UV

Macbeth, what do you say to those people who believe (although mostly it is stated as an absolute truth) that the only way Ashley (or anyone who had taken over) can make money, and the only reason they would have bought the club is to invest heavily in the playing staff to eventually have us playing in the champions league? I don't think they're talking about an extra £4m per year on transfers and wages due to not taking a dividend either, their talking about making even heavier loses in the short term against hopefully making higher profits in the long term. All but the most naive of supporters realise that spending money does not guarantee success, so theoretically this spending over profit must go on indefinitely until a successful manager/team combination are found. Do you agree with this view, or think that they are wrong? the extra money, and therefore profits, can only come from the CL. In 2003 we had a turnover of £96m due to being int he CL, last year it was £83m. The rewards have grown hugely since 2003, with Chelsea getting £16m last season in appearance money never mind TV and gate receipts, and increased merchandising sales. The extra money from Sky for the next few years will help all clubs, but will probably just all end up in the pockets of the players. I don't believe anyone can get mega-rich owning a football club given how much it costs to buy them. Shepherd and Hall took the absolute maximum out that was feasible, any more and it would have collapsed. That didn't answer the question at all. Okay, sorry I ended up answering the question "do you think Ashley can only make money if the club is playing in the CL". You had too many bracketed comments in the question If you weren't asking whether you could only make money that way, but were actually asking whether Ashley would have to invest to get better players then... Yes, of course. We seem unable as a club to bring any young players through to be first team regulars, so we have to buy in to improve on, or even maintain where we are. Shepherd tried to do that but could only do it by borrowing more and more money, increasing our debt so that even if we if last year we'd finished 4th then the money from a single season in the CL still wouldn't cover the previous years borrowings. Hopefully Ashley's buy out means the interest payments that Shepherd had lumbered the club with will disappear, (Shepherd left us with £70m worth of debt currently paying interest at over 7.5%, or £5m per year) also there is £4m per year in dividends will too. So instantly ~£10m extra available. Then the Sky money goes up (for everyone) by £10m per year. So without doing much Ashley will have given the club £20m per year extra to play with. The downside of course is the contracts that Shepherd gave the players. The club were running at a loss of about £18m per year, so the Ashley sort out mentioned means we are just back to a flat picture. With the wages structure Shepherd left the club with the income would need to increase to about £120m to be profitable. This is way above what we have ever managed, even in the CL. So Ashley will have to dip into his back pocket and help if he wants the playing squad to improve and to get into the CL. No one has invested money in the club since 1997, it has been a one-way bleed since then. Still doesn't really address what I asked. The first sentence of the last paragraph is pretty much the only one which is relevant to the future of the club. Can I assume you agree with the principal that Ashley should run the club at a loss until we are in the CL? Can I assume you agree with the assumption that Ashley will run the club at a loss until we are in the CL? (I used 2 separate questions to avoid confusing brackets this time). I want to address the rest of your post in detail too but unfortunately don't have time. I'll just say that I think your view of the club debt and how it now gone is all wrong - Ashley has spent over £200m on the club if you include the debt. If he'd put it in low risk investments he'd get better than 7.5%. If he doesn't make over that on profits/increased value of the club then it's effectively a loss to him.

What's he playing at, doesn't he realise you've got to have a 2 month review before you can spend anything?

I'm sure Macbeth will be along in a moment to tell you that not spending then was exactly the right thing to do as the profit that year (before dividends) was only £4.3m, and the previous year it was -£3.1m (we spent £27.6m that year).

Macbeth, what do you say to those people who believe (although mostly it is stated as an absolute truth) that the only way Ashley (or anyone who had taken over) can make money, and the only reason they would have bought the club is to invest heavily in the playing staff to eventually have us playing in the champions league? I don't think they're talking about an extra £4m per year on transfers and wages due to not taking a dividend either, their talking about making even heavier loses in the short term against hopefully making higher profits in the long term. All but the most naive of supporters realise that spending money does not guarantee success, so theoretically this spending over profit must go on indefinitely until a successful manager/team combination are found. Do you agree with this view, or think that they are wrong? the extra money, and therefore profits, can only come from the CL. In 2003 we had a turnover of £96m due to being int he CL, last year it was £83m. The rewards have grown hugely since 2003, with Chelsea getting £16m last season in appearance money never mind TV and gate receipts, and increased merchandising sales. The extra money from Sky for the next few years will help all clubs, but will probably just all end up in the pockets of the players. I don't believe anyone can get mega-rich owning a football club given how much it costs to buy them. Shepherd and Hall took the absolute maximum out that was feasible, any more and it would have collapsed. That didn't answer the question at all. If you "plan" to have a decent backup for your main ("trophy signing") striker being injured for a season you have to have 2 "trophy signing" strikers on the books or just buy cheaper strikers who are not as good. I don't see how you can blame the chairman for Owen's injury causing a shift in the transfer targets. If we'd have won a trophy I'm sure that would have been what he was most proud of. Did you expect him to say losing a couple of cup finals or coming 3rd in the league was his proudest moment?

Macbeth, what do you say to those people who believe (although mostly it is stated as an absolute truth) that the only way Ashley (or anyone who had taken over) can make money, and the only reason they would have bought the club is to invest heavily in the playing staff to eventually have us playing in the champions league? I don't think they're talking about an extra £4m per year on transfers and wages due to not taking a dividend either, their talking about making even heavier loses in the short term against hopefully making higher profits in the long term. All but the most naive of supporters realise that spending money does not guarantee success, so theoretically this spending over profit must go on indefinitely until a successful manager/team combination are found. Do you agree with this view, or think that they are wrong?

Chris Mort is working his bollocks off for the club, that's good enough for me at this time. The club has been run unprofessionally for years, the sooner we start moving forwards the better but I'd prefer the club to move forwards while knowing where we stand and not on guess work. If the review is holding us up for now then so be it, that will not always be the case, I see today’s developments as another sign of progress and also a sign of confidence that those running the club feel they can start to make decisions without the help of anybody. Very true, as I have just said to Parky, the length of time Ashley (via Mort and his review) is taking to prepare and build up for whatever it is he intends to do, is very professional - in my view. Maybe if we're lucky the review will be so professional it will never end. A bit like the closing down sales in Ashley's shops.

I find it hilarious that you're all quibbling over around £1m a year going to the chairman and 1/4 owner of the club when 1 (one) player is payed 4 or 5 times that. Do you expect Ashley will take out less for his £213m over the long term? You do all realise that these "loses" you're all so damning about are directly due to the amount of money the club payed in transfers and wages trying to achieve success. I guess you're implying Ashley should spend less so that his profits are higher?

You can forget buying any top quality players then.

Isn't that the sort of thing you'd do BEFORE spending £140m? I would!! But . . . . I am not a Billionaire as a result of my methods! So he'll recklessly throw £140m away (and take on the debt), but wont spend ~£5m on a left back which anyone is could tell him we need until a complete review has taken place? This is the only credible (logical) argument you've come up with?

Isn't that the sort of thing you'd do BEFORE spending £140m?

There has to be a reason why we ("but not at the moment") are not buying the players we need (at his time) to fill the obvious gaps in the team. People can give many reasons for this, but the only one that I can see that is credible, is the one I mention. Why do you see this only credible (logical) reason, as a smokescreen? A smokescreen for WHAT? Ashley would have known the bottom line before he bought the club. He doesn't need to wait for people to count pencils and paper clips. But Nancy the cleaner is on holiday in Ibiza for 2 weeks, he needs to wait for her to get back before he knows how much to put in the budget for bog roll otherwise he can't finish the review, and we can't be spending money until the review's finished you know. My own feeling is he's decided to put a director of football in place, and is waiting to get someone in.

Would you have asked your wife to marry you if she'd never said she loved you, or shown you any kind of affection? Would you have voted for someone who refused to say what their policies would be? You're asking him to make a risk assessment without any information. You're basically being Noel Edmonds asking deal or no deal. Fred was the banker bloke on the phone - you knew what you were getting. Ashely is the money in the box - it could be a lot or it could be £1.

Unbelievable that Allardyce is coming out and saying that the Zog wont even be considered for away games. Shocking treatment.

Oh I get it. Of course I do it for a laugh on a wind up, but I don't really believe it. Problem is I think a lot of people actually do believe it as... FACT.

The people who think it's so unbelievable that Sunderland will ever be as far above us as we are above them now are in for a shock at some point in their lives when they grow up. The responses to this kind of thread are what really wind me up about a lot of our support and how they think we have a divine right to be one of the best teams in one of the best leagues in the world. I hate to paraphrase a politician, but as Newcastle supporters there aren't many times in our history where we've ever had it so good. Wah, wah wah we only came 13th. Boo fucking hoo. I guarantee you that in your lifetime we will spend at least 10 years in the second division (whatever it's called then), probably a lot more. There's a very good chance we'll go to the third and/or become bankrupt at some point. You think the Halls & Shepherd board were bad? You haven't a clue. You'll eventually come to realise you were born into a golden era of the club, fucking enjoy it while you can. /pissed up rant

Take faith from this man. Sam did the above at Bolton. Who on earth had heard of Abadolaye Meite (sp?) before he turned up? He still turned out better than half the pack of jokers Roeder had on our pitch and yet that pack of jokers managed to concede 5 less than Bolton last season.

This is a good development, but I take back nothing I said. The communication and PR to date has been non existent, and this doesn't sound like it's going to be for a while yet, so are we supposed to just sit back and say nothing, express no concerns or opinions until this meeting has taken place? NE5 is exactly the sort of person who should be going, not a bunch of sycophants who'll just sit there and tell him how great he is for rescuing us from that horrible Mr Shepherd.

I know I didn't. If that's true, then that is a positive sign. How are they going about it?

If by sceptisicm you mean "a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment", then I'm happy to be called a sceptic. The thing is, there's nothing happened so far (wrt transfers being made) that would not have happened under the old board anyway. Yet if the manager had complained about the slowness of the board to act on transfers under the old regime there would be uproar. There have been very few actual statements or actions from the club, so what exactly are these "signs of progress" that are giving you and others such a positive feel about Ashley?. I've seen and heard pretty much nothing, so there's nothing to give me either a positive or negative feel, but the lack of any communication whatsoever is not IMO a good sign. At the moment it feels to me a bit like the Emperor's new clothes.

You picked all that up from a stock exchange announcement? Wow. Do you interpret people's handwriting too? "You want answers?" "I think I'm entitled to them" "You want ANSWERS?" "I want the PLATITUDES!" "You can't HANDLE the platitudes!" No I picked it up from his message to the supporters: I didn't think you were naive enough to believe this level of lack of communication will be acceptable to most supporters in the future. Ignorance is bliss I guess. But he quite clearly doesn't know how much he has to spend on them. Don't you think that's a bit of a hindrance to the manager? (Note I am not saying WE should be told how much he has to spend).

Today was an historic day in the history of NUFC. After 10 years as a PLC the club was delisted from the stock exchange and taken back into private ownership. The owner of the club saw fit to mark this historic day with the following statement: "The directors of Newcastle United wish to announce that, following an application to the UK Listing Authority, the listing of the company's ordinary shares of 5p each on the Official List has been cancelled. The shares have ceased trading on the London Stock Exchange, in each case with effect from 8am this morning" Couldn't take the time to come out with a statement of his intentions or simply say that he's waiting for the results of the review. Couldn't be bothered to get a PR person to put out a generic statement with the usual new owner platitudes. Couldn't even be arsed to run the statement through a spell checker. What does that tell you about what he thinks about us, the supporters? It says to me he doesn't give a shit about us or what we think. Great start.

You might be able to hold in your curiosity, and tbh I'm the same, but you must concede that the vast majority of fans are not like this. He or his appointed people have hardly said a word since we first heard of him, and as others have said, people have filled the void with rumours consisting of their own positive hopes and ideas for the club. He's currently in a honeymoon period with most supporters who believe the previous board was terrible and have fallen for the grass is always greener delusion. This won't last, and eventually the void will be filled with stories and hearsay assuming worst case scenarios rather than best case ones. IMO it doesn't bode well for supporter relations in the future.

Quite honestly I have no idea about the details of how he runs those companies, perhaps you could point me in the direction of some details or expand on his strategy in those companies. That IS the philosophy behind how he made most of his money though. I do know that I bought a pair of karrimor walking shoes for about £18, (70% off !!!) in one of his shops that was closing down 6 months ago. It's still open and selling them at the same price BTW if you want me to get you a pair. It also stocks most of his other brands at knock down prices too.

Fair enough (you can't expect people at that level to actually do anything other than sign pieces of paper for a paultry half a million a year ). The implication was though that the board was bypassed.

Most of it will come from season ticket sales and the increased TV money. I've not worked it out, but that's probably at least £25m without increasing the debt. He may even put an initial extra amount in himself. However I don't for a second believe that in the long run he will continue to put his own money into the club. In the future we will have no visibility of how much he is putting into or taking out of the club though so who knows. Let me ask you this - Ashley has built his money with a "pile it high, sell it cheap" philosophy, and a permanent "closing down sale, everything must go" marketing strategy. What makes everyone so confident that with NUFC he will adopt a risky strategy of spending big on high quality players in the hope of large rewards (ie top end of the market) rather than spending just enough on decent players to maintain premiership status and occasionally getting into Europe (ie trying to be the best of the mid range market)? What makes you think he's going to be straight up and honest with us supporters when he treats his current customers as mugs?