TRon

Has the club been sold then?

Those two bolded parts look mutually exclusive to me. I can't imagine the club being delighted at the prospect of people spending money on alternative merchandise.

SSN just had the Arabian News businessman on the phone, so i'm guessing that's more up to date. That guy says there is concern about the Ashley statement that he was afraid to watch the game in fear of being assaulted. Apparently that didn't go down too well in Dubai.

got any direct quotes confirming how much he wants? What does that matter, let's call him a cunt anyway.

I wonder if some of our home matches will be moved to the middle east?

At least these guys look prepared to do business. Looks like both parties are putting their cards on the table. Obviously Ashley asking for a higher price, the Arabs offering much less, and if a deal is to be struck it will be somewhere in between.

Hopefully mega stupid as well if they are going to pay that price.

It's also a handy opportunity to shout a bit more abuse so let's not get pedantic.

No. The stories of unhappy players doesn't leave me with any confidence in them. We desperately need Martins back to inject some pace into the team, but despite all this talk about the players being professional, I think some of them aren't playing with much purpose. Michael Owen being an honourable exception.

if it went wrong we could always hold some protests and write fanzine articles then hopefully everything would magically be ok

I think that's why a lot of people here had reservations about hounding Ashley out. The campaign is only going to be regarded as a success if we get a better owner taking up the reigns fairly soon. Right now we are worse off and pointing fingers to blame this party or that party isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to that. Venables is an option, quite a good one in my view assuming he's available. How well another cockney wide boy would go down here I don't know, but on a short term basis it will address the situation a lot better than protesting and marching in front of the tv cameras.

The Citeh takeover was pretty quick wasn't it? Yes but his statements about not doing due diligence and finding a mess will no doubt lead to a proper look at the books and that's not going to take a day or two. If they decide to look back over a few years then God help us - they won't just come in like he did and say "Ok we'll take it off your hands Mikey". Anyway how do we know how long the Man City buyout took? Could that be why the players and manager decided to stick around when all looked extremely dodgy? Man City takeover's not been completed yet by all accounts, apparently they don't even have a legally binding agreement with Thaskin to buy his shares. If they pulled out of the deal for whatever reason, I wonder who would be stuck with the bill for Robinho?

In fact, the entire thread is something of a complete waste of time (in a 'nice' way) How it's got to 3 pages is beyond me. Hmmm...maybe replying wasn't a good idea

The fans are good at making a racket, waving placards and writing pompous opinionated crap in fanzines. Don't expect them to do more than that unless you liver in cloud cuckoo land where Fred Shepherd, Sting and Andy Capp will form a consortium to buy Newcastle and install Keegan and Shearer as joint managers.

That was the first option I mentioned in the OP and the obvious one. The Keegan scenario is more of a way forward if no buyer is found, and I'm not convinced that's going to happen quickly. I don't like the idea of the club stumbling on with no manager, even if it does make it more sellable. If there are buyers prepared to show their interest then by all means wait another couple of weeks. At what point do you make the decision to ditch the policy to hold off appointing someone in the hope of a buyer coming forward, and begin to run it as a proper club again?

Plus they don't have a bad team and have done reasonably well this season for a team with so much turmoil. They've also not lost at home this season. Too many key players still missing, led by a clueless caretaker if the last team selection is anything to go by. Players starting to bleat about off-field matters....difficult to see anything other than another loss here.

Wonder if our players will be earning their wages over the next few weeks or going into self-pity mode?

It's only going to be a great victory for the fans if the club gets a rich new owner. Otherwise under the current unrest there's a real danger of relegation looming. Not much of a victory that.

Well at least we know he's talking to his solicitors. I am sure all parties are Ashley just released a 1600 word personal statement, I think there is a difference.

Well at least we know he's talking to his solicitors.

What...shifting over-valued strikers like Keane and complete cunts like Berbatov for £50m? What was wrong with either of those deals, could you explain?

I find it even richer from a guy who by the end was having players bought over his head, and even then got sacked for finishing 5th. Even dafter is the notion of Freddie Shepherd proclaiming Keegan should be re-installed when he was the same Chairman who sacked Robson and appointed Souness.

This is a fantastic idea. It will prove once and for all that the supposed supporters groups are great at organising large mobs in order to loudly complain, but don't have the first idea how to invest seriously or grow a football club.

Smells like they've had this all rigged up from the off to me or at least courted interest before all this blew up. I shall book a flight there tomorrow and try and sell them something, must be a piece of piss. To be honest though, if they do sell to a rich investor who pumps money into the club, we're still far better off than heading into administration under Shepherd with Big Sam at the helm. It just seems strange how yesterday Ashley had no intentions of selling, then 24 hours later he's having talks with some Arabs or whoever. We should forget about signing Spanish based players which seem to take months to conclude, shop in Arab land where deals take 24 hours or less. The club has been for sale all along, now he's cashing in his chips. What a load of shite. The Abu Dhabi group which eventually bought Man City were after us as well but claimed that Ashley wouldn't even take their calls, whereas Shaksin was more or less pimping Citeh by comparison.

I would be happy with an owner who strives to sustain a realistic business model, whilst balancing the requirement to invest heavily in the club in the long term (whether it be via a dedicated yearly transfer budget, improvements to the academy or otherwise). Eventually, the time of the gazillionaire owner will end, especially seeing as FIFA are becoming increasingly bureaucratic, and I would like to think that we would be better placed to whether the storm if we worked as a 'business' first and 'football club' second. I still agree this is the way to go. I don't think we were miles away, but we should have signed a couple more quality players to augment the less proven players that came in. If that had been done we wouldn't be where we are now.