BottledDog

Goddamnit, we're juggling shitloads of potential transfers at the moment. One final push lads, one final push.

Except that he did hit the target and did score (unfairly disallowed). Agree with the gist though, someone like Defoe would do me (not Defoe).

No.

Teaming up with Sochaux and crying to the FA? What a pair of miserable gits, what's done is done, and ultimately your players just fancy the pants off us. Sorry like, it's true.

http://www.nufc.co.uk/articles/20110824/young-pair-back-from-england-camp_2281670_2430868

Suggests that any proposed transfer is actually no closer to happening than before. Great. Or that the deal might be closer but until the two clubs reach an iron cast agreement PSV will keep playing him. Hope you're right, this assumed price wrangling is going to cost us points eventually, just wish it would get done. No reason this couldn't have been finalized at the beginning of this week. Really, hows that then? /Come on Colin, spill those ITK beans.

Narr, it's just paper talk for, someone sent us a YouTube vid and reckon they could go for this fella, but just to cover our arses we'll say 'preparing a bid' as that means the sum total of nothing.

Oh dear, you appear to have not been able to complete the job and read the following sentence.

Well it quite clearly does appear to have a fairly large bearing on things, otherwise we'd be bidding for Scott Barron, not Aly Cissokho.

Knew that's where the facepalm originated from. You reckon we need another big target man. Good for you. Pull yourself together, you wet lettuce. What You heard.

Ah that's why we appointed Pardew! Rarely make a mistake on transfers and is a very shrewd judge. Sounds good to me. /making a profit is a fucking great thing too, and is just a symptom of picking the right ones and getting the best out of a player. The question is just whether we then go onto use those profits to help us progress and keep players for longer.

Eh, it's just over 4 months till the transfer window opens. Plenty of time.

Nolan's lack of contribution in midfield made an already hellish player, far worse. YES!!! A West Ham man says ... sorry mate, put michael essien next to alan smith and he'll still be alan f***ing smith, he's absolutely useless I hear you, and I'm not saying he will be brilliant, I'm just saying it will be serviceable enought to allow us to get a result. Really unfritunate that he hasn't been moved on, as he is getting in the way of younger more talented players getting a game. i'm not gonna argue it might get a result, i'd rather play vuckic or medhi though and i think we'd still have as much chance. tiote should be playing tonight to get him sharper imo. having alan smith match fit helps no-one, if tiote got injured/banned then cabaye could play his role. we dont need alan smith anywhere near the pitch this season. There is no way Vukic and Abeid should be responsible for the middle of the park against the likes of Scunny. It could knock their development if anything. Whatever you think about Smith, if Tiote or Cabaye are not playing, he need to be there to do the dirty stuff.

The same reason all these players are going on strike for us. Derek Llambias is a mind bending wizard.

I hope so. Not sure I do. Would have loved him to stay for the year, but the circus has to stop at some point and can see it all kicking off again in January if he doesn't fuck off now. Like I said though he is still a strong player for us with no indication that he will will be replaced if he does leave. If he went in January it would be better than going now because we would get half a season more out of him rather than nothing. Half a season extra on the one hand. Every chance his antics will eventually send me loopy on the other. As I say, it's a tough call.

I hope so. Not sure I do. Would have loved him to stay for the year, but the circus has to stop at some point and can see it all kicking off again in January if he doesn't fuck off now.

Woodgate? Should Robson have walked then, losing our best defender? As for Shearer, it was Robson who was more than willing to see him off to Liverpool for £2m so doubt he'd have walked for that one either. It was affordable because it was taken out to finance the expansion of the stadium to 52,000 seats and a significant increase in our corporate hospitality capabilities- this was drawing in considerably more than the cash required to service the debt. If net-net the expansion makes money, it doesn't matter what the position is for the overall business. You need to look at that in isolation as a sensible move for the business. We had not (as far as I am aware) plugged cash flow gaps with additional loans, although the club was in a very worrying position with regards to its overdraft (and only a banker's sneeze away from being in a very uncomfortable position)- which is why I still find it odd that Ashley paid so much for the club when it was headed for a very rocky 12 months cash-flow wise. I don't think anyone would dispute the financial merits of the decision to expand the stadium, it was a truly excellent move in every respect. But in order to be able to afford to service a loan you have to be generating positive cash flows from your day to day business. And at the time Ashley took over we were not doing that. Contrary to what you say we did plug cash flow leaks with other loans and this was not purely done through an overdraft it was done through a variety of loans. As I said earlier these were at increasing rates of interest. The proof is in the 2007 accounts and we had collected loans as follows: - £42.5 million at 7.65% interest secured on future season ticket and hospitality income - £13.1 million at 8.55% interest secured on future sponsorship income - E4.5 million at interest of LIBOR +2.25% secured on the first team training ground - £8 million at11.72% interest secured on future broadcasting income - £1.5 million secured as a second charge on the training ground plus an overdraft of £11 million. Whatever method Ashley used to value the club it didn't have anything whatsoever to do with his perception of it's ability to generate positive cash flows. His lack of due diligence would have left him unaware of the true state of the finances. Interesting stuff. Had no idea on the actual rates of the loans.

That's a pretty disrespectful attitude to our players, to captain Colo, to Saylor, to Tiote, in fact to all the players in terms of fighting spirit. Nice.

So some of their fans would bite our hands off for our 'miserly' offer? What the hell am I supposed to think about him now?!? Fuck it, don't want him. Clearly turned to shit in the last year.

It's hardly about money this one. Plus don't forget, he is still going to be getting a decent loyalty bonus ironically.

One example could be: "If you refuse to leave we'll let you rot in the reserves." after the QPR inquiry came in. Don't believe that for a second. We are playing him, and I can't imagine a scenario where we wouldn't.

Bingo.

He knew most of it was there, he didn't know he would have to pay it off within two months. I still can't believe that Ashley didn't ask to see the terms of the various loans we had. It would have taken about 2 mins to check whether there was a change of control clause - which there would normally be anyway. Maybe he knew the clause was likely to be there, but he didn't think the bank would activate it. He may have thought the bank would regard the club as being in the hands of an owner with deep pockets and would be happy to continue the credit line. There is also the fact that the club was in the process of making a loss of £30 million for the year. Ashley would not have known that but the bank would have had an inkling, assuming there wasn't some seriously creative accounting info being fed to them. Just to add to that, in the recent Sir John Hall interview, he stated that one of the reasons they went with Ashley was that the Malaysians requested a considerable time to look over the books, while Ashley offered to forego quite such an in depth check to secure the agreement.

You what? The club? How on earth do you work that out. He will want that back at some point. The question is how and when. That's fine, we owed those debts anyway, all that happened was that they suddenly had to be paid back. Now we just owe those debts to the owner without paying any further interest.

You what? The club? How on earth do you work that out.