Happy Face

Fuck off, Derek. Would you rather be in our position right now or Portsmouths? I'd rather be in Spurs'

Nope. Fred wasn't an idiot.

I thought I was being very balanced by just putting the facts in there and not commenting. I don't see how I've misconstrued him. Of course, there is always a small section of any group of hundreds of thousands of people that are detached from reality. But he's suggesting the majority of supporters appreciate what Ashley has done for us...and that's not true.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11688_5999998,00.html

Why would you believe him if he did? He admits he "intentionally misleads the press, public and the fans of Newcastle United". Also, most of what appears in the papers is leaked from the very top, you can tell because it all has the same absolutist whiff of desparation about it.... March - “Just print that we paid £250 Million for the club” December - “Without Mike's input, the club would be broke. Simple as that." February - “Newcastle United couldn’t survive at the moment without Mike’s money, it’s as simple as that." Agreed, he could spout as many figures as he fancied, but there is no way Ashley doing another in depth interview would sway anyones view of him. It's all about his actions now. /not sure I could stand the bloodbath on the forum if he did it either tbf. This is what I've said about him for over a year. I could forgive the Keegan saga, the Kinnear joke, Llambias's failings, the sale of players that could have assured survival, the purchase of players that couldn't (without consulting the manager), banning negative reporters, the stadium name change, the alienation of swathes of our support and even relegation, if he showed any sign whatsoever of learning anything and doing something constructive to rectify it in his actions rather than his words. Can't see it happening. All he does is put the club on the market and take it off again. ...and not walk away, and invest in the squad and the manager enough to see us not disintergrate but see us top of the table and likely to bounce back at the first time of asking. Concede something man HF. Look, I get your point and know you'll not be easily won over, but I hope for the clubs sake (if he can't find a Geordie Abramovic to sell to sharpish), he does manage win us all over at some stage soon. It's been a disaster, but it's not been an unmitigated disaster. We could have a chairman everybody loves and be in Boro's position. However only the fact that Ashley wants to see some sort of return on his investment stops him walking away and keeps him making the minimum amount of investment. If he sold for £80m that's a a 30% return, going into administration, he'd be lucky to get 10%. Once again this morning, Llambias has been heaping praise on Ashley and blaming the unreasonable fans for not understanding his vision of getting us relegated and expecting to be treated better than dirt.

Sorry, but you can't. Oh but I can. I've made the argument on Toontastic that NUST's anger should really be directed at Llambias. If Ashley replaced him with a competent football man, that one small and most basic step would indicate a willingness to improve things and should see pressure taken off.

Why would you believe him if he did? He admits he "intentionally misleads the press, public and the fans of Newcastle United". Also, most of what appears in the papers is leaked from the very top, you can tell because it all has the same absolutist whiff of desparation about it.... March - “Just print that we paid £250 Million for the club” December - “Without Mike's input, the club would be broke. Simple as that." February - “Newcastle United couldn’t survive at the moment without Mike’s money, it’s as simple as that." Agreed, he could spout as many figures as he fancied, but there is no way Ashley doing another in depth interview would sway anyones view of him. It's all about his actions now. /not sure I could stand the bloodbath on the forum if he did it either tbf. This is what I've said about him for over a year. I could forgive the Keegan saga, the Kinnear joke, Llambias's failings, the sale of players that could have assured survival, the purchase of players that couldn't (without consulting the manager), banning negative reporters, the stadium name change, the alienation of swathes of our support and even relegation, if he showed any sign whatsoever of learning anything and doing something constructive to rectify it in his actions rather than his words. Can't see it happening. All he does is put the club on the market and take it off again.

Why would you believe him if he did? He admits he "intentionally misleads the press, public and the fans of Newcastle United". Also, most of what appears in the papers is leaked from the very top, you can tell because it all has the same absolutist whiff of desparation about it.... March - “Just print that we paid £250 Million for the club” December - “Without Mike's input, the club would be broke. Simple as that." February - “Newcastle United couldn’t survive at the moment without Mike’s money, it’s as simple as that."

In a nutshell, the buyer would pay Ashley £80m as a settlement on the £110m+ loans outstanding (£30m loss)...and £1 for the club (£134m loss). Again, i don't buy it, but if it is the case, it's a horrible indictment of his purchase and his running of the club. He's every bit as much to blame as anyone that preceded him at the helm, probably moreso. He increased the wage bill at the club by over 10% in his first year, paid out large redundancy packages to two managers in his first 18 months and got us relegated within two years. putting it like that is like saying that as shearer was manager when we got relegated then it is solely his fault. Don't be silly. I don't think I said anyone has been solely to blame for anything. Shearer was in charge for 8 games. He took us from being 2 points from safety to a finish 1 point from safety (closer to survival). We'd taken 6 points from the last eight games before he came in and he won 5 points from the last 8 games (only slightly worse). He spent nothing. He didin't have the time or the power to make the situation any worse. Completely different to spending 18 months following the policy of your predecessor (badly), then blaming your predecessor and his policy for all the ills that have befallen the club. are you telling me that "He increased the wage bill at the club by over 10% in his first year, paid out large redundancy packages to two managers in his first 18 months and got us relegated within two years." wasn't meant to intimate that you held him responsible ? did he spend 18months following the policy of fred. seems more like one summer to me. I said it above..."He's every bit as much to blame as anyone that preceded " It was about 15 months after buying the club he gave Coloccini his current contract used as a prime example of the crippling wage bill.

In a nutshell, the buyer would pay Ashley £80m as a settlement on the £110m+ loans outstanding (£30m loss)...and £1 for the club (£134m loss). Again, i don't buy it, but if it is the case, it's a horrible indictment of his purchase and his running of the club. He's every bit as much to blame as anyone that preceded him at the helm, probably moreso. He increased the wage bill at the club by over 10% in his first year, paid out large redundancy packages to two managers in his first 18 months and got us relegated within two years. putting it like that is like saying that as shearer was manager when we got relegated then it is solely his fault. Don't be silly. I don't think I said anyone has been solely to blame for anything. Shearer was in charge for 8 games. He took us from being 2 points from safety to a finish 1 point from safety (closer to survival). We'd taken 6 points from the last eight games before he came in and he won 5 points from the last 8 games (only slightly worse). He spent nothing. He didin't have the time or the power to make the situation any worse. Completely different to spending 18 months following the policy of your predecessor (badly), then blaming your predecessor and his policy for all the ills that have befallen the club.

many would argue we weren't ran particularly well then but the gambles paid off for a while. They could argue that, but financially they'd be wrong, up to the point of Souness appointment. Shepherd's running of the club up to the Souness appointment was certainly commercially and financially was excellent. It may not have been a popular move with the fans, but we hardly spent a penny from 1999 to 2001 on players, he was vilified for it, but he got the club on an even footing with a genuine spring board to bring the likes of Bellamy in, and more importantly afford to bring them in. commercially and financially excellent ? .........share dividends above the going rate,executive payscales above the going rate,warehouse rentals above the going rate. they done well in building the turnover, their use of it left a bit to be desired. That's all you needed to say. Financially we were unbelievably stable in 2004, and you have to bare in mind he'd been chairman for 6 years at that point. Of the biggest clubs in Europe we had the lowest wages/turnover ratio. We were operating at 44% which was also the lowest in the Premiership, from that point onwards obviously it was down hill. I'm not here to support FFS, but he knew how to make Newcastle in to a profitable business, and demonstrated infinitely more business nous to that point than this regime has. I don't see how it can even be argued with. there wasn't much profit by the time dividends and executive pay was taken off. list the end of term profits if you want. At the end of the day the club could turnover £300m a year, but its no use if you're losing £500m a year. We were making a good turnover under Shepherd and you can't argue with those facts, the only issue is we owed far too much, and thats shown by the events of the last 5 years. Like it or not if it weren't for Ashley buying Hall's shares without doing his homework, we would be where Pompey are now. A Premier League club?

In a nutshell, the buyer would pay Ashley £80m as a settlement on the £110m+ loans outstanding (£30m loss)...and £1 for the club (£134m loss). Again, i don't buy it, but if it is the case, it's a horrible indictment of his purchase and his running of the club. He's every bit as much to blame as anyone that preceded him at the helm, probably moreso. He increased the wage bill at the club by over 10% in his first year, paid out large redundancy packages to two managers in his first 18 months and got us relegated within two years.

How do you know it's true? Why did it only momentarily drop to £80m for Barry Moat? Why was that opportunity not afforded to the several other interested parties sniffing around? As nobody has said that they offered £100 million or £80 million and still got turned down, it's reasonable to conclude that those figures are correct. Plus it would be rather stupid for an already unpopular owner to publicly state a specific figure that he had no intention of accepting. That's really setting yourself up. Just because we don't have perfect knowledge doesn't mean that any speculation is as good as any other. You can believe that Ashley was lying about the figure if you want, but it's not very logical. I don't so much think the up front figure was a lie. I just don't know (literally have no idea) if he was actually willing to take a hit on the debt he's built up to himself in the clubs name, if he wanted those loans repaid instantly or what kind of interest rate he'd be applying for the new owners to take them on. As you say, unless anyone provides anything concrete, it's all speculation (whatever ITK claims people make). All I know is i didn't believe a word that came out of the club then, and I don't now. I do wonder why our debts are still outstanding if Ashley has expressed a willingness to write them off for any buyers coming in. Why doesn't he improve the club balance sheet by cancelling those loans like the owners have at Man City and Chelsea? I'm not sure on this, but my assumption is that if you officially declare that a loan is effectively a grant, it then becomes income and is liable to tax. Either that, or a loan has certain tax advantages for yourself as the loaner. So if Ashley was to declare in advance of the sale that he was going to write off the loan, that would have consequences. In any event, who would it benefit if you declared that you were writing off the loan before you needed to? The situation for the club wouldn't change in practice, and you'd be giving up some element of leverage that you had with a future buyer, for no reward. Someone with more experience of corporate finance may wish to intervene here? I thought all outstanding interest free loans were converted to equity... http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/dec/30/chelsea-roman-abramovich-debt-scolari

How do you know it's true? Why did it only momentarily drop to £80m for Barry Moat? Why was that opportunity not afforded to the several other interested parties sniffing around? As nobody has said that they offered £100 million or £80 million and still got turned down, it's reasonable to conclude that those figures are correct. Plus it would be rather stupid for an already unpopular owner to publicly state a specific figure that he had no intention of accepting. That's really setting yourself up. Just because we don't have perfect knowledge doesn't mean that any speculation is as good as any other. You can believe that Ashley was lying about the figure if you want, but it's not very logical. I don't so much think the up front figure was a lie. I just don't know (literally have no idea) if he was actually willing to take a hit on the debt he's built up to himself in the clubs name, if he wanted those loans repaid instantly or what kind of interest rate he'd be applying for the new owners to take them on. As you say, unless anyone provides anything concrete, it's all speculation (whatever ITK claims people make). All I know is i didn't believe a word that came out of the club then, and I don't now. I do wonder why our debts are still outstanding if Ashley has expressed a willingness to write them off for any buyers coming in. Why doesn't he improve the club balance sheet by cancelling those loans like the owners have at Man City and Chelsea?

How do you know it's true? Why did it only momentarily drop to £80m for Barry Moat? Why was that opportunity not afforded to the several other interested parties sniffing around?

Of course Villa will be losing money per week, almost all clubs do due to how cash flow works at Football clubs. The big difference between us and Villa financially is that they'll have £50m of Premier League money due to them at the end of the season. And they've got a net spend of £50m to go along with it. We've got a net transfer profit of about £40m in the same period. and transfer profit has to be spent exclusivly on transfers ? not to mention how much we still had to pay from when we signed some of those players. Not at all. I think we're wise to tighten our belts and watch that bottom line. Just pointing out there seems to be a £90million difference in the wheeling and dealing at Villa and the toon over the last 2 years. I'm sure i probably haven't understood the complicated accountancy though. why only mention the last 2 yrs ? we were still paying for ttransfers from before then. Cos that's when the gravy train ended and Ashley spat out his dummy. He came into the club, looked at the books and still spent £20million on new players and handed all of our very average players VERY expensive contracts. Fully aware of upcoming payments that were outstanding and the lack of incoming cash. He continued the policy of the previous owners. Milner's sale and Xisco's purchase a year after taking control marked a change in policy which I'm measuring with those numbers.

Of course Villa will be losing money per week, almost all clubs do due to how cash flow works at Football clubs. The big difference between us and Villa financially is that they'll have £50m of Premier League money due to them at the end of the season. And they've got a net spend of £50m to go along with it. We've got a net transfer profit of about £40m in the same period. and transfer profit has to be spent exclusivly on transfers ? not to mention how much we still had to pay from when we signed some of those players. Not at all. I think we're wise to tighten our belts and watch that bottom line. Just pointing out there seems to be a £90million difference in the wheeling and dealing at Villa and the toon over the last 2 years. I'm sure i probably haven't understood the complicated accountancy though.

Of course Villa will be losing money per week, almost all clubs do due to how cash flow works at Football clubs. The big difference between us and Villa financially is that they'll have £50m of Premier League money due to them at the end of the season. And they've got a net spend of £50m to go along with it. We've got a net transfer profit of about £40m in the same period.

Can't think of many fat, unfit central midfielders we've had full stop. Did you ever see John Barnes play for us? :-[ He made Kevin Nolan look like Aaron Lennon Wasn't he our top scorer one year or did I imagine that? You're kidding? With 6 goals? Christ, Dalglish was worse than I remembered. Even Fatty ballaty Kluivert scored more than him.

The Puskas diet http://www.gatifoto.hu/pages/Gati_Gy_Puskas_Ocsi_W.jpg

Can't think of many fat, unfit central midfielders we've had full stop. Did you ever see John Barnes play for us? :-[ He made Kevin Nolan look like Aaron Lennon

If apples were oranges me dad would be me mam.

Maybe we could hoy some Mars Bars at Nolan in affectionate tribute.

Micky Quinn wasn't fit a day in his life and he was one of the greatest number 9's we ever had..

In fact, he's played 2 more games than any other player and 6 more games than any other outfield player. http://www.nufc.com/2009-10html/app-goals.html