TRon

A majority of people on here would have had him including myself tbh not so long ago. Yes but that was before we had it confirmed he was a toadying lickspittle prepared to lower himself to any level to get a job. I wouldn't take him ahead of Chris Hughton now.

Never thought I'd see the day again when Sunderland were gearing up to be an ambitious club in the premier while we were struggling to get funds in the Championship. Mike Ashley and his Cockney Cock up Gang have ruined this club.

Why's he so happy? You'd think he'd be gutted about it now realising Wigan are a shit club. He's probably over the moon that Bruce won't be taking him along to Sunderland.

I'm surprised Shearer hasn't walked away from this farce tbh. He must really want the job badly.

How bad can things get? With Fatty panicking and attempting to flog the club rather than invest, then probably changing his mind and putting the price up if anyone shows any interest, I think things are likely to get worse before they get better. The only thing Blubber Boy seems to excel at is dithering until it's too late and he's doing a grand job once again

i'm sure he could do that with less than 50kpw (if true) Joe Kinnear will do it for £750/wk with a T-mobile £15 monthly contract deal thrown in (100 texts for free).

As far as I'm concerned this whole story is more Ashley smoke and mirrors bullshit, probably put out there to strengthen his hand against Shearer and allow him to bring back Joe F. Kinnear. Why go public with a sale at such a delicate time if there is already buyer's lined up? Ashley isn't going to sell unless he gets what he thinks is a fair price, he would rather run the club on a shoestring under Kinnear, hoping enough fans turn up to keep it going on life support rather than bite the bullet and back Shearer with money to go for instant promotion. This is how he operates and has done so consistently in his time here.

The company has advisors (a merchant bank, stockbroker) who would put a value on it based both on its historical performance and more importantly on its projected performance. The projections are then examined by an independent firm of accountants and tested for reasonableness. It is then "floated". The company's merchant bank would underwrite the floatation .i.e. buy any excess shares not bought by the public or other institutions. The valuation was not Ashley's although he would have had a target in mind and prepared projections accordingly. The company has substantially underperformed since floating. There has also been a lot of criticism of the communication by Sports Direct and its PR generally is pretty awful (Ashley called his shareholders "whingers" in an interview not so long ago). Ashley has also taken flak for appointing people who are mates of his and not considered to be up to the job. In some ways thats fair enough because the City's assessment of being up to a job isn't always fair or based on detailed knowledge, but when results are disappointing its hard to defend. I only mention all this because there is a bit of a familiar pattern in some of it. I wonder how many of these "advisors" have a decent knowledge of football? Historical performance and projected performance depends as much on how wisely the money is spent on players, and that's something that can't be forecast looking at a spreadsheet. Wires crossed there Tron - I was talking about the flotation value of Sports Direct. My bad. Haven't read back through most of the thread so jumped in a bit too hastily.

If you were calling him shit after his first season then you need your head read I remember crossing swords with Gemmill regularly in his first season - he was saying what everyone (generally) agrees now upon in that he's erratic, stupid and wasteful. In that first season he scored a grand total of 11 league goals which is hardly earth-shattering. So essentially Gemmill was on board the Martins-hating bus early, and I wasn't alone in trying to argue with him, but he was right all along... No he wasn't, the truth is Martins wasn't as good as some made out, and wasn't as bad as Gemmill made out. I would think he'll still get a move to a decent club somewhere and we'll get decent money for him. That hardly ties in with the assessment of shit does it?

Can't wait to see the mackems turn on the "geordie" die hard if results start going against him, which I expect they will.

The company has advisors (a merchant bank, stockbroker) who would put a value on it based both on its historical performance and more importantly on its projected performance. The projections are then examined by an independent firm of accountants and tested for reasonableness. It is then "floated". The company's merchant bank would underwrite the floatation .i.e. buy any excess shares not bought by the public or other institutions. The valuation was not Ashley's although he would have had a target in mind and prepared projections accordingly. The company has substantially underperformed since floating. There has also been a lot of criticism of the communication by Sports Direct and its PR generally is pretty awful (Ashley called his shareholders "whingers" in an interview not so long ago). Ashley has also taken flak for appointing people who are mates of his and not considered to be up to the job. In some ways thats fair enough because the City's assessment of being up to a job isn't always fair or based on detailed knowledge, but when results are disappointing its hard to defend. I only mention all this because there is a bit of a familiar pattern in some of it. I wonder how many of these "advisors" have a decent knowledge of football? Historical performance and projected performance depends as much on how wisely the money is spent on players, and that's something that can't be forecast looking at a spreadsheet.

If Shearer pulls out then Ashley will turn back to Joe "Hang my Hat on Nolan" Kinnear to resume his job. Is there any end to the mistakes this fat fool is capable of making? And then people say it isn't his fault?

It's really a case of beggars can't be choosers. Shepherd is clearly incompetent, but if he wants to be here and can buy the club that means he's an improvement on what we've got. If anyone else wants to buy the club the opportunity is there.

The right appointment as far as manager goes is crucial, and I think Shearer is going to turn out to be a good manager. Other than that I don't have any objection to Fat Fred coming back, even if he is a thick twat.

It probably means another season wasted but it's for the best. If the spineless fat cunt's looking to cut and run he wouldn't have backed the manager anyway.

It is Owen who needs to be paid twice as much to stay at Newcastle than he would anywhere else though. And before anyone says he won't play in the Championship, I'm pretty certain he wouldn't have accepted half hte money even if we stayed up. And why the hell would he? He'll accept a contract from a better team on less wages than what we offered him I bet. Isn't that what I said? He's willing to accept less money from other teams, but we have to bribe him with a much bigger pay packet?

It is Owen who needs to be paid twice as much to stay at Newcastle than he would anywhere else though. And before anyone says he won't play in the Championship, I'm pretty certain he wouldn't have accepted half hte money even if we stayed up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/may/29/joey-barton-newcastle-united-alan-shearer Who said its up to him? Little cunt can fuck off He dragged his heels a bit when it came to leaving Man City, despite the problems he'd caused there. He feels this need to put himself in the victim role. He ought to be grateful that there's someone else prepared to give him a chance, but he's just too self-centred to see what he's done. It's just about the money for Barton, pure and simple. If he gets offered a similar deal elsewhere he'll go, otherwise he'll stay here picking up his wages and wave two fingers in Shearer's face.

Half the wages and pay as you play clause..... They should make him clean Tim Cahill's boots as well, see how badly he really wants to be on Merseyside.

What a spongeing scumbag. Burned his bridges with Shearer but hanging on like a limpet for the money. This is everything that is wrong with our club, hopefully some other club will be stupid enough to offer him the sort of money which will persuade him to shift his greedy fat arse out of Newcastle.

Good in theory but due to our financial problems we need need money in to re-invest in the squad/team, plus what do we with him in a years time if we don't get promotion next season. People need to start getting their heads round the fact that we need to get rid of players, something that is going to be very very hard, we have a squad of underachievers on big money and long contract and we already have the likes of Duff and Jose saying they want to stop, all very well them saying that when they know fine well that we can't afford to keep them and them saying they want to stay means that when we do sell they are still in line for their "loyalty" bonus! Yes we need to get rid of players, but it's the jaded old farts on high wages who need to go, not the young players on the up. You mentioned two players there, I would keep Enrique and sell Duff. That move alone would mean Enrique was virtually playing for free.

It's a fact that the worst value for money has been the playing squad. We can moan about lack of investment but for us to be paying the 5th highest wages in England for a bunch of wasters we've witnessed this season is criminal.

Ashley must have some idea by now of what Shearer wants, if it's just a case of ironing out a few creases then fine, just as long as he isn't leading everyone up the garden path with his usual big talk followed by no action. It's not like he hasn't got past form in this regard.

It wouldn't surprise me if Ashley is willing to give Shearer the funds only after we've got rid of some of the big earners, which means Shearer won't be able to make any moves until the end of June, well and truly fucking up our preparations for the new season. Allardyce complained about missing out on targets because of this and it would be typical short-sighted penny pinching from this Cockney wide boy regime.

My English must be poor, i cant see what you are talking about I think the thread title is slightly misleading as it sounds like he's "talking" to a club rather than a journalist. Incidentally how good does it feel hearing a Spanish player saying that he loves the city and playing in England? Especially one who's had to fight for the right to wear the shirt?