Parky

It's a classic case where a successful business man thought he could transfer his skills to any other platform. Business just doesn't work like that.

Couldn't he write his losses off against tax anyway?

Waiting to see how you'll spin this into KK's fault.

Ashley has truly fucked up.

This saga has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy. I will refrain from commenting further.

Vinny Jones.

wouldn't say over his head (if it were he wouldn't be putting cash in or underwriting the debt) but he's certainly been bit on the arse by not checking out the state the club was in (luckily, some might say) Underwriting the debt is just protecting his investment no more. We all now realise he knew nothing about a football business...nothing...less than nothing...

The guy is basically a gimp who got in over his head. [threadclosed/]

so lets get this straight...you think ashley paid out over 230mill and then seemingly more each month to pay the bills, in order to shift a few moe £10 tracksuit bottoms ? £9.99 shirley?

You think we'd be in this state if he'd have stayed? No, but then i'd say that if he'd not brought him back in the first place we'd not be where we are now. Still his own decision/fault either way though. True, but I reckon any manager of decent standing within the game would of ultimately been forced to go about it similar to Keegan and therefore we were always going to be in this state. Well I suggest Mike should have done better to keep him.

You think we'd be in this state if he'd have stayed?

Hee hee.

Like all things success is a cycle and identifying when within that cycle one may be proactive and when one should hold fire. Football is a business where identifying this is more precarious than most other types of concerns as even when the investment is in place, a myriad of other things need to go your way as well. All one can do when dealing with these challenges is limiting risk during the investment phase, at a football club this would mean having an inferstructure and personell that as much as they can limit risk. In plain terms the most important person at a football club is the manager of the football team and if he is right, then you have gone a long way to reducing all other risk eventualities. A lot of things can be fixed if you start by hiring a good manager and let him get on with it.

Looks more like a midfield holding player to me. no chance. his ability to turn, change direction and keep up with nimble, quick players is close to zero. once he plants his foot down in one direction he's committed and can't recover if the player he is marking turns in the opposite direction or passes it elsewhere. with all the switching of play, quick angular passing and people running diagonally that you get in the middle i reckon he'd just get lost and continually struggle to keep up. What are we to do with him? The force and power of the PL might be too much for him.

responding to HTT's post - you can see why keegan left and how bad the working relationship was just from the juvenile press releases at the time, the "it is a fact" one specifically. There were also leaks to the press that tried to do a hatchet job on Keegan while painting in the club in a good light, which just backfired and made the people in charge look clueless and puerile - rubbishing plans to sign the likes of Dunne because he has no "resale value" and admitting that other board members referred to "the madness of king kev." The amazing thing is that the club actually thought childish shit like that would impress us. in reality they were digging their own grave. goes without saying that the club has been ran terribly since then. i dont know how much relegation will cost us £3o million ish,.. if they had left keegan in charge, and give him that 30 mil,.. i believe we would be sniffing round europe, and Ashleys asset would be appreciating,.we would be watching exciting attacking football, What a fucking mess Ashley has made, it would have been cheaper to back keegan, you fucking fuckwit. indeed. Its called speculating to accumulate, a huge amount of people on here though, roundly disagreed with me when I said this was how its done, prefering to support Mike Ashley's prudency and aim to "put the books right". His predecessors would have speculated to accumulate, as they had always done. Prudency in football doesn't work, it isn't like a "normal business", despite all those other people trotting out all the old "business" jargons and bollocks as if they were talking about Marks and Spencer and Curries. The biggest mistake has been trying to run it like a normal business.

Looks more like a midfield holding player to me.

Spot on Sir!!

Everything you said x100.

Come to think of it he does have a bit of a moonface.

Colo has gone to shit over the last few games. Bassong is probably the best defender at the club.

Here's the news JK and MA are a pair of class A bullshitters.

A reckoning is coming.

I really think today is the first time it really has dawned on the mangagement we might go down. All this dithering with two coaches rinstead of getting a proper firefighter in reeks of complacency.

Ramos took up too much of my energy.

If only. Funny how so many of us could see that being a really exciting prospect, yet our managers seem to think Butt, Smith and Geremi are the midfield answer. Then complain that michael owen didn't score because he needs better service. It's a simple game really.