Colos Short and Curlies

Precisely. I hope (but doubt) that when the dust settles we get an explanation. However for now I can see the club and Keegan's stance of not directly speaking to anyone, it would just result in more mud slinging. But similarly I can see why people feel frustrated in not hearing anything.

The tyne corridoor has a population of 880000, liverpool has 430000 Yes, Liverpool as a city is 430,000. Merseyside is 1.4m Newcastle as a city is 190,000. Tyneside is 900,000. Where are you taking Merseyside too? Tyneside is a strange connurbation too, would you include South Tyneside in there? Do you go up to Morpeth (Northumberland)? Likewise Merseyside, do you stop at St Helens and the Tunnels? Do you go to Southport or stop at Aintree? Newcastle and Liverpool are difficult places to compare population wise as the geography around them are completely different, and places associated as being in Newcastle's 'sphere' spread much further in all directions than Liverpool, due in no small part to Liverpool being bordered by a Sea and having Manchester and Chester in close proximity

Not in the squad Is Gonzales?

I didn't know my ramblings would get people putting their hard earned cash on the bloke :colo:

But if say Deschamps comes in and personally checks on Baheng's progress from injury then gives him a first team chance his opinion will soon shift. Human nature

It wasn't your boss who said we had £100m to spend in the Summer was it? No, it was my boss who said that there was no set budget but if Keegan could identify the player and we could convince him to come then the money was there. Same thing I suppose!

I've posted it before, but I've had it told to me by a source I trust that we had a bid for Deco accepted both in January for a loan deal and this summer for a permanent transfer but the player turned us down. I think its fairly well accepted that we had bid £16m+ for Modric but lost out to Spurs. This would suggest that money was available for the right people. I'll assume that the Colo deal was due to us missing out on Woodgate in January - but Colo was more expensive. We got a bargain for Jonas based on what Pompey were bidding in January and this has probably saved us £5m+ In addition most people think we ovr achieved on what we got for Rozenhal and Emre before Milner was even mentioned. I would say that our incomings from these 3 probably overshoots what we would have thought we would have got by another £5m at least. Of course I would have loved a Turan or Arshavin to have come in, but from what I saw of Gomis at the Euros, Xisco can't be any worse and cost anywhere between £5m and £10m less than Gomis would have. Guthrie also looks neat and tidy, would spending another £3m on Inler give us a significantly better player? I don't know. So its not necessarily a bad thing that we have a 'net' spend of close to 0 if the players we have bought in are good players. Its been good negotiating on both the sales and purchases (for prices).

emotionally?

If the club is being run not to spend money outside of a rigid budget then any monies paid upfront for next season will not have been touched this summer, it would be too much of a contradiction. Imo the three year deal wasn't to get more cash upfront (aren't there periodic direct debti schemes set up which would support this) but simply to lock in and guarantee the income streams. The small reduction in price if you take the three year option is just a cheap tool to do this, like a clubcard is a very cheap and effective tool to lock customers into buying there and to give them all the marketin information they need.

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run. An offer came in for him which we turned down. As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise. We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract. Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it. To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO. There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion. Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds. and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument. It was just a throw away comment in an attempt to get a smiley out of someone without even reading the quoted post - which it did! I've had a look at your post and agree with some parts (specifically budgetting for Shola's sale and potentailly Smith's also. However as an 'insider' has leaked the £12m budget I think that it would be equally fair to say that the Milner sale was completely unplanned. I don't agree that we've spent nothing. We just recuped an equal amount. Did Spurs spend nothing this summer? Their situation was slightly different as they were pretty much guaranteed £25m+ for Berbatov which they could feasibly spend upfront. I doubt that they nad anticipated selling Keane though so maybe only the Pavluchenko signing was unplanned? I'd suggest that it was htought that we would sell Emre, Rozenhal, Shola and possibly Zoggy and therefore the bulk of any scouting work would have been centred around replacing these players and possibly buy a playmaker in addition. The Milner sale would not have been planned but when the offer of £12m came around it was stupid to turn it down. As for the making the request public. If I was to go to my boss to hand in my notice (which effectively is what Milner did) in the hope that I would get a payrise then I could have no complaints if my job was advertised even if I had asked for no-one to be informed. He played a joker and the club called his bluff. I (sincerely) hope he is happy at Villa and makes the move a success - he was going nowhere fast by staying here. wasn't this the same insider who said keegan knew exactly what his remit was and wanted henry.lampard etc. Dunno. Are A.N Insider and A Source the same people?

Its probably just a last attempt at clinging onto some hope, but I've good a funny feeling that Ashley is still contemplating trying to reconcile with Keegan - lets not forget it wasn't Ashley who forced him to resign, but Ashley does have the power to attempt a reconciliation and to help manipulate the structure to fit all of the players

I don't think the players would be the problem if Poyet was appointed. I'd assume that some of our players are mates with some of Spurs players through international or previous clubs. They would therefore here first hand over whether he is a good coach or simply being appointed through his links to Wise et al

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run. An offer came in for him which we turned down. As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise. We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract. Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it. To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO. There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion. Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds. and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument. It was just a throw away comment in an attempt to get a smiley out of someone without even reading the quoted post - which it did! I've had a look at your post and agree with some parts (specifically budgetting for Shola's sale and potentailly Smith's also. However as an 'insider' has leaked the £12m budget I think that it would be equally fair to say that the Milner sale was completely unplanned. I don't agree that we've spent nothing. We just recuped an equal amount. Did Spurs spend nothing this summer? Their situation was slightly different as they were pretty much guaranteed £25m+ for Berbatov which they could feasibly spend upfront. I doubt that they nad anticipated selling Keane though so maybe only the Pavluchenko signing was unplanned? I'd suggest that it was htought that we would sell Emre, Rozenhal, Shola and possibly Zoggy and therefore the bulk of any scouting work would have been centred around replacing these players and possibly buy a playmaker in addition. The Milner sale would not have been planned but when the offer of £12m came around it was stupid to turn it down. As for the making the request public. If I was to go to my boss to hand in my notice (which effectively is what Milner did) in the hope that I would get a payrise then I could have no complaints if my job was advertised even if I had asked for no-one to be informed. He played a joker and the club called his bluff. I (sincerely) hope he is happy at Villa and makes the move a success - he was going nowhere fast by staying here.

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run. An offer came in for him which we turned down. As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise. We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract. Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it. To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO. There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion. Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner Proving, once again, that if you are prepared to pay some money you will get your man. Like Modric, for example. Who dares wins! We offered more than Spurs for Modric.

There's a difference between replacing a player who the manager is not happy with (both Allardyce & Keegan have been reluctant to play him) and just getting rid of a regular first teamer. I'm sure you can see that. Our run of good form last season came when Milner was not in the team. Good move to try and replace him? Was Milner played on the RW at every opportunity this season when every other option was fit? Was Enrique left on the bench when his replacement was a left winger who can't defend? Good move to replace him? Arguably, depending on the replacement. Good move to try to replace him after he's been sold? No. Which is why I've said numerous times I can understand Keegan being pissed off if he was told that Schweinsteiger was being brought in if we sold Milner only for someone to fuck it up, and that it was foolish to confirm the Milner sale on this basis if the other deal was not 100% secure. I've also said that the failure to secure said player is another debate to the good/bad idea to try and sell.

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run. An offer came in for him which we turned down. As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise. We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract. Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it. To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO. There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion. Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

There's a difference between replacing a player who the manager is not happy with (both Allardyce & Keegan have been reluctant to play him) and just getting rid of a regular first teamer. I'm sure you can see that. Our run of good form last season came when Milner was not in the team. Good move to try and replace him?

Fair enough so you would want to sell Enrique to buy in a better replacement? Squad improvement right? If this is the case then so be it. Likewise if Keegan was told that selling Milner would allow Schweinstieger to be brought in its a good move year? Nope. Its being a selling club I'm afraid, sell to buy, not investing any real money. Apparently. The fact that we failed to rubber stamp the Schweinstieger deal is another debate btw. I'm sure that if Keegan had been told that Evra or Clichy was available but we would have to move Enrique on he would have been happy. If however Keegan had wanted to spend £6m on Warnock and keep Enrique then on this position I'm with the board, it would have been a stupid move.

That's Wengers policy at Arsenal too. The cunt. He's part of the master plan too

Has Enrique had his hamstring injury for five months? Had we sold Milner five months ago? At some point you have to say sorry but you have to use the squad to cover and give the youth team exposure. We have a £6m left back who is only 22 and shows good promise. Are you going to buy an older left back and push Enrique back to the reserves? And are you going to pay more than £6m for one? Even Man Utd don't have this sort of investment in a reserve Left Back. Or are you going to buy a 19 year old to cover? Isn't this what the club have been doing in buying up young talent to fill the academy and reserves? If Evra and the Brazillian twin Man U have get injured whilst Brown and O'Shea are suspended is it negligent of Ferguson not to have splashed £5m on another left back to cover exceptional circumstances?

We've needed a left back? We've got a young £6m left back who the majority of fans seem to rate and think will only improve with games. We have Zoggy who is capable of covering against the weaker teams or when we need a more attacking option (not ideal I grant you). We have Kadar in the reserves who by all accounts is showing promise a few have championed his case for exposure to the first team squad thi syear. Then we signed Bassong who can cover either left back or centre back. So either you want a £6m left back in reserve or you are advocating selling him to buy a replacement - which is precisely what a number of people are criticising Ashley for in the first place

So good you posted twice!

That Ashley's priorities aren't the same as the fans is pretty obvious.Why would they be when it's going to be HIS money that is bakrolling the club? Even so, the fact we paid £10m for an international defender sort of disproves the theory that the club is actively buying cheap imports to sell at a higher price. It points to a strategy of not buying players who are over the hill and over-valued, while paying decent money for the right player. this was done to death over the summer Tron but it's not his money really is it? i mean it is in the sense that the fans are giving him it, and sky is giving him it therefore it's his in a sense...but it's not HIS if you see what i mean, i.e. to fund players he doesn't HAVE to dig into his personal account does he? there's been enough Sky money and enough ST money through the club in 2 summers for there to have been a lot more investment in players for the first team, and that's the start and end of it as ever people are taking the extremes with the "player value" comment and assuming we're now in the business of selling only for profit based on the milner deal (deal of a lifetime by the way) - i'm inclined to agree with your asessment personally It is his money though like it or not. Once you pay for your ticket the money belongs to NUFC, Ashley owns NUFC outright therefore the money is his. Its the same principle as buying a can of coke. Its your money going to the Coca-Cola company but it belongs to them once you have bought the goods. Just because there is an emotional attachment to football doesn't mean the rules of the world change unfortunately

Because Ashley/the club do not receive any sort of money for the broadcasting of TV and radio commentaries? It is nigh on impossible to continue to support the club without lining the pockets of its owners. Support the 11 on the pitch (even Duff and Smith if we have to) and continue to got to the games. Even buy a replica shirt if you want (but get it from JJB or your local sports shop). The club already have the money from the shirts unless they are bought from the club shop. Boycotting these will have no impact on the money going to Ashley. Don't drink in the bars in the ground, don't shop in Sports Direct - this will hit the owners in the pocket without hurting what is important. Its often said that a club could reduce its ticket price by 50% on cup nights as they would recoup the lost revenue through additional food and drink sales. Use this to your advantage.

while you are right in that aspect it is also true that had the club been debt free the share price would probably have reflected this by being higher. No tsure on that one - some of the biggest valued companies on the FTSE100 are crawling in debt. Its all about structuring the finance of the company in the most efficient way. And the share price is more fundamentally determined by present and future profitability forecasts than the balance sheet structure