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No, because the club now has the value of the player in cash form. Hypothetically, if someone bought the club from him tomorrow, they'd also effectively be buying Andy Carroll's value (either in terms of an available balance, or more likely reduced debts). So the value of the club need not be reduced by selling players. (Fyi, there's more to that conversation regarding possible club value outcomes following a player sale) It would of course be stupid to sell all the competent players at once, which is why I don't think I've seen anyone suggest that. But bleed it steadily, say by removing a couple of top class players per year and hoping internal development and good scouting will make up most of the shortfall, that definitely can be achieved. Of course that reasoning only works IF the team is kept as successful as before those players were sold. As obviously the value of a Football club is more then simply the value of its assets minus its debts. Trying the sell off the clubs best players every season, and replace them with more players you can sell for a profit the following season while keeping the club in the Premiership sounds like an unbelievably difficult way of going about getting his money back. Do you reckon he believes he can do that for the 8-10 consecutive seasons necessary to get his investment back?.. Would he even want to spend that amount of time slowly dripping the money back into his personal account? Surely the better way would be to try his best to improve the value of the club, through financial stability and improved performances on the pitch, to the point where he can sell it on. As hard as that could be its not going to be as risky or arduous as your suggestion. I don't see why you A) think he has any other option for getting his money back faster or in as risk-free a manner. First of all, what I'm suggesting will improve the financial stability of the club - it will be run in such a way as to see very few monetary skeletons in our closet should bad fortune befall us. At this point I'd like to make clear there's a difference between financial stability and prosperity. Now that said, I also believe this route can continue to improve the club's financial prosperity. What you suggest, improving performances, presumably with a view to out-competing the well-funded top 7 and gaining revenue from European competition will 1) cost money, some would argue a lot of money, even just to retain our good players like Andy Carroll, and 2) add risk - that is to say there's no guarantee such an investment will be successful when there are patently a lot of richer, more enthusiastic club owners around who would want to do the same thing. It's the law of marginal returns - you tend to have to try a lot harder to get increasingly small rises up the table. Such investments could go wrong... who knows, we could end up with the 6th (iirc) largest wage bill and 18th best club again like 08/09... And that is a nightmare for him. Far more profitable to scout well, pick up lots of hungry hot prospects, or damaged goods (Ben Arfa), and try to add value to them and strike gold with 20% of them (Carroll, Tiote), while hoping to get acceptable performances out of the others (Williamson, Best). It won't be easy to maintain a high/consistent rate of success for the team with this policy, no. I think even he knows that, although he makes such shit judgements you wonder sometimes. But the realistic ideal scenario for him is to go through success cycles that run along the lines of 'lean year (15th), good year (8th), lean year, good year' etc. The fundamental value of owning a well-supported Premiership team would be retained, with the additional benefit of not employing anybody on wages intended for more than a severe relegation battle because so soon as other clubs notice they're worthy of earning a great deal more than that they will go elsewhere. A certain quality and consistency will be maintained by a section of club stalwarts (a supine but steady manager who signed up to this future or knows he'll not get a better position/proving ground for himself anywhere else, for example...) so as to keep the club's business as coherent and smooth as possible. Now that said, we may go down eventually. These things happen, he knows that better than most. But we will be designed for relegation - playing staff and a financial situation that can survive it, like West Bromwich do (relegation doesn't always equal oblivion, of course). Furthermore, he knows we have better reserve finances (his personal wealth) and believes we have the best-supported relegated team in history, so that he won't actually lose money in the mean time and, maybe with an extremely modest investment (Routledge £1m+ish), can power back out of the Second Division without too much fuss soon enough afterwards and return to the land of profits. If he thought our attendances would ever collapse to the standard or even below average levels of other clubs, he'd have a lot less phlegmatic attitude to the risks of relegation, and would accordingly seek to handle this club differently (almost certainly by trying much harder to sell the club and reducing his over-inflated asking price - because try as they might, sellers don't get to dictate the sale value in an unhealthy market, just ask a real estate analyst...). But so long as he can rely on 40,000 paying him Premiership ticket prices in the Second Division, he doesn't have to worry. B) Why would it take 8-10 seasons? Remember he'll get a hefty amount from the sale of the club, he doesn't have to recoup every penny he spent on buying and financing the club through player sales. It's reasonable to imagine he can get (very conservatively) £60-70m for the club, if not £120m or much more... It was the loans he wanted immediately repaying in full to him which held things up last time. £12m for James Milner, £9m for Oba Martins, £8m(?) for Sebastien Bassong, £35m for Andy Carroll, £8m-16m for Jose Enrique, £20m for Tiote... soon adds up. Across four season (allowing for the latter two), that's not bad going. As I say, I'm not suggesting he only can or will make money through player sales - run in an efficient manner, a handsome profit can also be made from standard yearly operations. The aim would be to have a trend-buckingly low wages-profit ratio. I want to make clear, he isn't guaranteed success with this strategy - because players and supporters can put a stop to it through our own actions. Whether either group will though is another question.

What I didn't get with that was his assertion that it woud be good for Enrique and the club to wait til summer. I can get the Enrique part... but the club? /actually thinking about it, it may have just been to take some heat out of any criticism of Jose's decision? Fair play if that was the case, just seemed odd at the time. Maybe, but hypothetically it would also it would be a big contract to support in the Second Division. Sign him up and risk getting lumbered, would be the idea. Whey, yes, that would be another way of looking at it. Get to bed man On the same train of thought, with a slightly more positive spin, it would maybe in Pardews eyes give us more leeway with Ashley to offer him a far bigger contract once we're safe than we can at the moment - so we could hold onto him. G'night! You never know... according to Johnny.

What I didn't get with that was his assertion that it woud be good for Enrique and the club to wait til summer. I can get the Enrique part... but the club? /actually thinking about it, it may have just been to take some heat out of any criticism of Jose's decision? Fair play if that was the case, just seemed odd at the time. Maybe, but hypothetically it would also it would be a big contract to support in the Second Division. Sign him up and risk getting lumbered, would be the idea. Whey, yes, that would be another way of looking at it. Get to bed man

Certainly not leaving the players' sides

What I didn't get with that was his assertion that it woud be good for Enrique and the club to wait til summer. I can get the Enrique part... but the club? /actually thinking about it, it may have just been to take some heat out of any criticism of Jose's decision? Fair play if that was the case, just seemed odd at the time. Maybe, but hypothetically it would also it would be a big contract to support in the Second Division. Sign him up and risk getting lumbered, would be the idea.

I wondered about that. But... well.. we'll have to see. I fear you've correctly predicted the outcome of that initiative. If they were designed at least partly with a view to staying here, I think it was a misjudgement to make the comments quite so raw, though.

Sorry, misread your post, particularly this bit - "so if the aims of the club's government and its team's members diverge, problems could arise". Hopefully that's not what we're seeing. Tthe lads out on the pitch still look to be working for each other, fingers crossed both they and Enrique keep it up until the end of the season. It would've been cool if you'd edited that a bit quicker

But you're suggesting that you now might be wrong about team spirit, presumably based upon tonights relevation. It's all good, but I just don't see why there is a need to start questioning it again after one article in the mail, when all the evidence is to the contrary. Chin up. The lads out on the pitch look to be working for each other. We are doing well. Well, I didn't say it was impossible it would come apart - 'if the aims of the management and players diverge...'. Furthermore, seeing as I was going on public evidence (in concrete terms, nothing more than a solid statement that Enrique wanted to see if we survived before negotiations), I believed it had survived the Hughton/Carroll sagas, but maybe I was wrong and aftershocks are still going to reverberate. Let's be clear on my definition here - I'm a butterflies and hurricanes type of person. As such, today could prompt division within the squad or between them and the management which echoes on ('if our he's going to bail on us too, what's the point of this?', 'if the pricks are going to run things this way, this place is screwed'). Jose#s an influential boy, it's hard to imagine the players aren't going to be affected by his demeanour. That said, I agree - I was only speculating, maybe prompting a discussion - I think the spirit will come through these events for this season, which is what the thread's concerned with. I think they'll resort to not crumbling in order to preserve their own self-respect, as with the Arsenal game, as well as (because they're a good bunch of lads) doing it for the fans, who they wouldn't want to let down even if they might possibly think the people who run their club are piss-taking idiots.

No, I also predicted a defeat against Birmingham, no goals, and (light-heartedly) that Enrique would be prepared to sign a contract come the Summer. Instead I got a 90 second lead, a 2-0 victory, Jonas Gutierrez remembering how to menace a defence and these disruptive quotes which suggest he's off, hence the latter comment. In other words, chill out...

Now that's denial. Sweet tea and a lie-down required.

Hahaha, here's one for the Ashley-Hater-Haters - maybe Jose Enrique is loyal to us and trying to let us know we shouldn't be renewing our season tickets so early. He knew about the Board's dastardly trick of shipping him out once everyone had handed over their money so he decided to force the issue so they couldn't get away with it and con his beloved supporters. I reckon that is definitely true.

Hmm. Spoke to soon? At this early stage I've been quite spectacularly wrong so far.

Did Liverpool show a lack of ambition in selling Torres? Torres has played like a drunk for the last 18 months, and Chelsea were willing to bankroll them buying a top striker and the best young striker in England to replace him. Also, they had those moves lined up before letting Torres go, amazingly enough. So no. Indeed. Can't emphasise the last sentence enough, they parried a blow and came back with a haymaker by spending every penny. Some might question the wisdom (I don't), but rhetorically it was a massive statement of intent which is rewarding in itself. No one was talking about Liverpool's new plight as a selling club, but they were talking about our historic 'place' in football. Which we still effectively could do. Timing is everything, live in the moment or you get left behind. A drunk clambering off the floor and picking up his teeth before hollering after the guy who put him there that if he 'comes back here he'll get f***ing mullered' doesn't look clever to anyone. We didn't parry the blow, we got punched. Anyway, we patently clear we won't even try to throw that haymaker. Even if we spent it all, we'll be getting four £5m kids (wages too, remember), not one gargantuan golden boy and a star of the last world cup. To me it's clear all manner of negative things are stemming forth, which themselves disrupt the chances of a good Summer. Players will look at the 'newly brilliant' Enrique and see he's attracted by clubs like Villa and Liverpool - so if he's going, why would they come? So they could go to Liverpool eventually too? The big idea

Did Liverpool show a lack of ambition in selling Torres? Torres has played like a drunk for the last 18 months, and Chelsea were willing to bankroll them buying a top striker and the best young striker in England to replace him. Also, they had those moves lined up before letting Torres go, amazingly enough. So no. Indeed. Can't emphasise the last sentence enough, they parried a blow and came back with a haymaker by spending every penny. Some might question the wisdom (I don't), but rhetorically it was a massive statement of intent which is rewarding in itself. No one was talking about Liverpool's new plight as a selling club, but they were talking about our historic 'place' in football. Which we still effectively could do. Timing is everything, live in the moment or you get left behind. A drunk clambering off the floor and picking up his teeth before hollering after the guy who put him there that if he 'comes back here he'll get fucking mullered' doesn't look clever to anyone. We didn't parry the blow, we got punched. Anyway, it's patently obvious we won't even try to throw that haymaker. Even if we spent it all, we'll be getting four £5m kids (wages too, remember), not one gargantuan golden boy and a star of the last world cup. To me it's clear all manner of negative things are stemming forth, which themselves disrupt the chances of a good Summer. Players will look at the 'newly brilliant' Enrique and see he's attracted by clubs like Villa and Liverpool - so if he's going, why would they come?

Did Liverpool show a lack of ambition in selling Torres? Torres has played like a drunk for the last 18 months, and Chelsea were willing to bankroll them buying a top striker and the best young striker in England to replace him. Also, they had those moves lined up before letting Torres go, amazingly enough. So no. Indeed. Can't emphasise the last sentence enough, they parried a blow and came back with a haymaker by spending every penny. Some might question the wisdom (I don't), but rhetorically it was a massive statement of intent which is rewarding in itself. No one was talking about Liverpool's new plight as a selling club, but they were talking about our historic 'place' in football. Players at other clubs will consider the prospect of a bright future for their careers on Merseyside, they won't here.

But if I can come to the conclusions I've come to about the Board, so can they. And they're closer to the action so they might well be picking up even more on the grapevine.

I have to say, not one person has said that. A mention of Pardew possibly trying to up our eventual price for him, but why not - doesn't mean Enrique didn't initiate the deal, just that Pardew's sensibly been wanting to up our eventual price for him. There are plenty people hinting at it, be it about the Twitter incident or the Carroll sale or him wanting more money or whathaveyou. When in reality, he simply wants CL football and wants to be at a bigger club. It sucks, but it's truth. As I suspected. Well, it's me who mentioned the twitter incident, but you're seeing shadows - the issue is simply whether that was a genuine accident or a deliberate indication of an issue, regardless of what the problem was or who caused it. It could have been a dig over the sacking of his trusted mentor, it could have been him laying the foundations of a greedy betrayal of a club. Or it could have been absolutely nothing. Aside from that, you've managed to change people - and not the usual suspects - saying Enrique's leaving for more money into people saying Ashley and Pardew are cleverly forcing him out of the club, which is impressive and suits an "everybody's stupid" agenda, but not right.

I believe the bold there, but I think it's also clear 'this group of lads' are losing faith in the long-term project they bought into last year. They want to do it, but they can't if the rug's pulled out from underneath them.

Who's saying Jose's a bad guy? It's a disappointing quote, and stupidly timed. Do you disagree? In this thread? No one just yet, but I was making an historical reference, so that doesn't relate. We've got another 4 months or so for this situation to curry following his 'gutting', 'cuntish' and 'disrespectful' comments, though, so it's fair to imagine he might join the list, don't you think?

I have to say, not one person has said that. A mention of Pardew possibly trying to up our eventual price for him, but why not - doesn't mean Enrique didn't initiate the deal, just that Pardew's sensibly been wanting to up our eventual price for him.

I'd love to know what's been going on behind the scenes lately. Ever since Hughton's sacking really, of course. It's funny how all our good guys become bad just as they leave the club lately, isn't it? Virtually a fully verifiable correlation between decency and contributing to all things wholesome, and leaving in toxic circumstances.

Yep. Slightly conspiratorial, but he's one of our more intelligent players, so I do wonder if that tweet about 'our chairman' was not so accidental, either. What did he say? I only remember him getting into trouble for revealing he was injured for the game at Spurs. I forget precisely, but just after Hughton's sacking he said something along the lines of 'you never know what your future is with this chairman'. Phrased in very accusatory-sounding way, but got pulled soon afterwards and he blamed it on his big spanish-speaking mouth.

Yep. Slightly conspiratorial, but he's one of our more intelligent players, so I do wonder if that tweet about 'our chairman' was not so accidental, either.

Let's just enjoy the next few months, why worry when nothing can happen till th.... I'm not going to read too much into the comments re: Aston Villa, but my feeling is he'll leave us because we're not even going to try to give him Champion's League football, that's the crux of it. I think even the kindliest of Ashley estimators think we're gonna be treading water for at least another couple of seasons before thinking about keeping any half-decent players instead of finding any offer hard to resist, as Pardew suggested. What future is that for him, on lower than necessary wages until he's pedalled to boot?

I think I'm right in saying he's attended a respectable number of games to be fair, especially given his circumstances - plenty of locals with less to their name. I didn't know he was a Southerner until you told us he was. It's not as though he supported Chelsea last week, Man Utd the week before and is just playing political games on here for a laugh, though. Saying that, I suppose he's more mental than most Cockneys to be hanging round here getting belts given he hasn't got £200m at stake. Not all Newcastle supporters are season ticket holders, in fact most aren't. I'm sure you're more sympathetic than most to people upping sticks for the South or wherever in pursuit of jobs, there are consequences to that, and I don't think supporters who are so-called victims of that process should be cut out of the society of Newcastle supporters. If they tick all the other boxes, they're welcome to advocate their best guesses as to how the club can be taken forward, as far as I'm concerned. If he thinks what's right's right, he should say it. I don't see how him not attending a game he apparently wouldn't have attended anyway is going to spoil the match experience of Greg or anyone else. Regarding that last quote, that's what I meant - he's said that at the end of a sustained campaign and it's not even particularly bad. It's not so much expecting gratitude as expressing exasperation at how every well-intended thing he does manages somehow to be turned into a symbol of his and his alone's deviant character.