Colos Short and Curlies

I understand the 'defensiveness' towards criticism of our club, I have reacted like that a million times (perhaps 10 million times) before - but we are in a mess. Denying it, getting upset about it, making comparisons to 'times in the past', and sticking your head in the sand generally, doesn't help! There is something wrong at our club, there is something very "smelly" going on there (can't think of a better way to describe it) - quite simply, all is not as it should be. Look at their faces and the words and body language. I have seen organisations like this before - ill at ease with themselves and with eachother. Things not happenning, significant progress not being made in the way that it should be. I do not know what can be done now (a few last minute - even BIG - signings will not cover up the cracks). And, how likely is that (even) to happen. Keegan's man-management skills with the players has helped get us some reasonable performances - not great performances - and some decent results from those performances . . . so far. When the injuries and suspensions come in with our tiny squad though - we will struggle. We shouldn't even be considering 'struggling' - we should be taking steps to PROGRESS. That is what is wrong with the club, but the reasons WHY it is so wrong at the club at the moment - we are not privvy to, we can only speculate. But, lets not hide from the truth . . . Yes our squad needs additions and yes I am a little uncomfortable with the role of Wise and him being based in London etc. but really, I don't think things are anywhere near as bad as you put it. The team we have fielded this season is strong, and we have Viduka and Carroll still to add to that. With 2 or 3 more good signings I will happy with the squad until January at least. Look at Liverpool, they are supposedly challenging for the title and Champions League on top of what we are playing for, they only have one first teamer currently injured, and look at their bench the other night: Cavalieri, Dossena, Agger, Plessis, Spearing, El Zhar, Babel. If you listen to Ashley's reasons for Wise being based in London it would make no odds whether he was sat behind a desk in SJP or in London. In many ways being in London is a benefit (easy access for initial meetings with Agents etc) and could be one of the reaosns why there have been fewer leaks this summer (agents/players not being flown into Newcastle Airport etc)

if we had 3 targets lined up and the selling clubs wanted, say, another 1m per deal to sell in this window do you think we should pay it? or spend nothing on principle and start the season with what we've got? assuming they're first choice targets of course rather than last minute panic attacks I'd rather we payed hardball up to now, knowing that we would pay the extra million if needed, then strike now with the asking price

James Milner to Villa apparently. Out of the blue that one

whoop dee fucking doo, the club have marginally improved (1st team playing staff wise) upon some of our darkest seasons since joining the PL you don't take much pleasing you Would you rather go back to the summer of 2005? 2006? Of course the club is being better managed then during Freds last couple of seasons

Would rather give The Power Ranger the opportunity to prove himself for 20 minutes at the end of a game then pay Larsson to do the same

The REAL reason Milner has asked to leave.... http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?topic=40340.175 Reply 189. (The timeline fits) He's obviously a Cena hater, apologies to all the Milner Lovers out there, my bad.

No he wont, he'll be asked and asked and asked, but he will say 'I'm hopeful of getting 2-3 players in, but its difficult, it will be an anxious few days. We all know what and where we need to buy, just concentrating on Saturday for now'.

this time last year? the one before that? I dunno, maybe the last two seasons have made the majority on here more jumpy. I'll keep the faith until 11.59am on Monday morning, but the general feeling on here is doing my nut in!

I've never wanted a weekend to pass more quickly.

They do, just wouldn't include 'consistent' in there. surely, if something is inconsistent it lacks quality, if something is reliable , it has quality, unreliable, it lacks quality, dependable, it has quality, Disagree there, you can have quality but be unreliable - see Woodgate. the unreliability causes a glass ceiling to where that quality can take you

Completely agree, I would hope however that at least one person there is savvy enough to exploit loan deals to cover the short term issues

Go buy yourself a bar of soap and wash that filthy mouth of yours out

To be honest the best way of looking at spend in a year for the club as a whole is to take profit/loss before ammortisation then add the net spend/income on players in that year. Agreed Thinking about it, it should actually be feasible to give a strong forecasted proft for the year now. The revenue streams are pretty fixed (only prize money will vary) and cost structures will be fixed also

Get in! Just wonder where this profit will end up going though. In his pocket, on the squad or on the balance sheet to make the club look more of an attractive prospect to others. On the squad and on the balance sheet pretty much equate to the same thing dontcha think? Anyway, I haven't got the figures in fornt of me, but any reported profit will be BEFORE any sales and purchases of players. So say we made a profit of £10m and spent net £11m (as I say I aint got the figures here) then we have reinvested all and more of the revenue during the year Seriously? Seems like a pretty big omission from a profit & loss statement to me. Mind you, Mike says we never actually paid for any players before he came anyway, we just gave the selling clubs promise notes to be collected when the club was sold on to a generous (and handsome) Billionaire. Its really not, its a standard way of reporting things in football. The numbers are in there if you go down far enough but 99 times out of 100 the figures released to the press will read: Profit/Loss before amortisation of transfer fees (almost but not quite the cash profit/loss for the year) Profit/Loss after amortisation of transfer fees (the paper profit for the year) This years transfer spend does not hit the p&L directly, its hidden in the ammortisation and spread over the length of the initial contract of the player

To be honest the best way of looking at spend in a year for the club as a whole is to take profit/loss before ammortisation then add the net spend/income on players in that year.

Get in! Just wonder where this profit will end up going though. In his pocket, on the squad or on the balance sheet to make the club look more of an attractive prospect to others. On the squad and on the balance sheet pretty much equate to the same thing dontcha think? Anyway, I haven't got the figures in fornt of me, but any reported profit will be BEFORE any sales and purchases of players. So say we made a profit of £10m and spent net £11m (as I say I aint got the figures here) then we have reinvested all and more of the revenue during the year

Do you not seek to get a payrise each year in your job? I really don't see what anyone has done wrong. Milner asked for a review of his contract which he is entitled to. The club said you are staying on what we agreed last year. Fine Milner has decided that he will ask for a transfer as he thinks he can get a better deal elsewhere. Fine It may well be that he will stay, if so I have no doubt that he will continue to give 100% and continue to provide a split opinion amongst the fans as to his ability. He may well yet end up signing a new contract next summer.

No, no it could'nt. Imagine if we did Spuds would be gutted should be ashleys masterplan, totally f*** his spurs mates over now right at the end of the window when it's become totally apparent that without more signings they're gonna struggle ashley steps in and nicks anyone quality from them! Whereas, in fact, he is doing exactly the opposite. The 'promised land' of us being owned by a billionaire appears to have turned sour. He owns us - but does he have our interests at heart - or does he have the interests "of some other club (s)" at heart? The whole "we are second class citizens thing" (Keegan) and "we are not spending big money thing" (Ashley) . . . is VERY odd. Don't suppose you've got a link to that have you? Missed it. It is implicit in pretty well everything he has said and done for the last few months. He is wanting to cut down the wage bill, he is not going to spend big on the wrong sort of players (obviously good but seems to be code for "he is NOT going to spend big on ANY players") - but mainly it is his A C T I O N S (allied to Keegans words). He is committed to firming-up our (realistic, as some on here delightedly say) 'Second Class' (nothingness, as Sir John Hall used to say) status. Great fun. A record fee for a defender (£10m), a record bid for a midfielder (£18m). Yup he's not willing to spend any money Do you really think that even if he had got this (alleged) £18M player (Modric I assume) - that would hve been enough? A sign of real ambition? (Also - show me the paperwork . . .) (Also - why quote a persons failure?) (He FAILED to get him, if he ever tried, why quote that?) You stated your belief that Ashley is not going to spend money on any players. I showed 2 examples where he was willing/actually did spend record amounts of cash. You want to see paperwork for a deal which did not go through? Is the word of our then Chairman, our manager and his agent not sufficient to suggest that the bid wa made and was serious? So how much would we need to spend to show ambition? £100m? £200m? £1,000m?

Imo Ashley is running the club the right way for the long term. See West Ham how it can all go horribly wrong by splashing cash just because you have some.

No, no it could'nt. Imagine if we did Spuds would be gutted should be ashleys masterplan, totally f*** his spurs mates over now right at the end of the window when it's become totally apparent that without more signings they're gonna struggle ashley steps in and nicks anyone quality from them! Whereas, in fact, he is doing exactly the opposite. The 'promised land' of us being owned by a billionaire appears to have turned sour. He owns us - but does he have our interests at heart - or does he have the interests "of some other club (s)" at heart? The whole "we are second class citizens thing" (Keegan) and "we are not spending big money thing" (Ashley) . . . is VERY odd. Don't suppose you've got a link to that have you? Missed it. It is implicit in pretty well everything he has said and done for the last few months. He is wanting to cut down the wage bill, he is not going to spend big on the wrong sort of players (obviously good but seems to be code for "he is NOT going to spend big on ANY players") - but mainly it is his A C T I O N S (allied to Keegans words). He is committed to firming-up our (realistic, as some on here delightedly say) 'Second Class' (nothingness, as Sir John Hall used to say) status. Great fun. A record fee for a defender (£10m), a record bid for a midfielder (£18m). Yup he's not willing to spend any money

Its a difficult one imo. No doubt Milner will always give 100% no matter what his situation is, and that attitude should be supported. But an over the top showing by the crowd could give a powerful message to the players over where we feel the balance of power lies

Seriously not the player they need or the club he needs at the moment

Re the 'going public' aspect. How are the club supposed to let other lcubs know that a request has gone in without it being talked about outside of the club? And once it has been communicated it is bound to get out into the public domain. 'Ok James, we accept your request, but we are not going to tell anyone about it and if you or your 'agent' do then you are acting outside the terms of your contract'. I don't think so somehow! My guess is that the club had been tipped off that a story was going to be running about the transfer request and for once it has been pre-empted with a press release.

Not really what anyone wants to hear the day after the "big meeting" with the directors. If this is the case and no-one is lined up to join us then it is even more important that Milner doesn't leave the club. Thats from Tuesday, not after the meeting

Don't Panic! http://www.rtl.nl/soaps/dadsarmy/components/images/Clive-162x114.jpg