Teasy

Duff has one assist. Hmm, I have him down as two, I'll have to recheck that sometime.

3. Same as S Taylor. Yeah I thought it was three but wasn't sure if it might be just two Anyway while I like Jonas, and prefer him to Duff, three is three more then he's scored.

Duff definitely has less assists, 2 isn't it? But he's got a few goals, a while back I'd have celebrated this injury. However not now, he's still not very good, but he's certainly not someone I'd like to be injured these days (like Smith for instance). I'd even start him on the right if I picked the team, well before the injury anyway.

We are shit now though. If Mike Ashley finishes 13th in the league he will call it success, and so will those who blindly and stupidly thought the last years of the Halls and Shepherd were shit, they will be doing cartwheels if Ashley finishes in mid table in the top league. Thats the message that myself, HTL and a small handful of others tried to tell you. We finished 13th with a wage bill Shepherd had amassed to the 5th highest in the Premiership and losses that weren't sustainable even for another year under his management. Do I think Ashley has done a good job, NO! Do I think we were good in the later years of Shepherds time or that we should look back at that time and smile now, NO! Especially given the looming bankruptcy we now know we were facing. I can accept that both Shepherd and Ashley have done incredibly bad jobs at the club in the last 4 or 5 years. So if you think I'm championing Ashley you're wrong.

Yes, but you got both. It’s a tired debate and not worth rehashing. At the end of the day Ashley has to be judged on what he does, and on that front he’s guilty as sin. Guilty of letting the squad turn to rot. Guilty of appointing Keegan / letting Keegan go. Guilty of appointing Kinnear, and guilty of sticking with JFK when a proper permanent manager was needed…. not once, but twice this season. This alone condemns him. I don't disagree with any of that, I've said in this very thread that Ashley has made and is still making some terrible mistakes that I'll never forgive him for, especially if we go down. I just won't blame him for the financial situation or expect him to keep on doing what Shepherd was doing with new signings and insane wages despite increasing losses.

Would it surprise you if he did? Hmm, what would he gain from that? Genuine question, because I'm struggling to see the plus side to it. Going into administration doesn't gain him anything. Doing it before the end of the season, and especially before our three most winnable games would be even more insane.

For most of the time your referring to he wasn't even in charge, John Hall was. But either way we're talking about the last few years for a reason, because they lead in to Ashley's time here. What happened five years ago has little baring on Ashley's time here. He didn't take over when we were finishing 2nd or 3rd the year before, he came in when we'd finished 13th. Now I do agree Ashley's made and is making some unbelievable blunders. Mostly in who he chooses to run the club, if we get relegated I'll find it very difficult not to despise the man. I just don't agree with harkening back to the shepherd days when it seems pretty obvious to me that Shepherd would have ended up bankrupting the club completely had he stayed on. Not true, we haven't seen results for the second year of Ashley's time here. We have results for his first year, in which we made a loss pretty much as big as the year before. How did you expect him to stop the losses started by Shepherd in his first year exactly? As for clearing the debts, they're now held by the owner of the club rather then outside parties as they were under Shepherd.

Yeah he's played shit in the last few games like

Shame on us for not loving Shepherd because we were good in the past?, its the past. We were shit for years under Shepherd before Ashley came in, unfortunately we were also racking up unmanageable debts that would have buried the club completely. The main problem here isn't lack of investment IMO, its the managerial situation. You seem to think that when someone defends Ashley's handling of the financial situation at the club that they're defending everything Ashley's done. I don't think anyone here is, not one of us. You and HTL were right on what by the way?, that we should have stayed with Shepherd?, I don't agree. With Ashley we've got a clown who doesn't realise the importance of having a proper manager or the seriousness of our current situation who might end up getting us relegated. With Shepherd we had a clown who liked to look the big man by throwing our money around to the point where we were heading for administration. Who to choose, who to choose... Can I choose neither?

But he's right though, how could they afford to finance the continued losses the club has made, especially while spending big in the transfer market? We lost £35 million last season without spending anything on players and that had to be finances by Ashley's own money. Where would Fred have found £35 million in the current financial climate?, let alone extra for transfers. However I agree that Shepherd would never have allowed this pathetic managerial situation to happen. He's put some dick heads in charge but he would never allow a coach who can't win a game to take us into the last 8 games of the season while he waits for a caretaker manager to recover from heart surgery! He would realise the importance of having a manager, he'd of brought somebody in quite a few games ago.

We do always beat Spurs though so hows it a claim? Did we play Spurs and lose to them without me noticing like? Nobody claims that the fact we always beat Spurs means we're guaranteed to beat them again this season. Just that considering our record we shouldn't be looking at that game as a lost cause. I haven't seen anyone on here say that.

Ashley not wearing a suit has put Newcastle in relegation trouble?? I mean for all the mistakes Ashley's made that cock picks his cloths as the problem, what a petty little dwarf

surely that must go for more mature players aswell then. i agree with your 2nd bit. Sort of, though it's a lot easier for supporters to know if were buying quality or dross. To a degree, but its not going to change who we sign anyway. Fact is the "why bother because other clubs will have done better and we'll just get the dregs" thing is a defeatist argument and applys just as much to first teamers as it does youth players.

I wouldn't say its fair at all, like most articles from hacks today it takes events and facts and twists them to fit an agenda. There are elements of truth there but a hell of a lot of nonsense as well.

Geremi's contract still has 15 months left on it and Owen has been offered a new contract. Also his wages haven't already been paid up front, they've always been included in our wage bill. We'll lose £41 million of TV money from our income and £19-20 million seems a fair estimate for corporate and match day profit reductions. The £7 million is a planned loss covered by Ashley so it doesn't come into it. IF what I've read is correct about the new parachute payments (increase to £30 million) we'd need to cut costs/raise cash by £30 million to stay on budget for next year. I hate to keep harping on about it but selling/releasing the players I mentioned would cut costs by that amount, and hopefully we could get a few million in transfer fee's for them as well.

I don't get what you mean. If you reduce the operating costs you already cover the drop in income, because income is used to pay the operating costs.. Plus when you sell the player you not only reduce costs through cutting wages but you also bring money in through transfer fees (if you get a fee that is). My point is we won't need to sell half the squad to break even if we reduce the costs enough to begin with.

gutierrez,martins,coloccini. Couldn’t play for another club this season. Not going to get much for an ineligible player. Martins might have raised £12m… did anyone bid for him? exp;lain to me why he couldn't play for another club. nobody bid for steven gerrard.....whats your point ? They’d have both have played for three clubs in a year? My point is that your clutching at straws. Wise would have looked like a right donkey if he’d signed players in July and sold them in January. Probably at a loss, judging by Collocini’s form. Selling Jonas might have been a bit difficult while his transfer for Mallorca was subject to a legal battle. Martins was the only one of the three who could have been sold for more than £6m+. And he probably would have gone if anyone had put a bid in. Have we rejected a bid for any player since Ashley took over? you can play for three clubs in a year,but not for 3 in a season .(hence diarra signing for pompey in january after signing for arsenal the previous august). my point is many still think the money we got for n'zogbia was fair, we got more than milner was worth and we got robbed on given. ashley has made enough mistakes without you blaming him for the weather and high tides. Calm down. I’m saying there aren’t many corners left for him to cut, and he’s already sold our most saleable assists. You can quibble about whether Coloccini’s market value is greater than Milner’s if you want, but it’s neither here or there. Player sales will be the only way to service next season's losses if we go down, and as those losses will be gigantic we’ll be left with a paper thin squad made up of kids and free transfers. And that means another relegation scrap. Not making the losses to begin with is the best way, which means getting rid of players, but only the really high earners (and the ones who ask to leave of course). Remove the biggest earners and we can take £30 million off the wage bill without having much of an effect on the team. I mean who would miss Smith, Geremi, Cacapa, Butt, Duff and Viduka? Even Barton and Owen have played so little we wouldn't really miss them..

He's clutching at straws? Sorry man but you're making assumptions based on absolutely nothing. Given, N'Zogbia and Milner all put in transfer requests. But yeah whatever you just keep on believing that any player we receive a bid for we'll sell, with no evidence at all to back it up.

We got very good money for them, but they weren't top players, far from it. Looking purely at money I'd bet we'd have gotten more for Martins, Gutierrez, Coloccini and now Bassong.

It was, but I doubt that’s down to overstaffing the box office with highly paid ticket sellers. Or the customer service department, especially since they were laid off earlier this year. All the obvious corners have already been cut. The cream of the family jewels, already sold. Which creamy jewels are you referring to there? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not the Shola shaped ones. We've sold one really good player of course in Given, but the likes of Zog and Milner certainly weren't jewels, balls maybe..

It was, but I doubt that’s down to overstaffing the box office with highly paid ticket sellers. Or the customer service department, especially since they were laid off earlier this year. All the obvious corners have already been cut. The cream of the family jewels, already sold. Which creamy jewels are you referring to there?

First one is wiki, others are various forums of Championship clubs talking about it. But I also just found a quote from Adam Pearson, chairman of Derby City: So it would seem it was slightly more then I thought, £11.5 per year for clubs relegated last season. Like I said lets just hope it really has gone up again for clubs relegated this season, or instead lets just hope we don't get relegated so it won't matter!

You might have misreading my post a bit, I said £11.2 million per season for two years. That's the current deal as far as I can see. But like I said I read its going up to £30 million per season, lets hope so if we do go down because £11.2 million a year won't fucking cut it for us!

There's no reason to make any connection between operating loss and selling players (well not planned losses that it). We lost £35 million last season and didn't make a penny from transfers that year. The £35 million was covered by another loan from Ashley, its safe to say he'll have planned to cover this and next years losses similarly. By the way where do you get the parachute payment info? From what I read online in various places the payments started in 2006/2007 at £6.5 million over two years. In 2007/2008 they increased to £11.2 million per year for two years. I read today that those payments have gone up again for teams relegated in 2008/2009 this time to £30 million per year for two years (but I can't confirm that last bit anywhere yet).

For next season I think losses are supposed to be down to £7 million (remember Lambias saying losses were £35 million last season, will be £20 million this season and then £7 million next). Which Ashley will have planned to cover. Either way its going to be important to drop the clubs outgoings by a similar amount to the loss in revenue. I think if we can get rid of the players I mentioned, and of course sell the likes of Martins (who won't stay anyway) we'll have covered that drop. I just hope to god we never have to find out!