UV

I'm not sure you are getting the point here Dave. The guys saying this are suggesting that the extra money is not being invested in the playing squad and we should really at minimum expect this. TBH the facts back them up 100%, our net spend on trasnfers has been pretty has been paultry. I really don't see the relevance in you pointing out that Wigan Athletic got the same amount of money as us ?? And yes there has been plenty of business so far, from teams who need a hell of a lot more work than us. the problem is, the club has been losing 10 million + for the last few seasons all down to the wage bill which spiralled out of control I know Deloitte are probably not as reliable a source as macbeth's impartial website, but FWIW: 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

The hairstyles of players we may or may not be interested in were much better under the old board.

Keegan didnt say he'd not be able to get us into the top 4. He said we could, but it'd take 4-5 years. I.e. thats how long its going to take to undo the damage the previous board did in overseeing us going from CL qualifiers to a dogshit, relegation threatened club with plenty of s*** players on massive wages and unsustainable huge debts. Which is pretty accurate imo. Hopefully it'll take 2-3 years to undo the damage, but certainly there'll be no quick fix due to our current state and unattractiveness. completely spot on the damage the old board did to the club was massive, the souness appointment cos this club 5-10 years 4-5 years 5-10 years Give over man. High earners like Shola Dyer, Parker, Luque, Emre, and to a lesser extent Babayaro, Carr and Solano have all gone from the top end of the wage bill since Ashley came in. The only high earners left over from the bad old days of European football are Owen, Duff & probably Martins & Given. Has your boss had any more insights on that £100m that's available if Keegan can spend it btw?

At the end of the day, what incentive does Owen have to sign an extended contract at anything less than what he's currently on? Unless he has a career ending injury, it's unlikely that the same deal will not still be there at the end of the season, at which point he can take the best offer going both monetarily and career wise. If (IF) we are indeed set for a couple of years of "consolidation", I'd doubt he'd want to spend what should be some of his prime years treading water. To those saying he wouldn't get anything like what he's getting here anywhere else, well when you consider you could have eg Crouch or Defoe (£10m + £50kpw) or Owen (£0 + £100kpw / £5m up front + £75kpw) for a similar outlay over 4 years, I don't think he'll have too much of a problem at least matching what we're offering.

Thanks for the benefit of your experience. Well done Mike for those FA cups in the 50's If the club hadn't had the debts it would have been worth more like £200m than £130m, and the money would have gone to the Halls & Shepherd instead of the banks. So the Halls & Shepherd paid for the stadium expansion & player debts in reduced sale value.

For the benefit of Jon & Ozzie: You have to filter in wages, but yes that's exactly right. We're not paupers as a club, even without European football we still have the 6th highest turnover in the league. Noone is asking Ashley for a handout here, just for him to reinvest what the club makes back into the club. I don't agree with this resigned attitude that there necessarily has to be some kind of consolidation or years of mediocrity before we can then push on. That's not to say that if we show some ambition and don't immediately get back into the CL I'll be shouting Ashley out. Trying and failing is acceptable. Not trying to the limit of our ability is not. Man City were in a far far worse state squad wise last year than we are now. Thaksin spent a fair amount, but it wasn't extortionate, and he has still spent nothing more than he will expect to recoup in the future. I keep hearing that it's different now because of all these new Billionaire owners, but apart from Abramovich, none of these new billionaire owners are footballing philanthropists. They're not doing it for the love of the game. They expect to make money at the end of the day, and even without success you can bet that they will not lose any of their own money in the process. Even Abramovich has now got Chelsea in a position where he could conceivably make back the money he's put in within 5 to 10 years if Chelsea stay where they currently are. I'm desperate for us to not spend any money, fail to be successful, and ultimately be proved "right". That's what I really want.

You have to filter in wages, but yes that's exactly right. We're not paupers as a club, even without European football we still have the 6th highest turnover in the league. Noone is asking Ashley for a handout here, just for him to reinvest what the club makes back into the club. I don't agree with this resigned attitude that there necessarily has to be some kind of consolidation or years of mediocrity before we can then push on. That's not to say that if we show some ambition and don't immediately get back into the CL I'll be shouting Ashley out. Trying and failing is acceptable. Not trying to the limit of our ability is not. Man City were in a far far worse state squad wise last year than we are now. Thaksin spent a fair amount, but it wasn't extortionate, and he has still spent nothing more than he will expect to recoup in the future. I keep hearing that it's different now because of all these new Billionaire owners, but apart from Abramovich, none of these new billionaire owners are footballing philanthropists. They're not doing it for the love of the game. They expect to make money at the end of the day, and even without success you can bet that they will not lose any of their own money in the process. Even Abramovich has now got Chelsea in a position where he could conceivably make back the money he's put in within 5 to 10 years if Chelsea stay where they currently are. That's not necessarily true, as anyone buying us in the future could do it with money borrowed against the club a la Man U and Liverpool.

My sentiments exactly. Our Premier League record: 3,6,2,2,13,13,11,4,3,5,14,7,13,12 - Avg 8th So slightly below our punching weight, but not massively. As I said in the Present Tense thread. Our Champions League forays saw us punch above our weight, we are typically a top half pushing for Europe club. Any club in that category can hit the jackpot in any given season and challenge the top 4, the problem as ourselves, Everton, Ipswich, Leeds etc have found is sustaining that. Poor decisions have cost us each time (with hindsight in appointing Kenny granted). Don't be fooled with the '5th top club' spin, our average POSITION is 8th since we got promoted Shouldn't have much problem going slightly above our punching weight, but not massively, and into 4th then, especially with all the obvious improvements in the club now.

That's an oxymoron. Don't let your petty fued with NE5 cloud your view here Ozzie. Highlighting a small part of my text, where I maybe could have added a word like "largely" for clarity does not prove my point wrong. Only a complete idiot would suggest that the old board did not back their managers in the transfer market. Which is probably why our debts were so large. That's an ozziemoron. Aye they backed their managers in the transfer market except when they didn't back their managers in the transfer market – such as in the summer of our last chance at the CL before the drawbridge got pulled up -- and you'd have to be stupid or a liar to argue otherwise. Aye, they spent too much except when they didn't spend enough. That's the definition of an ozziemoron.

That's an oxymoron. Don't let your petty fued with NE5 cloud your view here Ozzie. Highlighting a small part of my text, where I maybe could have added a word like "largely" for clarity does not prove my point wrong. Only a complete idiot would suggest that the old board did not back their managers in the transfer market. Which is probably why our debts were so large. That's an ozziemoron.

that a serious opinion or am i missing the sarcasm? either way i'd tend to agree, especially if you consider benfica might have an outside chance of a title challenge too... It is an opinion, but it only applies if we have missed out. If so, it is the fault of the previous chairman for playing in a market that was unsustainable in the long term. james, i'm gonna resist the urge to respond to this with "what the f*** are you on about" and instead say: unless this is an attempt to be witty i'm gonna assume you mean that we could only offer aimar 40k a week (for example) due to the extravagent wages FS and his board laid out on players, if that hadn't been the case we might have offered more wages to aimar and he'd have perhaps come? if i'm right with this interpretation that is so far beyond common sense & logical reasoning there isn't even a word or measurement for it if that's not what you meant or you were being funny then what did you really mean? My point is that the club can't afford to be paying the type of wages Shepherd was handing out, and thus when we offer players a fraction of Owen's wage, they are likely to be offended. in the style of kyle from south park: "reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally?" so shepherd was handing out wages & that was bad, yet if he hadn't done that ashley would be able to offer aimar high wages to tempt him to the club? i was right in the first place, are you kidding me man? you can see that makes no sense right? you've invented your own version of catch 22 Shepherd created a market where any proven player would expect to get at least £50k. Had he not done so, expectations abroad would be lower, and therefore we could compete with Monaco and Benfica. Fact is that he was throwing cash away with only the short term in mind. that takes some believing.........if we offer more than benfica or monaco then if the player is after money alone he'd come regardless of wether he expected more or would have gor more a couple of years ago Like I explained in the post that started the argument, say Benfica offered to make you the highest paid player at the club, but Newcastle offerred a higher wage which is less than what gets paid to the likes of Duff, who would you choose for footballing reasons? That's a ludicrous argument. If it were purely for footballing reasons, the money wouldn't come into it at all. What you are saying is that he would be more attracted by the status of being a high wage earner at one club than being a mid-range earner (albeit on a higher wage) at another club. You seem to be implying that the player not being motivated by the larger wage would be a good thing, but IMO it would be a far worse attitude if he was motivated by being the star player in a team. Being motivated by money is not necessarily a bad thing - the player will be striving to prove that he is worth more than he is currently getting. Being motivated by status gives no incentive for the player to do anything other than to glory in his own self-importance and go off in a huff when he's not playing.

Or the proof that you're wrong. What about Pattison, Troisi, Edgar? The time to praise "the new setup" will be when the lads they are bringing in break into the first team.

Not quite grasped the concept of a LMPB or why they happen have you.

I'd accept it if I thought it was necessary or desirable for the good of the club. I don't. Any "rationalising process" (by which I am assuming you mean reducing the wage bill by a process of bringing in players who are happy to be on less than those we currently have who will be moved on or come to the end of their contracts) is far more likely to put us further back than we are now than to make us in anyway more attractive to players in the future. If I'm wrong in what you mean by "rationalising process" please clarify.

Why is reorganising the club doom and gloom? It's the whole "jam tomorrow" mentality. We've got a billionaire owner - why haven't spent £150m yet? You missed the decimal point.

If we have to have a transfer window (and I think they've probably worsened the situation they were designed to address) then it should end in July, then we could get the 1 week where most of the transfers are done over with before the season starts.

Looks like it's going to be the team we have now going into the August games then. Just as well they're all games we would or wouldn't expect to win anyway.

Owen's is about 1 in 2, Martin's is about 1 in 3.

Should have given it to Guthrie, he's the new Rob Lee!

no it was when we signed owen and luque souness wanted boa motre and anelka for 6 million each we're offered keane for 8 million Aye, Anelka had just gone to Fener for £7m 6 months earlier and went to Bolton a year later for £8m. We'd obviously have got him for £6m easy. There was no evidence whatsoever he was for sale at any price at that time, and if he was it would have been more like £12m. *sigh* you really are a journalist's dream.

Also spot on. Owen's ridiculous transfer fee plus obscene wages, coupled to the fact he'll walk for nothing next year (but get maybe a third of what he's on now elsewhere) gives the whole thing an even more bitter taste. Considering half his time here has been on the sick, its substantially more irritating. Owen was the worst example, but there have been others like Parker, Emre, Luque, and to an extent Martins. You wonder whether we'd have got just a good a player for half the price and half the salary, if we'd looked at players who may not have had the same reputations, but who were up and coming. Owen wasn't overpriced at all. Not all up and coming players achieve their potential, yet you can pay as much of a premium for that potential as you do for a ready made player, and of course if they do reach that potential they will demand a larger salary anyway or they'll be off. It's not the obviously better solution you suggest, and without the right people with a good ability to select those up and coming players it may well cost you more in the long run.

With Milner wanting £80kpw and Modric only on £10kpw at Spurs we'll pay more for Milner in the long run. The fee is not based on ability alone, it may not even be the main factor, but little connection?

How the club was run in the recent past and what it was able to achieve is the best yardstick we have with which to judge how Ashley is doing. If one's opinion is that the Hall & Shepherd regime did a poor job overall, then it should be all the easier for Ashley to better it. 5 years ago today we'd just finished 3rd. Shockingly poor eh. You can't address everyone on the forum's opinion in a single post, but I'm sure I haven't been imagining that the vast majority of people on this forum were vociferously anti-shepherd (and still are though some may have mellowed), and certainly most posters in the latter part of this thread have been. Ashley in one season has done a lot of the very same things that Shepherd did and was heavily criticised for (sacking a manager midway though a season without anyone lined up, then appointing an English manager (they're all shit you know), not getting players in early enough, bringing in poor players and paying them high wages, missing out on transfer targets, making crass comments in the press, etc) and yet gets very little criticism, and indeed is praised for a lot of those very same things (got rid of the terrible Allardyce, brought back KK, Smith was Allardyce's fault, not caving in to mercenaries wage demands, sticking one to the press, etc). IMO in some cases the criticisms are valid and I'd agree that both Shepherd and Ashley were wrong, in other cases the criticisms are not valid and that neither Shepherd nor Ashley could be blamed. The hypocrisy from an awful lot of posters is what gets me, even down to the level of credence given to the press - under Shepherd every negative story, every delayed transfer, every high reported wage was jumped on and criticised. Now, nothing the press says is to be believed at all unless it is pro-Ashley. Targets which were demanded of Shepherd are now unrealistic for Ashley to have to achieve. Noone that I can see is being anti-Ashley at all. People have been critical of certain things at times, yes. What's wrong with that? Also people have debated the merits of certain policies which it has been widely suggested Ashley will follow, that is all. Noone is saying Ashley is/isn't doing so and so, he's shit, we're just saying IF Ashley does/doesn't do so and so, he will be shit. However any criticism of anything which is even attributed to Ashley is being "antagonistic" apparently.

i don't know, they did it once didn;t they ? are you confident that Ashley will ? no i'm not confident of a return to the champs league but i have more confidence in ashleytaking us forward than i had in shepherd those last 3 years. So what exactly happened to Shepherd in those last 3 years to make him different from the chairman who proved he was capable of doing just that 8 years ago? What has Ashley actually done to give you that confidence that he will be better at overseeing the club than Hall & Shepherd? For me we haven't had enough time or seen enough action from Ashley to say either way, but I just do not understand where this belief from most and seeming certainty from others that he will do better than H&S has come from. He's employed people like Wise & Vetere, but noone really knows exactly what their roles are, so I don't see how that can even be seen as a change let alone a step forward if a DoF structure floats your boat - they could just be a high profile academy manager and scout for all we know. We don't know what the clubs transfer or wage policy is, we don't know what he's planning to do with all the extra revenue the club is pulling in from increased TV revenues and 3 years worth of season ticket money from what seems to be a significant number of supporters; he might put it back into the club, or he might just put it in his back pocket. He's not even come out with any confidence raising words other than generic "want to take the club back where it belongs" kind of stuff that all owners & chairmen come out with. At this point we know f*** all about what he might do, all we have to go on is the fact that apart from sacking Allardyce and bringing in Keegan mid season, he hasn't actually done anything of significance yet in 1 year of ownership (taking on the debt is no more significant than an extra £3m a year in income). The only reasons I can think of for this kind of confidence are either baseless optimism, or that a dislike of the old board has blinded people to their achievements. Achievements which now apparently seem to be way beyond what Ashley could possibly be expected to attain.

Aye, can happen to the best of us. Eh? I was asking the question, seeing as the supposed wages those players are on have been used to criticise the board. You appear to have completely missed my point. The basic point of your post was that people shouldn't believe what they read in the press was it not? You then use the alleged wages of Smith, Viduka, Barton to make a point. Now, unless the club or the players have spoken about their wages, or you've rummaged through their bins for their P60, all you are basing your "apparently coughed up large wages" claim on are press reports of their wages. You are therefore doing exactly in one sentence what you are accusing others of doing in your very next sentence. You appear to have completely missed your own point.