UV

How people can make that kind of statement based on 2 or 3 games is beyond me.

Get in! Just wonder where this profit will end up going though. In his pocket, on the squad or on the balance sheet to make the club look more of an attractive prospect to others. On the squad and on the balance sheet pretty much equate to the same thing dontcha think? Anyway, I haven't got the figures in fornt of me, but any reported profit will be BEFORE any sales and purchases of players. So say we made a profit of £10m and spent net £11m (as I say I aint got the figures here) then we have reinvested all and more of the revenue during the year Seriously? Seems like a pretty big omission from a profit & loss statement to me. Mind you, Mike says we never actually paid for any players before he came anyway, we just gave the selling clubs promise notes to be collected when the club was sold on to a generous (and handsome) Billionaire.

Forget bankrolling the club, at the moment he's not even putting anything like what is generated in revenue back into the development of the club. There's not much point in trying to build a team from cheap young players if we can't keep them happy and hold onto them once they become even remotely good. If people think a young model-pro player who has never openly complained once despite having greater cause to than most who has the PFA acting as his agent is being a t*** to the club and overly greedy, then god help us when we get in all these brilliant new youngsters with real agents. If anyone thinks we're going to go out and build a team to improve on where we currently are now from £1-2m kids who will all be better than Milner and be happy to stay on low wages forever, then they really are living in cloud cookoo land. Have you got some figures on what the club is making against what is going back into the club? I didn't think they were made public these days. Your other paragraph is classic straw man material. How are Coloccini and Gutierrez '£1-2m kids'? We need to be signing young players, cheap players and also expensive first-team players where required. Where has anyone ever suggested we don't? I'm pretty sure the wage bill has gone down, the TV income has gone up, and we have extra revenue from pulling in future years season ticket money now. http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/tm_headline=newcastle-united-one-of-eight-clubs-to-make-profit%26method=full%26objectid=20989122%26siteid=61634-name_page.html We made a profit in 06-07. We're heading the way of making a massive profit in 08-09 Your whole initial post is based on a straw man argument. I'm saying that that is what a lot of people on here are suggesting the club should do, try to be successful on the cheap. Buying Coloccini went against that as he would be the "simply spending lots of money guarantees nothing" kind of player you're talking about. I think we should be buying more players like him (as well as youngsters), and 1 or 2 such players per season will get us nowhere.

Is this roughly accurate? Aston Villa Owned by: R Lerner (since 2006). Value: c.£90m Turnover: £52.7m (to 31 May 2007). Profit/loss: £18.8m op' loss. Debt: £37m. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/whats-in-the-kitty-how-the-premier-league-clubs-shape-up-financially-834762.html Because if is is, then our non-stadium based "debt mountain" was not significantly more than yours is currently, and out stadium based "debt mountain" easily covered itself as an investment (as long as the club can fill it). Paying off the debt is irrelevant to the club other than it saves a couple of million a year in repayments, which is not to be sniffed at in the long run, but in the short to medium term is insignificant. Man U, Liverpool, and Arsenal seem to be doing just fine with their far more significant debts. The debt repayment is a massive red herring for how the club is so much better off now, as at the end of the day Ashley could sell the club tomorrow for £250m to HedgeFundsRUs who fund the purchase entirely on money borrowed against the club and we'd be up to our necks in far more debt than we ever had previously while he walks off with a tidy profit and 3 years worth of advance season ticket money leaving us really in the shit.

Forget bankrolling the club, at the moment he's not even putting anything like what is generated in revenue back into the development of the club. There's not much point in trying to build a team from cheap young players if we can't keep them happy and hold onto them once they become even remotely good. If people think a young model-pro player who has never openly complained once despite having greater cause to than most who has the PFA acting as his agent is being a twat to the club and overly greedy, then god help us when we get in all these brilliant new youngsters with real agents. If anyone thinks we're going to go out and build a team to improve on where we currently are now from £1-2m kids who will all be better than Milner and be happy to stay on low wages forever, then they really are living in cloud cookoo land.

name me a better player that you could get for £1mil. Jonas? I doubt we only paid £1m for Jonas. That would leave him severely out of pocket.

I've very rarely criticised Ashley actually, I've mostly just criticised the hypocritical muppets who fawn over his every word or deed (or more aptly lack of word and lack of deed). I am criticising him - or whoever has the job - over this though. It doesn't benefit Milner leaving it until this late in the transfer window. Milner has been very professional about this, not like other players who have wanted to leave and left the club in a weaker position. If the club is left with either no time to get a replacement, or with an unhappy player on it's hands, then it's the clubs own fault for not sorting it out one way or the other sooner.

Agreed. It's irrelevant what a bunch of people on the internet think about Milner, the fact is the manager rates him as a regular first team player and wants to keep him. The club have known he wants a new contract for ages, and yet have done nothing to resolve the situation - either agree the new contract or sell him in time to bring in a replacement if he really does want too much cash (I doubt that tbh). It's the same with Owen, where the longer it goes on unresolved the worse it is for the club. Whoever is in charge of player contracts whether it be Ashley, Llambias, Vetere or Wise is doing a pretty s*** job IMO. We should be giving players new deals every year? Yes actually, I don't see why not if we want to keep them. With the Webster ruling no contract is worth the paper its written on for more than 3 years anyway. Thanks for not bothering to read the whole sentence though.

Agreed. It's irrelevant what a bunch of people on the internet think about Milner, the fact is the manager rates him as a regular first team player and wants to keep him. The club have known he wants a new contract for ages, and yet have done nothing to resolve the situation - either agree the new contract or sell him in time to bring in a replacement if he really does want too much cash (I doubt that tbh). It's the same with Owen, where the longer it goes on unresolved the worse it is for the club. Whoever is in charge of player contracts whether it be Ashley, Llambias, Vetere or Wise is doing a pretty shit job IMO.

Just heard about this from the Stoke supporter at work: http://www.stokecityfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10310~1371834,00.html Apparently if they can't get the permit the deal's off. Can't see it not going through like, but weird how he has to reapply after 3 years in the prem. Does this mean that say if Martins was to give up playing for Nigeria we'd not be able to sell him to anyone else in England, or even Europe?

I know that. However a lot of people only seem to realise that or want to admit it when they need to defend the new order and portray it as so much better than before. Owen was a LMPB to sell season tickets you know. However I've no wish to get into another debate about it ATM, so that's the last I'll mention it ITT.

Sounds like they're almost in the bag. Thank goodness the days of LMPBs are long gone with the new recruitment team. Beye & Faye. Sibierski, Rossi & Bernard. All Allardyce's work. I was specifically talking about the much praised new recruitment setup and was referring to the many claims of how the days of last minute panic buys were behind us because of it. How those LMPBs turn out is irrelevant. Also, Sibierski was at least as successful a signing as Faye.

Sounds like they're almost in the bag. Thank goodness the days of LMPBs are long gone with the new recruitment team.

We only have 3 players out, and already it's a "make do and mend first 11", and if you look at the bench, there's no-one you'd really want to bring on if you needed to change things. I think that shows how thin the squad really is. On average, most teams will have around 5-6 players injured at any time, and unless we strengthen with at least a few more players capable of holding their own in the premiership then we're going to struggle to do much better than last year when we had a fairly injury free year. We can forget trying to get into Europe with the squad we have now IMO unless we're very, very lucky with injuries, and all the new signings maintain their 1st game form. I also really hope we can get someone in who can take a decent free kick from just outside the box, otherwise we're just going to waste loads of good scoring opportunities throughout the season, and as a knock on effect, any team with a manager smart enough to realise we don't pose a threat at free kicks will just send his team out to hack us down outside the area whenever there's any sign of danger.

It's as if you've been in a coma while Souness, Roeder and Allardyce were here, or something. Lucky you. were we owned by a billionaire in those days? and what about souness bringing in owen, pretty big name in my opinion So you want to be the new Chelsea, rather than a self-sustaining entity? And what about Owen? A big name that's hardly been about to play. We could do with fewer purchases like that and more Colos, more Jonases. Spurs are in Europe. Newcastle are not even in Europe right now, let alone the Champions League. There's no big mystery as to why we're not going for the 'big' names here. We've declined and it's harder to get them in. Fair? Yeah, less of this impatience. I want more relatively unknown signings I can claim are a success after 1 game. Owen was signed when we finished 14th and were not in Europe btw.

When are we playing Sheffield United like?

Yet with others (Yakubu and Viduka spring to mind) the accusation is that they only play well when their contract is nearly up. If what you say is the case with Owen, then it will severely dent the signing on fee and wages he will be able to demand at the end of the season. Every other interested club will also be worried about his fitness and current ability, so if he's as mercenary as people seem to think, he could have no better incentive than to prove his worth to other clubs and have a great season for us.

Yeah, we should handsomely reward people who harass and provoke people in the public eye. Really sends out the right message for the youth of today on how to get ahead in the world.

nail on head; i'd sell him assuming we had a replacement but you've picked all the reasons he won't be sold there and why he'll most likely walk (imo) at the end of his contract i've just got no faith in the guy, he's englands michael owen to me nothing more nothing less - his loyalty so far in his career has been to money and country, not club(s) Why the hell does Owen always get singled out as having no loyalty? The only players these days who are loyal to a club over personal wealth and/or ambition are the ones no other fucker wants. Any player who is in demand will use any leverage they can to get more of the vast amounts of money in the game which people pay to see THEM. It's annoying to us as supporters, but it's nothing every single one of us wouldn't do ourselves, and anyone who says they wouldn't is lying. I'll take that bet. How much? 5 goals comfortable enough?

Souness was just like Wenger. He could see when a player was past their best and knew when to get rid.

Given at his best isn't streets ahead of Harper at his best, the difference is minimal and they both have strengths and weaknesses. Given has had one good game, let's see him do it week after week. He's done it year after year, Harper has done it once week after week. Given's form was horrendous last season and the season before. It'll take more than one good game to make me think he's 'back to his best' Was it s****. Yes it was shite. Hopefully the knee jerkers are right, he wouldn't have got down to that low save last season I'm pretty sure of that. Distribution was still woeful like.

If anyone needs a reality check, they only need to look at the subs bench with only 3 injuries. Of course that will change in the next 2 weeks, but how significantly is anyone's guess.

Just so they could bump up the transfer fee. :-[

Dawson for £10m and beat Blackburn to Fowler.

Stoke supporting lad at work has heard he took a medical with them yesterday and he failed it. The story goes he failed it for the same reason he failed his medical for us? They are still going ahead with the transfer but are trying to renegotiate the deal. Take that with as much salt as you like.