Teasy

Ashley will keep the club ticking over until its sold, simple as that. If he wanted money desperately to keep the club running without putting more of his own money in he could easily sell any players he wants for a cut price. He doesn't need to pay a group of people large sums of money to sell his own assets for whatever they see fit and give him a fractions of the profits.

One question for you. Would you prefer Newcastle United to be in a) the Premiership or b) the Championship? One question for you. Would you say banana's are a) too yellow or b) not yellow enough?

I wouldn't give him a fresh start. I'll begrudgingly accept that he's back and give him a chance though.

Can't believe that like. Not so much the Shearer thing, I disagree but I can see what you're getting at, rather that you think those were the only significant mistakes he made.

There's no settling in period. He knows how it all runs, he's been there before and I doubt much has changed, he'll know the majority of the staff around the club, he knows who he wants to put in charge and such. As soon as the takeover goes through, we can pretty much get started straight away. That's quite a plus considering how far down the line the Summer already is. I agree with all of that and its all very positive, but what scares me is Shepherd with an iron grip on the club that won't be removed until we inevitably go into administration. Of course no buyer scares me just as much.

What is it he has to learn, Dave? That's a serious question and don't forget nobody can predict the future. What would you prefer? A Board that backs the manager or one that doesn't? Well I'm not going to list out all the things I think were mistakes, but generally I mean finding a more reasonable balance regarding the finances and the way he dealt with managerial appointments. I believe your question regarding backing a manager is far too simplistic - even if Ashley had spent more money his 'system' and the way he dealt with Keegan/Kinnear/Hughton etc was catastrophic. It's not just about money spent. Do you believe Shepherd made any mistakes? I remember you saying if Roeder was a failure then it was someone else's turn. I think his major mistake was not being prepared to change manager after we finished 3rd. I don't consider it a mistake to appoint a previously successful manager who is backed to the hilt but doesn't do the business at Newcastle. That's down to the manager. Yes its down to the manager to use the money he gets wisely, however its the owner/chairman's job to hire the right man to make those decisions. Even more importantly its his job to make sure the club doesn't over-stretch itself financially and Shepherd failed badly there. Its not a good thing to just back whatever manager he puts in charge with no regard for the effect it will have on the clubs finances.

Oh, no I was just commenting on the ridiculous claim in the Sunday Sun article above that the club has a £248m loan.

Obviously not, I don't care if they care or not though

Or Kenny Dalglish.

Arsenal £300m debt Man Utd £700m debt Obviously for some people Championship football with no debt is better than challenging at the top with debt. What on earth has that got to do with my post?, or even the situation mentioned in that article? The point of my post was that we don't have loans of anywhere near £248m, its yet another outragous claim from the rags.

£248m worth of loans..

Proof read your post. It was 4 in the morning and I was pissed for fuck sake, give as a break sad lad!

How were Newcastle fooled by it like? And how was this made up bloke a leading contender simply because the papers were taken in? The papers in this country really are as amature as it gets, no proof reading or editing, facts don't matter, reality doesn't seem to matter.. They just twist the facts in whatever way will give them an entertaining story for the moronic general public.

I don't think he'd score more than 15 goals. He doesn't have the intelligence to time his runs, he won't appreciate being man marked most games and he doesn't make use of his pace and never has since he signed for us. Most Champsionship players have very little intelligence and even less pace. I agree Martins would be lethal in the Championship.

The obvious investment opportunity would be to make the club successful and sell it on for a profit. Just putting us back in the Premiership would increase our value to between £200m-£250m, push on from there and they could sell for far more. I'd query that figure, because Ashley wasn't able to get £200 million for us when we were in the Premiership, but it seems to me that the biggest problem facing football club owners is that they pretty much have to spend all the money they make, because that's what other clubs are doing and they have to compete. In fact, there's pressure to go into debt because that's what others are doing. I mean maybe, just maybe, £100 million is under-priced for a quick sale. But even then, you really want an owner who's in it for the long haul, not someone who wants a fast buck. Yes he was able to get £200m, he turned down two offers of over £200m, one from the bloke who's just took over Portsmouth and one from the people who took over Man City. He wasn't selling for £200m, he wanted £400m!

The obvious investment opportunity would be to make the club successful and sell it on for a profit. Just putting us back in the Premiership would increase our value to between £200m-£250m, push on from there and they could sell for far more.

Should be looking for £3m minimum for Nolan, £35m for the lot and I'd be very happy to see them all gone appart from Enrique. Hopefully they'll add Smith and Duff to that list, I assume they aren't on it due to them wanting to stay, fuck that sell them anyway IMO.

Source I assume you're joking..

True for most clubs but not ours, we have the raw material to be succesfull without the need for a owner to subsidise us. Problem is we've been disgustingly miss managed over the years which did leave us in a position were we needed to be subsidised until that could be brought under control. However if our wage bill was anywhere near a reasonable level (not talking about low, just not the 5th highest in the fucking league when we were mid table with no Europe) we would easily have had enough money to not only survive but succeed with a decent chairman and manager. A £100m turnover without even being in Europe afforded us that opportunity, and the likes of Shepherd and Ashley pissed all over it.

No its a good question, he has tens of millions tide up in his latest businesses does he not?

I think this was the problem. By 2007 the club had borrowed against every asset it had and there was nowhere else to go. Given the precarious financial position at that time I doubt any bank would have lent further funds unless there was security. I still can't work out how Shepherd thought he was going to get out of that mess, he didn't want to sell up like Hall did, so he must have thought he could carry on. Either he had a cunning plan or he was deluded about the financial status of the club. In 2007? Banks were still lending money hand over fist to anyone who could lie on an application form then weren't they? Regardless, what makes you think the club needed significant extra borrowing anyway? In 06-07 IIRC the club had around £10m more going out than coming in, which is around the same amount as was spent on transfers. In the 07-08 season the TV revenues increased and brought in £18m more revenue than in the previous year. In actual fact the total revenue increased by £12m (we weren't in Europe that season). If we'd had another £10m transfer budget, and maintained the same wage level (a number of high earners were removed from the wage bill in Summer 07 - Parker, Dyer, Emre, Luque, Carr, Babayaro, Solano) we'd have broken even or made a profit. The club had a large enough turnover to make it self-sustaining. We could afford to spend more than most other clubs in the league. We didn't need a billionaire to support us. The debt was £70m of which £45m was a fixed long term loan for the stadium expansion which easily paid for it's own interest repayments. That leaves £25m attributable to the running of the club over the previous 15 years. Look at the debt of other clubs from their 07-08 accounts. Only Blackburn and the newly promoted teams had a debt less than £25m. Only 7 had a debt less than £60m, and we had a far bigger turnover than those clubs. We were the 12th/13th richest club in the world, and we couldn't afford the repayments on a £70m loan? Give me a break. The only reason the debt has spiralled in the last couple of years is due to the increase in wages from £62m to £76m, and because of Ashley's pay up front for incoming transfers policy. Neither of which was necessary or inevitable. Did we go bankrupt in 2001 when the debt was £67m and turnover was £55m? No. Unmanageable debt? Financial disaster? Inevitable bankruptcy? Don't make me laugh. Smoke and mirrors covering for a monumental cock-up by MA of not doing the appropriate checks and his outpourings were his get out clause for spending almost F*** all on players. The world of top flight football runs on debt. It is not like we were struggling for turnover. By Jove! I believe we have a winner! Just more people who don't understand the situation we were in. I don't know where to begin with UV's post, it beggars belief.. Anyway it seems its always being said in these kind of threads that the debt itself wasn't the issue, the continued and in fact worsening losses each year were the problem, but it just never sinks in with some.

Our finances were completely out of control and no.

Nobody knows for definite, logic tells me no way can anyone be stupid enough to think they can get £200m for Newcastle United in our current situation. But logic doesn't seem to exist in Ashley's world. The fact that 4 groups are interested suggests the loan will be written off.

I'd be more interested in the Omani people then The Profitable Group, also apparently that South African billionaire is much closer to owning us then The Profitable Group.

I didn't disagree with the Premiership comment mate. Just saying that I don't see why Leeds would be a better option then us for a truley ambitious person.