Unbelievable

It's a good job then that Mr Mort is a philantrophe who is merely here for a 'sabbatical'.. Difference being, Mort's wages comes from Ashley's pockets now, not ours, as he owns the club lock stock. FWIW I've never cared about people making lots of money, so long as they provide value for money or earn it and I've never felt FS has done that on either front. SJH has so I have no problem with him making a mint, FS and DH though... Same difference as far as I'm concerned. Before the Halls and Shepherds effectively owned the club. The kept executive positions, paid themselves accordingly and took a part of profits from the club as divis. Do you think things will be different with a new owner..? I believe the consensus was Mr Ashley is in it for the money.. Is he a philantrophe now as well?

Well, that is what he said isn't it. I just wonder how long this "moment" will last. I can't see how the quote can be interpreted positively. Don't worry.. They'll put a spin on it and before you know it he will have meant we aim to blow the spening of other clubs out of the water, but only after the internal review is done.. </sarcasm>

It's a good job then that Mr Mort is a philantrophe who is merely here for a 'sabbatical'..

Can't say you're excited that someone who knows what he's doing has been appointed? He knows what he's doing in a law farm, not a football club. Surely you recognise there is a subtle difference? As far as the chairman is concerned, the club is a business, just like everywhere else. Sam Allardyce is in charge of the footballing side. Even if you think that, a lawyer is not by definition a good chairman of a company? Again, there is a subtle difference.. He's a man that a Billionaire has been working with all his life, got to say I trust his opinion over yours He is taking through his arse anyway. Every biotech company is headed up by Lawyers just as a simple example. To say a lawyer by defintion doesnt make a good chairman is nonsense. Company leaders can come from anywhere, finance, marketing, sales, HR or even legal. What a load of rubbish.. I said: "a lawyer is not by definition a good chairman of a company" You say I said: "To say a lawyer by defintion doesnt make a good chairman is nonsense." Who's talking through their arse?

Can't say you're excited that someone who knows what he's doing has been appointed? He knows what he's doing in a law farm, not a football club. Surely you recognise there is a subtle difference? As far as the chairman is concerned, the club is a business, just like everywhere else. Sam Allardyce is in charge of the footballing side. Even if you think that, a lawyer is not by definition a good chairman of a company? Again, there is a subtle difference..

Can't say you're excited that someone who knows what he's doing has been appointed? He knows what he's doing in a law farm, not a football club. Surely you recognise there is a subtle difference?

Like I mentioned earlier Mort is here on sabbatical, which by its nature isn't perminant (its usually a year). Also he's a lawyer, not a Football person so I really see little reason to choose him as a long term Chairman. More likely he's there to be Ashley's eyes at the club during the initial takeover and to complete the internal review. Why do I think Ashley wouldn't try to run the club himself? Firstly he's a very good business man and so surely realises he doesn't have the knowledge to run a Football club day to day. Secondly he's a very private person who definitely wouldn't want to be the clubs figure head. Has this been reported? If so, I must have missed it.. Yep, it's been reported. What did you say?

I was assured by a number of people the other day that Mort was only here for a sabbatical and wouldn't take over from Shepherd permanently. Didn't take long to prove them wrong. Can't say I'm overly excited by having a laywer (!) as our new chairman..

I'm surprised by how many people on here would happily pay this much for such an average player! I could easily find 10 players in the Dutch league that pi$$ all over him abilitywise and would cost less.. Any club with a decent scouting network should be able to do much better than to pay over-inflated prices and wages for British middle of the road players like this..

Like I mentioned earlier Mort is here on sabbatical, which by its nature isn't perminant (its usually a year). Also he's a lawyer, not a Football person so I really see little reason to choose him as a long term Chairman. More likely he's there to be Ashley's eyes at the club during the initial takeover and to complete the internal review. Why do I think Ashley wouldn't try to run the club himself? Firstly he's a very good business man and so surely realises he doesn't have the knowledge to run a Football club day to day. Secondly he's a very private person who definitely wouldn't want to be the clubs figure head. Has this been reported? If so, I must have missed it..

Thanks for that ChezGiven, much appreciated!

Hehe.. Still I find it strange that if this has been going on for weeks as Parky claims nobody has ever seemed fit to comment on it before, unless they have been asked to keep it quiet, in which case it is equally strange that they are no coming out in numbers to confirm it.. If it's true, at least it shows they are aware we exist, which is progress considering how mute they have been so far..

As sceptical as I have been and still am to a certain extend, I have to say I'm impressed by and applaud Mort approaching the fans to exchange ideas. Good stuff, and the sort of thing that will put my mind at ease if they keep it up. As a sidenote, it certainly explains why some people who normally are quite outspoken have been in the "be patient, let's wait and see"-camp for a while. How long ago have people been approached for this?

I don't think Sam will want to let him go for that, and a fully fit Dyer at 28 years old would have to cost over 5M in my opinion.

ChezGiven, how do you know this? If it's from one of the three members a confirmation would be nice. It would be great if this was true, although I'd not entirely understand why he would want to liaise with a few individuals from an Internet forum rather than address all the club's fans.

Any links yet?

The fact that Ashley is carrying out a thorough review of the club as a first step might lend some credence to the idea of Mort being brought in on a temporary basis, surely? He's a lawyer, isn't he? And a close confidant of Ashley, so therefore the perfect kind of person to conduct that review, I'd have thought. Doesn't mean he will be temporary, but suggests that it is a possibility. Then why is he currently the deputy chairman? He could have done the internal review as a non-executive person. Surely, everybody in the club would have known he represented Mr Ashley, so what's the need for the job title tag?

Mort isn't here as the Chairman. As far as I remember he isn't even here for the long term. When he was appointed I seem to remember it being mentioned that he was merely taking a sabbatical from his normal job. No doubt he has significant power, probably second only to Ashley. But I definitely don't think its planned for him to take over the day to day running of the club long term. But rather to oversee the likes of Shepherd and be Ashley's eyes in the club in the early days of the take over. He'll also be here to speerhead the internal review. Allright, my contribution was actually in response to your suggestion that Ashley wasn't going to be the chairman himself and would appoint somebody else who could be held accountable. I assumed you meant Mr Mort, but obviously not. He is currently the deputy chairman behind Shepherd though, so it's not a big leap of thought to think he will be next in line once the club say goodbye to Shepherd himself. What makes you think Mort will not be our chairman and how do you know Ashley is not the kind of man to run the club himself, as you suggested in your earlier post?

It would be more reassuring if the chairman he appointed actually had any previous experience in how to run a football club. By all accounts he's appointed one of his closest and most trusted employees, who used to be a lawyer in the city. I don't think Mr Mort will be fired easily if things don't go to plan, whatever that is; it's more likely Allardyce (who was appointed by Shepherd before the takeover) will be the first person out the door if that happens.

It's incredible that so few on here seem at all bothered, and in fact celebrate the fact, that Ashley will soon delist the club and take it into private hands. We still don't know anything about his intentions, and very soon there'll be no transparency, very little information about what's going on. It's exciting to get rid of a crap chairman and bring in a billionaire, but it's healthy to ask questions. I guess it is a double edged sword, really. You want a billionaire owner who will invest s*** loads of money in the club? OK, but you're going to have to put up with the fact that he can do what he wants with the club with practically no scrutiny. You're going to have to live with the fact that being a billionaire's play thing is something we've all wanted for our clubs, but the flip side is that you are subject to his every whim. This is great when things are going well, but it is going to be interesting when things get tense. We're still on the extended honeymoon with our new owners, your marriage hasn't even started yet, but I think that expecting everything to be rosy is naive. The only way we'll be able to judge them is on experience, and that means what happens over a few years, not what they do in the first year (look at Magnusson at West Ham, desperately trying to buy instant success and appreciation - would you want to be run like that?). Until then, a little healthy scepticism can be a good thing. True enough, but I don't see any evidence (yet) to believe that Newcastle will be treated as a 'plaything' by MA. More likely he sees it as a business that has acheived some success but has immense untapped potential... not to mention the links in with his other sporting companies. We can't deny that we don't know a lot about what Ashley is like, so let's not get carried away. But at the same time I think a lot of the scepticism is over the top and comes from the fact that people have unrealistic expectations about the signings we should be making/have made. Assuming you are talking about Tsunami, myself and possibly a few others, I'm sure you can quite easily point out a few examples of us having unrealistic expectations with regards to the transfer budget and targets..? I don't think you can, as our scepticism has really nothing to do with money or specific players. It's to do with something much more important: how he wants to run this club. Of course, it's easier and more comforting to assume that people who ask questions are spoilt and naive 12 year olds who think the new owner will fail if he doesn't get in Kaka or Messi before September..

The success of supercasinos and building plots is strictly dependent on how well a football teams performs on the pitch is it? You're right that my cynicism is based on pure speculation and is therefore unfounded. The whole point of the message however is that it is just as foolish to be overly optimistic purely based on speculation, rendering it just as unfounded as my cynicism. This in turn is the exact reason why I want Ashley to come out and make statements regarding the many unanswered questions about his intentions and plans..

Fair enough. My apologies..

Looking at your statement in bold, if there is a way to make more money out of his new acquisition or to be more certain about making money (less risk) by doing anything else than investing big on the pitch and trying to get us back in the higher regions of the Premieship table and into Europe (which is what most people assume the long term ambition and/or plan to be), do not you think he will consider it? Was there not talk of plans for a supercasino in Newcastle? Did Shepherd not recently launch a plan to build a stadium expansion and top class hotels etc at the tune of 300M? Have there also not been talks in the past of moving the stadium to outside the city centre? Is it therefor unreasonable to think that the 130M paid to take over the club could have been about more than the club alone? I mean, we're talking hundreds of millions worth of development plans here. This in combination with the fact that 130M is not altogether that much for a football club of this size and potential in this day and age (yes it is a lot of money even for a billionaire, but it's only a fifth of Man U and Liverpool's worth, and reportedly not even half of what Spurs is valued at and value is not absolute (130M is a lot of money), but it is relative (what can 130M buy me in today's marketplace)) means nobody can claim to know for sure what is on the agenda. I'm not saying I think this is the case as you suggest, it's just I'm aware that there are possibilities beyond the "everything's going to be better than before by definition" view that most people on here seem to hold. When there was talk of a takeover by a hedge fund six months ago people's first concern was that they tend to strip and sell in parts at a profit. Now we've been taken over by an individual businessman we know next to nothing about and nobody even wants to ask questions!? I don't reject the notion that I may be verging on cynical, but in my book people who are not concerned at all by wanting to know what the new owners have in stock for us are verging on naive.

Just reread your post. Where did I put words into your mouth exactly? He's under no obligation to speak, nor will he ever be as he owns the club and we don't have a say in anything. What's more worrying is that there's no pressure on him to come out and speak. You may be right that it doesn't serve any purpose at this point in time to complain, but I feel many people on here will soon come round to the idea that the new owers and directors need to keep us, the fans/customers, informed of their plans. If he doesn't the honeymoon period will soon be over as UV correctly points out, and everything that is currently interpreted to be positive by the majority will then be looked at more sceptically.