UV

That bidding war sure worked out well.

I wondered how they could arrest 2 people when there were considerably more than that singing the bomb thing around me. Also, with Mido being at the other end of the pitch, would he have heard it. However, I did see some mention of some "racist behaviour" when he was warming up - maybe something was said then for which the 2 were arrested. I hope they manage to arrest the rest of the tossers. Do you also think they should arrest Ashley for his comments in the national press? Maybe those supporters were just taking cues from the club's owner. Yes, offending Osama Bin Laden is much the same as offending Mido, after all. No, he was insulting the Bin Laden family - THERE ALL TERRISTS LOL Which I agree isn't the same as taking the piss out of someone because they look like someone infamous.

I wondered how they could arrest 2 people when there were considerably more than that singing the bomb thing around me. Also, with Mido being at the other end of the pitch, would he have heard it. However, I did see some mention of some "racist behaviour" when he was warming up - maybe something was said then for which the 2 were arrested. I hope they manage to arrest the rest of the tossers. Do you also think they should arrest Ashley for his comments in the national press? Maybe those supporters were just taking cues from the club's owner.

That should help us land an arab buyer...but hey it was just a bit of harmless fun! (again). I think that got a but scuppered when Ashley made his "I am not looking for Newcastle shareholders in a cave in Afghanistan" comment tbh.

There'll be no outing of "truth", merely a battle over semantics.

Here to comment on the thread Ozzie?

http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,58111.msg1587486.html#msg1587486 my opinion on the rest of your post that I clipped is that its too little too late, he's been a disaster and lots of you younger guys are now seeing what the club was run like for decades before, eeeer,, 1992. Not quite so bad, but getting there. I also agree that the clubs ambition is now limited to staying in the top league. Now, THAT is "going backwards", because its a major shift in policy. But I pointed this out ages ago too. Before this exercise in revisionist history runs it's course, it's worth pointing out that we have been struggling in the bottom half of the table for the last FIVE years. Ashley has been here for only ONE of those, which means that Freddy Shepherd was in charge for FOUR years of similar struggle. That was despite spending heavily on players, some of who turned out to be massive wastes of money. It could be argued it was the Roy Keane route to disaster. Something to think about. I think your maths is very poor. Enlightening response It should be. 5th and 7th is struggling in the bottom half of the table is it? That's revisionist. Roeder's seventh place involved long periods in the bottom half and relegation was talked about even back then Exactly. I'm sure UV knows this, just as he must know that even SBR's final season when we finished 5th, we struggled badly for the first half of it. Unless UV's trying to make the point that Freddie Fantastic sacked SBR without any good reason whatsoever. So you're not going to even admit that you didn't mean to include Robson's final season, and got your maths all wrong. Okay, have it your way. This season and last are just the same as when we finished 5th under Robson. Priceless. UV accuses me of getting my maths wrong, realises he's actually got his wrong after being pointed in the right direction, and then claims I didn't mean to get my maths right - so there! I'm gutted tbh, how could I have not realised that the season we finished 5th was one where we were "struggling in the bottom half of the table" and was similar to last season and this, even though we weren't in the bottom half at any point after mid october. Thanks for putting my revisionist history straight, I was worried about relegation, but now realise we'll be knocking on the door of the Champions League places come the end of the season.

http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,58111.msg1587486.html#msg1587486 my opinion on the rest of your post that I clipped is that its too little too late, he's been a disaster and lots of you younger guys are now seeing what the club was run like for decades before, eeeer,, 1992. Not quite so bad, but getting there. I also agree that the clubs ambition is now limited to staying in the top league. Now, THAT is "going backwards", because its a major shift in policy. But I pointed this out ages ago too. Before this exercise in revisionist history runs it's course, it's worth pointing out that we have been struggling in the bottom half of the table for the last FIVE years. Ashley has been here for only ONE of those, which means that Freddy Shepherd was in charge for FOUR years of similar struggle. That was despite spending heavily on players, some of who turned out to be massive wastes of money. It could be argued it was the Roy Keane route to disaster. Something to think about. I think your maths is very poor. Enlightening response It should be. 5th and 7th is struggling in the bottom half of the table is it? That's revisionist. Roeder's seventh place involved long periods in the bottom half and relegation was talked about even back then Exactly. I'm sure UV knows this, just as he must know that even SBR's final season when we finished 5th, we struggled badly for the first half of it. Unless UV's trying to make the point that Freddie Fantastic sacked SBR without any good reason whatsoever. So you're not going to even admit that you didn't mean to include Robson's final season, and got your maths all wrong. Okay, have it your way. This season and last are just the same as when we finished 5th under Robson.

http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,58111.msg1587486.html#msg1587486 my opinion on the rest of your post that I clipped is that its too little too late, he's been a disaster and lots of you younger guys are now seeing what the club was run like for decades before, eeeer,, 1992. Not quite so bad, but getting there. I also agree that the clubs ambition is now limited to staying in the top league. Now, THAT is "going backwards", because its a major shift in policy. But I pointed this out ages ago too. Before this exercise in revisionist history runs it's course, it's worth pointing out that we have been struggling in the bottom half of the table for the last FIVE years. Ashley has been here for only ONE of those, which means that Freddy Shepherd was in charge for FOUR years of similar struggle. That was despite spending heavily on players, some of who turned out to be massive wastes of money. It could be argued it was the Roy Keane route to disaster. Something to think about. I think your maths is very poor. Enlightening response It should be. 5th and 7th is struggling in the bottom half of the table is it? That's revisionist.

http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,58111.msg1587486.html#msg1587486 my opinion on the rest of your post that I clipped is that its too little too late, he's been a disaster and lots of you younger guys are now seeing what the club was run like for decades before, eeeer,, 1992. Not quite so bad, but getting there. I also agree that the clubs ambition is now limited to staying in the top league. Now, THAT is "going backwards", because its a major shift in policy. But I pointed this out ages ago too. Before this exercise in revisionist history runs it's course, it's worth pointing out that we have been struggling in the bottom half of the table for the last FIVE years. Ashley has been here for only ONE of those, which means that Freddy Shepherd was in charge for FOUR years of similar struggle. That was despite spending heavily on players, some of who turned out to be massive wastes of money. It could be argued it was the Roy Keane route to disaster. Something to think about. I think your maths is very poor.

Liverpool were only interested, it was Everton who also put in a £10m+ bid according to numerous news sources at the time. Has anyone got any more details on the extent of the vast new worldwide scouting network yet btw?

I don't see how either you or Johnny can say what he was planning to do, the idea behind bringing in younger players is that it does cut down on expenses in that you have them develop at your club rather than have them develop somewhere else, our biggest problem in the Summer was that we didn't buy enough of them but who's fault that was I don't know. As for Milner, Are you for real? He was fucking shite, man. Even the Villa fans think so yet we should have tried to keep even though we sold him for double what he was worth?! Madness. When all other things are equal (existing contract duration, current ability, etc) a young player will cost more than an older player. You pay a premium for potential. As a way of putting together a team that can compete NOW it would be a more expensive route to go, not a cost saving exercise. If the young players you're bringing in are cheap, they're usually cheap for a reason, and the chances are they have a long way to go to before they are ready to be first choice selections. Of course you can get lucky and find a player like Bassong, or to a lesser extent Guthrie, but more often than not these youngster's who all clubs are on the lookout for will take years to develop, and in in most cases wont in fact reach their potential. Also, the system didn't find these players, the people within the system found them. The ones which were brought in, Keegan was obviously happy with. Who knows how successful the ones Keegan tuned down would have been, maybe Keegan was the one who could filter out the good ones. There's more chance that he knows how to spot a player than Wise, simply through having more experience at it. As for Milner, he's 22 & at least 2 clubs were in for him. It wasn't a one-time not to be missed sale, yet we were so desperate to offload him and get the cash before Mike tried to sell up, we rushed it thorough so he could play for Villa at the weekend while we were short on numbers in midfield. When you consider the low wages he'll be on & the years of professional, fairly consistent, low injury rate, uncomplaining service he'll give Villa, I think he'll easily be worth his transfer fee in value in the long run. I bet he'll create and score more goals than Jonas this season for a start [puts tin hat on].

Personally, I'd be appeased, but no more. If he spends money now I will think he's doing it because he feels he has to (to keep his investment in the PL) not because he wants to (to improve the team as much as he can year on year). It would take years of him regularly putting every penny of the club's self generated revenue back into the club as a minimum before I would believe in Ashley now (and that doesn't include paying off the debts to himself).

Only if you're buying from each other or competing with another PL club for a player. We are much stonger financially than most other European or lower league clubs. Anyway, most other clubs spent their windfall on transfer fees, and on raising their wage bill closer to ours which is why we by not spending it are dropping back into the pack. So effectively we might as well still have the debt. That's fine if Ashley stays, but would the money still have been there if he'd been able to sell up as he wanted or if he sells in the Summer? I'm not as convinced as most his desire to sell up started in September.

Does anyone know exactly what the "scouting system" consists of? To my knowledge/understanding it was just Vetere the international scout, Wise the lower league scout and boss of the team, and Jiminez the agent contact "scout" and negotiator. Jiminez has now gone & hasn't been replaced, but was/is there anything more to it than that? I stand to be corrected, but that's hardly a worldwide network of scouts as is being painted. If it's simply a case that Vetere is a good scout, then it's hardly a massive reason to hope we keep going with a system designed with a high turnover of managers in mind to smooth the transition between managers (great work there eh), or even to hope Ashley stays on as owner. I don't think anyone has any problem with someone other than the manager having full control of the Academy, although if we're looking to build a top class one it would have been nice to get in a top class person to run it. Like johnnypd I think Ashley brought in the system to keep a lid on expenses and to bring in players who would increase in value and be sold on at a profit. A massive difference from the idea of buying in the best young talent to build a long term successful team. I know most were overjoyed at the sale of Milner for so much, but the unwillingness we had to negotiate his contract, and his subsequent sale don't signal the intention that we are going to try too hard to hang on to the young players we bring in who do turn out to be any good. Why not? £18m extra TV revenue in 07-08, no interest payments to make, reduced wage bill, money from advance season ticket sales. Where has all the money gone?

If it's true, that's a fair price. If we are struggling to find buyers for that amount, you have to wonder what sort of people are in for the club and how much liquid assets they have at their disposal. I fail to see how our value has shot up by nigh £130m since his arrival. That's why you'll make a great Journo! Depends how you look at it. If I had say £300m to invest in a club with the intention of making money via success in the long run then I might take a view that paying £130m for a club which has £100m worth of debt which is serviceable on an ongoing basis would leave me £170m to spend on the team. A price of £260 for a debt free club leaves only £40m which may not be enough to provide the success. So what if you had £530m to invest in a club? I'd buy Liverpool. Gillett & Hicks paid £175m, & took on the £45m debt. What makes Ashley think he's going to get £260m for us (if the report is true) in a far worse economic climate?

The scale's all wrong. If 10 is doomed, 1 should be "no chance" rather than "unlikely". Unlikely should be about 3 or 4.

I was just getting over Dave's raging Xenophobia and gingeritis when I found out fredbob thinks all Muslims are Paedophiles and Ozziemandias thinks all football supporters who sing are thick! I can't believe such ignorance and stereotyping is allowed on here tbh!!! Shameful

Nationality =/= race. Race =/= Religion Why is it not just as bad? Is it not incitement to antipodean hatred? Is hatred of Australians okay in your evil twisted mind Dave?

Assuming that includes not spending much in the summer? You were one of the first to criticise him over transfer dealings. Not having a go btw, you were right then and I wasn't. Not spending enough in the summer was really just an effect of the breakdown in the transfer system in place. At the time I didn't know how in depth the problem was, i knew there was something amiss, but no one would say it was so serious KK was going to walk when the window closed. I blame Keegan for walking, its his choice, i blame Ashley for putting him in that position. Two wrongs don't make a right. Possibly, however I don't really see Keegan turning down the sort of players who would cost significant amounts of money (say £10m+). If the problem was Keegan turning down players rather than Wise not sanctioning purchases, or Jiminez failing to secure a transfer, I can only see it being because he either didn't rate them, or thought they were too unproven to go straight into the first team which is what was required for certain positions. Those types of players are ones you pick up for around £5m, like Xisco for example. If that's the case, then maybe we missed out on spending an extra £10m or so on a couple more youngsters, but I really don't think significant funding was there waiting to be spent. It depends what you consider "enough" I guess, but with the lack of significant spending the year before and with all the extra revenue coming into the club this year and last, I know I was expecting around £20m net at least.

Last year Chelsea made a profit on transfers. See how lucky we are to have Ashley instead of Abramovich!

I'm thinking more of a straight swap for Arteta. ... okay then, Baines.

It's true about Ashley's kids still going to the matches then.

Aye, he uses the safety of his kids as an excuse for why he has no choice but to sell the club, then when he can't sell it for a profit after a year when he's fucked up the club and put it in real danger of relegation at the same time as practically all other businesses have gone down massively in value, it looks like he's going to use his kids in PR to try and make it look like he's had a change of heart. Move over Mother Teresa, this man's a Saint. Watch out next week for part 2 "Ashley was offered £500m for the club but turned it down because he didn't think the new owners had the best interests of the club at heart."

Libertine's logic as impeccable as ever. Yeah, Keegan took the job just to pay off his debts, then left voluntarily after only 6 months leaving himself open to the club suing him for more than he was paid. Edit: Am I being wooshed? Is it a gimmick account trying to make Ashley supporters look retarded?