Mick

It just gets worse. >

Harper looks for players in space, usually without success, Given just kicks it anywhere.

The first one would be bad enough, the second

I doubt he'd say that.

Nice to see you think a team that qualifies for europe more than everyone bar 4, fills a 52000 ground, plays in the Champions League and attracts major international players isn't "run professionally". mackems.gif Priceless. I should be used to this by now. I suppose any manager would want to change some things at training academies and medical setups, shame he didn't see the ones that your idols left behind. Maybe they would have been on a par with Watford, like the main stand ? That's a brilliantly thought out and knowledgeable comeback, well done.

I can understand people getting confused with American spellings as we see so many of them these days, not that it matters anyway, I couldn't care less about people getting spellings wrong I just find it funny that you have a go and follow it up with such a howler. As for my "inconsistent and illogical opinions," mine are consistent, I think two boards have financially screwed us, you think one has and the other hasn't even though both situations virtually mirror each other. You still haven't explained the difference between two financially poor positions left by two previous board of directors. One was said to be close to the club going out of business the other was that the club was close to folding like a pack of cards. What post did you bump?

Don't you mean 'affinity'? I was going to let this go but you've already started criticising people for their spelling when you are typing posts of this calibre yes, I did. My mistake, I can accept that. Genuine mistake though, not one of a sad Americanised kind. So getting one letter wrong is worse than getting a whole word with a different meaning wrong.

I couldn't care less if the club is run like a business or not, I want a club which is a success and run professionally both on and off the field. How can you say “The simple fact is that this summer our sales out more or less equals our sales in?” Allardyce has spent £25 million and only brought in £15 million, that’s a difference of £10 million. How can you say the two figures are virtually the same? Also, if you were happy with past spending figures then you must be more than happy that we’ve just spent more than we usually do. As for my idols as you so originally put it and training facilities, did Allardyce have a go at our training facilities?

I disagree about people expecting too much too soon, today isn't the worst result in the world when taken in isolation but that's not the case, we've only really played well once and have been poor more often than not. I still think Allardyce could do well but when we're poor we should say so, if we play well then we should also say so. My hope for Allardyce was that he would adapt, I think he'll have to adapt to become a success as his only flaw it that he appears to be trying to turn us into Bolton Mk II when he should be trying to better what he's done before as he’ll have more resources at his disposal here, it’s up to him to make the most of the opportunity which has now come his way.

Edit. Sorry, I missed the first bit, it's not the number of people after the money, it's the amount of money they are after. The last two times the club has been sold it's been bought , both times the new people have accused the old of leaving the club in a financial mess, what's the difference between the two? I wasn't on about the couple of million a year alone, I think you may have forgot about the £30 to £40 million they took for the shares they also sold. The new owner has speculated on new players, he's spent more net than the club did the year before, Allardyce has had in the region of £10 million net, that's on top of the £75 million spent to rescue the financial mess you're idol left behind. That net spend is only beaten under the previous chairman by what was given to Dalglish and Souness. Kenny Dalglish - 1 year, £15.65m. Ruud Gullit - 1 year, £7.625m. Sir Bobby Robson - 5 years, £5.947m. Graeme Souness - 1 year, £30.9m. Glenn Roeder - 1 year, £7.64m. If you want to pick at Bobbys spend, multiply it by 5 for total net spend.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2007/09/25/without-takeover-united-could-well-have-folded-72703-19844203/ Mort: Yes, we were surprised at precisely how bad the financial position was. We didnt fully realise it from the outside, admitted Mort. If the old board had not been successful in re-financing the club by the end of the financial year it would have folded like a pack of cards. They were in big trouble because, if you remember, Mike bought United in the May and the clubs financial year was up on June 30. No doubt this crisis looming on the horizon was one reason why they wanted to sell. We have addressed the situation, met it head on, which is why Mike initially put in £30m of his own money and has now committed a further £45m to pay off the big debts that had people clamouring at the door. What we also found was that the club had spent sponsorship money before it actually came in. For example, all the cash from Northern Rock, which should have been paid annually, has already gone (said to be used to help buy Michael Owen at £17m). Money was also borrowed against a deal with adidas. We prefer to invest as the cash comes in, not before it does John Gibson: THE Shepherd family were unavailable for comment this morning. How many people do you think were "clamouring at the door for 45m quid", and what exactly do you think we should have done with the sponsorship money when we knew it was on the way and we needed players, or we would have been in a relegation fight. You truly must have loved the McKeag years. As he says, they are doing it a different way, which means we have to watch the current team knowing we need new players and doing nothing, which you say you are happy with. Nice business, shame about the team. Congratulations. Lets hope the current board will match the Champions League qualifications that the old one did with their different approach, and we don't suffer any embarrassing cup defeats to teams like Exeter and Oxford, while we wait for next seasons ticket money, sponsorship money to come in, or the sale of a top player to raise cash in January. I've no idea how many people were clamouring for the £45 million, 1 person would be bad enough. The sponsorship money was spent before it had come into the club, the club spent money before they'd received it, more mismanagement, this time financial mismanagement, something which you criticise past boards for but don't see a problem when Shepherd almost wrecks the club financially. Mort has said almost the same thing about the previous board that Sir John said when he took over, you have a problem with one situation but not the other while they were almost the same. You also brag about how the club was able to find a buyer in Mike Ashley, the same could have been said when Sir John took control because he bought the club. Regarding relegation, it was the fault of those who have since bailed out taking massive profits that we were in that position, a position that we were only in because they were incompetent at running a football club, they may not have been as incompetent as some others but that doesn't make them any better than they actually were.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2007/09/25/without-takeover-united-could-well-have-folded-72703-19844203/ Mort: “Yes, we were surprised at precisely how bad the financial position was. We didn’t fully realise it from the outside,” admitted Mort. “If the old board had not been successful in re-financing the club by the end of the financial year it would have folded like a pack of cards. “They were in big trouble because, if you remember, Mike bought United in the May and the club’s financial year was up on June 30. “No doubt this crisis looming on the horizon was one reason why they wanted to sell. “We have addressed the situation, met it head on, which is why Mike initially put in £30m of his own money and has now committed a further £45m to pay off the big debts that had people clamouring at the door. “What we also found was that the club had spent sponsorship money before it actually came in. For example, all the cash from Northern Rock, which should have been paid annually, has already gone (said to be used to help buy Michael Owen at £17m). Money was also borrowed against a deal with adidas. “We prefer to invest as the cash comes in, not before it does John Gibson: THE Shepherd family were unavailable for comment this morning.

We've been told that the debt was not manageable, nobody from the fomer regime have bothered to come out and say otherwise, how come you know better than those closer to the debt?

complete rubbish. In the meantime I am pleased you appear to think that buying Martins last season, who's goals kept us up, was the actions of a clown. Unlike the board who sold our best players for 30 years and couldn't even sell the club for 2m quid in 1991 and were completely bankrupt, that didn't embarrass you in the slightest for spending years in the lower divisions suffering ritual humiliation at dozens of clubs who compete at the level of Hartlepool. Lets hope the new regime gets a few Champions League appearances to match the old one, in return for backing their manager to the extent you claim. I think you need a reality check. The new owner has spent £75 million of his own money to get rid of the debt your idol ran up, your idol took over a club which had money to spend without going into debt yet he left the club in such a state that it has has been reported as being close to going to the wall.

That ambitious Man City owner spent £40 million which is 40% of what ours has spent on transfers and debt in the same lenght of time.

Allardyce didn't have a budget at anytime during the summer, nothings changed on that.

You're right that we were not awful, at least not all of the time. I thought we were good around the time when we scored because we were playing the ball around a bit but for too long we were just launching the ball forwards without thinking and that also happened for long periods of the first half. Against West Ham we played the ball on the ground and were rewarded for that, we didn't do enough of that today. Allardyce has had as much time as Sven has to find players, I don't know if an increased spending power changed his targets as he would have spent most of last season expecting to be buying for Bolton then everything will have changed. I don't know if he's bought players that he was watching for Bolton or Newcastle but I doubt he have expected to spend as much at Bolton as he has here. I guess we'll know more this time next year.

He didn't have a sell before you buy type of budget, he didn't have a budget. He was allowed to buy any player that he felt he needed to strengthen the team/squad.

I'm not sure Solano has done anything never mind much, I think he could still have done a job for us as we need the creativity that he gave us last season when he played, all I know is that what he gave us is missing from the team this season, we don't seem to have anybody who can get the ball and drive us forward, we just kick and hope.

Spot on, as usual.

No loss is ever a good result so the answer to the question is no. I'm not even sure we played that well in the first half, at times it was just a long ball knocked up from the back, even in the firt half we were guilty of bypassing the midfield far too often.

You can add letting Solano go without replacing him to that. Our most creative player transferred out on the last day of the transfer window and he wasn't replaced, it was obvious that we were going to struggle because of the lack of a player who could change a game with one pass, somebody who could take the ball into the opposition half and do something unexpected.

I don't know. Maybe he's only bought what he could with the money he had. Most people on here will be pleased we didn't buy any more of these "trophy" players I wonder what he could have done with the £75 million we've had to piss away to repay debt?