Colos Short and Curlies

The TV money may be increasing (as it is for all our competitors), but all other revenue streams are either decreasing year on year, or not increasing at the same rate as other clubs. Ticket sales, merchandising, advertising are all down, and soon we will not be as big a draw on the TV either. The recession may have a hand in some of this downturn, but I very much doubt it is the significant driver, which is the way the club is being run by Ashley which is nothing like the clubs you mentioned above. People can go on about the folly of taking £25m up front for 5 years of advertising as opposed to a maximum of £2.5m/year for 4 years, but there isn't a businessman in the world who would not say the former is a far, far better deal for the club. I'd have hoped it was obvious, but it apparently needs to be spelled out, that continually cutting costs to match a constantly reducing revenue is not the sign of a business on the up. To use your shooting analogy, we found a silver bullet which we could have used but we sold it, and instead of using the money to buy a round of normal bullets we paid off some of the loan on the gun and left it empty. That's a shit analogy, but the point is we're absolutely not being run like those clubs (or how we used to be run when we were competing with or better than them). They are trying to succeed by pushing the boat out. It will not always work, and you may have to spend a few years recovering and building up momentum for another push, but now we aren't even trying. You can choose to believe we are currently restricted by paying off debts (to the owner), or are saving up for a big push, or need to stock up on pre-paid wages if you like, but absolutely nothing in the 4 years of Ashley's ownership gives any indication of a desire to advance this club on the pitch beyond an ambition to stay in the league on minimum expenditure. There's also nothing but blind hope that this is a strategy designed to help in the sale of the club. From day one the plan was to run the club as it is being done now, to bring in players with potential - not to develop them and keep them and build a team for the long term - but with the aim of selling them on for a profit. Keep the club in the Premiership and the running costs are covered, and as a bonus you have a prime global marketing tool for free. The evidence of this lack of footballing ambition MUST now be absolutely clear surely. We got lucky with a once in a generation prodigy from the academy, that should have been our impetus to make progression. We could either have kept him and built a team around that talent (and a local focal point to the team like Shearer was is great for selling shirts and bringing in advertising, etc), or used the money from his sale to significantly improve the first team or strengthen the squad. We did neither and replaced proven effective players in our team for players with "potential" who are new to the team, culture and league. A risky strategy at best. We certainly haven't strengthened the squad as we have only replaced for the most part first team players, so the only way we can possibly have improved is if we have improved the first team. There is no way anyone can say the first team we have now is better than it was at the start of September last year for at least 3 or 4 months until we've seen how the new players fit in, but IMO it's very unlikely as it can only be stronger if ALL the new players match or better the players they replaced, and that is highly unlikely to happen no matter what their brief appearances for us so far and their track records tell you. Anyone with any realistic perspective knows that not all new players fit in and live up to expectations, in fact it's unusual that more than half do even if they are already adapted to the league/country, so the chances are that we will be weaker as a 1st team let alone as a squad. Let's clear this point up too, there's a lot of people in this thread saying or implying we are still making losses. Well no-one who has seriously looked at the figures and has a basic understanding of them thinks we made an operating loss last year. Frankly if we didn't make a profit with the wage bill as it was (and still is), then it's an absolute disgrace, and I don't see how anyone could say with a straight face that Ashley was running the club well financially if that was the case. However I'm pretty confident that that isn't the case and that the revenues haven't dropped to the point that we'd make a loss on a £50-60m wage bill (although they would quite easily be far better if the club was actually being run well). With the ins and outs as they stand the wage bill won't have changed significantly from last year, so if we don't spend any money on transfers we'll make a profit this year too (unless of course revenues drop through supporter disaffection as much as they did in 08-09). But even if we do post a profit this year (operational or in total) we still have a number of recent years losses (paper and cash flow) that we need to plug. The Caroll sale will strengthen the balance sheet no doubt, but there will still be a few legacy holes to finish filling in for a year or two yet.

Cash in the bank is actually a negative in buy outs. The buyer will in reality pay a premium on the asset value of a company, as cash is part of this you're effectively buying cash at a cost greater than the bank balance.

It's too broad a question though, who knows? I'm not aware of anyone who hasn't criticised a lot of what Ashley has done. You could equally put it the other way round - what would Ashley have to do to make you think he was doing some things right? Buy one of the most exciting attacking midfielders in Europe? Sign a French league winner and one of the best defensive midfielders in the league? Get a promising young Italian international fullback from Inter Milan? Bounce back from a relegation, finish the season well and start the following season with some good results? Put our finances on a sounder footing? But I wouldn't ask it like that because I know it's not black and white. I'm not trying to speak up on Ashley's behalf, I'm trying to highlight that the situation at the club isn't as dire as some people think, and everything we do isn't bad or part of some evil plan to punish Geordies. Get a striker in as well, that'd at least shows he cares and does have a plan. We've had a decent window but we're relying on Shola,Lovercrap, Ba & Best. I like Best, I think he's seriously underrated by some on here, who knows with Ba atm. Shola is just Shola & Lovercrap shouldn't be anywhere near the team. I agree we should have got another striker, and that's a failure. As you said though, we've had a decent window. Personally i would have been worried who we would have sold in order to sign a striker so perhaps we're better off as it is. Whu? we sold carroll for 35 million this jan, we were then told ALL the money would be reinvested into the squad. Not my words, pardews, ashleys and llambias words. We started last season short of a striker, we were told that carroll will get the number 9 shirt, we were all a bit worried but it turned out ok, it turned out so ok we fucking flogged him and were told they would purchase a striker in the sumer. We signed Ba on a free. End. FFS Semantics. Told we would sign a striker. We signed Ba Told the money would be reinvested in the squad. Pays for a few signings and wages Please tell me you don't actually believe the "it's paying for future wages" line. I thought only the Ian W's of this world fell for that one. Then again it was you who said you had it on good authority we had £100m for new signings if Keegan could spend it wasn't it? I suppose Mike's just doing us a favour by keeping it safe in his personal bank account, and the easiest way to do that is to make it look like he's paying off his loan, but really it's just there waiting for the "right" players to blow it on. It's all interpretation isn't it? Wages constitute investment in the squad to me. Thats not a validation of the approach, but to me its not bullshit from MA/DL/AP. Up until last season MA was ploughing £20m in to cover losses - if he hasn't had to do that then the money has been reinvested in the squad/club whatever. Its no doubt the accountant in me, but thats I how see things and why I'm not slitting my wirsts because we didn't spend £35m in the summer. If we finish as high or higher in the league next year whilst bringing in money/lowering wages whatever then to me thats a good business plan. If I managed that in my job I'd get rewarded! And yes your memory serves you well, I was told that during the Keegan summer there was no budget but if KK wanted to sign x/y/z the money was there. What's happened since suggests that of course if KK wanted Henry and Beckham the answer was no, but we did spend on Colo, Jonas and Xisco and were close to getting Modric - we were also pretty close to getting Schweinsteiger when Milner left. Whether what I was told was bollocks or there was a subsequent breakdown between KK and MA that opreceded the September fall out is for debate (I guess a bit of both)

It's too broad a question though, who knows? I'm not aware of anyone who hasn't criticised a lot of what Ashley has done. You could equally put it the other way round - what would Ashley have to do to make you think he was doing some things right? Buy one of the most exciting attacking midfielders in Europe? Sign a French league winner and one of the best defensive midfielders in the league? Get a promising young Italian international fullback from Inter Milan? Bounce back from a relegation, finish the season well and start the following season with some good results? Put our finances on a sounder footing? But I wouldn't ask it like that because I know it's not black and white. I'm not trying to speak up on Ashley's behalf, I'm trying to highlight that the situation at the club isn't as dire as some people think, and everything we do isn't bad or part of some evil plan to punish Geordies. Get a striker in as well, that'd at least shows he cares and does have a plan. We've had a decent window but we're relying on Shola,Lovercrap, Ba & Best. I like Best, I think he's seriously underrated by some on here, who knows with Ba atm. Shola is just Shola & Lovercrap shouldn't be anywhere near the team. I agree we should have got another striker, and that's a failure. As you said though, we've had a decent window. Personally i would have been worried who we would have sold in order to sign a striker so perhaps we're better off as it is. Whu? we sold carroll for 35 million this jan, we were then told ALL the money would be reinvested into the squad. Not my words, pardews, ashleys and llambias words. We started last season short of a striker, we were told that carroll will get the number 9 shirt, we were all a bit worried but it turned out ok, it turned out so ok we fucking flogged him and were told they would purchase a striker in the sumer. We signed Ba on a free. End. FFS Semantics. Told we would sign a striker. We signed Ba Told the money would be reinvested in the squad. Pays for a few signings and wages

With our history and following we should be able to compete with clubs like Chelsea and Man City in the transfer market. We would be able to if those clubs were spending anything like what they can afford. But the fact is they are spending the personal money of mega-rich benefactors. As are Stoke and Fulham (albeit on a 'slightly' smaller scale)

With our history and following we should be able to compete with clubs like Chelsea and Man City in the transfer market.

I'm confident that one of Ba or Best will score more for us this seasson than Carroll did last season (if for no other reason than they will have twice a smany games to do so!). I guess we need one of them to outscore the Carroll/Best combined total though. Nolan scored in 9 games last season, if you look at the games where his goal(s) that game were the difference between the two teams we would have had 5 points less (very crude I know and there is more to consider in those games....) I'd be looking for the Obertan/Marvaeux combination to replicate Nolan and Bartons contribution in terms of goals. I guess I'm less worried about where the goals will come from, I think we will see quite a spread from our players this year, but more how will the engine room work. As long as Cabaye continues as he has started and Tiote quickly gets up to speed we will have a decent season (imo of course)

Have fun getting relegated. QPR have the richest owners in football and they sign Shaun Wright-Phillips....ambition? Regardless of ambition, I've been disappointed in the lack of imagination in Warnocks signings.

Healthy balance sheet??!?!?!? We brought in 47 mil and spent 12 mil! Thats fucking healthy, no nufc fan was expecting kaka or rooney but we should have at least been able to buy someone like Ruiz ffs. Stop kidding yourself man. FFS But if we were starting at minus 50 million then the balance sheet isn't fucking healthy, just healthier. We've been spending money on the credit cards for at least a decade, just because we have had a windfall and a couple of years of cost cutting doesn't mean the balance gets written off and we have all this money to spend, some of the money received still needs to be used to plug prior year losses that we have. Most clubs operate on this principle over a period of time - watch Liverpool in 2 years time if their Champions League gamble falls short, they certainly wont be spunking £20m on 20 year olds then.

It was affordable because it was taken out to finance the expansion of the stadium to 52,000 seats and a significant increase in our corporate hospitality capabilities- this was drawing in considerably more than the cash required to service the debt. If net-net the expansion makes money, it doesn't matter what the position is for the overall business. You need to look at that in isolation as a sensible move for the business. We had not (as far as I am aware) plugged cash flow gaps with additional loans, although the club was in a very worrying position with regards to its overdraft (and only a banker's sneeze away from being in a very uncomfortable position)- which is why I still find it odd that Ashley paid so much for the club when it was headed for a very rocky 12 months cash-flow wise. I don't think anyone would dispute the financial merits of the decision to expand the stadium, it was a truly excellent move in every respect. But in order to be able to afford to service a loan you have to be generating positive cash flows from your day to day business. And at the time Ashley took over we were not doing that. Contrary to what you say we did plug cash flow leaks with other loans and this was not purely done through an overdraft it was done through a variety of loans. As I said earlier these were at increasing rates of interest. The proof is in the 2007 accounts and we had collected loans as follows: - £42.5 million at 7.65% interest secured on future season ticket and hospitality income - £13.1 million at 8.55% interest secured on future sponsorship income - E4.5 million at interest of LIBOR +2.25% secured on the first team training ground - £8 million at11.72% interest secured on future broadcasting income - £1.5 million secured as a second charge on the training ground plus an overdraft of £11 million. Whatever method Ashley used to value the club it didn't have anything whatsoever to do with his perception of it's ability to generate positive cash flows. His lack of due diligence would have left him unaware of the true state of the finances. Quayside in very sensible post non-shocker. Yet one which doesn't give the whole picture. There was also £9.3m cash (ie most of the overdraft) held in an account waiting to pay the annual capital and interest repayments on the stadium loan for the next year and a half as per the terms of that agreement. Everything that Ashley did in the immediate aftermath of the sale and in the following years suggest that he would have paid off the stadium debt whether it was immediately owing or not. He paid up the other debts which were not repayable on change of ownership, and we started to pay up front for the whole of a player's transfer fee, which I think is unique at the top level, and is something even the mega-rich clubs don't do. The idea that having to repay the stadium debt changed his plans for the club, or stopped him investing as much as he otherwise would have liked just doesn't hold water. So we were using the overdraft to pay off the loan installments?

I think that was the case.... but in any case it states the 16.5M loan is being repaid from the TV money, which I understand was about 40M. Except it doesn't, it states it is secured on the TV money not being reapid from it. Basically if the club went pop, the loan would be repaid by the TV money, pretty much the same way a mortgage is secured on a house.

So if we got him would Krul be passing to the Dutchy on the left hand side?

Had a drinking session with Gazza Served Geoff Hurst in a pub Waited on Frank Clarke and guests whilst he entertained all strumming his guitar Worked at SJP My old drama teacher went out with Mark Knopfler (he wrote Romeo and Juliet for her)

Would people be 'happy' if this was the way Ashley was looking to take 'money' form the club - ie no cash would leave, but advertising is given away for free. Remember that SD have not replaced another supplier

Did I hear correct on the radio that FSA is playing Nolan as the holidng midifelder and Parker as the attacking force?

I reckon its purely a clash of egos betwen Pards and the curly haired one. Pards likes to sleep with players wives, but Colo's got every fans wife on tap? This was only ever going to end one way

those quotes are taken from his talk sport interview where he also said there would be one price for him and one fee for anyone else wanting to buy the club, basically saying Ashley would not sell to him. Dont know about anyone else but hope it comes off but doubt it will ,Shepherd made big financial mistakes as we know but him and a proper board would hopefully run it correctly this time around and he would be reeled back in from Owenesque stupidity. I wouldn't want Shepherd anywhere near the club, he damn near led us to financial meltdown last time the fat oaf. It was horrendous when we had no money wasn't it. I used to cry myself to sleep when we paid a decent fee for a player and I was forced to travel to foreign lands watching the useless c***s play in those s*** european competitions. I had a few beers while I was there but it tasted oh so bitter. It's much better now. Two words: Leeds Ridsdale That's not an Ashley defence in any shape or form but people defending Shepherd and the mountain of debt we were left with need to stop pretending there weren't going to be consequences to his reckless Hollywood transfers. I love the way Leeds are always used as an example. It's like a parent saying "I'd like my son to be a doctor when he grows up" and someone saying "Two words. Harold. Shipman". One extreme example doesn't make an argument. And the majority of our debt was on the extending of the ground as you well know. It doesn't really matter where the debt came from, the black and white facts are that the creidt line had run out for Freddy. We'd spent 5 years worth of sponsorship money on one player, were paying out compenastion to managers on an annual basis and our income stream had fallen from Champs League to no Europe in under 5 years. The fact that he had started looking into a full refinancing investigation should give enough of a warning. Add into this the credit crunch that hit in 2008, Freddy and the club didn't have the asset base to secure more funding and the wage bill was unsustainable. We were going one way only unless a miracle came along.

Fighting a losing battle I'm afraid. I tried and bowed out a few das ago

Now that would be awesome.

To be seen tbh. Ashley's history in retail would also suggest he is of the mentality to stick 2 fingers up to the established route to the top of football and do it his own way, trying to prove he is the number one at something else

For the purposes of selling the club, ignore it. Either way it's Ashley getting money for selling the club- but to be clear there is no way the debt would remain on the books post sale- even if the sale price is for less than the book value of the debt. Not strictly true. The loan could reamain as a way of deferring the payment for the club if MA was desperate to sell and it was the best way to structure a deal.

Yeah if he wanted to recoup his loan it would be: Value of loan + value of club = sales price

For capital repayment yes, but these types of loans are rarely repaid and it's all about the interest (usually charged at someo eye-watering amount). If he waives outright the interest payable for the year, then this will improve the P&L as it reduced interest costs. In turn this increases the corporation tax for the period (although past losses would likely wipe this out anyway). What Ashley could do is choose to roll the interest into the capital PIK-style, that way he can elect to pay interest in cash or 'waive' that payment- but as the payment increases the size of the liability, this is still a deduction for corporation tax purposes. Interest free isn't it?

Its how much he could include as a balance owed to himself. He disn't have to of course, it's his personal money he has put in, so if he wanted to sell for 50p and personally lose that money forever he could do. He could also of course sell the club but not the debt, and have a balance owed to him over a period of time. Whatever he does will have a bearing on the total value (sales price) of the club when he sells it though

which strictly speaking he hasn't as long as the club owe him money (discounting the original purchase of course) However he will not be "paying for his own mistakes" as some are eager to claim. This extract from the 2010 accounts suggest he intended to repay some of his loan last year and this: Tehnically 'after more than one year' doesn't mean in year 2 - it could mean year 3/5/10 or indefinitely. Also, with not being privy to the underlying records I can't say for sure, but the structure of this debt (i.e. payable in 1 year etc) could be linked to something else in the accounts and it may be 'hot air' - i.e. it will be restructured this year and the acounts will show that the amount repayble was not taken up by MA. We'll know by the next accounts 1) In another section, the amount due between one and two years is £16.5m, so I put 2 & 2 together. 2) Of course, which is why I didn't say he HAS repaid some of his loan, only that it looks like he intended to. Personally I doubt the £35m for Carroll did anything to change his mind. Yeah, the only thing the Carroll money sill do from an accountants mind is to use up some tax losses that are approaching their end date. Shouldn't have an impact that anyone here would be intereste in