Zero

You could say so. We paid 9.5m for Luque and the whole amount was paid to Deportivo. In the balance sheet our debt will goes up immediately about 9.5m, while in the profit and loss account, the 9.5m will be apportioned (most likely by his contract length) and thus approxmiately 2m per year for 5 years.

His agent hadn't told him about the £££'s he'd earn at Liverpool then. That's a question I wanna ask for a long time: isn't there news/reports that Carroll does not have an agent and the agent involved in the deal is hired by Liverpool? Isn't that illegal to contact the players before the club agrees?

Just took the figures out: 2003/04: 4,2m profits before tax and dividends, and 3.95m dvidiends was paid out to the shareholders, aso nothing left 2004/05: Breakeven, but again, 3.95m dividends was paid to the shareholders, so we have a 4m loss 2005/06: 12m loss, and on top of that, 2.6m dividends paid out (2m in shares, 0.6m in cash) Would appreciate if someone can complete the figures afterwards 2006/2007 £30m loss 2007/2008 £20m loss 2008/2009 £15m loss 2009/2010 £17m loss So we lose nearly 100m for the last 7 years. Wow, jesus.

Just took the figures out: 2003/04: 4,2m profits before tax and dividends, and 3.95m dvidiends was paid out to the shareholders, aso nothing left 2004/05: Breakeven, but again, 3.95m dividends was paid to the shareholders, so we have a 4m loss 2005/06: 12m loss, and on top of that, 2.6m dividends paid out (2m in shares, 0.6m in cash) Would appreciate if someone can complete the figures afterwards

Just an overview re our total liabilities. Anyway you are correct to take those things out if you want to focus on bank debt. I guess the bank debt, which was due immediately after change of shareholders and force Ashley to pay after acquisition, was the item "fixed interest senior loan notes" as shown in note 15 and 16 in the 2005 accounts and note 14 in the 2006 accounts. So this bank loan rose up to 70m when Ashley takeover the club?

I do want us to sign 4-5 young players with each of their wages below 20k. They would have to continue to develop in order to earn a pay rise like Tiote.

So you fully expects he will continue to give 100% at training / match, do not cause any more off-field problems, play with media, no bad effect on his teammates (well to be honest this makes no difference), will not start it over again at summer? Come on he's Andy Carroll, not Aaron Hughes.

Once we secure our place in EPL, I would like to see Vuckic playing in Nolan's role.

I still don't understand how on the earth was Hughes only worth 1m.

I don't think he is such a model professional...nevermind a "loyal Geordie"...

I still remember at that time there're lots of arguments here re retaining Shearer or not. That's definitely the turning point of our fate (no disrespect to Shearer)

If he's that patient, he would not submit a transfer request... Anyway, I won't argue about Ashley's intention. He definitely feels that is a good deal. Carroll wants money. So just do it.

Just do some google research: http://www.nufc.co.uk/staticFiles/53/12/0,,10278~4691,00.pdf Our debt as at 31 July 2005 was about 105m, with 43m short-term (due within 1 year) and 62m long term. one year later: http://www.nufc.co.uk/staticFiles/ea/3d/0,,10278~81386,00.pdf The total debt is close to 111m (excluding deferred income) Unable to find the accounts afterwards

Yup, that was a gamble taken by Ashley. The result - I know you won't agree - is Ashley won it. Put it the other way, if we agreed to his new contract demands (nevermind the other players' reaction) and no Europe competition next season, imagine what will happen this summer. I can guarantee you either Carroll or a few key players will be sold in order to balance the books. To those who say it's bullshit that we can't afford making lots of investment / sign a few star players with 50k+ wages, the truth is we couldn't. There's an argument that "without investment how can we progress". So where does the money come from? We nearly went bankrupt because we spent money before we earned (re post Souness era) and we cannot do it again. Prepared to be labelled as Ashley-lovers, anyway.

Quoted for truth. We aren't significantly better than last year. We would be if we don't spend the Carroll's money this summer but we will all go mad (including me).

Can we s****! I hope he breaks both his legs the f***ing c***. Let Me GUess, you are still booing your eyes out every night because we sold Andy Cole.......... There is a massive difference. Andy Cole wasn't a Geordie and din't move because he wanted to anyway, nor did we need to sell him. He was sold because the manager wanted to change how we played and that meant replacing Cole in the team with a new striker. He was too good to be a squad striker and worth too much in terms of resale value to be sat on the bench. Mind I was personally devastated when we sold him, my first footy and Toon hero. As for Carroll, he can go and f*** himself. I hope he amounts to f*** all in his career. Don't worry. Unless he could stay injury free for 10 years, any injury related to his legs would significantly affect his aerial ability and then that's it.

Where's Vuckic then?

Wullie, I would be on your side IF we didn't fuck up that seriously since and after Souness. To me it's like we aren't in a position to make gambles anymore and the offer for Carroll is too good to turn down given our current financial status. We are still suffering from the down side of the dark ages, and I could tell you the amount owe to Ashley is kinda insane. For comparision, Liverpool was sold for 300m given their turnover, reputation and table position. Probably in the future if we have a new Carroll, I would be on your side and condemn the club/owner for accepting the offer. Not this time, sorry.

Errr....is that "normal"? Seems like a bit weird to me.

Probability of someone willing to pay £285.8m for buying Newcastle from Ashley? I think it's close to zero.

Probably this statement still hold?

Otter, the first thing we have to do in order to earn a profit is to make the players shine. They have to be productive, contribute a lot to our success and let others know they may worth to make an insane bid. If the offer is not insane, we can still have an option to keep the players. Thus the players must fit into our plan right in the beginning. Looking for players with resale value is not contradictory to looking for players that can improve our squad. It just makes the job even harder for our scouts - but that's what they should do for a long long time. Carroll is the best example of how the plan works. For the sum of 35m very few people will question Ashley why. And to make things easier, Carroll has asked for a ridiculous contract / made a transfer request. We did not need to set-up Carroll in ALL our game play in our first half of the season. Yes it works, but is it necessary to do so? We don't know, but we performed "ok" after the sale of Carroll which makes me wonder what would happen if we play a more balanced system right in the beginning. But if we didn't purposely make him shine, singing praise, new No.9, new Shearer, new England centre forward, Euro 2012 starter...etcetc...how on the earth would Liverpool make a 35m offer? Another example for you, Julio Baptista. I am not saying this plan will work for us because it hugely depends on whether the profit will be reinvested and whether our manager is good enough to handle the high turnover of key players. But if we aren't getting an Abramovich, this is the only way we can financially recover and back to the business.

hmmm....Coloccini?

To be fair it's meaningless. saying something like "we will bring in 5 stars" now does no good to our team. Just let time tells.

Portsmouth who are now financially secure and in a comfortable position in the Championship? Back on their feet in less than a season, despite having a third of our gate. They got relegated having won an FA Cup and come within a missed penalty of winning another. We got relegated having won f*** all. I'd swap. Wullie, you serious?