Matt

Frying pan/fire. Blue Star is a pretty soulless experience with a hundred people rattling around KP. You're better off just groundhopping- if you've got a free saturday just pick a local game that takes your fancy.

£20 I'll never see back on the train tickets then. Is this it for the season or are there more to come?

This will be the season ticket payments, I suspect. Using next year's ticket sales to keep paying players wages.

Before amortisation, impairment and exceptional items (though how we can count sacking a manager as exceptional these days....)- Turnover- £98.8m Op costs- £100.8m So £2m down from the very off! We're not generating enough money and too much is going out on wages. The underlying business is extremely fragile. There's nothing to say we'll definitely get a sign off in July- only Ashley's desire to protect his intiial investment can keep us a going concern.

No, you're double counting there. Depreciation is just a way of matching what you paid for something to what useful life you get out of the asset. So we sign Owen for £16m in 2005- out goes £16m in cash but we only record a cost of £4m when we first acquire him. Next year £4m until the end of his contract= £16m over the four years. Otherwise you would be making an excessive loss in year one and an excessive profit in the last three- depreciation simply spreads the cost fairly- just don't confuse cost with physical flow of cash.

This. Also, you're not allowed to switch FA Cup ties unless on police or council advice- both have stated they have no case for switching the tie as they don't expect a sizeable away support.

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/P/peep_show/images/galleries/season_three/peep_show_s3_ep1_suze_400x251.jpg Big Suze.

While I take Indi's point it suggests a 100% equity injection. While of course you take on varying degrees of risk and require some pretty rigourous cashflow management (eg long term ST debentures, contribution schemes etc) you could fund such a deal a mix of debt to equity. Football clubs are unstable businesses and I'm not a sector expert (I work with transport and utility companies) but I'm sure you could at least acheive a 1:1 ratio. That would have the bodes required on each of your numbers. How much more attainable that is in people eyes is a matter of opinion. The flipside of that is debtholders come first- so you have to pay your interest bill before you can go out and sign players. Providing the club is still making money, that wouldn't be a problem. Arsenal issued bonds on a £225m season-ticket backed securitisation. We'd not hit that, but it could be done (though not right now as bond markets are fucked).

Boycotts only work if they are widespread- it's obvious this won't be the case on Saturday-it will just make it appear that the fans are divided amongst themselves- if we are to be united then we should be in the ground.

Citi have barely got two pennies to rub together at the minute.

Quite common on the continent.

He played against us while still employed at NUFC as a coach. Fell out with Pavel after his mistake in the away game in Metz and swiftly departed to take up a role at Leeds. Went on to player-manager at Blyth before his chaotic management style led to an inevitable exit. Worked in Oman as a coach but was badly injured when he was involved in a car accident when he was on a bike ride. He's a pundit and part-time coach in the Middle East last I heard after he'd got over his crash.

Stagnation, relegation. It's not about paying massive wages or penny pinching- it's about VALUE. We absolutely must get that balance right. We've clearly got it wrong in the past, but there's a danger we could go too far the other way.

If did something that could cause damage to my employers' reputation, I'd be for the door- it's down in my contract classed as gross misconduct.

As it's a direct debit your bank will honour it and if you go overdrawn you get to enjoy all the bank fees that come along.

Paid in instalments over last season- not taking them up on any advance renewals though. They can raise it if they like, I'll still have the option of renewing or not.

Under the terms of the stadium refinancing deal, no. FYP FYP again.

I'd already paid up front for this coming season and I personally consider £50 or so a reasonable price on the option of the ticket, rather than the commitment to shell out regardless.

Sound like the Scouse Anal Oliver.

I used to get the summer special ones, as the transfers meant new posters to put up and some to put down. Used to put up the ones from the pink too, even though they looked terrible!

I would be very surprised if the debtholders waived the change of control clause on the senior debt, prompting the original notes to be repaid. The club is probably in effect paying the same rates, but only on a rollover facility in favour of Ashley, or more likely an offshore company where the topco interest received will be taxed at a more favourable rate. This is what Abrahmovic has done at Chelsea- every penny he has put in has been in the favour of the shareholders loan- it gives equity and debtholder control on the business.

They'll be at SJHL level, a massive shareholder loan (tax-friendly) which is then on-loaned to NUFC to pay off the creditors. Simple cash management from Ashley's point of view. I don't understand why the club are so keen to get money now. I could maybe understand the season up front last summer, but three seasons is too long. I'm not sure what the underlying motive is, but I wouldn't say it says much for the club's confident to retain custom two years down the line- in which case what are they planning that will upset so many people that they want committment now? It's all speculation at this stage but I'd far rather retain the option to renew or not and pay a few extra quid for the privilege. If this was double glazing, would you do it?

His wages meant he was poor value for money and exactly the sort of player to be rid of. Transfer fees are of secondary importance. We can sign a much better player with the headroom that will provide.

If, as we expect, Spurs spend big again this summer, I think they will be under pressure to perform in the league. It's all very well lauding a wage structure, but ultimately if it is too rigid the better players will depart and the CL place will continue to prove elusive. It is however, a good strategy when aiming to get a club somewhere between 8th-5th. I wonder if that's our medium-term aim.

He's not the sort of person to deliberately injure someone. Injuries happen.