Colos Short and Curlies

Sorry but no matter how shit this is, Peppa Pig is never the answer. Although Daddy Pig would do a better job than good ol JC

We cleared a corner!!!!

When. And no

Talking to a palace fan earlier, warning him of the Pards effect to come. His response.... He hasn't got a fucking clue and his team selections are already baffling.

Companies can be bought by different means - eg through shares. When it's not a cash purchase then cash in the bank can be attractive (in some cases share based acquisitions are made to get your hands on free cash), if it's a cash purchase then it's more attractive to hold less cash for a buyer - typically assets are bought at a premium so in effect you would be buying each pound for pound + premium. Makes no sense from a buyers PoV

3 years ago - Hatem Ben Arfa, Bolton.

Shearer, Barry Moat, Sting and Mark Knopfler tag team. What about Ant and Dec?

sounds probable to me Dividends aren't included in profit

As I mentioned earlier, bringing forward losses on pleayers will only be part of it (if at all), but once you put in £5m on player losses, £5m on training ground development, a couple of million on future activities (like the Rugby World Cup) you can soon build up to a decent sum of increased costs. Its a lot easier to increase your cost base through management judgements/calculations (all completely above board and would be audited) then it is to decrease it

You are supposed to review the 'carrying value' (i.e. what you have them valued at on your balance sheet) each year to see if the 'fair' value (essentially what you would be able to sell it for) is less than your carrying value - if so you revalue them. Putting this into the real world, lets say Ben Arfa was worth £2m last June in our accounts, as we got rid of him for nowt this year you could bring that loss forward. Same with MYM. You couild also revalue down if any player suffered a bad injury or had been coached by Pardew, Stone and Carver

Pretty much yeah

Profit yes, cash on its own no. I imagine there will be some write down in player value (Ben Arfa, MYM, Santon perhaps) along with some 'consultancy costs' in relation to various club/business development ideas and some training ground improvements. Wouldn't surprise me to see costs in relation to obtaining hosting rights for the Rugby World Cup games in there as well. Of course this will all be neatly wrapped up in admin or professional fees 25m though It's a huge chunk of money. It may take a bit of searching but the answer will be buried somewhere in the notes to the published accounts. Or hopefully there could be a huge chunk of "cash at bank" which means the profit's been massaged but the cash is still there. Us accountants prefer the word 'managed' to massaged! Speak for yourself As long as its not 'fudged' eh?!

Profit yes, cash on its own no. I imagine there will be some write down in player value (Ben Arfa, MYM, Santon perhaps) along with some 'consultancy costs' in relation to various club/business development ideas and some training ground improvements. Wouldn't surprise me to see costs in relation to obtaining hosting rights for the Rugby World Cup games in there as well. Of course this will all be neatly wrapped up in admin or professional fees 25m though It's a huge chunk of money. It may take a bit of searching but the answer will be buried somewhere in the notes to the published accounts. Or hopefully there could be a huge chunk of "cash at bank" which means the profit's been massaged but the cash is still there. Us accountants prefer the word 'managed' to massaged!

Profit yes, cash on its own no. I imagine there will be some write down in player value (Ben Arfa, MYM, Santon perhaps) along with some 'consultancy costs' in relation to various club/business development ideas and some training ground improvements. Wouldn't surprise me to see costs in relation to obtaining hosting rights for the Rugby World Cup games in there as well. Of course this will all be neatly wrapped up in admin or professional fees 25m though A little bit, a little bit there - soon adds up! Unless somebody has access to the workings behind the accounts we'll never know exactly where each pound goes, but there will be a 'justifiable' reason for every cost reported. These may/will be subjective in many cases with an intention to keep the profit down (for reasons only MA and the directors will know) but all will have a good degree of validity from a business sense. Again, we need the cash flow as this is what will show what costs have resulted in a cash outflow, and which are management provisions etc and not cash impacting

Profit yes, cash on its own no. I imagine there will be some write down in player value (Ben Arfa, MYM, Santon perhaps) along with some 'consultancy costs' in relation to various club/business development ideas and some training ground improvements. Wouldn't surprise me to see costs in relation to obtaining hosting rights for the Rugby World Cup games in there as well. Of course this will all be neatly wrapped up in admin or professional fees

I think he does, he's just sticking to the plan of slow, sustainable growth so he's not carrying the can for further investment. Just wrote this over on TT, which is as I see it..... I really hope you're right and that the club will be able to reinvest profits rather than sit on cash. Of course it doesn't matter how much we spend if we have Carver in charge. It will be interesting to see what calibre of player we are able to bring in - those that see us a team capable of more (Cabaye) or those that see us as the best they can get (Riviere).

I've no real gripe with looking for bargains etc, it should be seen to be a good thing to be able to upgrade or at least replace like for like whilst spending less then you bring in (using the Carroll money on Tiote, Ben Arfa, Cabaye and ultimately Cisse was really good business all round). The problem is that its very difficult to buy to maintain a position. when we bought Cabaye et al I genuinely think we had aspirations to compete (albeit trying to do this through exploiting contracts etc) and could sell that to players who were better than our finishing position of 1th/12th. Now we are trying to buy players to keep us in 8th - 10th and you either (a) overpay for players at that level or (b) take a real gamble on the likes of Perez and Riviere who by rights are at a level lower than 8th - 10th in the premier league (remember Perez came from the Spanish second division and has performed far in excess of expectations) so as a collective will only keep you at your target at best. In reality half + of these will turn out worse than hoped and you then start looking to consolidate 12th - 10th, buy players to do this and end up looking at 14th - 12th etc. Without real ambition its so easy to getting sucked into buying bottom half players and struggling, there's loads of teams in the Premier Leagues history who have slowly but surely dropped 1-2 places a year and then suddenly find themselves in huge trouble. Ashley doesn't see this

I wonder if releasing a big profit number might actually work against MA? I know we have a lot of zombie sheep in SJP at the moment, but surely most people will finally put 2 and 2 together when a £60m profit plus £20m of player sales (assuming 2 of Janmaat, Sissoko, Perez, Cabella, Krul leave) should result in us not scrambling around the bargain basement of players this summer. Or is this the slippiest and smallest of straws I'm clutching at?

Jonas if he is drafted into full back Sissoko if not

Gary McCallister in a Liverpool shirt. Don't know why but his smug little face in that shirt just winds me up whenever Football Gold is on in the gym

Walcott any time or Giroud anytime goalscorer?

I'd argue that league position is a better indicator than both. I couldn't care if we spend nothing on transfer fees if the football and league position improved, id actually be impressed. Mind we did finish 5th after selling Carroll and spending significantly less than 35m in the summer so it can be done

In your world of fantasy does every side in the PL make huge yearly profits? Here in reality clubs are able to spend(as opposed to making £40m transfer profits) while in debt for the good of the football club rather than the balance sheet. We dont because we have zero ambition to match the rest of them not because we cant and no amount of fixed graphs to suit you will change that. Edit: As ever you completely ignore minor details like those 14 competitors getting the same huge TV cash bonus that we have to go with their already hugely increased ambition. I kinda get where HF is coming from - but you are right in that we have to ignore the other 17 clubs in the premier league getting huge incomes, its irrelevent to Ashley. With that in mind, its been painfully obvious that MA will not spend a penny more than the club makes and bar the first 2 summers signings will always follow sales or cash inflow (and the signings may not be immediately after). Now that we have made a large operating profit there is every chance that (if you go on history being the best indicator of future actions) we will show a decent net spend in the summer. Will the full profit be spend on transfers? Probably not as remember no money is spent in advance of receiving cash so increases in wages will also be funded from this profit. There will still be a gap between what we spend and what clubs who operate with debt can/will spend - but it will be interesting to see how many clubs use this years TV money to reduce debts or how many banks call in some of the debts now that everyone is cash rich. Over the long term things have to balance out, so if huge debts are built up by other clubs now there will come a time where either they need to start paying them back or a buy out happens and the debts get wiped out. No debt will be sustained forever.

He'll be reappointed on Monday

Another shocking part of our 'play' is attcking throw ins. Absolutely no movement for the thrower, well apart from Perez when he came on. Obertan (unsurprisingly) the worst offender