Mick

I haven't really watched him but feel a bit nervous when trying to judge anybody playing in minor leagues.

Thanks, my mistake.

Did they charge extra for it?

Agreed, I look forward to the possibility of another Boumsong.

People also point to Ashley being worth £1.8 billion which probably isn't true now even if it was when he had his windfall. I would think that he's got a lot less than that in readies. He's still loaded but is unlikely to have much stashed under his mattress.

I'm not sure how we continued to slip when we actually finished last season 1 place higher than the season before. I know our points total was slightly down but the league place shows our relative position to others and is the way the season should be judged.

Well done Mike for those FA cups in the 50's I think you're wrong and you'll find that we won nothing before 1992.

I'm not saying that nothing in these stories is true but we've seen a variation of £15,000 per week between the ones who have listed his weekly wage. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever is representing Owen has given the press some information to try and add some pressure to get a better deal but I wouldn't take anything for granted from the hacks. They are all adding quotes from Owen regarding a totally different matter to try and add weight to an article which is low on or even devoid of actual facts. Owen could end up leaving but these shitty stories prove nothing either way other than both sides seem to be trying to strike a deal which we all know anyway.

It seems some want and expect instant results on and off the pitch even though we've only done that once and even then we couldn't sustain it. The daft thing is that our past limited success (we won nothing) has been paid for by Ashley yet others are given the credit. Ashley paid for the stadium expansion plus £30-40 million which was spent on players. He'll probably now get blamed for buying Luque as he's paid for him.

I doubt many will disagree with much of that, my way of thinking is that I would like the club to be debt free so that it can stand on its own two feet and allow those who work within the club to make decisions without having to go to the owner with a begging bowl every time we need to spend money. We know that Ashley has paid off something like £77 million in debt so we probably still have a few million in debt which we've carried for a while. If we do get £40 million from Sky then I personally hope we use it to pay off the remainder of the debt and use the balance to buy players and keep a balanced budget and live within our means. If we are debt free and Ashley doesn't want to make money out of the club then we should have more money to spend than ever before and if the right people are spending the money on the right players then we should really be able to take off on the pitch.

You're all at it tonight.

Henry does have digs at times but I think he'd be over the moon if things were going well for us, he'd be the first to praise the club.

He's possibly the only one I would trust as he's more interested in football than agendas; I've got a lot of time for him.

Fixed

After that terrible, threatening PM I now agree that you are a top man. Did I get that right?

The jury should be still out on Ashley because so far he hasn't delivered but he is making changes and if they work then we'll be stronger for that.

He's not.

You should hope that happens, if not then I'll bastard haunt you.

I missed this but totally agree. We would all love to be playing brilliant football and winning every game but it's not going to just happen. We need to build on solid foundations and move forwards as a club. We've made the big step before but we haven't been able to maintain it long enough and it's gone as quickly as it's arrived. Under Keegan the first time and Sir Bobby we built something which we failed to capitalise on. We could throw money at the problem and get close to the top and just end up where we started from. I think we need to do something different this time and build from the bottom up so that we can maintain our position and then move forwards again. Will it work? No idea but I hope it does and I hope if or when we reach those heights again we're more capable of sustaining our challenge and hopefully putting something in the trophy cabinet.

At first sight it may appear as drivel, read it a few times and the merits of the post are obvious. I've made the mistake of failing to digest the message that becomes more obvious with every read of the post.

I think you're being too hard on him and you under-estimate his value both to this forum and life in general.

Excellent points as always.