. For all the talk about Liverpool’s ownership issues, Newcastle has the most to worry about over the rest of the season and into the next. He fired Hughton who brought the team back to the Premier League and had them playing well. He replaced him with a manager who is a perennial loser and was fired from a lower league job because he couldn’t get it done there. He can’t be trusted to buy players who would help the team long or short term. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Photo: The Sun

Has it been a year already fellow thrill seekers? My how time flies. Last season, I actually did finish over .500 for my picks, which was pretty darn lucky I think. Can I do it again? We shall see. There’s a lot of games this week starting with the Thursday night opener and finishing up with double the normal Monday Night Football action with two games taking place. Where to begin?

For those of you new to the weekly Pick Em post, I will go through and pick each game of the week, either with the spread, money line or total points scored. The picks will be in all caps and in bold. I will finish the post with my Upset Special of the Week and the Lock of the Week, meaning you can skip to the bottom for the real good stuff if you’d like.

If you follow along with my picks, you probably aren’t very smart. That being said, I was over .500 in my picks last season meaning if you actually bet money and used all my picks last season, you made some money.  Congrats.*

This weeks’ column is brought to you by Amanda of the Vikings cheerleading squad and by Fan Duel, where if you click through you can legally bet on fantasy football action. Full disclosure, I get a little cash if you do. Not a bad deal for all.

Lets get on to the picks.

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