OzzieMandias

Great counter argument as usual. Let's see your figures. Nah, I'll just wait until one of those on the forum who actually knows their way around a set of accounts comes along and points out the various ways in which you're talking shite -- just like the last couple of dozen times you got in over your head.

We finished 7th with those players that didn't really work out. Some of them didn't play much of a part in the season due to injury, but then their backups were at least as good as our first choice players are now relative to the competition. If you consider getting into Europe doing more harm than good, then I'm not really sure what your hopes are for the club you support. The effect of the players you mention "not working out" (ie not performing to level you would expect for the money paid) is that we didn't finish as high up the table as we would have liked. The effect of the calibre of players we are buying now "not working out" (which is every bit as likely) is humiliating relegation. I know it's currently fashionable to be happy with signing second rate players for low fees on low wages, but I guarantee if that policy continues without supplementing it with established quality players, we'll be relegated again within a couple of seasons as any remnants of quality we have left in the squad (or which develops from the players bought in) leaves due to lack of ambition from the club. As to whether Mike is going to put in £20m, here's my rough working out on the state of the club's finances for this year: Going by the 2006 accounts which are the last one's I have, I make the annual running costs of the club outside of the wage bill and interest repayments to be around £22m, lets say that's gone up to £25m. In the relegation season, revenue was £86m, down from £99m the previous year. I would expect revenue this year to be somewhere inbetween, say a conservative £90m. Let's also say the wage bill is now around £50m. I make that 90-50-25 = £15m profit. Very rough of course, and all based on guestimates, but I think I've very much erred on the side of higher costs and lower income (part of the reason the turnover reduced was because catering was contracted out so costs from that will have gone), but I'm happy for anyone to come along and correct or update any of those figures so we have a more accurate picture. I haven't for example included the money we will be receiving this year for the players sold in the past few years. So if Mike is putting in £20m on top, by my reckoning we should have £35m+ to spend on players & wages this year. Let the good times roll? I guess we'll see. Anyone want to bet on it? There's the flaw in your argument right there.

Based on last season's attendance rankings from Futebol Finance, the top 25 best supported clubs in Europe: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/manchester-united-top-of-the-25-best-supported-clubs-in-europe-1816245.html If you can't be bothered to trawl through the slide show, we clock in at number 18.

Got a link?

That was his original intention (at least, stated) once the club was running self-sufficiently, he would provide £20mil per season for things like transfer fees, signing on bonus, etc. Non-recurring items that wouldn't be a continual drain on the club's budget. He didn't say what it was to be spent on, just that he'd not take anything out and would put £20 million a year in -- which, from the accounts so far, it seems he has been doing. If the club gets to break-even point in terms of revenue/outgoings, then that £20 million can be spent on players. Until that point, it's underwriting losses. We're basically operating on whatever we make plus £20 million.

Sting's B-Side apparently. 'Cept there's loads of Englishmen in New York.

This afternoon was on a bus going through a forest on the outskirts of Berlin, on the way home from an afternoon drinking with friends by a lake, and a kid gets on wearing last year's home shirt. I was so surprised I start singing: "Geordies here, Geordies there, Geordies everyfuckingwhere..." No reaction, not even a flicker. Then we hear him talking to his friends and it's clear that he's German. Getting off the bus, he's shifted his rucksack, and you can see that there's no name on the back. Weird. He seemed to have no idea what he was wearing. Earlier in the week, in the middle of town, a bicycle messenger whizzed past me wearing a classic shirt from the early '90s, Brown Ale logo on the front. I never normally see any of our shirts here, and now two in one week. But I still suspect I'm the only Geordie in Berlin.

It won't help get him out. It'll just mean we have even less money to spend on players.

I think it's a really good article. The guy has a point to make, and he makes it very entertainingly. It's nonsense to call it "biased". It's an opinion piece, ffs.

Fulham after... Ottmar Hitzfeld: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/22/sven-goran-eriksson-fulham-martin-jol-ottmar-hitzfeld

Beyond the £20 million a year he's already putting in, no.

If the shirt is so "special" that it puts the wearer under pressure, then we'd better stop thinking of it as special.

That's the second time you've run that one up the mast. It's bollocks.

Like the Shearer - Bellamy partnership. Except Carroll isn't Shearer and Bellamy is now 31 and probably one knee injury away from retirement.

You think we should keep players who go on TV and call the manager a liar? I don't think there was any way back for him after that. You could just as well ask if a manager should lie about one of his players. No, it's different. They're both means to the same end. No, if you're a player the end is a move to another club.

You think we should keep players who go on TV and call the manager a liar? I don't think there was any way back for him after that. You could just as well ask if a manager should lie about one of his players. No, it's different.

You think we should keep players who go on TV and call the manager a liar? I don't think there was any way back for him after that.

History.

Thats just scaremongering. We could have balanced the operating costs and taken a slower route back to the PL. Instead we increased the debt by £25m and returned to the PL seeming unable to afford any player who costs more than £1m. For club with 40,000 plus crowds and £35m of extra TV money coming in its not really a very clever position to be in. Are you sure you're not getting yourself into a bit of an NE5 state here? - Digging yourself deeper into a weaker position out of stubbornness? Gosh, why ever would that be?

96% of the people in the other thread would disagree with that. He’s right though. The kind of football being advocatied (ugly, boring and negative) makes going to the match a fairly joyless experience. Winning provides a temporary respite from the drudgery but as it’s highly unlikely we’ll be winning many games next season what’s left is paying £20+ to be bored shitless for ninety minutes. While the ‘hardcore’ supporter might put up with it many will decide it’s a waste of money and find something enjoyable to do instead. Far better to invest a bit of money in the product and play your way to safety than reduce the pitch size and cross your fingers. I'm not sure anyone is advocating ugly, boring, negative football. The debate appears to be between those who would be willing to be relegated playing pretty football rather than ugly football, and those who can deal with a season of consolidation, where the football won't always be the best, but which lays the foundations for success in the long term, allowing us to progress to a level where we are playing great football on a weekly basis. I don't think anyone wants to see ugly football all the time, and given the choice between staying up playing attractively or negatively, it's really a no-brainer. That's not how this debate started, though. It started because a poster stated they'd rather be a yo-yo club playing nice football than stay up this year playing scrappy football. For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that we'll be far from an ugly side this year. I believe Hughton showed enough last season to suggest that he would, in an ideal world, like to play reasonably attractive football where prudent to do so (ie, against the majority of sides). How else do you explain his sticking with Guthrie over Smith, and his aquisition of a genuine winger in January? He's also shown an awareness of where the team needs strengthening, and his signings have addressed positions we all acknowledged needing sorting out, regardless of how you assess the signings themselves. What makes you think we’re laying the foundations for long term success? Our revenue for 11/12 isn’t likely to be much higher than it will be for this season, especially if we finish 16th playing negative football. If we can’t afford to assemble a squad that can’t stay up without resorting to stifling tactics this season there seems little chance it’ll change in the future. The debate started because it has been reported that Hughton has decided to reduce the size of the pitch. If true this strongly suggest we’ll be really going for it on the negative front. It might keep us up but I don’t see it as laying the foundations for playing decent football in the future. Once a team has gone down this route it is very difficult to change direction. For me we should have laid the foundations for the future last season. Committed ourselves to style of play a club of NUFC’s stature should aspire to. If that meant another season or two in the CCC so be it. What we got was a going up is all that matters attitude, and now it looks like it’ll be staying up at all costs is all that matters. Both are/were important but it’s all short term thinking. We’re not so much making progress as simply switching divisions. Getting back into the Premiership at first attempt is an example of reprehensible short-termism?

In Lisbon, apart from Sporting or Benfica (I always preferred Sporting) you can also go and see the city's third team, Belenenses. They have the most beautiful stadium I've ever seen, open on the side that faces the Tagus estuary so you can look out across the water at the place from which Vasco da Gama and Magellan once set sail into worlds as yet unknown.

He can only work with what he's got. Exactly. He's looking at our squad and he's realised that next season, we aren't going to rattle in four and five at home - games are likely going to be won by the odd goal and rely upon us keeping a clean sheet or only conceding one, and he's adjusted the pitch size accordingly. Those who are having a go at Hughton for setting up for negative football at home fail to realise that if we play pretty stuff and attack attack attack against quick counter-attacking sides like Man United, Chelsea, Villa and Man City, we'll be heading back down for another season in the fizzy pop league. Perhaps against the dross teams at the bottom we can think about playing slightly more expansive football. As much as the points we get against the sides around us will matter, it's pleasing to see that Hughton wants to try and grind out some results against those in the top half. At least, that's the way I see it. Right.

He can only work with what he's got.