Wullie

Putting a straw man up does nobody any favours Phil.

So we signed Barton, Ferdinand, Shearer, Ginola et al on debt then ten years later it came back to bite us? What a load of rubbish. Nut you've not answered my question. How long will you accept the club spending zero on players?

Nut how long will you accept his assertion that the club makes no money then, when it clearly used to make a lot more even with a massive mortgage to pay? Will you just believe him indefinitely that 25 million plus in gate money and 40 million in sky money just vanishes every year on Leon Best's wages? When we're still a yo-yo club in 2020 and still spending zero, is that still ok?

I know but we played in that competition twice previous to that. Where did that money come from to get us there?

I'm not talking about the last 18 months, i'm talking about the previous 10-15 years. Where did the money come from and why has that revenue not only dried up but now loses money despite a 20 million private investment on top of it? Sounds to me like he needs to go ask Shepherd how he managed it for so long and get some advice.

Fine, so as long as Mike says we're skint, we're skint. We'll be having the same argument in ten years and the club will still somehow haemorrage money without spending anything. Not like he was proven to be a liar in court or anything is it?

Why?

How did the club pay big fees and big wages for 15 years without outside investment then? That's without selling 50m worth of players and having a mortgage to pay!

How long are you prepared to accept his word that we are skint? Five, ten, twenty years? Newcastle United ran self sufficiently at the top level for nearly 15 years, all the while paying top end transfer fees. Now suddenly a 5m fee will cripple the club despite us selling 50m worth of players within the last 2 years as well as slashing the wage bill that Ashley built up? He is a proven liar and I don't believe for a second that he's not lying on this. How long is everyone still going to take his word as gospel?

Course we can afford it man, don't believe his bullshit.

Trouble is we might not be able to afford to give him a "fair crack of the whip". We're going to need every point and every goal we can get.

Lovenkrands did well for us in his previous PL spell, especially at home and considering how poor the team was (8 games, 3 goals). I was all for giving Xisco games after he arrived but this is two years later and all he's got to show for it is a handful of unimpressive reserve outings and a very poor loan spell in La Liga. Struggle to comprehend why you'd choose him ahead of a player like Lovenkrands who imo has a lot going for him. 21 starts, 16 goals last season speaks for itself even in the CCC.

On what basis would you start Xisco?

I'm confident we'll go for a quality central midfielder to save our season. Michael Johnson is still available, right?

Most business doesn't happen in the last week, that's rubbish. Are you aware we're playing on Sunday?

Saying it doesn't matter when the deals are done is absolutely ludicrous. If we sign Messi on Monday, will the league give us back the points that we dropped the previous day?

Is this lad just doing a whistle stop tour of cities with clubs he's heard are interested?

Bizarre to me that some people are happy to see the transfer window just tick happily by and for us to take our time. We are playing on Sunday you know? Seeing as we went down by a point last time, I'd rather not throw a potential three away, thanks very much. Wish the start of the season could be the end date, our attitude just infuriates me.

The club will never be self sufficient as a yo-yo club. It was self sufficient through the 90s with less transfer fees and far higher ground income (albeit lower wages too) when we were spending money to compete with the big boys. I appreciate things have changed re: Man City, Chelsea etc but the club no longer being able to compete with Everton, Spurs right down to Stoke City and Bolton? Nah sorry, not buying it.

This ridiculous myth that the club has no income and can only spend money if Mike Ashley raids his own personal piggy bank has to stop. John Hall and Freddy Shepherd never put a single penny into NUFC over a fifteen year period and still managed to have us competing for the title, playing in cup finals, playing in the Champions League and paying big money for quality players. Yes their reign turned sour thanks to a few dud managers who in turn made more than a few dud signings and left us in a bit of a state (much less of a state than certain other Premier League clubs who continue to improve their side I might add) but that took nearly two decades to get to that point - I remember arguments on here about them taking massive dividends out of the club each year atop massive salaries and still we managed to spend money on players, long before any financial troubles loomed large. Now I appreciate that there was debt left over but much of this was on the stadium. Ashley claims that it was mainly on transfer fees previously paid - what were these mega fees out of line with most other clubs cos I must have missed them? A Boumsong here and a Luque there might not be ideal but I don't think it should cripple the club. I would also argue that a club needs debt to compete. I have a massive debt on my house, but we all do, I'm not going to stop replacing the lightbulbs because of it. Over time season ticket prices have soared yet the sort of transfer fees we as a club pay have remained similar - in fact nowadays they are vastly less than they were in the early to mid-90s with a much smaller ground. We no longer pay the mortgage on the ground that we did when we upgraded it, so we get the vast majority of gate fees back into the coffers, something that has only been happening under Ashley's reign. Meanwhile the wage bill (which Ashley bloated when he arrived, despite his pleas that it was Shepherd alone) has been slashed, TV money rises year on year, we had a big parachute payment to cushion the drop back into the Championship, we have sold Bassong, Martins, N'Zogbia, Given, Duff, Milner et al for a combined total of nearly £50m and spent a small fraction of that on replacements. Now I know nothing about finances (obviously, I hear you cry ) and most people seem content to accept what they're being told by Ashley and his mates but to me, something isn't right with what we're being told re: the club's financials. Where is the money going compared to the previous fifteen years? How long can we accept the "we're skint" line? Five years? Ten years?

Absolutely astonished that anyone can feel comfortable of this squad staying up to the point where we don't need to strengthen. Also did someone say this squad is significantly stronger than that which went down? Where?? Please don't say team spirit, this is the Premier League, not the pub darts team.

And Ben Arfa was supposedly offered to us. It's clear as day that the club have no transfer strategy or policy. We just basically muddle from day to day hoping that something will come up on the cheap. I don't believe for a second that we have clearly identified targets or even targeted positions to strengthen.

You do half talk a load of steaming shite. Like you'd know.

Sometimes words fail me. Every other f***ing post tbh. His post is exactly what's wrong with a lot on here you included. It's always Ashley's fault, you can't see the wood for the trees and always see the pessimism in any transfer situation regarding Newcastle. What a fucking dimwit you are. Whose fault is it then that we wouldn't pay a ridiculously low fee for a young French international?

Marseille have done fuck all wrong tbh. Why would you be prepared to loan out a player like that unless you absolutely had to? They were always going to wait to see if someone would pay the relative pittance he was going for.