Teasy

Perhaps £7 million would do it?..

Dein turned us down? Did he tell you that? Its been mentioned in many articles from pretty reliable writers if I remember correctly. It doesn't suprise me either. He's the best available choice to go for, but with Kroenke looking like he'll win the takeover battle he was never going to agree to a job anywhere at the moment.

First it was said he'd took a sabbatical, now its an indefinite leave of absence. I suppose this is a case of plans being changed after Dein turned us down.. Anyway, good to hear something from him.

It's a good job then that Mr Mort is a philantrophe who is merely here for a 'sabbatical'.. You mean philanthropist surely? If so no he's not. but at least he's an employee on a wage decided by his boss. Not a man who effectively owns the club paying himself whatever he wants like the fat man was.

A crucial transfer window is the worst possible place to start though isn't it?

He didn't say that a lawyer can't be a good chairman. He said that being a lawyer doesn't necessarily lend itself to being a good company chairman, especially at a Football club.

....and here's me thinking that the manager chooses who to buy and the Chairman just deals with the business side of things.... Yeah because picking players is the only job at a Football club right?.. The manager deals with players, picking the team, oversee's coaching and usually picks the transfer targets. But you still need someone with Football knowledge in front of him to deal with everything else. Mort doesn't have that AFAIK. Which is why I mentioned a DOF in between Mort and Allardyce to support the manager on Football matters that he shouldn't need to be burdened with.

Key word there mate.. Where is permanent mentioned here? As I said originally my opinion was that Mort was here to complete the internal review and as Ashley's man on the inside during the initial takeover period. Giving him the highest title available at the club was a pretty obvious thing to do. At the time it was deputy chairman, now with Freddy gone its Chairman. But I cannot see it being permanent unless a director of Football is brought in. Even then as I said it was mentioned that he was on sabbatical, so unless that's changed he won't be here permanently in any position.

Still don't think this is a long term thing. Chris Mort just doesn't have the know how to run a Football club. Unless they go the director of Football route (Mort as chairman of the company and a DOF to run the Football side).

Soccerbase only have him down as scoring 3 in the league for them. Yes I think they're probably right actually. Wikipedia's record for him is messed up now I take a better look at the whole thing (the League, Cup and Europe goals don't add up to the totals at the end...). Ten goals in 35 games seems to have been his total record, so not to good then..

That isn't a possibility at all to be honest, there's no reason for it. After all he hasn't actually lost £140 million here. His money is still there (or most of it), just that now its in assets instead of cash. If he's looking to make money directly from the club (and he may not be) then it will have to be long term. For instance get regular champs league Football for a few years, win a few trophies, generally make the club much more successful and then re-float on the stock market. Sell a minority share (49% for instance) and he could possibly make back his initial £140 million investment (or maybe even more) while still being majority share holder.

He scored 9 goals in 24 Premiership games for Arsenal. That's actually a pretty good record, especially considering a lot of those were probably sub apearances (?).

Yes you can sign someone more or less (agree in principle to a move). But we're talking about major team strengthening here, not the odd signing. To be able to do that you need to get the season out of the way and then internationals and holidays. Which is usually mid June to early July time.

Hmm, generally it seems to be accepted that while you can arrange transfers at any time (pre contracts ect) nothing goes through officially until July 1st. But after looking around for long enough it does seem that the official start is the day after the season ends. Good to know.. Still most good players aren't in a position to consider transfers until at least June (and often July if they've been on International duty before there holiday).

Was just about to edit that just before you posted when my PC died.. f****** hate PC's I meant one and a half months (well more or less, one month and 9 days to be exact). We're basically a quarter of the way through the transfer window.. why panic?..

Clearly Allardyce wants at least 4 more defenders. Signing players like Baptista isn't going to change that. Also we've got 2 and a half months left in the transfer window, 2 weeks in its bizarre to think its slipping away, don't panic for fuck sake..

Ironically, I wonder whether he had a specific northern team in mind when he referred to the long ball being booted upfield? Steer well clear. Villa maybe? I don't know take a guess from 10 or so teams. Any team North of London would be a northern team to him..

Like I mentioned earlier Mort is here on sabbatical, which by its nature isn't perminant (its usually a year). Also he's a lawyer, not a Football person so I really see little reason to choose him as a long term Chairman. More likely he's there to be Ashley's eyes at the club during the initial takeover and to complete the internal review. Why do I think Ashley wouldn't try to run the club himself? Firstly he's a very good business man and so surely realises he doesn't have the knowledge to run a Football club day to day. Secondly he's a very private person who definitely wouldn't want to be the clubs figure head. Of course, but the positive thing from my point of view is that the buck now stops at the person who isn't running the club day to day. At the end of the day all I care about are the Football decisions, not the business ones. Everyone making the Footballing decisions at Newcastle United are now sackable. Which is a breath of fresh air to someone who had long ago decided it was almost futile to complain. Due to the fact that no matter what manager was in charge the real problem behind the scene's (the man picking the managers and mismanaging them in turn) was untouchable. I understand what you're saying in your post and agree with it long term. My point of view though is that its now a totally clean slate. In a year or so I'll have a better handle on what I think of the new regime and then I may have my complaints. But for now the new owner is getting the benefit of the doubt from me for quite a while yet (as will Sam Allardyce).

With our backroom staff pre Allardyce I wouldn't be suprised..

Just shows the amount of money's gone mad in the game, he's worth 6 mill tops 6 million dollars as well, apparently we're going to pay the equivalent of $14 million for him?.. crazy!

Please don't even think that never mind say it!

I thought this was decided ages ago. Haven't we already paid money to Le Havre??

Mort isn't here as the Chairman. As far as I remember he isn't even here for the long term. When he was appointed I seem to remember it being mentioned that he was merely taking a sabbatical from his normal job. No doubt he has significant power, probably second only to Ashley. But I definitely don't think its planned for him to take over the day to day running of the club long term. But rather to oversee the likes of Shepherd and be Ashley's eyes in the club in the early days of the take over. He'll also be here to speerhead the internal review.

Skepticism is fine, but I have to say I don't see anything mentioned here as a negative point. As a PLC we were already Shepherds play thing anyway. At least now we will not actually be run day to day by the man who owns the club. Its pretty clear that Ashley isn't the kind of person who will try to run a Football club (nor is he in to play things). He will have a chairman, manager ect running the club and they will all be held accountable for there actions. In the past the Chairman was untouchable, now he's just an employee who can even be sacked if he makes the wrong decisions for long enough. Sounds like another step forward to me..

I have to disagree completely, Bellamy was an excellent player for us. Not just his pace and ability to worry defenders and open up space for others. But the fact that everytime you saw his name on the team sheet you knew you'd have at least one player giving everything to win. He was flawed obviously, with his injuries and his disciplinary problems. But I'll always remember his time here with a lot of fondness, even if he is a bit of a w****** So you disagree on some things, but presumably agree that he wasn't a good finisher. Quite a big flaw for a striker though... He wasn't a brilliant finisher, but his scoring record for us was one in every 2.8 games, which is a decent record. Certainly good enough for a player who did a lot more for the team then just score goals.