Unbelievable

Surely he wasn't to know that a struggling billionaire who had no knowledge of running football clubs or this area was going to fail?....oh wait... It amazes me that people are having a go at SJH for selling up, do you have such short memories? At the time of the takeover, Mike Ashley was one of Britain's wealthiest persons with an estimated net worth of 2bn, and there was no sign of the credit crunch whatsoever. Iirc, the vast majority of fans, including the ones on this board, supported the takeover and thought MA would turn the club around, why would've SJH thought otherwise? Most of us were fed up with FFS and welcomed the prospect of a new owner with resources to strenghten the declining club. As it turns out, we were wrong, but I fail to understand why should SJH take any kind of blame, when at the time everything indicated that it would be a good move for the club (and for him as well). I guess he and FFS would've been f***ing lynched had they refused to sell. As for selling the club to someone with no football knowledge, it's not like Roman Abramovic had any kind of knowledge of running a footbal club when he took over Chlsea, nor did SJH when he took over NUFC back then, yet both of them were successful. Good post. I wish more would accept and admit they were wrong. Suppose the problem is the naive belief that : a) Ambition is a given b) Challenging for so long but not actually winning owt is total and abject failure and no different to relegation c) nobody can be worse than the current lot. Most fans fell into this trap with Ashley, and I'm afraid we may be doing it again with Fred.. Not really. What's needed right now is to get back into the PL as soon as possible. That means making funds available for rebuilding the team. The risk of not doing that is failure to win promotion next season and the task becoming increasingly difficult year on year after that. It will not be easy to win promotion as it is. The previous Board with Fred as Chairman was far from perfect but they had the ambition to make funds available for team building. Any group taking over the club with Fred installed as Chairman is almost certainly going to fund team rebuilding, it is then down to the manager to make something of it. As always. I don't believe Fred would be involved in coming back to the club without that intention of making funds available for players. If that's naive then so be it. Mmm, I would rather we move forward with a new owner willing to move us forward. We just need to leave the past five years behind us and look forward to a better future. Of course, there are worse options than Shepherd, Profitable Group being a prime example by the looks of it, but I would hope there would also be better options.. As always though, we should be careful what we wish for and remain critical of what any new owner actually does with the club. As many learned with Ashley, talk is cheap..

Surely he wasn't to know that a struggling billionaire who had no knowledge of running football clubs or this area was going to fail?....oh wait... It amazes me that people are having a go at SJH for selling up, do you have such short memories? At the time of the takeover, Mike Ashley was one of Britain's wealthiest persons with an estimated net worth of 2bn, and there was no sign of the credit crunch whatsoever. Iirc, the vast majority of fans, including the ones on this board, supported the takeover and thought MA would turn the club around, why would've SJH thought otherwise? Most of us were fed up with FFS and welcomed the prospect of a new owner with resources to strenghten the declining club. As it turns out, we were wrong, but I fail to understand why should SJH take any kind of blame, when at the time everything indicated that it would be a good move for the club (and for him as well). I guess he and FFS would've been f***ing lynched had they refused to sell. As for selling the club to someone with no football knowledge, it's not like Roman Abramovic had any kind of knowledge of running a footbal club when he took over Chlsea, nor did SJH when he took over NUFC back then, yet both of them were successful. Good post. I wish more would accept and admit they were wrong. Suppose the problem is the naive belief that : a) Ambition is a given b) Challenging for so long but not actually winning owt is total and abject failure and no different to relegation c) nobody can be worse than the current lot. Most fans fell into this trap with Ashley, and I'm afraid we may be doing it again with Fred..

Surely he wasn't to know that a struggling billionaire who had no knowledge of running football clubs or this area was going to fail?....oh wait... It amazes me that people are having a go at SJH for selling up, do you have such short memories? At the time of the takeover, Mike Ashley was one of Britain's wealthiest persons with an estimated net worth of 2bn, and there was no sign of the credit crunch whatsoever. Iirc, the vast majority of fans, including the ones on this board, supported the takeover and thought MA would turn the club around, why would've SJH thought otherwise? Most of us were fed up with FFS and welcomed the prospect of a new owner with resources to strenghten the declining club. As it turns out, we were wrong, but I fail to understand why should SJH take any kind of blame, when at the time everything indicated that it would be a good move for the club (and for him as well). I guess he and FFS would've been f***ing lynched had they refused to sell. As for selling the club to someone with no football knowledge, it's not like Roman Abramovic had any kind of knowledge of running a footbal club when he took over Chlsea, nor did SJH when he took over NUFC back then, yet both of them were successful. Good post.

Yes. I believe they may be a good option for this club if they have the money. Nothing weird about that. Fat Mike had the money..

Him and Oba, but to be fair they shouldn't be playing for a Championship team anyway..

Holland 2 Norway 0 FT

Lucky or not, the man is a classless baboon..

Holland qualified for South Africa with 18 out of 6.. Nice!

Good post. Completely agree.

Good news. A cheap option (providing we can agree on wages) who should do well in the CCC. I'd consider a 2 year contract to give us some stability up front.

The company has advisors (a merchant bank, stockbroker) who would put a value on it based both on its historical performance and more importantly on its projected performance. The projections are then examined by an independent firm of accountants and tested for reasonableness. It is then "floated". The company's merchant bank would underwrite the floatation .i.e. buy any excess shares not bought by the public or other institutions. The valuation was not Ashley's although he would have had a target in mind and prepared projections accordingly. The company has substantially underperformed since floating. There has also been a lot of criticism of the communication by Sports Direct and its PR generally is pretty awful (Ashley called his shareholders "whingers" in an interview not so long ago). Ashley has also taken flak for appointing people who are mates of his and not considered to be up to the job. In some ways thats fair enough because the City's assessment of being up to a job isn't always fair or based on detailed knowledge, but when results are disappointing its hard to defend. I only mention all this because there is a bit of a familiar pattern in some of it. Thanks quayside.. Seems like Ashley is only marginally to blame in this one. It's happened before and it will happen again: some stocks will take off after flotation, and some will plummet. It's always a gamble, and if there is any blame to be attributed it seems the "professional" corporate bankers play a big a role as any party in setting the price and convincing investors that the price is a fair assessment. You are right regarding his subsequent behaviour, it is quite clear that the man is not a very corporate figure, rather he is a self made man who doesn't understand the complexity of running a large corporation in the public eye, or indeed a football club. I respect what he has achieved building up his empire (entrepreneur myself, although on a completely different level unfortunately), but it's hard to see how he can go much further if he doesn't possess the required intelligence himself and/or puts his trust in people who he likes on a personal level but keep letting him down business-wise..

quayside, serious question: who determines the flotation value of PLC shares?

Jose Enrique.. Was shat on from a great height by most of our managers, especially Kinnear, but is one of the few who can hold their head up high at the end of this season.

It is for the long term borrowings. Overdraft is another thing, a short term working capital, just like your credit card account. I wasn't referring to the financial vehicle per se, rather the consequence. How come we suddenly have reports that an external creditor can claim an external loan with several days notice and thereby sink us in the shit..? Wasn't Ashley's prudent financial strategy (if you can call it that) meant to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Why didn't he provide shirt term working capital himself? I ask this partly because he is one of the primary reasons for needing it, i.e. pay the full price when you buy, accept installments when you sell..

Still, this sort of thing was supposed to be staved off now we are in the "safe hands" of Fat Mike, wasn't it?

Well, well, well, and I thought we should be thankful to Fat Mike for sorting us out financially at least..

Unbelievable!

Expect Krul to want to leave if this is what Shearer & Co (or whoever else will be the manager) have in mind.. Feyenoord will be looking for a new goalkeeper and he is their primary target. He won't want to warm our bench when he could be their No. 1.

Dammit, that would have been the icing on the cake..

Send Scholes off ffs

Gets told off..

Booked, finally..

Should have been 3

Send the fucker OFF!!!