KaKa

I'm sorry but that is possibly the worst post I think you have ever posted on here. Of course he was expecting payback for his loan, we all knew that from day one that if he was a sensible businessman, the money was only going to be given in an assumption that the £100m was going to be given back to him via an increased valuation of the club. And quaysides OP makes it clear that he has underwritten a £20m loss in the past year, hence giving that £20m a year he promised. With that in mind, it is clear that it is unrealistic to expect anyone coming in to do much difference unless they are genuine multi-billionaires who want some personal glory. All Ashley's faults must therefore by with regards to his handling of management affairs, as opposed lack of investment. Sorry mate, but how many times have we heard people praise ashley for putting his hand in his pocket to clear our debts? a thousand times? ten thousand times? this is just a big YOURE WRONG to all those ashley arse lickers. funny how great financial brains like LLLO missed that one, yet i suggested it over a year ago. clearing debt can be great if the club is up for sale as it means the new owners dont have to address that and inherit a club with a good balance sheet. this doesnt apply in our case as ashley wants this money paid to him. it can be good for a second reason - avoiding interest and loan repayments means money can be put back into the club for the manager to spend - once again, this doesnt apply to us. for us fans, you know, people who watch football being played on a football pitch, it can be good if having a reduced debt consequently improves our on field performance. i dont need to tell you that this has not happened. the £20m loss is primarily player amortisation, a paper loss. if owen moves into the last year of his contract the club would lose, say, £4m from the value of a year of his tenure at the club, something restricted to the balance sheets rather than cash flowing out of the club. in fact, £17.8m of that £20m is player amortisation. as with previous accounts which saw us make something like a £30m loss, this was reduced to £300,000 once amortisation and trading was taken out of the equation. the club is making a small loss, nothing substantial, which is no suprise considering how poorly the club has been ran on the field in shepherd's final years and the entirety of ashley's reign. the way to improve this is to invest in the managerial & playing staff. any business that wants to move forward has to go into debt, you have to make expenditures in the short-term to reap the rewards in the medium to long term. if ashley is not prepared to do this he should bugger off. trying to run a premiership club on a shoestring is counter-productive - you end up in situations like the one we are in currently, and it could get worse. those who like to defend ashley any chance they get need to wake up and realise this. What kind of budget are Arsenal being run on?

Hence the stories of all of our top players being available for the right price and who can blame them? These so called top players haven't got us anywhere near Europe which means they just aren't worth their wages. Why not get them out and bring in younger players for half the price and half the wages? Providing you can of course identify those who have the talent to perform in the first team. It's all making a lot more sense now. Ashley should have just been more open about all this from the outset. You don't get anywhere as a football club by selling your best players and then bringing inferior ones in to replace them. And havent these "top players" conclusively proved that they arent worth it. Top 4 wages, top 15 perfromances.... By referring to top players I thought it was obvious by mentioning people like Given, Martins, Beye etc Not the players like Duff who are on top 4 wages but giving top 15 performances. Obviously not though. Of course we do have some who have been great. Like you say Given, Beye and Martins. However, when these stories came out the names you kept hearing about being sold were Smith, Barton and Owen. Smith - Hopeless player and no reason he should be sat here earning what he was. Keegan wanted to keep him though! If I was the owner that would have pissed me off. Barton - Okay player. However his behaviour was idsgusting considering his previous and all the hassle it took getting him in in the first place. Could easily find someone on the continent to do what he does for half the price. How much did Digard cost Boro for example? Owen - Scores goals when fit, but all in all ... just not woethit I don't think. When you consider the fitness record and the wages being pulled in is it enough? Besides they only tried to flog him after he rejected the initial contract of less money. Can you really blame ownership for offering him less though? No. Keegan wanted them all thoughand I bet the rift was centred around this sort of thing. We clearly couldn't afford to keep them and bring in more players, and tbh they really weren't vital to us anyway.

Hence the stories of all of our top players being available for the right price and who can blame them? These so called top players haven't got us anywhere near Europe which means they just aren't worth their wages. Why not get them out and bring in younger players for half the price and half the wages? Providing you can of course identify those who have the talent to perform in the first team. It's all making a lot more sense now. Ashley should have just been more open about all this from the outset. You don't get anywhere as a football club by selling your best players and then bringing inferior ones in to replace them. That's the problem Tooj. Our "top players" are in fact our more inferior ones. That is the point I was trying to make. We all watch this team week in and week out. List our best players this season in order of best to worst and you'll find that all the best performers are the cheaper ones no one was expecting much from. The big stinking pile of crap at the bottom are the ones getting heaps of money.

I just hope we can stay up and make it through to the summer. I'm all for Ashley's initial plan tbh. When you look at the sums of money being paid up to the likes of Butt, Smith, Viduka, Owen, Duff and even Barton it is absolutely sickening. Not one of them has been anywhere near close to being our best performer this season. Get them all out. Our stars have been Jonas who was free and whose wages must be pretty reasonable considering where we got him from. Bassong cost nothing and is earning peanuts. Guthrie cost pretty much nothing and his wages must be pretty low too. It's a very difficult strategy to pull off but it's not impossible and if we commit to it it's the best way to go. In fact I think we need it now more than ever. We have some of the worst players in this league earning top money at Newcastle and it's infuriating to see.

Hence the stories of all of our top players being available for the right price and who can blame them? These so called top players haven't got us anywhere near Europe which means they just aren't worth their wages. Why not get them out and bring in younger players for half the price and half the wages? Providing you can of course identify those who have the talent to perform in the first team. It's all making a lot more sense now. Ashley should have just been more open about all this from the outset.

This is why he put so much money into recruiting a top team for finding talent on the cheap and who can blame him. It is why all our players were said to be available for the right price with talented and cheaper, younger players to be brought in as replacements. It's a tough one to pull off while keeping the team competitive but with the recruitment team he put together he seemed to believe in it working out. It was definitely more of a long term strategy, which he himself admitted to from the outset. Can't imagine Keegan would have been to thrilled at the prospect though.

You're completely clueless. If selling Given is the only way we will bring in players to improve the team then it absolutely has to be done. Have you seen our defence and midfield? Absolutely pointless having Given back there if things remain as they are in other areas.

If they are really opposed to paying £12 million then maybe we can throw in Owen as well. Then go out and get someone with more of a presence upfront to play with Oba.

Wow. Interesting. Well if there is one thing no one can accuse Mike Ashley of, it is letting players go on the cheap. Every player sold under this regime has brought in more than I thought they would. For £12 million I would have to say bye bye Given. No point having the best goalie in the prem if your defence and midfield are dodgy. He'll make 5 odd world class saves a game only for us to lose 3 - 0 anyway! It's stupid.

Definitely. I think it just might be too, as there is no way they would even dare to offer £5 million cash straight up.

Been very surprised he hasn't got a look in at Bolton. Did much better than I thought he would for Nigeria at the last African Nations Cup, which was the first time I had really had a look at him. Would fit in as a more physically dominant defender. He is huge but surprisingly mobile as well. You're having a laugh aren't you?! 'Surprisingly mobile'? I've seen milk turn quicker. Okay. Well like I said i haven't seen much of him but thought he looked decent for Nigeria in the ACN from what I can remember anyway. Probably getting him mixed up with someone else.

Been very surprised he hasn't got a look in at Bolton. Did much better than I thought he would for Nigeria at the last African Nations Cup, which was the first time I had really had a look at him. Would fit in as a more physically dominant defender. He is huge but surprisingly mobile as well.

Wasn't that last summer? Yeah, and again today in The Times.

Linked with Loic Remy in The Times.

The kid is only 20 though. It's well worth the risk I reckon, but I wouldn't want it to mean he is the only midfielder we brought in. It would mean a young and talented future midfield of Guthrie and Johnson. If we could then still get M'bia then we could have both M'Bia nad Barton as the first teamers right now. Butt can just do whatever ... If we can get cash, Johnson and Onuoha that would be brilliant business imo. Onuoha is good enough to feature right now as well as having a long future ahead of him still. Can play at right back and centre back too. If we pull this off I'll certainly be impressed.

Not injured though, just been called up for Ireland. Well for some reason the deal broke down, but we were certainly in for him.

At this point I'm just really hopeful we are keeping things very quiet just like this regime seems to have done from the outset. We weren't linked with Finnan once, neither was he mentioned by Joe once, but we apparently were all set to sign him but unfortunately he was injured. Hoping we get some surprises really soon.

Yeah right! Despite Martins apparently being this thick and unintelligent player some claim, he brings a hell of a lot more to the table and impacts our attakcing play tremendously. He also happens to be playing in the very same team does he not? Watch our results drastically improve when he returns. Have you noticed they really began to fall out once he went down with his injury? He is our biggest asset right now pal. When Owen was out earlier int he season and everyone thought we'd be doomed with Martins and Shola we were actually playing much better football than we are right now, and we weren't struggling to score goals or get some decent rsults.

Yup. If goals were coming from other players, while Owen got through his bad patch, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. FFS even Wayne Rooney went through bad spells where he didn't score for ages. Doesn't make him s*** does it! Please don't compare Rooney to Owen. Rooney impacts the game in an infinite number of ways, particularly when he isn't scoring goals. He definitely makes up for it in all areas of the pitch. Shocking comparison.

No Martins no hope ...

Zoggy and money for M'Bia?

The Gomis bid was £4 million apparently. Both Bafetimbi Gomis and mario Gomez don't fit. I thhink maybe Remi Gomis.

JK said right name wrong club regarding Gomis. Maybe we are after Remi Gomis at Caen.

Cannot be Sorin as JK said both the Italian and Argentinian were midfielders did he not?

He has shown he can work within the transfer system and policy. The likes of Mbia and Gomis have been scouted long before Kinnear. Just my feelings on the matter. Very interesting to see what happens come the end of this window as far as player recruits go.