Colos Short and Curlies

The reason why we sold Nolan had little to do with him being happy or not. NUFC was sensible and didn't want to give him a 5 year contract, but West Ham did. His fitness is questionable and will be even more so as he gets older. The same goes for Barton too. Neither SAF or Wenger hand out lengthy contracts to players in that age group, and nobody is branding them as idiot for following that policy. With todays salaries, it's the sensible option imo. Having two aging, expensive permacrocks (worst case scenario) on the bench that no other clubs want, is not good for the club. It's this scenario we're now experiencing with Smith. He's cashing in, and we cannot reinforce the squad without him leaving. But nobody is interested in him. I'm not very business minded, but I know in any business it's important to have a contingency plan. It's all very well doing the above - but what we need to be doing is spending the cash or at least signing the players to cover these positions. In life the majority of things that have any quality also have a higher value. If we want to keep key players, we have to do so by showing some form of intent in the market. If key players are unhappy or unsettled we should be signing players to cover them then fuck them off or doing what's required to please them. This seems to have been the case with Nolan and possibly Barton, but certainly not with Carroll and seemingly not with Enrique as of yet. As far as I'm aware Jonas and Fabricio are good mates with Jose, so surely this news/ongoing saga is unsettling them too? If Jose goes, this wont be the end of it all - surely? Whilst I agree on following an Arsenal style model, you have to be incredibly skillful, experienced and even a slight but lucky to develop something the way they have. I wouldn't exactly say Newcastle has ever really been renowned for doing well as far as a scouting network goes. What I'd like to know is what is going on behind the scenes. Our management has pretty much came out and said these key players have all been offered good deals and/or that the players are want-away rather than the club simply wanting to cut the wage bill. I'd take a guess that it's somewhere between what the board tell us and what the players tell us, but whilst we're in the dark, I think I'd be trying to find the pitch with the players rather than the boardroom with Mike and Dekka. Let's not forget these are the cunts who've openly admitted to lying and misleading the support of this great club... The business plan is to replace older players with younger, hungrily and yes, cheaper versions whilst looking to promote from within. Same as most businesses really. You've just got to hope that the powers that be recognise where and when its actually right to spend a bit more cash on a particular area when the time calls for it. Again like most other businesses

Fair enough Colo's Short and Curlies! I was definitely reaching with my comparison of fans to friends The reason I had to, was because the situations are so very different - and I do think you underestimate the relative power balance between your respective previous employers, and his with Ashley and co.. I do believe if you thought you had the power to make sure your boss didn't get away scott free for reneging on his seven grand pay bump - you would. Or at least you wouldn't let your boss deceive others about the reason for you not renewing your contract for another five and a half years (as seems to be the standard length of contracts at NUFC these days). Anyway, those are my two cents on the matter - and I'll certainly follow this thread (and indeed your response ), but I can see it getting cyclical and intractable to continue engaging in! Nobody is forcing him to stay for 5 more days, never mind 5 years. It just seems sad that he's playing games where noone wins. It does smack of someone who is drunk texting at 3 in the morning. But its too early for that over there. Maybe his agent is tweeting on his behalf?

I must say, I find it difficult to believe you'd spend an extra year working for employers you neither liked or trusted - if you had the choice to go elsewhere sooner. I don't think you're thinking of Jose Enrique as a real person. I know he's a Newcastle United superstar - but also a human* and he probably just spent six fairly miserable months of his life (and not an insignificant amount of his career) working for an employer that sacked a line manager he got on well with (Hughton) with no real reason and then had some of the promising talents of the team sold off with no massive push for improving the squad. To expect him to wait patiently for another twelve months ... well, I don't blame him. And from a "being a man" viewpoint, there's an old saying "you should never be afraid to do the right thing" - which, in this case, is fight the power and speak your mind. * - not to paint him as some underprivileged malnourished orphan or owt When I've been unhappy I've kept my head down, looked fokr a new job, handed in my notice and done things properly. I'd expect a PROFESSIONAL football to hand in a request quietly, seek a new opportunity and do things correctly. Have your employers spoke to your friends and told them you're unwilling to renew your contract and not let you set the record straight with them too, then? Seriously? His friends? My last employer went back on a promise on wages to the tune of 7 grand, I stilll did as my lady post. If he wants to leave then that's his prerogative, but putting this on Twitter ( I've always said Twitter is full of tweets by twats) is just letting himself down. He's playing a game as much as MA and co are

I must say, I find it difficult to believe you'd spend an extra year working for employers you neither liked or trusted - if you had the choice to go elsewhere sooner. I don't think you're thinking of Jose Enrique as a real person. I know he's a Newcastle United superstar - but also a human* and he probably just spent six fairly miserable months of his life (and not an insignificant amount of his career) working for an employer that sacked a line manager he got on well with (Hughton) with no real reason and then had some of the promising talents of the team sold off with no massive push for improving the squad. To expect him to wait patiently for another twelve months ... well, I don't blame him. And from a "being a man" viewpoint, there's an old saying "you should never be afraid to do the right thing" - which, in this case, is fight the power and speak your mind. * - not to paint him as some underprivileged malnourished orphan or owt When I've been unhappy I've kept my head down, looked for a new job, handed in my notice and done things properly. I'd expect a PROFESSIONAL football to hand in a request quietly, seek a new opportunity and do things correctly.

Nothing wrong with the place IMO. Damn road works are a problem but overall not too bad a place. I've never lived anywhere else though so not really a great judge. Theres enough going on to keep Routledge out of trouble. Scott Sinclair is from London and he seems happy enough in the city. They just have to watch out for mad Mary and teabag, they can be a nuisance. Don't get me wrong, its a nice city. Just not my kind of place. Right first time. It's grim. And that's coming from someone born in wallsend, who lived in Liverpool for 6 years and now resides just outside of llanelli. In other words I know grim when I see it! Cardiff is under an hour away so is guess he'd live somewhere closer to there.

Ashley will be insured for the 2 mil payout, it won't be coming out of his own, SD or NUFC's pocket.

Wind I believe

Probably either the SD bonus payout or his moves to buy up shares in USC and JD Sports

Cash may not change hands, but SD will 'pay' for advertising due to related party transaction rules (more boring accountancy I'm afraid). Left pocket/right pocket for MA, but it would go towards any income the club generates and will need to be at a market rate (I'm guessing realistically we could look at the fee Arsenal get from Emirates if we wanted to put a top level amount on it for the UEFA FP regs)

AFAIK it is bought direct from the supplier. There's weird and wonderful tax legislation that would make it hard to make any benefit from pushing it through SD

Apart from all of the free advertising all around the ground. How do you know its free? Total speculation here, but who's to say that the sponsorship deal won't be worth 'x amount' a year when Financial Fair Play comes into effect, to counter any loses? "Oh, we made a £20m lose? OH well, that's how much I paid for sponsorship this season..." "Oh, we made a £15m lose this year? Yeah, that was the Sponsorship total." The first point here is interesting, and I've had second hand accounts of how Ashley rewards those loayl to him and who do a good job for him (one acount was for a receptionist who was on a SD night out in a casino. MA placed a £1000 bet on the roulette for her with the promise of any winnings going straight to her - lets just say she had a sore head that night). Conversely however, MA is ruthless with those who are not these things. And guess how he must feel about us fans? He's protecting his asset alright now, but would you spend millions of your own money on a crowd who have threatened your family?

If thats your opinion why dont you keep it to yourself. I think that this thread is quite interesting given that it involves the Sponsor of St James Park, The guy who owns it also owns NU. If this thread showed that Sports Direct made a loss it wouldn't be so pointless would it? The problem is that there are some people who will use this purely as a stick to beat MA with - i.e. that money could have been used for transfers etc, completely dis-regarding the fact that it is for a separate business and the money being used for these bonus payments belongs to SD and not MA. Anyway, fair play to the fat lad and his corporate crew for this - there's many a retailer who won't have this sort of incentive scheme for its staff, and lets be fair it must be hell on earther working in one of those shops for any decent period of time

I don't think the Carroll deal should be judged in hindsight based on what happens to the team afterwards. Let's face it, we sold him because the club needs income, the player wanted an improved/inflated contract and the deal was too good to turn down. That's it. Any other reason is just an attempt to justify an unpopular move. Added a key point to the reasons for the sale

Dave. 9m transfer fees, 65k wages, all these are "assumptions". You are assuming that he is available at this price, but who knows the truth? I use historical fact that is available so far. The best example for you is Phil Jones because there is a clause triggered and therefore his price is the most reasonable one. We have tried for Gameiro, Gervinho and Erdinc. Why are you ignoring them then? Because last time I checked points aren't handed out based on players you try for. Seeing as you're going big on facts, how do you know we lodged realistic bids for those players? All we have is speculation. Our bids might have given us no chance. Also I haven't seen any of them play so it's hard for me to judge whether or not they'd be good for us, I'll openly admit that. I know for a fact Carroll and Nolan were capable in this league, and the same applies to N'Zogbia. using the same logic then, you don't actually know what we have done, who we've bid for, how much etc ? so what are you complaining about ? Exactly, just look at when we missed out on signing Modric, we were straight back into the market and made sure we didn't miss out on our second choice, Danny Guthrie. Out of all the players that could have been chosen, Guthrie is probably the worst as he was ientified by Keegan as a player he wanted

Dave. 9m transfer fees, 65k wages, all these are "assumptions". You are assuming that he is available at this price, but who knows the truth? I use historical fact that is available so far. The best example for you is Phil Jones because there is a clause triggered and therefore his price is the most reasonable one. We have tried for Gameiro, Gervinho and Erdinc. Why are you ignoring them then? not that i'd want to answer on dave's behalf but the players we've tried to sign wont win us any points this season Hopefully going to drag this up when Gervinho scores an OG on the first day of the season

I kinda agree with this but at the same time to push on to the next level it's a must to spend big cash on the best players, you can't break the top 4 without doing it. I'd rather have a couple of building years and then add one or two cherries on the top tbh. You get the most out of the top pleayers by putting them on a decent platform, not by asking them to drag a team up by the scruff of the neck. of course, adding great players to the team now would be stupid Not what I meant obviously, but imo we will be better off in 3-4 years by building a solid first team and then adding your top players to it then by spunking our load now on one or two big fees

I kinda agree with this but at the same time to push on to the next level it's a must to spend big cash on the best players, you can't break the top 4 without doing it. I'd rather have a couple of building years and then add one or two cherries on the top tbh. You get the most out of the top pleayers by putting them on a decent platform, not by asking them to drag a team up by the scruff of the neck.

The reality of that theory is that he didn't cost that much so we should have more money to improve other areas. It should be a win-win scenario. Yet people have moaned about our training facilities for years, yet when some of the money is used to improve this area people moan again. The powers that be can't win whatever they do until the monley of the £35m is off their backs one way or the other

£43million of that comes form the Bassong and AC sales in the past 12 months and also includes a relegation where you wouldn't expect anything other than a net profit from transfers in a year. I understand that we have £35m burning a hole in every one of the fans profits, and I also get why the majority of fans fall asleep at the first mention of football finance. However people need to grasp that football is a business (unless you are City or Chelsea) and at some point the books need to be balanced. We've blinked first in may respects in adressing the hole in our budget, and like in F1 with the first pit stops we won't know until later in the game whether we've done the right thing for the long term or shot our load too soon

Seen this in so many places, what's the problem with trying to spend and getting good players like Ferdinand, Shearer, Tino, Bellamy, Robert, Woodgate, Coloccini ? If Carr can find good players from cheap players just think what he could get spending a few quid. I know we also spend decent wedge on other players that summer, But iirc the Cole sale allowed us to bring in Gillespie and Ferdinand for zero net spend. Does that make the sale of Cole unambitious? To be fair at the time it seemed that way yes lol but we also paid for the most expensive defender at the time Warren Barton, David Ginola and Shaka hislop at the same time as we bought Les Ferdinand. Funny looking back how the most gifted player there was the cheapest. Same fee as we had agreed for John Salako wasn't it?

Seen this in so many places, what's the problem with trying to spend and getting good players like Ferdinand, Shearer, Tino, Bellamy, Robert, Woodgate, Coloccini ? If Carr can find good players from cheap players just think what he could get spending a few quid. Exactly right. The last 2 years have been proof that we can speculate to accumulate and we can do it very well. I've seen nothing to suggest we're massively paying over the odds in any area in that time. Apparently as soon as you spend more than £6m in a transfer fee you automatically pay unsustainable wages and the player flops or is seriously injured. Just imagine the pressure on the poor bloke if we do spend £6m plus on anyone. We're just an overly demanding bunch of fans

Seen this in so many places, what's the problem with trying to spend and getting good players like Ferdinand, Shearer, Tino, Bellamy, Robert, Woodgate, Coloccini ? If Carr can find good players from cheap players just think what he could get spending a few quid. I know we also spend decent wedge on other players that summer, But iirc the Cole sale allowed us to bring in Gillespie and Ferdinand for zero net spend. Does that make the sale of Cole unambitious?

We probably will actually - The AC35 will show up as trading profit in the accounts to June 2011 (the sale is 100% profit btw). I would be horrified if all of this was wiped out in the 2011/12 accounts due to the way ammoritsation takes transfer fees in accounts (not going to send everyone off to sleep again!). There's only really 2 measures to guage the AC sale (1) Cashflow over the 2011 and 2012 accounts (this will show where the money has gone) (2) League position in 2012 compared to 2011 (showing how effectively (1) was carried out)

Pardew said the money would be reinvested out of the Carroll sale ,he was told by Llambias and thats the crux of the current debate that that promise was made and so far very little net spend of that money. I agree that "promise" was a mistake, but I think expecting that it actually meant we would spend £35m on transfer fees is taking it far too literally. It was also made in a pressure situation by a manager trying to defend a very unpopular sale. you're missing the point. spending none of it and then giving a list of excuses to the local press including a f***ing water pipe is a pretty clear indication of what these lot are about, and you're still not seeing it. How am I missing the point? You mean I'm not coming to the same conclusion as you. the conclusion i'm coming to is that they haven't spent any of it, i fail to see how you'd be too far away from that? I don't know exactly how much they've spent, I agree it is probably quite a small proportion. But that doesn't outrage me as much as it does some people, because I never thought it would all go on transfers in the first place. What concerns me is whether we are adding decent players to the squad, which I think we are. They have "spent" around £25 million of the Carroll money. Personally, I'll judge the spending on what I see on the pitch after August. Currently they've spent £300k in my book. Are you joking? Please tell me you are... We simply haven't "spent" £25 million. Most of it appears to be sitting in the bank on the off chance that we don't sell the players we've just "bought". Which is just as f***ing bad. They've used money from the £35 million to pay Tiote's wages for the next two seasons... The money is as good as spent. And that's where the "where is the rest of the income going?" question comes into it. The phrase "smoke and mirrors" is a very appropriate one. To see where the rest of the income is going, and has gone in previous seasons, look at the club's accounts. The previous income was paying for things this new, extra income is now paying for. Yes, and resulting in regular losses and increase in debt. I don't see how this is hard to grasp, if you're paying out more money than you earn and your earnings increase, you don't go spending all of the extra. Haven't people on here said we're breaking even or will break even in the very near future? With 2 or 3 high earners leaving in the next year they can't be far away from having no excuses left. All future tense though - we're not quite there yet

Completely agree, and I also find it amusing that in any walk of business the aim is to do things cheaper, leaner and more efficinently. Except in football that is. Unless we are spending the AC35 plus then the club is penny pinching, if we make a net profit in a transfer window we are penny pinching. If Sunderland spend £6m on Gardner and we spend £4m on Cabaye, they are showing ambition, we are not. Its daft. Getting a younger cheaper player in to do the same job (or better) than what was there before can only make good footballing and financial sense. Of course there is the variable of 'will they be as good', but on paper at least this summer has seen us look to inject youth, pace and creativity whilst not over spending. If I managed to do that in my job I'd be getting a great bonus, not stick in the press