UV

How many times did Cronky have to vote 10 out of 10 to get him up to 2.6?

JG: So Alan you're saying we needed to sell Andy to pay for this new video camera? But we sold him for £35m and this Sports Direct sticker says £500. AP: Don't look at the price tag, that doesn't include er... VAT, and petrol to drive to the shop, and other stuff you wouldn't understand. It's all very expensive these days, and isn't the grass nice and warm. Anyway, just shut up and go over to that red cone, pretend it's a striker and kick some balls at it. JG: But if I hit it I might break it. AP: I think we'll be okay.

Yeap they don't seem to mention the most disastrous decision ever made in football, the appointment of Graeme Souness. Is this satire? If so, it's going way over my head.

They've spent £95m net, £2m less than Chelsea, works out at £19m per season since 2006. And people reckon we operate like them. According to that chart they've made a net profit on transfers every year. Unless I'm reading it wrong. You are reading it right. He isn't. What he said might be correct from an accountancy point of view, but it's not from a point of view of what most people mean (and I'm pretty sure what Ian meant) when they talk about a net profit/spend on transfers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but basically those numbers would not be affected by incoming transfers (the money paid for a player tops up the intangible assets total, so the accounts balance out - ie you pay £10m but you have a £10m asset so accounting wise you're no better or worse off for the purchase). That "profit on player sales" is basically the amount of money you got for selling any players minus their book value at the time (which is their original purchase price reduced by the amortisation applied to that player over their time at the club). This is why most clubs would show a profit on player sales most years, and the only reason they wouldn't would be if they bought a player and sold him within a couple of years for a lot less. Accountancy fun: We made a profit on the sale of Luque. He was sold for £2m in Ashley's first year and this was all "profit" because he was written off as an asset in the accounts for the previous year.

You're happy -- nay, eager -- to snout out ancient, dusty quotes from discussions of yore, but can't be arsed to look through one thread for the information you want? The search feature really is like voodoo to some isn't it. It's quite easy to use, but it isn't really black magic and it can't find things that don't exist.

That's what you get when you have the Dave's for mods "Delayed due to medical issue" sounds a lot more negative than "set to join". Plus it gives the opportunity for conspiracy theorist idiots to say that the club never had any intention to sign Ba and was just tricking the fans so that the club appears ambitious! Yep, that's what everyone's been saying, the club were just pretending to sign a free transfer to look ambitious. Nail on the head there.

Not been following the thread, but can someone tell me which reliable source this offer from us of a 4 year contract on £55k has come from? Thanks.

Toon's Taylor registered, and was banned, after just 1 post earlier in week for asking who their next messiah was Credit where it's due.

He agreed to a pay cut. The problem is the length of the contract. Fair enough, the headline talks about not getting a pay rise... on closer inspection the quotes don't even mention it. On even closer inspection they do mention it! My brain doesn't seem to be working today. FWIW that shouldn't be read as they wouldn't offer 1p more than what he's already on, but that they wouldn't offer 1p more than their previous new contract offer. Yes because they didn't sack him out of the goodness of their hearts. For once they let their mask of contempt for players and supporters alike slip and their true compassionate nature shone through. They stopped his wages and threatened to sack him if he didn't sign a reduced contract. You may say they were morally in the right to do so, but obviously legally they didn't have a leg to stand on as no new contract was signed and they backed down from their threats. The decision to not sack Barton was purely a financial one to not let a £6m asset go for free on the club's behalf, and nothing he should be grateful to them for.

No it isn't. UV has a library of posts which he's bookmarked and filed away for future reference. What is the point of the internet if you can't put such diligent cyber-plotting to good use? On the one hand Ian I'm honoured that you're so impressed by my internet skills, on the other it's a bit worrying that you think putting "Zogbia" into a search query is advanced stuff. Not surprised that its a bit like witchcraft for Tron like. My memory's shit, but it's easy enough to remember the repeated petulance and moodiness of N'Zogbia, and the almost universal reactions on here when N'Zogbia left as shame to lose a decent player on his (infrequent) day, but good riddance to a bad influence in the dressing room. Which is why it's so surprising to see so many of the same people frothing about possibly getting him back and completely blanking the issues we had with him throughout his time here before. Seeing you go on about how we now look into the character of players Ian (Ben Arfa is another example of solid down to earth type who never causes trouble I guess ) is laughable.

I'd have gladly taken £3million that we originally turned down. Says more about you tbh. Yeah dumb old me who didn't want to sell Zog for £6million and now we are looking at paying double to buy him back. Has fuck all to with this. It shows judgement though. http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,72730.0.html

I guess they have the memories of goldfish then, as do a few others on here it seems http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,59773.0.html Are you saying the club dont have a pretty shit hot idea on the background and attitude of Charles N'Zogbia? Really? /not that we have said we are chasing him in the first place mind. //:ilaughlikeajapanesegirl: I'll spell it out then. The club know exactly what the background and attitude of Charles N'Zogbia is, and it's the antithesis of what is being talked about in this thread. /Pardew said we inquired about him in January. Is he a liar? Was he lying in that instance?

I guess they have the memories of goldfish then, as do a few others on here it seems http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,59773.0.html

So every other signing he made for us, all of whom did something decent counted for nothing, what a fantastic bunch of cunts. No. Besides the fact that this is the express, and there are zero attributable quotes, there is, to be fair, a good deal of difference between a 'factor', and 'largely down to'. I think the point is that unless you expect a manager to have a 100% track record with transfers, 1 or 2 low cost/free transfers which don't work amongst a fair few transfers which have been decent to good value for money shouldn't even be a negative 'factor', if anything the record for transfers while he was manager (if he had much/any say in it) should have been a reason to keep him. Will Kuqi be a 'factor' in getting rid of Pardew if he falls out of favour?

You know who else blamed the training ground surface for injuries.... I don't recall there being so many injuries in the harder Winter last season, and haven't most of our training ground injuries come post-Winter. The problem with the training ground was that they couldn't use it and had to train indoors, not that they were training on it while frozen.

I agree with you. I find this a bit embarrassing, considering Hughton's overall record since he's been in charge. If fans of another club were doing this, we'd be laughing at them and saying how weak and fickle they are. The club has to hold its nerve through the difficult times. Unless Hughton has lost the support of the dressing room - and there's absolutely no indication of that - then the club should be fully behind him. bobyule's opinion changing to suit whatever Ashley does shocker.

Yep. The benefits of playing Harper are non-existant. If you don't consider conceding less goals of benefit to the team, then this opinion is spot on. Harper is a better keeper than Krul for now because we concede less goals when he's playing. FACT. Krul's inexperience isn't going to magically disappear overnight or even in the course of a season. He's not 18, he's 23, he's played a lot of games (for a keeper IMO it's not so important at what level you're playing at to be able to learn the basics of your game) and done all of the quick learning and improvement he's going to do, any progress from where he is now will be slow and it will take years before he cuts out a lot of his mistakes if he ever does (some don't - "he can only get better" is a fallacy). I have no problem dropping Harper if he declines, or Krul improves noticeably, or if Forster is actually considered a better keeper now (I have no idea about Forster), but playing a younger keeper just for the sake of tying to keep him happy or in the hope the experience of making mistakes in high profile games will improve him faster than making mistakes in the reserves or in a lower league is stupid IYAM.

TBF Man U should follow their example and get rid Ferguson for giving Owen a contract, and Arsenal should have got rid of Wenger last year after he took Campbell on too. Pathetic dig at Hughton from Llambias the mysterious Mr C Source. Of course with all the other signings Hughton had no say, but that one, that shit one, that was all his. Similar to when Keegan left, and all the "good" players signed were Wise's signings and all the shit ones (and stupid alleged targets) were Keegan's in spite of what was said by the players themselves. The sad thing is some will just swallow this whole.

1) It wasn't the biggest fee ever in British football 2) You don't know they wouldn't have sold for less if that's all that was offered. 3) It's nothing like that analogy at all He had no choice about the club selling Carroll. However he made a big song and dance when he joined about being given a guarantee that Carroll would not be sold. If he had any integrity he should have made a stand and threatened to quit if the player was sold (unless he was replaced immediately with a striker he considered to be better and was given a guarantee that all the remaining money would be put back into in the transfer budget). As it was we went into the second half of the season where we were doing okay, but were by no means safe from relegation with 1 striker who was proven to be adequate at this level, but who is very injury prone, 1 striker who was proven to be inadequate at this level, and 2 strikers who were completely unproven at this level. Newly promoted clubs are notorious for having a good start and nosediving in the second half of the season, the sale of Carroll with no replacement could easily have triggered that decline. It's risky management to the point of negligence from an owner who has supposedly learned from his mistakes, but the manager being the senior man in charge of the footballing side of the club should be doing everything in his power to try to stop it or at least try and compensate for the loss of the player with an immediate replacement, permanent or otherwise. For all we know he may have. I don't particularly believe that he did, as for me it would have involved using the press more to put the onus on the owner not to sell, eg with "the owner knows that if the player is sold after the assurances I've been given then I'll walk" kind of ultimatums, rather than typical raise the price press talk. However, if he did in fact in private do everything in his power to stop the transfer or ensure an adequate replacement was brought in for the second half of the season, the fact that the club made no attempt to even pretend to do so (a la the Richardson/N'Zogbia "enquiries") goes to show just how little influence he has, and how highly the owner and the casino boss value the opinion of their manager in footballing matters. It certainly shouldn't encourage people to put much credence in what he is now saying about the Summer and in his ability to have much say in what happens.

Except that there are plenty of people who are still saying things like he comes across well in interviews, and he's saying all the right stuff giving them hope for the future, etc. eg: When people are so readily convinced by words, what's wrong with occasionally reminding them how reliable the source is?

1) It wasn't the biggest fee ever in British football 2) You don't know they wouldn't have sold for less if that's all that was offered. 3) It's nothing like that analogy at all He had no choice about the club selling Carroll. However he made a big song and dance when he joined about being given a guarantee that Carroll would not be sold. If he had any integrity he should have made a stand and threatened to quit if the player was sold (unless he was replaced immediately with a striker he considered to be better and was given a guarantee that all the remaining money would be put back into in the transfer budget). As it was we went into the second half of the season where we were doing okay, but were by no means safe from relegation with 1 striker who was proven to be adequate at this level, but who is very injury prone, 1 striker who was proven to be inadequate at this level, and 2 strikers who were completely unproven at this level. Newly promoted clubs are notorious for having a good start and nosediving in the second half of the season, the sale of Carroll with no replacement could easily have triggered that decline. It's risky management to the point of negligence from an owner who has supposedly learned from his mistakes, but the manager being the senior man in charge of the footballing side of the club should be doing everything in his power to try to stop it or at least try and compensate for the loss of the player with an immediate replacement, permanent or otherwise.

I'm feeling a bit left out as I only know basic holiday Spanish body language. Its there anywhere I can watch the games with English subs? Edit: Oops is that asking for an illegal link? Forget it then, maybe I'll go to foreign body language classes in the Summer.

Nope. It's a massive red herring IMO. Decent excuse for not spening any money at this stage ever though. Sorry guys, we really wanted to spend the money we got from Carroll and the other profits we made from last year, but that was in last year's accounts before the financial fair play rules kicked in. If we spend it now it'll mean we make a loss this year and those damn bureaucrats in UEFA would stop us from playing in the Champions League in 2013. We'll just have to pay off some of the debt to Mike instead. Never mind, cheer yourselves up with the news that we're finally going to reward Shola for his years of dedication to the club with the recognition he deserves. Three cheers for Newcarsles new number 9!

Simplified.