ikri

you'll have to explain that one again to me ? Loose wording, apologies. Effectively, if he writes off the debt for the purposes of sale then he will have to pay it himself and thus the £100m he receives from a buyer will pay that off and he will be left with zero, thus he gets nothing. Overall, it will have cost him £130m (before any other injections) - the original cost of the investment. I don't think that is what he intends to do, I think he intends to leave the debt in the business and thus the overall cost to a buyer would be £200m (£100m to Ashley, £100m to re-finance the debt). Ashley in turn would receive £100m for what he paid £130m for (before any other injections), thus a £30m loss. The debt is owed to Ashley though, if it were owed to a 3rd party then your assessment would be correct but if he's willing to write off the debt owed to him then it doesn't require any re-financing. Ashley takes £100m for the club and writes off the £100m owed to him by the club. He takes a huge loss on the loans he's made to the club and the £34m extra that it cost him to buy the club, but he won't have to pay anything out of his pocket to sell the club, it's all money that's already been spent and now lost.

Possibly Ashley is thinking that he's going to have to throw another £50m into the club's coffers this season and any further seasons we stay in the Championship, even if we manage to rebound straight back into the Premiership it'll require another £50m to fund the club when we get there. Even if the club somehow managed to start turning a profit that would allow the club to start paying that loan back, how long would it take before he got his money back? 10 years? 20 years? By selling up now and writing off the £110m loan he gets to walk away with £100m in cash and won't have to put any additional funds into the club with no guarantees of him ever getting that money back.

If they weren't interested back in September, why not? Do they not have enough cash to match Ashley's earlier valuation? Are they just looking for a cheap club? Have they only recently found the funds? I'm sure the fact that the price-tag on our club has been reduced by 75% must have something to do wth it. It was up for 400 million pounds last September was it not? If it's 100 million pounds now, that's quite a cut. I've always thought that figure was a bit weird, it was only reported from a single source when all the other sources were saying £240m was the asking price. The 400 million figure may have been the price in dollars, since at the time $400m would have been roughly £240m.

If they weren't interested back in September, why not? Do they not have enough cash to match Ashley's earlier valuation? Are they just looking for a cheap club? Have they only recently found the funds?

I'd wonder where he'd found 15m from and how much it was really going to cost the club. Shepherd started the rot here, Ashley utterly failed to arrest the decline, but the rot set in with Freddy. I'm fed up with the club simply lurching from one crisis to another and that's something that wouldn't stop with Shepherd's return.

Isn't Rick Parry about to become unemployed?

The Shearer negotiations would seem to me to be the most obvious reason for the sale. I'd hazard a guess that Shearer has all but said no to taking over full time with whatever restrictions Ashley has placed upon him should he take over (no money for new players, have to sell most of the 1st team, etc.). Ashley's simply getting out before everyone starts demanding he fuck off for screwing up another managerial appointment. First Keegan, possibly now Shearer. All he'd have to do next is hit Sir Bobby whilst driving out of the ground for the trifecta.

I hope that he's already had a real offer and that by releasing this statement now he's just trying to spark a bit of a bidding war. The club cannot afford yet another 2-3 months of ownership uncertainty.

Needs to be a really quick sale to someone with plenty of cash to spare, not just to fund the rebuilding of the squad but to ensure that the club isn't saddled with a huge debt to Ashley for years to come.

A big name who knows absolutely nothing about the league other than the four games he played for Leicester back in 2001. Could struggle massively with a team that lacks the finances or pulling power of Inter or Lazio. Unfortunately, they have decent finances. Their finances may be OK & a lot better than many others in the Premiership, but they're not at the same league as a team like Inter.

A big name who knows absolutely nothing about the league other than the four games he played for Leicester back in 2001. Could struggle massively with a team that lacks the finances or pulling power of Inter or Lazio.

Er, what? There was a rumour that a certain Manchester club were paying one of their player's taxes for them too. It hardly matters I seriously doubt that's the case here, we have no one in the same wage bracket here. But, it does raise another point, what's the employer's national insurance contribution to someone's weekly wage when that wage is £100k per week? Perhaps that's where the missing millions are.

It'd really make my night if he got a 2nd yellow now

fuck me.. who are all these people? Match day staff for the most part probably, turnstile operators, safety stewards, etc. They won't be full time employees.

Owen, Coloccini, Cacapa, Barton, Martins, Duff, Smith, Jonas, Geremi & Viduka. Think their combined wages come to well over £600k per week. Barton, Duff and Smith are likely to stay imo. I bloody hope not. They're earning £185k per week between them and they've been garbage for us. Lunatic, waste of skin & past it. I'll let you decide which description fits which player. Barton's apparently squred things out with Shearer and apologized his behaviour. Duff has said he wants to stay. Who'd want Smith? Stuck with them. Barton's reputation precedes him, just like Bowyer's did, he'll never get fair treatment from the referees and every challenge he makes will be picked over by the media. The best thing we could do would be to accept any offer for him and let some other mug club take the risk. Duff may want to stay, but how much of that is down to him earning £60k per week in the full knowledge that he'll never get that from another club? He's been abysmal for us for far too long, he has so little movement he could have been replaced by a traffic cone in most of the games he played last season. He gives the ball away amazingly easily, he can't cross for shit and he's lost what pace he once had. He'll be a liability in the Championship. Smith's lack of games this season may actually work in our advantage. There are enough managers out there who will think they can turn him around and make him the player he was before his injury. His passing is limited, he doesn't take shots on goal any more and his tackling is dangerous at best. Again, let someone else take the risk.

Owen, Coloccini, Cacapa, Barton, Martins, Duff, Smith, Jonas, Geremi & Viduka. Think their combined wages come to well over £600k per week. Barton, Duff and Smith are likely to stay imo. I bloody hope not. They're earning £185k per week between them and they've been garbage for us. Lunatic, waste of skin & past it. I'll let you decide which description fits which player.

Owen, Coloccini, Cacapa, Barton, Martins, Duff, Smith, Jonas, Geremi & Viduka. Think their combined wages come to well over £600k per week.

Why would it matter if they are paying back the loan immediately or in installments. If they are buying the club they will know they are in debt - and would be a factor in their decision making. Right now we're not paying the loan back at all. It would have a pretty significant impact on our finances if we suddenly had to start repaying it all.

True. But on occasion they are actually correct Mick Wadsworth springs to mind Who's been a disaster everywhere he's been after us. How often do you hear from PLAYERS that a bad coach can screw a good team ? Or that a good coach can revitaize a sagging squad ? The names you mention were all jobs for mates anyway. Our best times were when this didn't apply. Steve Clarke, during his brief time here, and that feller from Blackburn whose name I forget in the early Keegan years. Derek Fazackerley? Currently working at Huddersfield with Clarkie

It would depend on who the buyer was, how much cash they have, whether they'd be paying off that loan to Ashley or just leaving the club to pay it back over the years, whether they have enough cash spare for transfers. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

Bonuses & appearance fees.

Enrique - £3m Coloccini - £5m Bassong - £7m Beye - £1m Jonas - £5m Barton - £1m Martins - £5m Smith - £1m Around £28m, might manage a little more but it would depend if we wanted quick sale or were willing to wait. It would trim at least £18m from the wage bill, even before taking Cacapa, Owen, Viduka, Lovenkrands & Geremi into the equation who are earning at least £15m between them

Assuming Shearer is in charge then you can probably save a few quid on a train ticket to Ipswich if you book now, because you know that the fixture computer is somehow going to find a way to make Shearer vs Keane the 1st game of the season.

His contract at Portsmouth is/was worth over £100k per week by all reports. Think he's going to take a £75k drop in wages and drop down a league?

Is he going to be good enough to play in the Premiership in a couple of seasons (assuming we can bounce right back)? If not then don't bother. We need to be building a team that isn't just capable of achieving promotion but of competing in the Premiership again.