Slugsy

Chelsea's debt is about £500 million if that helps. The key difference with Chelsea compared to the others is that virtually all of their debt is owed to the owner of the club, whereas the others have external debt. I don't understand. What's the difference between Chelsea's situation and ours? Think he's on about the rest of the 'big 4' rather than us. As I see it he's saying Chelsea have a £500 million debt which is owed to Abramovich as he has been spending his own money on the club, whereas we have zero debt because Ashley paid it off with his own money, rather than we have a £75m debt owed to Ashley. It may be just a technicality, or it may be significant in some way. That's what I don't understand. I was talking about Chelsea compared to the rest of the top 4 as Alex said. As far as we are concerned Ashley put in £75 million but I don't know if it went in as a loan or as equity because it happened after the 2007 year end and the exact details aren't in the latest accounts. Interesting. I'd guess he probably did the same as Abramovich. So actually when people talk about Ashley having payed off the club's debts, in all probability the debts have effectively just changed hands and we don't know what the terms of the loan are (ie Ashley may still be charging the club interest on the loan). Could be. We won't know until St James Holding Ltd, Newcastle's parent company publishes its accounts for the first time, that was the company that actually paid the debt on behalf of the football club. I would be gobsmacked if the debt isn't still there but now instead of the bank we have Ashley. Ashley would be insane not to have put the cash in as a loan.

I tell you what, seeing how Barton has got on, I'd have Parker back in a shot!

I'd be delighted if he was good as we could then push Faye into midfield and finally have an effective defensive midfielder!

Ferguson, his achievments at Man Utd are brilliant and legendary but what he did at Aberdeen given the resources and position of that club was nothing short of astonishing - beating Real Madrid in a Cup Winers Cup Final!

Very worried now, our form compared to those around us is very poor, even Birmingham are getting results - the fact is we are getting beat at home and away and others are starting to pick up points and we are not winning the games we should be winning or even getting a point.

Oldtype I agree. Although 12m is way too high and most likely paper talk, I'd rather we tried to get players with great potential and on the up than stick with this policy of players with good track records but sadly on the decline

Get rid, player well past his best and certainly not worth the money we pay hin

Going against the grain here but Enrique has looked fairly ordinary to me, strong but sluggish. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt in terms or him being young in a new league and needing time to adapt but he certainly didn't look fit to me and was very hesitant at going forward. Maybe he was sticking to orders from the coach but I didn't see 6.5m worth of player so far. There certainly must be something wrong with him as 2 managers seem fit to leave him out.

Duff's legs have gone, maybe useful at home against the poorer teams but for me that shouldn't be a reason to play him, we need to either play Zog full time at left wing or find a replacement for both, its very obvious now why Mourinho let Duff go.

Cash is king, Chelsea operate every year with massive trading losses, the key is how much cash we generate and whether that covers what we spend oh and it does helop that additionally we have a owner who will happily fund any actual 'cash debts'. Quayside is right in the fact that it isn't good that we have these losses and we are technically insolvent but Barclays Bank were going to quite happlily re-finance us pre-Ashley so they must have seen something they liked - oh and that's a fact, from a 'qualified accountant'

To be fair we only had an operating loss of £300k - the £33m loss was a mix of paper depreciation of players (c£16m), an exceptional impairment charge of £7m for Luque, losses on disposal of players and interest charges. Additionally, they have changed their year end which means that these accounts incorporate 2 summer transfer windows instead of 1, which given our trading and buying of players recently doesn't make these numbers a surprise. Interesting that the net outlay on players was £5.4m compared to the previous year of £25.2m!

I'm concerned that the structures being put in place before, which many were pleased about and looked like we were finally getting our act together behind the scenes, are now being dismantled.

Nice to see a sense of humour around here!

If you are including the surrounding area then there isn't a contest, Bobby Charlton is by far the greatest player to have come from this region. To say otherwise is either total shortsightedness or sad man u bitterness, for f*cks sake the man was brilliant, the heartbeat of teams that won the european cup and world cup Alternatively,if you are talking about players of my generation that I have seen then on a sheer talent basis its Gazza but for all round quality its Shearer.

Butts legs have gone, you only have to look at the number of bookings he is picking up to see that.

Or just sell the pair of them and buy two players who can last a full game... Wise words

Faye Beye Taylor Zog Milner (squad) Barton (squad) That's it - I don't think Duff or Owen will ever reach the heights they achieved with other clubs again.

Not a fan at all, never produced consistently, can't tackle, not particularly fast and to be honest, I haven't seen any sort of good passing game from him in recent memory. Runs around a lot and looks like he is trying which seems to win favour with fans but generally if that's the best we have then we are seriously needing new players.

That was a sh*te game until the last 20 where it got a little more exciting but truth be told it was two crap teams playing mediocre football. How anyone can say that was a good performance is beyond belief. I'm truly amazed that folk think boro are good, defensively solid but they were as poor upfront as us, once again we have failed to beat a poor team at home, this is well relegation form. I'm away to thaw out,it was freezing up in the heavens!

Completely agree about Barnes - if we thought he was a good player who would improve the team, why did we not buy him instead of bartering over what really is loose change in the premiership.

Honest question, I don't know if Alves is any good apart from he scored 7 goals against some cr*p team - what's he like and is he the sort of striker we should have been going for?

I'm confused how some people think we haven't got the 'trophy' signings because we aren't attractive enough yet. Exactly how will we become attractive by just buying kids and bargain basement buys . I take it people seem to think that we will suddenly become more attractive in the summer for some bizarre reason? I am assuming people think Keegan will pull off a miracle and get us into the top 10 or something this season with the squad we have becuase I find it hard to see how a team becomes attractive in the summer by placing lower table? I'm afraid no matter when it is, we will have to pay over the odds to get players be it January or the summer until we become a decent team that good player swant to come to, thus I don't see why we didn't start now - unless we can see a trend with the last two transfer windows in which we have spent diddly squat compared to the teams actually challenging for honours. We need serious investment in the squad and the board have not delivered on that front so far. People also use the excuse that Keegan hasn't had much time, well who's fault is that exactly? I believe there are other positives with the new board and I am not anti ashley/mort in the slightest, they are doing other things very well - I don't however think it is wrong to question aspects of their performance as we did Shepherd where clearly they have not delivered so far.

Are there only 13 players in the world? I reckon there might just be a midfielder out there better than the s**** we've got. Agreed, there are players out there, the facts of the matter are at this stage we have spent a miserly amount (relative to the Board's supposed committment and ambition) both in the summer and this month. Forget about what we might have been doing or who we might have tried to get or who may or may not be available (as nobody knows for sure on any of these points), the cold hard facts is we have done nothing to improve our first team squad which desperately needs improvement at a critical stage in the season. PS. I applaud the youth policy and this is a great step forward but this is a seperate and distinct future strategy, we have immediate to medium term issues which need addressing.

Aye, you'd think so until you notice it's actually Michael Bridges who's changed his name by Deed Poll. so you are happy with signing 17 year old kids, where one out of twenty or something will make the premiership, and are confident we will match the top 4 teams under such a policy I will tell you here and now, you can believe all the hype bollocks, cliches or whatever you have done in the past, but you will NEVER match the top 4 teams unless you have players that they themselves want, and sometimes that means paying top dollar for these despicable "trophy" players. If you disagree, I wait for the response when Keegan makes his first decent money signing. I think the transfer policy so far under Ashley has been an absolute disaster. I agree, for a club with massive ambition and supposedly loads of cash to splash, extremely dissapointing.

Churlish not to give him the 100th cap - has been a magnificant servant to Engalnd, it aint going to hurt the fortunes of the national team by giving him 20 minutes in a friendly against a cr*p team and I think he deserves that