Colos Short and Curlies

They are all stingy barstewards who don't thank the catering staff.

I'm sure you've mentioned those figures before, why do you carry so much debt while making those profits? I can only guess that the profits are used in a way which is thought to bring in more value than the servicing of the debt. Up to a certain point (varies obviously from company to company) debt is always cheaper than equity regardless of profits (I won't bore you with the theory). Also, its often preferable to borrow to finance than reinvest profits - (a) profits don't equal cash so the cash may not be redily available for investing, (b) at £8bn profit the risk to a bank for Chez's company is low so interest rates are likely to be lower than achievable on long term deposits

Would anyone blame Harper for slapping in a transfer request now? I wouldn't.

He'll be in a Toon shirt within a few years. Chez will have a word no doubt

Is Given now the new Shearer? Undropable due to his past form regardless of how well his replacement was doing?

Best 'club version' of a song has to be Citehs Alan Ball-Wonderwall ditty from back in the day

Sounds like a Club not a million miles from my own heart. With one very important difference - we didn't lose to the unwashed

Your scenario is really just a technicality though. Unless I''ve missed something St James Holdings now owns all of the share capital of Newcastle United, and Ashley owns all of (or if not the significant majority of) the capital of SJH. Therefore the only person Ashley has to answer to in terms of the accounts of Newcastle United is Ashley himself. Hence, whever the money was put into the club as share capital (highly unlikey imo) or just effectively gave the club the cash is irrelevent unless there is a structured repayment (again I doubt this to be the case in the short term at least). Ashley (for all his good work so far) is unlikely to die as the owner of Newcastle United, therefore he will be looking to ge this money back (including the debt repayment) at that point. He can (theroetically) make more return on his cash by leaving it in the club (more funds = better transfers = more prize money) than he would in a bank. Sorry if thats a bit muddled, just grabbing 5 mins here at work so can't proof think this through!

A wealthy business sometimes (in some years) spends more than they earn and in other years (most of them) they earn more than they spend. That is the case with us, we are a very rich club, have been for almost 15 years, but some years we have spent more than we have earned, as have the other top five. None of this "Top Five" thing is news, is it? We have been in the top four (or since the Russian arrived at the joke London club) in the top five financial "rich list" for the last 15 years or so. The only real difference is that in the last year or so, the "mid table also-rans" (financially) like Spurs/Everton, etc, have got closer to us and we have lost ground on the other four rich clubs. Although it does not alter our earned income at all (Turnover) at the time, when and if Ashley does start letting us spend some of HIS money (making our money available to buy players more 'flexible', rather than being a specific budget based on earned income, then the hoped for success that brings (Champions League qualification again, etc) will 'eventually' lead to improved Turnover figures. That should enable us to pull away from the mid-table clubs (in financial terms) and re-open the financial gap between us (the big five financial clubs) and the rest, again. I would imagine that Man City, Aston Villa and even West Ham, would hope that they can (similarly) move closer to us! Let's hope our financial development/improvement under Ashley, exceeds theirs (to re-widen the gap) as well as hopefully starting to exceed the level of development of Liverpool, Chelsea, etc. If Ashley knows what he is doing (and he certainly does seem to, financially) - it could and should happen. seems i've been mislead,i thought we survived on debt. Depends on how you define 'survived' Operating wise (wages, interest etc) we've been ok. Capital (player purchase) wise we've borrowed heavily. Not unusual at all, although in hindsight (most would argue you could see it at the time) we borrowed too much at once and spent it unwisely. One of the two you can get away with, both and you're in trouble.

I make one sword, I'm not known as a sword maker I cook one meal, I'm not a chef. I shag one handle-bar moustached biker...........

I can just imagine the hissy fits when one gets booked. Arms all over the place

Wonder if they will ban the tackle from behind, or will they actively encourage it?

(Putting tin hat on before typing) Say the expansion did go ahead could we not go the American route and black out the top tiers - possibly with some goddamit massive advertising boards or summit? Tacky yes, income generating yes, better than looking at empty seats yes

Try being a fan in the States. Wait, don't. You'd lose your s***. i feel sorry for you.. when i visited a family friend (a brit) who lives in queens, i hated those pricks who interrupted (his yankydoodle friends) saying "its called soccer", real football is more of a man's game um.. no it f****** isn't, we invented the sport so we can call it what we want- do we call basketball spamalamdingdong. and yeah american football is a man's game ffs, those guys are more padded up then their illiterate soldiers. needless to say things got violent Ah that would prrrrrroper grind my gears that like. I would have brought up the whole 'world series' thing with baseball to see how they'd justify naming it that. American football might be tougher than football, but its hardly tougher than rugby. And you'd be just as guilty as those yanks for ignorance - the World Series is named after the sponsor of the competition Er... no, it's not. http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series Oops! Ok, I'm wrong apologies all round. But..... Did you know the Snopes/Wiki stories anyway or did you decide to check on them to see if you could prove someone wrong? Just interested!

Try being a fan in the States. Wait, don't. You'd lose your s***. i feel sorry for you.. when i visited a family friend (a brit) who lives in queens, i hated those pricks who interrupted (his yankydoodle friends) saying "its called soccer", real football is more of a man's game um.. no it f****** isn't, we invented the sport so we can call it what we want- do we call basketball spamalamdingdong. and yeah american football is a man's game ffs, those guys are more padded up then their illiterate soldiers. needless to say things got violent Ah that would prrrrrroper grind my gears that like. I would have brought up the whole 'world series' thing with baseball to see how they'd justify naming it that. American football might be tougher than football, but its hardly tougher than rugby. And you'd be just as guilty as those yanks for ignorance - the World Series is named after the sponsor of the competition

Should have the op now. We've got Martins to cover for now, but need Owen for January If McClown knows now that he is without Owen for Russia etc then he has more time to plan his approach. Worst case scenario is Owen plays on until Russia and limps off then after 20 mins

Can we have Jose please?

Given Beye Taylor/Cacapa Rozenhal Enrique Milner Ron Faye Zog Smith/Dukes Martins However, Sam will go Harper Beye Roz Cacapa Zog Ron Smith Butt Milner Dukes Martins

Harper will play on Sunday, Given v Arse in the cup, Harper in the next league game unless he loses form. It seems pretty straightforward to me

Anyone sent it to Mediawatch on F365 yet?

Nah we scared Zog and Milner into signing low paid deals by threatening them with Fulham and Villa respectively

One question. Since when has Taylor been a Geordie?

Can't believe no-one has come out with the obvious.... Celtic. Rangers gave us Souness and Boumsong Case closed

Well less than 50% of the MPC are actually government appointed. So whats your take on Barclays securing a £2bn emergency loan within the past month? Should we all be taking money out of Barclays also?

Owen and Martins. Might not work immediately, but we should look to build a defence and midfield to work to the strengths of these two