TRon

This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Why aren't we 5th in the table then seeing as we are the fifth biggest spenders on footballer salaries? Even without any handy facts and figures at hand, I know before Ashley came here we weren't getting anything like the results our spending warranted. Please, no one mention X number of seasons in Europe, this isn't a pissing contest, let's just debate with some honesty about whether we were performing well considering money outlaid. Then we can compare it with what's happening now. Same reason Leeds went down. Spending guarantees nothing. Just improves your chances dramatically. ....and we were never in the bottom five, one point off relegation.... If we had Owen, Barton, Martins and Viduka fit for most of the season I doubt we'd be in this position either, the squad itself is not that bad if looked at objectively. As Chez has said, not many here would argue that Ashley has handled the transfer windows very well, and the decision to stick with Joe Kinnear as a long term manager says a lot more about the clueless football knowledge at this club than anything else. Financially though, the club needs to be put in order and there are a lot of mistakes made in the last few seasons which have to be put right, and Ashley does deserve some credit for that.

This final paragraph kind of hints at the alternative to Ashley's strategy, which is a speculate-to-accumulate policy of forking out for established players in the hope that you can then recoup the outlay by success on the field. Aside from the fact that we have Leeds as an example of what can happen with a run of bad results, is this a strategy that can work in the present climate ? With the gap between the top four and the rest being so large, and the huge cost, in fees and wages, of attracting the best players to a non-Champions League team, you could easily end up spending £50 million and end up with a team that's in the relegation zone. Even a few years ago, it was a risky strategy, but now it seems completely unrealistic. I get bored of Leeds being trotted out as a cautionary tale to everyone in the league. One example of a club that speculated and failed....but let's not forget they are still living to tell the tale. "Doing a Leeds" isn't the end of a club. It's highly likely they'll be in the same division as us next year ffs, even with all our frugality. What we did in the 90's shows that speculation works. The same as Villa are doing now. Look at the bottom five.... Newcastle Portsmouth Blackburn Middlesbrough West Brom What have they got in common? None of them have a net spend of more than £6m over the past two years. Look at the next nine up... West Ham Man City Wigan Fulham Bolton Tottenham Sunderland Hull Stoke Only Bolton and Wigan have managed to get in this position with a net spend less than £10m in 2 years. In football, the speculators DO accumulate. Why aren't we 5th in the table then seeing as we are the fifth biggest spenders on footballer salaries? Even without any handy facts and figures at hand, I know before Ashley came here we weren't getting anything like the results our spending warranted. Please, no one mention X number of seasons in Europe, this isn't a pissing contest, let's just debate with some honesty about whether we were performing well considering money outlaid. Then we can compare it with what's happening now.

The more you criticise the ownership of the club the more I become convinced what a set of twats the NUSC are, last week you were trying to convince us that you werent anti-ashley, yet every post is...Anti-ashley. Im not pro-ashley im pro-NUFC and moaning about ashleys running of the club isnt goint to achieve anything. Your a t*** and so are the rest of NUSC. What has this got to do with the NUSC? Let's not derail. I'm pro-NUFC. You think endorsing Ashleys actions is going to achieve something? You have been using this forum to promote NUSC therefore your comments are indicative of NUSC comments, on one hand your saying your not anti ashley on the other your using every thread to criticism him, I couldnt give a f*** who owns the club, I just care about the team out on the pitch that i pay to watch. Have i endorsed him? If i did what would it mean? f*** all. Have i set up an anti ashley supporters club and called it NUSC? and if i did what would it achieve? f*** all. What do you think of how we've performed on the pitch in the last couple of years then? What would have to happen on the pitch before you started thinking the people in charge were incompetent? Relegation? Weve performed poorly under sounsess, roeder, allardyce and Kinnear. Very well under robson and keegan (both times), honours even i would say. Success on the pitch would not convince me the owners were competent or incompetent, the two events are not as clearly related as you are making out. Are liverpool a well owned club? Are west ham a well owned club? theres a difference between well owned and well run, and an even bigger difference to a well managed side. relegation would kill me, as it would most NUFC supporters. Now ive answered your questions honestly, i would appreciate it if you did the same. Why have you decided to feed on the misery of NUFC supporters to form a so-called supporters club to feed the media hysteria surrounding our club? WHy are you charging people for this pleasure? Who gave you the mandate to speak on behalf of the majority of us who realise its about more than Mike ashley? I believe you saw a opportunity to take advantage of the fans misery to form a group where by you could appoint yourself chief mouthpiece to gain a little bit of noteriety (sp)and cashflow to enhance your sad existance, and again you are a twat. We're in a worse position now than we were at this point of the season under any of the managers you mention. We've not been this close to being relegated in 17 years. Cheers for the character assassination. But I have nowt to do with the organisation of the NUSC. I've not been to a meeting. I've not been to the rally. I support the people giving their time and energy, usually with no recognition (it's been the likes of Lee Ryder naming the most active members to have a pop). You think I'm a twat? Fair enough. I prefer to think I'm one of the few people who'll take the time to even debate you and others on this subject any more. It's no wonder good posters like Alex, Parky and Tooj have stopped bothering though. Any discussion of Ashley's running of the club decends into an exercise in NUSC bashing. Ashley-bashing....NUSC bashing....there's always bashing of some type going on it just depends which side of the fence you are sitting.Anyone who stops posting on the site because they don't want to hear a different POV is probably more comfortable on TT where there isn't even a debate and good posters like Baggio are ridiculed as WUMs.

unlucky. Erm...you've highlighted my point. He accept we want to hear from him direct, but he's not going to make it happen. Ashley's carrying too much excess fat IMO. He's portraying a bad image of the region as a bunch of toon fatties. Add that to your list of gripes, I'm going to mail the NUSC to see if they can include it on the agenda for the next meeting.

That sentence in bold is probably one of the biggest piles of dogshit I have ever read on this forum This is the problem with anti-Ashley posters and the likes of the NUSC. Banging on about what's been done wrong without even attempting to acknowledge the point of the original post, which is about clubs going facing real financial difficulties if they spend beyond their means without any proportionate success. Does this sound like any club in particular? This is the problem about those who have bought into Ashley's propaganda and have posted on this thread without correctly interpreting what others have said - there was absolutely NOTHING in my posting which mentioned Ashley's spend - if you look again , you will see that I said he has messed up Jumbo style ; this has nothing to do with the spend but EVERYTHING to do with his decision-making...and I stand by that 100 % , as would anyone unless they think that creating a situation where KK walks out, employing a third-rater like Kinnear after making an abortive effort to sell the club(and then offering him a 2 year contract) etc etc...is good management. not arguing with any of that like, but i love the chelp that Happy Face has railed off into about spending on managers under ashley after a massive amount of the debt ashley paid off was built up by the previous owners in appointing s*** managers on big contracts, allowing them to spend a fortune on s*** players then sacking them and paying them off you couldn't make it up Ashley hasn't paid it off. He's changed the lender....to himself...so we save on the interest. Ashley has sacked managers at a rate 3 times more frequent than Shepherd did. Why do you support this course of action while deriding it from the previous chairman? But I don't see a problem in Ashley being repaid the loans he has made to the club. After all, if it was a PLC the shareholder(s) would all be entitled to dividends from the club each year. Is it really so dreadful to expect to be repaid for loans made to the club. It makes sound business sense to me, and once the loans are repaid, and providing the club is on a stable financial footing, then the club will, if run sensibly along the lines now set out by Ashley, generate ample funds for player purchases for years to come. Hopefully players will want to play for NUFC for the kudos of playing for a top well run and successful club, rather than that last big payday. I have no problem whatsoever with him loaning the club money interest free rather than a bank. It's just as beneficial for him as it is for the club. We save on interest and loan repayments until he sells. And just like the banks, he gets the full amount back, even if players he's signed decrease in value to zero and we're left with a shitty squad fighting relegation year after year. Started off brightly but you still insisted on twisting a perfectly good and reasonable post to fit your agenda How's that man? It's just as good for Ashley being the clubs moneylender as it is for the club. There's no negativity in that, no underhand, money laundering, assett stripping conspiracy theory. Just a fact that it's a common sense approach for both parties. I'd have thought my agenda would be the same as yours. We want Newcastle to do better in the league. To wrap it up, Ashley has made many mistakes, and looks like he might make a few more, but transferring the debt to himself or slowly weeding out the big-earning shit performers on mega contracts are measures which will pay off in terms of the health of the club in the next couple of years. While it's true that some big earning shit players are still here (before you bring it up again) that's hardly his fault, he was backing Fat Sam against his better judgement and got stung. This is the guy you believe should still be here btw.

There's so much wrong with that post it's hard to know where to start but the bolded bit...I disagree that JK is a worse manager than Allardyce, and if you are saying that it was wrong to pay out so much money to get rid of the fat faker, then obviously that negates your point about paying Keegan off as he would never have been here, we'd still have Allardyce, heading to Hull with a ten man defence and hoofing the ball 50 yards for Owen to scrap for. The point relates more to the one in the article from the OP that part of valncia's problem is the rate at which they go through managers. Ashley has gone through 3 managers in one season.....but is sticking with the worst one. If you think Allardyce is a worse manager than Kinnear then it serves to further illustrate how clueless you are. At least I'm not so clueless to totally distort the point of the OP in order to get my digs in and pretend it was praising Ashley for "running things well".

There's so much wrong with that post it's hard to know where to start but the bolded bit...I disagree that JK is a worse manager than Allardyce, and if you are saying that it was wrong to pay out so much money to get rid of the fat faker, then obviously that negates your point about paying Keegan off as he would never have been here, we'd still have Allardyce, heading to Hull with a ten man defence and hoofing the ball 50 yards for Owen to scrap for.

That sentence in bold is probably one of the biggest piles of dogshit I have ever read on this forum This is the problem with anti-Ashley posters and the likes of the NUSC. Banging on about what's been done wrong without even attempting to acknowledge the point of the original post, which is about clubs going facing real financial difficulties if they spend beyond their means without any proportionate success. Does this sound like any club in particular?

Can't blame him for spouting off about his own dubious qualities tbh. he got himself a new contract on the back of it.

I've already stated my doubt over this "injury" The rumour of him going to Man City in the summer prompted me to say during the game down there, he'll be off the field with an "injury" very early on - and lo..... In some ways it waould be better for Owen and Viduka to have injuries that are definitiely going to keep them out of the side for the rest of the season. Neither player will put themselves about 100% and risk an injury between now and then. In Owen's case I'm pretty certain he is desperate to drum up some late interest from other clubs so we'll see the best of him in the final part of the season I think. On the game itself, I think Hughton's caution might actually work in our favour for this one. He won't want to change the side after a half decent performance against Man U, and that side is probably better suited to playing away from home than the team he might have picked if eveyone was available last week.

At this stage it's about the players, who is available and who isn't. I doubt many of them give a toss about whether it is Kinnear or Hughton tbh.

sounds about right.

We'd already sold Bellamy by the time Owen came in, and he went to Blackburn after he'd been at Celtic. Plus Owen was a replacement for Shearer not Bellamy. Owen was only a replacement for Shearer in Shepherd's eyes, i.e., one big name for another. On the pitch Owen is a totally different type of player, more suited to replacing a Bellamy type.

...which is why it's better to sign players who are hungry and on their way up, rather than players who see us as a step down but don't have any better alternatives at the time.

The squad isn't as bad as it appears though, for two years running we've been without the services of Joey Barton who is our most influential midfielder, in theory at least, and Viduka hasn't been available either. Long term injuries like these have a big impact on results and performances. We are weak in central midfield and we could do with a genuine right sided midfielder. I'm not confident that this is all going to be put right next season, it seems we will be building gradually as income streams improve year on year. That's the plan, whether it works or goes belly up with relegation is still up for debate. The managerial situation is what worries me. Kinnear has already brought in two players that I don't think Keegan would have looked at twice in Nolan and Taylor, although it's not fair to judge Taylor while he's being played in midfield. Hiring a cheap manager could turn out to be very expensive in the long run. Great post and i like the highlighted bit, particularly. That's the irony of it all. We'll end up either having to pay him off, or paying for it via our league position - on top of whatever cash we give him to spend on his shite no-hopers. As for our squad, i agree there aswell, it's not a bad squad at all. The two positions that weren't rectified in the summer remain the same, centre-midfield and full-back. We could do with a genuine right-winger aswell, like you say. But... that's going on top of what we've got at the moment. Whatever departures we have to contend with... well, we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. But that's something else the appointment of Kinnear will cause, a big exodus of players. If Oba, Owen, Jonas, Bassong, Colo, etc, get the first sniff of a departure - they'll take it, and they'd be right to do so. And i don't trust him to bring in like-for-like quality. Honestly, if we appoint Kinnear, then i've lost all hope altogether. Basically, the two best managers in my time had great football philosphies and the players they bought reflected that, even those that invited national ridicule at times like Ginola, Robert and Asprilla.

The squad isn't as bad as it appears though, for two years running we've been without the services of Joey Barton who is our most influential midfielder, in theory at least, and Viduka hasn't been available either. Long term injuries like these have a big impact on results and performances. We are weak in central midfield and we could do with a genuine right sided midfielder. I'm not confident that this is all going to be put right next season, it seems we will be building gradually as income streams improve year on year. That's the plan, whether it works or goes belly up with relegation is still up for debate. The managerial situation is what worries me. Kinnear has already brought in two players that I don't think Keegan would have looked at twice in Nolan and Taylor, although it's not fair to judge Taylor while he's being played in midfield. Hiring a cheap manager could turn out to be very expensive in the long run.

Likewise. I think he's total class and gets a lot of necessary shit on here to be honest. When he's on the pitch we're a better, more creative side. That only depends if the managers decide to use him right by playing the ball to his feet and having runners around him. Rather than decided to lump the ball long at him, which then means he loses interest fast. Very true. The fat waster has short-changed us but we haven't done him any favours either when he has been fit.

Xisco hasn't got a hope of playing any matches in our current situation, especially with Owen and Carroll returning to the frame. Hopefully he'll be given a chance to prove himself next season when the disgraceful Viduka finally fucks off to enjoy the Aussie sunshine.

Arsenal are going to be pumped now that Villa are showing signs of wobbling, I doubt we will beat them or Chelsea who have a new lease of life with Hiddink coming in. The games against clubs like Hull are where we have to make our supeiority in squad value count.

sooner the better, his transfer has turned into pretty much everything a lot thought it would be. Big wages, doesn't care, never fit, money that could've been better allocated elsewhere (on the team). Although he did help keep us up it's no different to what he did when he went on a little run for Boro prior to us signing to him. The signing of overpaid, under performing and/or injury prone players like Viduka are why Ashley took the whole DOF/ Dennis Wise trip. If we get relegated and Kinnear remains our manager its all Viduka's fault - we have a real scapegoat at last Shows Ashleys ignorance/stupidity in the early days then as the signings of Smith & Duke were never going to be anything but how they've turned out (although Smith has probably been worse than expected - we didn't really need either) To be serious for a moment - a lot of the crap that the club is going through now stemmed from the signings in the Allardyce transfer window and the owners reaction to preventing it happening again. It's weird because Sam has a track record of doing decent business in the market. Did it go wrong because he didn't get who he wanted (takeover going on etc), couldn't hack it at our level or was it just our luck that he f*cked up whilst on our case? However you look at it Viduka was certainly a player he wanted and was not on his B list. Absolutely. Ashley's been accused of being a cheapskate but he backed Allardyce quite heavily in the market and got stung by signings like Viduka, Smith and Barton. He probably thought paying off Allardyce and his 40 strong backroom staff was cheap compared to the long term cost of keeping him on.

Very good post HTT. I think the fact that Ashley and Llambias are publicly showing their faces in and around Newcastle is silent acknowledgement that Keegan was right to be pissed off that he couldn't get in touch with Ashley directly when he needed to, and ended up dealing with people he had no respect for.

We don't know for a fact that Llambais is lying though, Bassong was clearly one of those players who fit the profile of the type of player the club were looking to sign. Like Guthrie this was one of those signings that both Wise and Keegan were on the same page on, that was how the system was supposed to work ideally.

It's pretty typical that who signed Bassong is now being used as something else to bash the club with. I'm pretty sure Ashley would have preferred Keegan to still be here signing more players if things hadn't gone pear shaped anyway.

No, Keegan only signed the good ones Fair question though, everyone is clammering stake this as evidence that the club is run by liars without taking account of the fact that it undermines the claim that Keegan 'had to leave because of interference'. What fucking interference? The only players we now know for a fact he had a hand in signing were Guthrie and Bassong. Jonas, Colo, Xisco, Gonzalez are still unaccounted for but due to the league they played in i'd wager Wise, Vetere and Jiminez were behind them. There is also the matter of the Milner transfer and the noises made with regards to areas we needed to improve in. Oh, and there's also the Owen contract which Keegan was calling to be extended all summer. Just because Keegan signed one player (To be honest I had it on good authority that Guthrie, Bassong and Zayette were KK's only dealings. I was thrown when DL said otherwise.) doesn't mean there was no intereference. There are still a boatload of unanswered questions, such as why Mike Ashley said that there would be no interference until Keegan left when apparently he knew he wouldn't have control. It's not a black and white issue. With him on the record as being happy as fuck about Jonas and Colo, it seems a massive shame that the club's fortunes have been determined by a disagreement of opinion over a non-entity like James fucking Milner. What a waste if true. Getting rid of Milner for £12 million looked like a masterstroke...until it was revealed they've got until around 2030 to pay off the fucking transfer. I don't think it was the only problem, but along with Barton it was the one that broke the camel's back. Thats my point, this stuff about Bassong shows there was less areas of contention than previously thought. I don't think it does. As i've said i've been told that Bassong and Guthrie were Keegan's only two signings. Aside from tampering with the players we've bought and sold there's other elements such as lack of transfers, squad depth, Owen's contract and the apparent breakdown in communication between Llambias and Keegan which resulted in Llambias "wanting to punch him". The camel in question had a lot of shite heaped on it before the Milner deal was thrown on the pile. The shite that the camel had heaped on it is the same sort of shite that most camels have to put up with tbh. Not many managers can dictate who gets contracts for how much and what the transfer spend should be, which players are not to be sold at any price etc.

what a load of s***. mort said keegan knew the system/situation and agreed to it before he signed. any talk from keegan himself about breaking world records was sheer stupidity. Your the one talking s*** - Keegan would not have returned unless he had been promised significant funds and control over transfers. Why do some people on here prefer to believe Ashley rather than Keegan, amazing really at what point in ashleys time here has he or anyone connected to him claimed we would spend "significant funds"? the club would NOT have said "here kev have £200 million m8" as a lure. keegan most likely came back for the money he would get, not spend. sad, but very possibly true. The 16 million quid they were going to spunk on the croation tranny? and Woodgate in January again, that would have a knock on effect on other transfers we did complete. i would bet significant money on keegan being told he would have to sell to buy for the most part. I seiously doubt that. At the time the general mpression was that Ashley was going to spend significant money once he had his own choice as manager. Keegan's first interview he was talking about why shouldn't we dream of winning things, Ashley was talking about breaking into the top four. It was Ashley's camp who put out the stories about Keegan's transfer targets costing £200m. It's pretty obvious Keegan was in the dark how much he really had to spend.