Teasy

When was Keegan ever a Director of Football working with Sam Allardyce in the past?..

The channel activation doesn't come through a phone line. Its through the dish. As long as Setanta have your details (card number ect) then there's no problem.

We can't sign Salgado.. Luque absolutely ripped the piss out of him in his time in Spain. Which according to some here automatically means that Salgado must be a division 3 standard player.. Anyway, yeah better then Carr so I'd take him on a short term deal (no more than one year).

Thanks, I'm looking forward to the game even more now

Has anyone actually heard that Luque is fit enough to play?

Yeah I know Anyway I think I will get this for a month. Four Newcastle friendlies and whatever other Football, boxing ect is on that month is pretty good for £10. Considering the fact that in the past I've paid up to £8 for one Newcastle match..

Ah right I was thinking of Setanta as seperate from Sky for some reason..

8 quid i believe. So how much is a subscription? Also is there any length of contract on it?

just go anyway Nah I'm not going to pay £20 (including bus fare) to go and watch a bunch of misfits when I could just watch them on TV. I'll go if the team is going to actually include a decent number of first team players..

Who is fit to play? Trying to decide wether its even worth going to this match..

It isn't our money, its all his money and as I said he'll spend what's needed.. Sorry but its just crazy to believe that a man like Ashley will spend £140 million on a Football club and then do nothing to improve his new asset. He needs this club to improve massively, otherwise his investment will lose value. To do that we need to become a regular side in the Champions League. Once that happens we will have the funds neccesary to compete with the very top teams. But to get there in the first place, especially within a reasonable timeframe, he will know that we need extra cash from outside the club. Currently we're a club nowhere near the top four and in £80 million debt. How on earth do you think Ashley expects to make a profit on his investment by not even competing with the likes of Spurs and West Ham? (never mind Liverpool, Manure and Chelsea).

Its all his money now. He'll put in the amount needed to improve the club and make it successful. Otherwise his initial £140 million investment would have been pointless from the start and he will know that. Do you think that Ashley believes that this club will drastically improve by spending £10-£15 million or so from club turnover with the likes of West Ham, Tottenham and even Wigan spending more? Or do you think Ashley's plan is to spend £140 million on a Football club with the intention of doing zero with it?

Yeah I'm sure Dyer has been asked and agreed to just pretend he wants to leave so we can get some money without letting on that we don't have any... Sorry mate but that's nuts. Similar to the idea of it being a good business decision not to put money into improving a investment you just spent £140 million on. Much better to let it go further downhill and watch that £140 million dwindle to nowt isn't it?.... Clearly at the moment we have money (see the recent £7 million bid). But as of yet we don't know how much money that is or wether its been limited for internal reasons. One things for sure, to improve a Football club you have to put money in. How on earth do you think he plans to improve the fortunes of this club in order to make himself some profit eventually without providing funds to the manager?..

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 (?).