Colos Short and Curlies

Doubt it. Even if that figure is correct, most of it will be tied up in what he owns in Sports Direct, his brands like Kangol and his ownership of the club. Money wise, he's hardly looking in the whoopsie ailse in ASDA, but cash would be a small part of his wealth His holding in Sports Direct is worth about £1.1 billion based on the current market capitalisation. Add in the fact that he has already lifted nearly £1 billion in cash when it floated (some of which is funding us) so you'd have to think he'd be worth something like £2 billion. As you say how much of that is still in cash is open to speculation. He bought back a chunk of SD shares didn't he?

Doubt it. Even if that figure is correct, most of it will be tied up in what he owns in Sports Direct, his brands like Kangol and his ownership of the club. Money wise, he's hardly looking in the whoopsie ailse in ASDA, but cash would be a small part of his wealth

Are you saying he's not? Or maybe he's questioning the masculinity of the rest of our players! He's no God, he's a Titan

what is capital gains tax then ? Has this really becoming a discussion on tax in football? Player trading does not trigger any capital gain, it is a revenue transaction. The selling club would pay corporation tax on any profit on a sale (based on the players accounting/ammortised value). A loss could also be made, reducing the tax liability. Not sure on whether player sales are outside of VAT scope or not, but if not then the ultimate purchaser would pay the VAT. Clubs will be VAT registered so would claim back any VAT paid so it is only a cashflow implication, ultimately any VAT flowing from football tansactions is picked up by the fans on ticket sales etc. VAT is charged on UK sales ie Carroll to Liverpool. Its different with sales and purchases outside the Uk. So where you could claim the VAT you paid on the profit/sale of Carroll against purchases of other players they have to come from the UK. Otherwise you can`t claim it against. Ever filed a VAT return? Yes why, I have a business turning over 500k plus a year ? Why not follow up your question with some information if your an accountant and I have worded my post incorrectly ? Well if we have sold Carroll for £35m, we will have also charged Liverpool 20% VAT which we hand over to HMRC and Liverpool claim back (assuming VAT registered etc etc) There's no question of 'charging' this against purchases etc, we would be a vessel for getting the VAT to HMRC in this transaction and nothing else

what is capital gains tax then ? Has this really becoming a discussion on tax in football? Player trading does not trigger any capital gain, it is a revenue transaction. The selling club would pay corporation tax on any profit on a sale (based on the players accounting/ammortised value). A loss could also be made, reducing the tax liability. Not sure on whether player sales are outside of VAT scope or not, but if not then the ultimate purchaser would pay the VAT. Clubs will be VAT registered so would claim back any VAT paid so it is only a cashflow implication, ultimately any VAT flowing from football tansactions is picked up by the fans on ticket sales etc. VAT is charged on UK sales ie Carroll to Liverpool. Its different with sales and purchases outside the Uk. So where you could claim the VAT you paid on the profit/sale of Carroll against purchases of other players they have to come from the UK. Otherwise you can`t claim it against. Ever filed a VAT return?

what is capital gains tax then ? Has this really becoming a discussion on tax in football? Player trading does not trigger any capital gain, it is a revenue transaction. The selling club would pay corporation tax on any profit on a sale (based on the players accounting/ammortised value). A loss could also be made, reducing the tax liability. Not sure on whether player sales are outside of VAT scope or not, but if not then the ultimate purchaser would pay the VAT. Clubs will be VAT registered so would claim back any VAT paid so it is only a cashflow implication, ultimately any VAT flowing from football tansactions is picked up by the fans on ticket sales etc.

Has to be Benzema. Unless there is a striker called None out there somewhere

Suspended

Liverpool Away first game City Away last game Thats my prediction anyway

I remembe back at Christmas 96 I got the long sleeved home shirt and wanted a name on the back. Thinking we were going to be paying per letter and number I was all set for 7 Lee, when it was £5 all in I thought fuck that and got 18 Gillespie.

I know what you mean, [b[i just don't see why everything positive has to have a massive caveat tagged onto the end.[/b] Ba is a good signing, he's better than all our other strikers. Let's judge the other business on its own merits. it doesn't, but it absolutely must be judged with reference to selling a player for 35m and then promising to invest that money into the squad publicly ian, i'm sorry like but it fucking does The thing is, we could easily go and spend £35m this summer, we could aeasily spend £15m on a striker. I'm sure West Ham would bite our hands off at £15m for Carlton Cole. Its not the amount of money that is spent, its how it is spent. And if £35m goes into a number of £5-10m players, Ba's signing on fee (and likely higher wages than AC was on), Tiote's contract and hopefully Enriques contract thenits money well spent. We could even keep some of it for Jan, or even next summer. It's not a race, and as long as it doesn'g go into MA's pocket no-one should really be complaining that it hasn't gone into the club

People who aren't happy with him - if he had come direct from Germany would you be any happier as he would be an unknown and further proof to our new scouting teams powers? Edit, it was a £7m deal to Stoke that fell down wasn't it? So about the same as Gameiro then

What does it matter who's in for him? It's by no-means a sign of how good a player is. So he's not good enough for 19 other Premier League sides, but he's so important to us? I worry about our club if we're that reliant on a 29 year old who's probably had his indian summer. Similar to when Neil Redfearn got about 10 goals for Barnsley in the Premier League, or when Hutchison got a similar number for Sunderland when they had one of their good seasons before he disappeared from the face of the earth. I'll always have fond memories for Nolan for what he did to the club, but if we're going to finish top 6 anytime soon, it's not going to be if we're so heavily reliant on the likes of Nolan. How do you know he's not good enough for 19 other Premier League sides like? Tiote's good enough for the majority of the PL, but I don't see them all lining up to sign him. It doesn't mean owt man - I don't need Bolton or Stoke to tell me that i want to keep Nolan. I know it. Except he isn't Redfearn, or Hutchinson. He's Kevin Nolan. His own man, his own player. There's nothing to say how many PL goals he'd get next term. I don't see Tiote signing for a championship team either tbf. Bellamy? He'd walk into half of the teams in the PL, yet signed for Cardiff last summer. Citeh restricted who he could sign for though. Pretty sure he would have gone to Spurs if Citeh had allowed it

I don't actually know the answer, but how many of Nolans goals cam pre and post Pardew's appointment? Said it earlier, but if we're going to be looking a more passing based game with a smaller frontman, Nolan gets marginalised in his effectiveness

My personal taked on Nolan is that as an impact player from the bench he would be pretty limited. He's never going to change the pattern of a game, so you're relying on him being in the right place at the right time. Couple that with an apparent switch in style to a smaller front man and more fluent passing, he becomes more and more marginalised. On this, I'm not too sad to see him leave. However, we do need to beef out the squad somewhat - I cold see us giving Ireland another loan if Big Eck doesn't fancy him.

If you are challenging for 6th you are a bad season from a top 4 team away from CL football. Everton have managed it, Spurs managed it, We managed it. Villa almost got there a few years ago as well Without City money its nigh on impossible to go into a season thinking you have a good shout of breaking the top 4, but fairly recent history shows that itsnot impossible for a team to gate crash in any given year. Liverpool and Spurs will be hoping for that next year and we should be working to get to that position as well as quickly as possible

The beauty of that front 3 (exc the main striker) is that all players would be happy switching throughout games into any of the three positions and would also give flexibility between a 4-4-2, a 4-2-2-1-1 and a 4-2-3-1 without needing to change personnel mid game. Mind Gervinho would also provide most of that too

Look at these two statements - (1) we used to throw money at players in order to get them to the club - outcome was a continuing decline in the level of performance on the field (2) Unless we start throwing money at players we won't get anywhere. My point is that throwing money at 'top quality' players in order to get them to sign will not lead to success and in many ways leads to a problem where you have a group of players content to put in the minimum effort to get by knwing that they are set for life. What we should be doing is targetting young hungry players who may well see us as a stepping stone, but who have an incentive to perform well in order to get that big move. Get enough of these (and lets be honest £50k a week should be enough to achieve this) and the club will move forward, challenge for Europe and hopefully get us into a position where we can get a higher quality of player without needing to pay vast sums of money to get them here

Don't let that cloud the view of the lad. He's got loads of potential and more than held his own towards the back end of the Championship season. I'd worry that throwing him straight into a Premier League season might be a step too far (could be worng mind!) but he is potentially a very sound full back in a couple of years

Shola really suits that look

When we get to 300 pages and then an official NUFC press conference will be announced. Didn't think we did press conferences these days. More likely a club statement

Just one minor problem - Sturridge isn't actually on the market. He wants to stay at Chelsea. He said he would move elsewhere if he can't get first-team football. Can see Sturridge staying at Chelsea unless Torres bags 3 or 4 before the end of August. Will be a deadline day move if it happens at all (to any club)

One thing about the owner/MD is that I doubt they pay too much attention to agents spouting off in the press due to them using similar tactics themselves. Say what you like about Mike, he does have the skin of a Rhino

We have had a shockingly small squad this year which I'm sure contributed towards the injury problems. Without wanting to get into a 'pampered footballers playing 90 minutes a week argument', Hughton had a fresh squad playing in decent weather on good pitches. Pardew has had one of the harshest winters in recent times with a squad that is playing more minutes per man on average then most squads in the Premier League (I'll admit I don't have the stats to back this up, but the gut feeling is that this is the case). There are some injuries you can't legislate for either when they happen in game (Smith) or a freak fall in training (Williamson). Not saying that the training methods don't have any blame attached - I suppose you could say at the very least Pardew should/could have altered the approach to training to fit the small squad/bad weather factors