Happy Face

The point about Joe kinnear was well made....given our owner was the one who gave that dinosaur a job too. Pardew suits Ashley's level of ambition perfectly. If you're looking for a better manager you best look for a better owner first.

Despite taking a lesser squad into Europe?

Yeah, that one.

You forgot Gutierrez's assist

I thought they just faded second half. They had been everywhere first half, inspired the lead. We were winning every 50/50. We changed nowt at half time but Villa made a couple of massive changes and came out 3 gears up on what they had been. Looked a different team. In my view, Pardew didn't want to bring off Sissoko but wanted him more involved. He had to do something about midfield. Straight swapping Gutierrez wouldn't have helped that much as he's one of the hardest workers (if disappointing tonight) and Obertan wasn't even on the bench as an option....so he sacrificed Perch to drop Sissoko deeper. It didn't really work out as we were still desparately hoofing. We still have limited options on the bench, despite all the transfer activity.

He was out wide first half too...when we dominated the game, took a 2 goal lead and Cisse himself was one of the scorers. Must have been watching a different game to me, mate. Did we not dominate the first half? We did. Cisse played as the central striker first half though. Aye. Went out wide when Shola came on. So he played wide for 20 minutes.....20 minutes where we had one man in their half most the time anyway. Tactical blunder to be sacked for...after a win. Right. Well, I didn't say he should be sacked, you've just made that up. And also, it's not the first time he's played Cissé there, is it? He should never be playing there. He's just not suited to the role at all. Soz, almost, but not quite sackable.

He was out wide first half too...when we dominated the game, took a 2 goal lead and Cisse himself was one of the scorers. Must have been watching a different game to me, mate. Did we not dominate the first half? We did. Cisse played as the central striker first half though. Aye. Went out wide when Shola came on. So he played wide for 20 minutes.....20 minutes where we had one man in their half most the time anyway. Tactical blunder to be sacked for...after a win. Right. If that was the only blunder he made it may have been forgivable. Can't disagree with either of the new 2 going off after barely being involved second half, or that the other new lad came on. So the complaints are Perch came off or Shola/Anita came on. There was no-one else on the bench I particularly fancied coming on.

He was out wide first half too...when we dominated the game, took a 2 goal lead and Cisse himself was one of the scorers. Must have been watching a different game to me, mate. Did we not dominate the first half? We did. Cisse played as the central striker first half though. Aye. Went out wide when Shola came on. So he played wide for 20 minutes.....20 minutes where we had one man in their half most the time anyway. Tactical blunder to be sacked for...after a win. Right.

He was out wide first half too...when we dominated the game, took a 2 goal lead and Cisse himself was one of the scorers. Must have been watching a different game to me, mate. Did we not dominate the first half?

He was out wide first half too...when we dominated the game, took a 2 goal lead and Cisse himself was one of the scorers.

Not if you follow intelligent folk, surely?

FYP

We would have been in the financial shit without Ashley as we had borrowed way above what we could repay and soon after the takeover the expected credit crunch arrived. I was certainly worried about that, but who knows? We could have got back into Europe and covered the borrowing rather than getting relegated and doubling it.

We'd have been in the shit even without those losses if we never got into Europe and the banks weren't lending. Though not getting relegated would have seen us breaking even a year sooner. Er...are you undermining your earlier post intentionally? How so?

We'd have been in the shit even without those losses if we never got into Europe and the banks weren't lending. Though not getting relegated would have seen us breaking even a year sooner.

Moot point really, we were owing the same amount to multiple parties and paying over 7m in interest annually. Now we owe Ashley and dont pay any interest, presumably. How is that a bad thing? Which multiple 'parties' did we owe 130m + too? I doubt what we owed was as much as what we 'owe' Mike Ashley. Add 7m a year interest to the 76m debt when ashley arrived and you have 111m total. So we're almost 30m worse off than that without paying interest. Great.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TQc_oO7oUgI/AAAAAAAACrI/TfJP4oPYxNg/s400/5%2BNewcastle%2BProfit.jpg

Really don't get how are wages are still so high, would have expected it to be even less in 2011. It's 5m less than in 2007. In 2008 they shot up to 70m as shepherd spent beyond our means chasing Europe. He might have made it work alongside allardyce, didn't get the chance though. Unfortunately ashley couldn't.

We sold a 35m player in 2011 and spent £20m+ in 2007. The revenue & wages are basically the same. The difference (in addition to our debt being double) is whether or not this basis is one from which to invest and shoot for the big time, or not. Shepherd thought so, but didn't have the time to see if it would work. I don't think ashley will try.

I don't think we're knocking back interested sponsors. The sd signage tends to go where there wasn't any before (the roof for example). Where it does get closer to the pitch (on the electronic boards for example) I think it costs little in the big picture as no-one else is throwing much money at us. Maybe in a televised champions league game it would be a bigger loss.

then you do ned to go molecular to find out the reasons why, find out what the differences are. if sponsorship is included we need to know at what part of the cycle we are at and what we should realistically be acheiving there. matchday income, if thats dropped what can realistically be done ?, if the drop is largely turnstile revenue (ie price freezes and cheap kids tickets) do we want to stop that ? have we sold ourselves short with puma ? thats without even thinking too deep about it. not saying they haven't f***ed up but a broad sweep like that graph doesn't usually tell the whole story. It's nowt to do with turnstiles. It's shops and sponsors. The virgin deal hasn't kicked in so it'll recover on the back of that, but the main reason for the drop is the boycoutt, which has probably bottomed out (until the next screw up). Also SD taking on all adverising space.....when we sell the stadium rights for tens of millions it'll shoot up [/sarcasm]

Revenue from commercial aspects. It's a serious question - obviously it's sponsorship, does it also include merchandise? Ticket sales? Other matchday revenue? No, that's matchday. Down from 34m to 24m.

I don't think you need to go molecular. It's clear they've presided over a terrible fall in commercial income (shops, sponsors) in the 5 years. While other clubs have fluctuated too, all have seen a rise overall.

Commercial only

http://i42.tinypic.com/20hn38m.jpg Commercial income