TRon

what if the people before you got all the funds ? You'd probably walk away and sue the club for false promises.

did i say it was ? whos fault was it that we hocked everything we had and still made losses. do you think in that situation the banks would fall over themselves to loan us more to invest ? Yet still Fat Fred managed to sell the club for a tidy sum taking the banks out of the equation. Was that his fault as well?

There was merit in Ashley trying to put the club on a stable footing, obviously Shepherd's money was blown by Souness and it put the club in a bad position, but at least we were in the Premier. Ashley's blunders over Keegan, his stupid cheap option managerial oppointments and worst of all his failure to protect the club's Premiership future by investing in the squad backfired spectacularly. Shepherd wuld have acted far more decisively in the market in those crucial transfer windows and it would have kept us up. So yes, in comparison to Ashley he's a financial genius. what would shepherd have acted with ? He always semed to produce funds from somewhere. Failing that he could always sell to a clueless fat oaf who likes a gamble. thats it though...you can't go on losing money for ever, as i've said a zillion times theres nowt wrong with debt, i just dont think the banks would've been so obliging to let us do it forever. Yet Shepherd sold the club and made a handsome profit out of the deal, which just backs up the view that Ashley is a financial dimwit as far as football is concerned. Not just that, he's a c*** for wasting money on daft bets while refusing to invest crucial funds on the squad when it would have kept us up. so basically both left us in the s****. ashleys lost financially and fred gained finacially.....both left us in the clarts. I'd rather be in the Premiership clarts though. i don't think we'd be there...alardyce as manager, no money to spend and the banks circling.. fred set the boat hurtling towards the rocks...ashley came in and kept the same course. But well never know if you were right or wrong. Why cant you judge Ashley on what has actually happened, instead of what might have happened? one post above man. following that premise can we say mckeag and forbes et al would have eventually took the gamble and we'd have made the prem anyway.......no we can't as we'd never know. the best we can do is look at what was happening and look at the financial mess fred had us in....granted as i've posted above, ashley has fucked up to. that doesn't mean we were headed in the right direction with fred. we were heasded here both ways,ashley could have done something about it, fred got us to the position where there was little he cou;ld have done. except sell us to someone even more clueless than himself...which was my point in any case.

There was merit in Ashley trying to put the club on a stable footing, obviously Shepherd's money was blown by Souness and it put the club in a bad position, but at least we were in the Premier. Ashley's blunders over Keegan, his stupid cheap option managerial oppointments and worst of all his failure to protect the club's Premiership future by investing in the squad backfired spectacularly. Shepherd wuld have acted far more decisively in the market in those crucial transfer windows and it would have kept us up. So yes, in comparison to Ashley he's a financial genius. what would shepherd have acted with ? He always semed to produce funds from somewhere. Failing that he could always sell to a clueless fat oaf who likes a gamble. thats it though...you can't go on losing money for ever, as i've said a zillion times theres nowt wrong with debt, i just dont think the banks would've been so obliging to let us do it forever. Yet Shepherd sold the club and made a handsome profit out of the deal, which just backs up the view that Ashley is a financial dimwit as far as football is concerned. Not just that, he's a c*** for wasting money on daft bets while refusing to invest crucial funds on the squad when it would have kept us up. so basically both left us in the s****. ashleys lost financially and fred gained finacially.....both left us in the clarts. I'd rather be in the Premiership clarts though. i don't think we'd be there...alardyce as manager, no money to spend and the banks circling.. fred set the boat hurtling towards the rocks...ashley came in and kept the same course. The point is, Ashley had plenty of time, money and opportunity to protect his investment once he had got rid of Shepherd. If he failed to do that who's fault is that?

There was merit in Ashley trying to put the club on a stable footing, obviously Shepherd's money was blown by Souness and it put the club in a bad position, but at least we were in the Premier. Ashley's blunders over Keegan, his stupid cheap option managerial oppointments and worst of all his failure to protect the club's Premiership future by investing in the squad backfired spectacularly. Shepherd wuld have acted far more decisively in the market in those crucial transfer windows and it would have kept us up. So yes, in comparison to Ashley he's a financial genius. what would shepherd have acted with ? He always semed to produce funds from somewhere. Failing that he could always sell to a clueless fat oaf who likes a gamble. thats it though...you can't go on losing money for ever, as i've said a zillion times theres nowt wrong with debt, i just dont think the banks would've been so obliging to let us do it forever. Yet Shepherd sold the club and made a handsome profit out of the deal, which just backs up the view that Ashley is a financial dimwit as far as football is concerned. Not just that, he's a c*** for wasting money on daft bets while refusing to invest crucial funds on the squad when it would have kept us up. so basically both left us in the shite. ashleys lost financially and fred gained finacially.....both left us in the clarts. I'd rather be in the Premiership clarts though.

There was merit in Ashley trying to put the club on a stable footing, obviously Shepherd's money was blown by Souness and it put the club in a bad position, but at least we were in the Premier. Ashley's blunders over Keegan, his stupid cheap option managerial oppointments and worst of all his failure to protect the club's Premiership future by investing in the squad backfired spectacularly. Shepherd wuld have acted far more decisively in the market in those crucial transfer windows and it would have kept us up. So yes, in comparison to Ashley he's a financial genius. what would shepherd have acted with ? He always semed to produce funds from somewhere. Failing that he could always sell to a clueless fat oaf who likes a gamble. thats it though...you can't go on losing money for ever, as i've said a zillion times theres nowt wrong with debt, i just dont think the banks would've been so obliging to let us do it forever. Yet Shepherd sold the club and made a handsome profit out of the deal, which just backs up the view that Ashley is a financial dimwit as far as football is concerned. Not just that, he's a cunt for wasting money on daft bets while refusing to invest crucial funds on the squad when it would have kept us up.

Who are bwin?

There was merit in Ashley trying to put the club on a stable footing, obviously Shepherd's money was blown by Souness and it put the club in a bad position, but at least we were in the Premier. Ashley's blunders over Keegan, his stupid cheap option managerial oppointments and worst of all his failure to protect the club's Premiership future by investing in the squad backfired spectacularly. Shepherd wuld have acted far more decisively in the market in those crucial transfer windows and it would have kept us up. So yes, in comparison to Ashley he's a financial genius. what would shepherd have acted with ? He always semed to produce funds from somewhere. Failing that he could always sell to a clueless fat oaf who likes a gamble.

Why? Because of one poor stint at Watford? He won a good haul with Chelsea. ONE POOR STINT? You can fuck off with that. POOR STINT? More like nearly fucking killing the club, the fucking leeching twat. He almost single-handedly led to our near administration, due to buying shit players on huge wages, playing sideways football, then sueing the fucking club. The bald-headed horn-cladden twat. Hmmm...this story sounds familiar somehow.

Just bumped into someone else who claims to be ITK and reckons the club's been sold to a HK consortium. Fuck knows if it's true but he was adamant it wasn't just a rumour. Personally I think it's bollocks but we'll see.

There was merit in Ashley trying to put the club on a stable footing, obviously Shepherd's money was blown by Souness and it put the club in a bad position, but at least we were in the Premier. Ashley's blunders over Keegan, his stupid cheap option managerial oppointments and worst of all his failure to protect the club's Premiership future by investing in the squad backfired spectacularly. Shepherd wuld have acted far more decisively in the market in those crucial transfer windows and it would have kept us up. So yes, in comparison to Ashley he's a financial genius.

We were in Europe that year. Not good enough for some though. So 2 months into next season if Villa have a shed load of injuries and get off to a bad start will you be agreeing with any Villa fans who want to start campaigns and protests to get Learner out when an unknown hedge fund wants to buy him out like 89% on here wanted in October 06? We were generally performing far below the standards you would expect for the amount of money we spent in most of the last few seasons. The team that finished in 3rd place the season before had the addition of Darren Ambrose and no one else in the last full season Bobby was in charge yet that level of investment meant we were "generally performing far below the standards you would expect for the amount of money we spent"? A pitiful 5th was all we could manage with such 'backing' You must be delighted with the value for money the team has received since those terrible under-achieving days. I was quite happy with the two seasons you have picked where we finished 3rd and 5th, good use of stats to pick those out though, very relevant to what I was saying - and no, I'm not happy with the value for money with our current bunch I apologise if any of my thousands of posts have led you to believe this. Need any futher pointless clarifications or will that do for now?

s*** man....i read asia as asda. asia....could be hong kong. So could Asda to be fair.

Ananda Krishnan publicly disassociates himself rom the running today after saying nowt for a week, and now a rival bid from Asia is rumoured to have won the race? Could be something in it.

Shepherd didn't lose a personal fortune AND get the club relegated. Compared to Ashley, Shepherd is a financial genius, which isn't saying much btw. Ashley had plenty of chances to step back from the brink but he failed to invest a few million at the right time to avoid disaster. This isn't an endorsement of Shepherd, more of an indictment of Ashley's monumental cock ups and there's a long list of them I haven't even mentioned here. shepherds net worth is nowhere near ashleys...both started off with nowt. I am talking about this from the perspective of Newcastle United as a football club.

Shepherd didn't lose a personal fortune AND get the club relegated. Compared to Ashley, Shepherd is a financial genius, which isn't saying much btw. Ashley had plenty of chances to step back from the brink but he failed to invest a few million at the right time to avoid disaster. This isn't an endorsement of Shepherd, more of an indictment of Ashley's monumental cock ups and there's a long list of them I haven't even mentioned here.

optimistic/worried. both at the same time strangely....

We were in Europe that year. Not good enough for some though. So 2 months into next season if Villa have a shed load of injuries and get off to a bad start will you be agreeing with any Villa fans who want to start campaigns and protests to get Learner out when an unknown hedge fund wants to buy him out like 89% on here wanted in October 06? We were generally performing far below the standards you would expect for the amount of money we spent in most of the last few seasons.

After the fans? Hell it hurts, but the club lives on as does my looking forward to the coming season. Ashley has lost face, lost credibility, lost the security of his family (even if it is just a sense of unease, but it is likely more than that if he were to go out on the town again), and lost more money than I will ever get to see. I would say he has, all things considered, lost far more than me during his time here. A lot more than probably anyone on here. You're a braver man than me saying that! Probably right I suppose, I doubt many fans would have the perspective to admit it though. It would be braver to admit some sympathy towards him. Not sure I can go that far after the catalogue of errors he has buit up during much of his time here. Exactly. It was his poor judgement which lost him the money, nothing else. He gambled he lost and managed to make Fred Shepherd look like a financial genius in the process. Difficult to feel much sympathy for that even if you are inclined.

That's the point though. He never really wanted to be at Newcastle and even when we put him on a massive salary he reluctantly dragged his bottom lip up here. That's the real reason he's not a crowd favourite because even with his big wages he couldn't give a shit about Newcastle. Why should we give him a round of applaus for happily playing for much less at Man U?

I'd certainly be happy with the way Villa have done things. Yes, they've still spent decent money but it's seemed much more respectable IMO - buying a number of young and/or English players for example. Didn't Villa run up £70m worth of debt in Learner's first 2 years?. It will be more now, and what do they have to show for it? 11th, 6th, 6th. When we ran up £70m of debt after 15 years, most of which was spent on expanding the stadium not just on the team, we were one of the worst run football teams ever according to most. A few months into the season after we finished one place lower than the best Villa have achieved so far under Learner, there were people on here staring campaigns and advocating protesting and boycotting games to get rid of the old board. And people wonder why other supporters see us as unrealistic and too demanding. People keep saying how well Villa are being run, and I don't disagree that from the outside it looks like they're doing okay and going about things the right way, but I don't see how the same people who criticised how we were run financially under the old board can hold that view just because the money is owed to a rich owner instead of to a bank. Why isn't Learner being heavily criticised for running his club way beyond it's self-sustaining means? Because they are consistently getting into Europe? I'm sure if they flop next season then just like Shepherd, Lerner will also come in for major stick. Everything is ok if the results are going your way, when they don't then expect that to change. Valid point about the stadium expansion though, I don't like Shepherd but credit where it's due.

It's not just the fact that the Malaysians are loaded which makes me favour them, it would really put us on the map in Asia as a club if we get back in the premier. Financially it could be massive for us as a club.

nufc went backwards after signing shearer...should that be a guide as to the player ? It could be a guide yes, along with other factors obviously. That's the reason I mentioned Milner's fee, obviously if Villa had paid £4m Villa would have got a good value player.

I only paid for the subscription to watch newcastle games, as we won't be featured on the new channel who gives a fuck? The beeb's free and we'll get to watch just as many games this season so I'm set.

They are getting him for nowt and are paying him peanuts in comparison to the rest of their squad. Plus they'll have a monkey who is happy to perform for peanuts. Our problem was that none of these things were the case when we paid and feted him like a god.