OzzieMandias

NE5 on this thread reminds me of Hitler in his bunker, insanely ordering the disposition of imaginary regiments long after the war is obviously lost.

Liverpool are in any case in big trouble if Hicks and Gillett don't find a buyer to pay off the £350 million loan that gets called in next July.

Independent story from last September: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/keeping-circus-on-the-road-cut-managers-room-for-manoeuvre-919395.html

Re. Keegan and financial troubles at Soccer Circus, this Feb 2008 story followed the publication of their last set of accounts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/feb/01/sport.comment So, a year ago, Soccer Circus was losing money hand over fist and was only a going concern because Keegan had undertaken to support the company.

Robson was poor in the transfer market with most of the better players in his team coming here before he did. I'll add Acuna, Bernard & Distin to the good signings list, but the amount of money blown on players like Cort, Bassedas, Viana, Bramble, Ambrose, Butt & Carr was scary. Milner, N'Zogbia. And Gallacher did the job he was brought in for. Agree with the general point, though. was helder one of his aswell ? Think so, think Domi and Distin were as well, although obviously Distin didnt sign. Domi was a Gullit signing.

Robson was poor in the transfer market with most of the better players in his team coming here before he did. I'll add Acuna, Bernard & Distin to the good signings list, but the amount of money blown on players like Cort, Bassedas, Viana, Bramble, Ambrose, Butt & Carr was scary. Milner, N'Zogbia. And Gallacher did the job he was brought in for. Agree with the general point, though. was helder one of his aswell ? Yeah. But it was essentially just a season loan.

Robson was poor in the transfer market with most of the better players in his team coming here before he did. I'll add Acuna, Bernard & Distin to the good signings list, but the amount of money blown on players like Cort, Bassedas, Viana, Bramble, Ambrose, Butt & Carr was scary. Milner, N'Zogbia. And Gallacher did the job he was brought in for. Agree with the general point, though.

Yes he was. Great manager. Great footballer. Great bloke. Everything Ashley isn?t. Keegan earned the respect of thousands of supporters. He doesn?t need to get a round in for people to like him. Appointing Keegan was a desperate measure by a man out of his depth. Letting him walk six months later was a mistake of huge proportions. Keegan is how he is, you can?t change him and everybody knows he?s temperamental. Ashely tried to squeeze a square peg into a round hole with predictably disastrous consequences. When the going gets tough you have to trust your friends. I?m 100% certain Keegan is a friend of NUFC, and 99% certain Ashley isn?t. I'm a 100% certain you're a moron. Good Your work here is done, eh?

Yeah, thanks, with NE5 too chickenshit to post on here, we needed someone to laugh at.

Let's sack our recruitment team because they have good contacts in Spain.

Yes he was. Great manager. Great footballer. Great bloke. Everything Ashley isn?t. Keegan earned the respect of thousands of supporters. He doesn?t need to get a round in for people to like him. Appointing Keegan was a desperate measure by a man out of his depth. Letting him walk six months later was a mistake of huge proportions. Keegan is how he is, you can?t change him and everybody knows he?s temperamental. Ashely tried to squeeze a square peg into a round hole with predictably disastrous consequences. When the going gets tough you have to trust your friends. I?m 100% certain Keegan is a friend of NUFC, and 99% certain Ashley isn?t. I'm a 100% certain you're a moron.

I couldn?t give a s*** if LLLO was the head of the IMF. This isn?t a question of debit and credit columns, it?s a question of strategy. Unbeleivable. So you're saying he should of left the 3rd party debt alone, and then invested £100m into the first team? No. I?m saying restructuring the debt was the absolute minimum requirement, and that Ashley has milked the ?I saved the club thing? to death. He never f***ing says anything. mackems.gif No, but his henchmen never stop mentioning it. Wise and Llambias never say anything either.

Its perfectly legitimate but the club owes him the money nontheless - the club is not debt free. Well, then Im stumped, i dont see what you're critical point is then? By the same logic Roman deserve slander not credit. It's not even as "bad" as the loans Abramovich has made to Chelsea due to what the money has been used for. Abramovich's loans have funded the purchase of players, many of whom have been signed for fees that were greatly over the odds and will never be recouped (see: Shaun Wright-Philips, Andriy Shevchenko, Hernán Crespo, etc). Those players are also on hugely inflated wages, which makes it even more difficult for Chelsea to move them on to other clubs if they become surplus to requirements. Essentially, the money has been spent on intangible assets and the majority of it is unrecoverable under any circumstances. If Abramovich called in those loans Chelsea would be totally f***ed. Ashley's loan has been to pay off debt owed to external agencies, who were charging interest regardless of whether the club was making a profit and could have recalled the loan at a point in time damaging to the club. If Ashley called in the loan, we'd be pretty f***ed, but no worse than we already were, in fact we'd have benefited from not having to pay interest on the loans for however long it was between Ashley paying off the original loans and demanding repayment on the loan to him. Precisely, i perosnally cant look past the notion that this "debt" is still a burden to the club if its owed the the person who owns the club in the first place. Its about as secure as it can get. If you're worried about the "debt" you're kind of implying that theres a danger that Ashley could call it in at any time and screw us over, even if he charged interest on the loan, hes not gonna do it if we cant afford it. Its just a ridiculous notion. Nonsense, he's an evil genius who'll arse-f*** his own company just to spite the fans. When do you see us being in aposition where we can spend money on players again. Will it be before or after Ashley gets his £100m back? I don't think he anticipates getting it back until such time as the club is sold.

What sort of jurno are you? Nobody with a senior job title speaks ffs. Why does my career choice matter? To me it would be good PR to work with a group like this, its called building bridges. Because you should be well aware in the real world the senior people at the club rarely speak on any of the various official media, so speaking a jamboree at the Irish club is not going to happen. Says who? Our owner is hardly a normal chairman. Or have you seen Steve Gibson downing pints on the Boro high street? If we could gurantee that the mongs wouldn't turn up he may agree. Or at least look at the minutes. He's not even a chairman, as it goes.

Its perfectly legitimate but the club owes him the money nontheless - the club is not debt free. Well, then Im stumped, i dont see what you're critical point is then? By the same logic Roman deserve slander not credit. It's not even as "bad" as the loans Abramovich has made to Chelsea due to what the money has been used for. Abramovich's loans have funded the purchase of players, many of whom have been signed for fees that were greatly over the odds and will never be recouped (see: Shaun Wright-Philips, Andriy Shevchenko, Hernán Crespo, etc). Those players are also on hugely inflated wages, which makes it even more difficult for Chelsea to move them on to other clubs if they become surplus to requirements. Essentially, the money has been spent on intangible assets and the majority of it is unrecoverable under any circumstances. If Abramovich called in those loans Chelsea would be totally fucked. Ashley's loan has been to pay off debt owed to external agencies, who were charging interest regardless of whether the club was making a profit and could have recalled the loan at a point in time damaging to the club. If Ashley called in the loan, we'd be pretty fucked, but no worse than we already were, in fact we'd have benefited from not having to pay interest on the loans for however long it was between Ashley paying off the original loans and demanding repayment on the loan to him. Precisely, i perosnally cant look past the notion that this "debt" is still a burden to the club if its owed the the person who owns the club in the first place. Its about as secure as it can get. If you're worried about the "debt" you're kind of implying that theres a danger that Ashley could call it in at any time and screw us over, even if he charged interest on the loan, hes not gonna do it if we cant afford it. Its just a ridiculous notion. Nonsense, he's an evil genius who'll arse-fuck his own company just to spite the fans.

How do you get the impression that they've not been honest about this!?! Everything they've said about the financial side of the club has been proved to be honest. They said that the club was in danger of going out of business when they took over. True. They said that the debts had been paid off. True. All that can be true and there can still be money available to the manager for transfers. Ashley can be prepared to provide the money himself if the manager identifies a player that fits with the club's strategy (Young, value for money both in terms of wages and transfer fee, future potential, etc), that player is available (ie his club is willing to sell), and they want to come here and the club can still be financially in the shit at the moment. Unfortunately, that strategy is going to restrict the number of players available to us, especially within the confines of the ridiculous January transfer window - which surely needs to go, if FIFA/UEFA are serious about encouraging an element of financial realism in football - but that doesn't mean it's wrong. If we're needing to get in a few fire-fighters to see us through until the end of the season, then fine, but we should try and make them loan signings if they don't fit with the sensible, neigh essential, transfer strategy. The anger comes from people's desire for there to be a hero and a villain in all of this and their subsequent inability to see both sides of the story. People have simply refused to accept that Ashley has had legitimate reasons behind doing what he's done - whether you think he's made mistakes or not - preferring to see him as some kind of evil super-villain whose taken us over simply to destroy the club. That's simply fucking ridiculous and it's about time reality bit for many people, hopefully this is the start of that.

What are the merits of answering a poster who asks the same off-topic question 432 times on 87 different threads?

Yes, that was the word.

For us? There's no comparison who was better for us though. No comparison at all. And if you are referring to their spells in charge of us, then I really don't know what to say. "For us?" What kind of 'objective' measure is that? I get the feeling the groups are arguing 2 different things here, 1 groups is arguing who's the better managers and the other are couteracting that argument with who's been the better manager for us. I dont know anywhere in the world where people would choose the inferiro manager on the basis of a managerial achievment, achieved over 15 years ago. Frustrating logic. Less to do with logic than sentiment.

thers a 4th group..... those who are very happy and thankful for what he done as a player and first time round as a manager but were wary about his 2nd stint. (can 1 person be a group ?) Make that 3. Now we'll have a schism.

stifles yawn

Aye, the billionaires are just queueing up down Barrack Road, all eager to throw tens of millions of their own money at the problem.