Chris_R

No, but the agreement was reached extremely quickly, in about 24 hours. Admittedly they're looking at the books but that's probably only because they heard about Ashley getting done over by the Halls to the tune of over £100m. It always takes one person to get stung before others start becoming cautious.

There's always a choice. Maybe he could have stuck to the contract he signed and let the director of football sign the players like he agreed when he came here? That's just one version of the truth that's going round, but the point is to say it's all Ashley's fault and not Keegan's when you have NONE of the facts at your disposal is just plain daft. And you've figured this out how exactly? That's not to say he won't negotiate a good price, why shouldn't he? But to speculate on what that price is would be silly. Some would argue that the club is now worth a hell of a lot more than it was before anyway, as we're now solvent and not liable to have to call the receivers in any day.

What, like Man City you mean?

Nope. The man's a billionaire, I'm sure he knew there was debt and was aware that he could pay it. The only thing he didn't know was the amount. Now I knew (Or suspected very strongly) as a fan that we had a lot of debt, but when I found out exactly how much I was horrified. I'm sure Ashley was the same, knowing there was lots but never imagining that it could be as high as it was. He probably thought "Ah, it'll be about £30-£50m, I can pay that no bother". Then found out it was over £100m and we'd spent all the sponsorship for years to come and still owed money on transfers. Nobody could have predicted that a club could still function in that state, nobody. He took a gamble, in order to achieve his dream and buy a football club. You have to take risks in business if you want to get to the top and sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't. This one didn't.

I have no reason to trust him over anyone else. But then I have no reason to trust anyone else over him. It's amazing how many people have formed such fast-set opinions in the almost total absence of any facts whatsoever.

Utter, utter shit. We'd have done or been perilously close to "doing a Leeds" had Ashley not stepped in.

Christ almighty, not sure where to start with that mess but I'll have a go... Fickle? Not at all. My opinion on Ashley has been consistent throughout. Only interested in the money and "U dont become a billionaire by luck!" - You also don't become a billionaire by buying a football club. If Ashley wanted to make money (And he's proven he's pretty good at that), there's a thousand better ways to do it than getting into football. Keegan wasn't sacked, he resigned. "50 million profit" What?? We're not sold yet. And as for the last paragraph, it's common knowledge that he was given a deadline by the halls to buy or not and had no time to do checks on the books. No doubt that's because the Halls knew fine well that if he DID look at the books, they'd not get half the price they were asking. Apart from all that, your post was great.

True, Romanov brings new meaning to the words 'board interference'! I've always had a soft spot for Hearts, and remember them having an amazing start under George Burley a few years back until Romanov decided he knew better. Things have never recovered since then, which is a shame as when he took over I thought that if Romanov backed them then they had a chance of getting up there near Celtic and Rangers. So True! He decides who the club sign and sell, he picks the team on a saturday too!! Yeah we finished 2nd in the league the season Burley started. we would have grown to be constant title challengers if he stayed and was left to do his own thing IMO. Ashley was nowhere near as interferring! but hopefully if this new buyer comes in we get all the s**** behind us and get back to Glory days. 'Back' to the glory days? I must have blinked and missed them, unless you're referring to 1952-55. I'm scared about who the new buyer might be. It's one thing if it's Saudi billions wanting to buy success, which may be fun for a while, but what if it's someone like Fat Fred who manages to scrape together the money to buy Ashley out but then can't keep it going and ends up racking the debts up again? But then going back to the Saudi billions, would that really be fun? Part of the pride I've always had about being a Newcastle fan is that nobody could call me a glory hunter. I've often looked at Man U fans celebrating winning yet another trophy and thought "That means nothing to you. You'll clap it up then go home and forget about it". If we won anything, even a league cup, it'd be a party like we've not seen in over 50 years here. Buying our way up the league would put us in with the "expect to wins" and would, to me, devalue any success. Maybe Ashley's way of steady progress wasn't so bad after all?

True, Romanov brings new meaning to the words 'board interference'! I've always had a soft spot for Hearts, and remember them having an amazing start under George Burley a few years back until Romanov decided he knew better. Things have never recovered since then, which is a shame as when he took over I thought that if Romanov backed them then they had a chance of getting up there near Celtic and Rangers.

Jesus Christ. I hope all those who have wanted Ashley out have a long, hard think about that.

I'm not sure I can understand any protest when nobody has a clue what's gone on at the club so has no real idea about if their protest is justified or not. The only protest I could understand is one about the lack of communication from the club. Now THAT would have got my support. Anything else has just reinforced the nation's opinions of us as a bunch of moronic, jobless (And I say that as all the protests bar Saturday were on weekdays) charvers.

Cheers, I was thinking the same myself! Had to take a 2k pay cut to get back into work straight away but it'll pay the mortgage for a while until I find something better. Being a Newcastle fan you expect a bit of a rollercoaster ride but it's getting silly (for all of us) in the past few weeks now.

Probably the best post I've read on this forum in my entire time here. Though before you get a big head, bear in mind the standard of the competition. He may he some decent points, but he ends up looking like a complete f***ing cock with his snobbish use of 'mongs'. Could you also tell me what being unemployed has to do with it? Do you not realise the history of the area? Are all the decent, hard working people made unemployed going to be tarred with the same brush? Hopefully it'll never happen to you. Prick. On another point, maybe it's time for the media to stop believing what the media write. Not sure if that's aimed at me or DJ, but I'll answer it anyway. As it happens, I got made redundant on Monday gone. But rather than sit at home and watch Jeremy Kyle in my boxer shorts (Or worse still, going up to St James' Park dressed in a tracksuit, cap and eating a Greggs pastie), I've spent the week looking for new work and start my new job tomorrow. 6 days unemployed, I guess there's jobs out there if you look hard enough. Anyway, I digress, but only because of your use of the word "prick". But I don't think the use of the word "Mongs" is unfair, given that the people that have been spending their days camped outside St James' Park trying to get their ill-judged and ill-formed grunts onto Sky Sports would probably fail to reach an IQ of 100 if they all clubbed together.

Probably the best post I've read on this forum in my entire time here. Though before you get a big head, bear in mind the standard of the competition.

Maybe we're running at a loss now (Quite possible given the extortionate wages some of our clowns are on and the comments form Ashley re: existing debt) so he IS putting the £20m in but that's just keeping us afloat? Just a thought.

He never said that our transfer budget would be £20m. He said he'd invest £20m out of his own pocket every year. So if we're already £15m up after wages etc are paid, then we can shell out £35m. If, however, our costs are greater than our income then we might only be spending £5m.

We have too small a squad, I agree, but injuries have taken their toll on us as well with the likes of Enrique, Barton, Viduka and Smith (Yeah, I know!) out. And like I said more signings would have been better and who's to say that the likes of Wise and Vetere didn't have more lined up but Keegan kept vetoing them? Not saying that's the case as I've got no more idea than the rest of you but people seem over keen to aportion blame anywhere but at Keegan's feet due to their paper "Welcome back KK" crowns falling down over their eyes. (And Shola's been starting for years, inexcusable as that might be, so mentioning that is irrelevant. )

He drove himself out, he's an idiot to think the fans would be happy to see KK leave over Dennis Wise. How did he drive himself out exactly? Keegan resigned, Wise has done nothing wrong other than help bring about Ashley's vision for the club. The signings we've brought in have been terrific so far, and Keegan is a chequebook manager who cannot operate without a chequebook. I love KK as a motivator and man manager and do think he has a good eye for a player but a world-wide scouting network is undoubtedly going to unearth more players than one man. Who appointed KK? If you appoint a chequebook manager (bullshit btw) then guess what? You need to give him a chequebook, or guess what? It doesn't work. Wise should have been in charge of the kids, while KK was out putting together the squad he wants, and that's how we all thought it was going down until a few weeks ago. No manager worth his salt will have someone as basic, low profile and ugly as Dennis Wise dictating on the players he gets to play with, and for that reason, and the backing of Wise's role and Wise himself, Ashley has done all this to himself. Well we all thought that Billionaire Owner + Kevin Keegan = Lots of massive signings and attacking football. I don't think we realised just how far £1b goes these days, and how quickly you can throw it all away on a few Schevchenkos and Ballacks who you'll get nothing back for at the end of their contract. Initially, I was dead against the director of football idea. But the more I thought it through the more I thought it could well work. And given the signings we've brought in I'm now more sure than ever about that. I accept more players in would have been better, but we've brought in 6 players this summer (1 on loan) and the only significant leavers (If you can even call them that) were Emre, Carr, Rozenhal and Ramage. People talk about the squad getting thinner but to me that's the reverse, both in numbers and in terms of quality. It's early days but I think the DoF system has proven that it's working OK so far.

Why? I mean, I hated Dennis Wise as a player as much as anyone, I was in the Leazes when we beat Chelsea, Cole scored 2 (Including a stunning left-foot drive past Kharine) and Wise got sent off and was up singing "He's a dwarf" with the best of them, but can someone PLEASE try to explain what he's done wrong here and why he deserves sacking? If you can stick to facts as well instead of guesswork then I'll be really impressed. Can I say I know for a fact that Wise has been the problem, yet I can't post how I know this, but believe me it is true. Well I dunno about everyone else but that's me convinced.

He drove himself out, he's an idiot to think the fans would be happy to see KK leave over Dennis Wise. How did he drive himself out exactly? Keegan resigned, Wise has done nothing wrong other than help bring about Ashley's vision for the club. The signings we've brought in have been terrific so far, and Keegan is a chequebook manager who cannot operate without a chequebook. I love KK as a motivator and man manager and do think he has a good eye for a player but a world-wide scouting network is undoubtedly going to unearth more players than one man.

Why? I mean, I hated Dennis Wise as a player as much as anyone, I was in the Leazes when we beat Chelsea, Cole scored 2 (Including a stunning left-foot drive past Kharine) and Wise got sent off and was up singing "He's a dwarf" with the best of them, but can someone PLEASE try to explain what he's done wrong here and why he deserves sacking? If you can stick to facts as well instead of guesswork then I'll be really impressed.

I'm terribly sad that the moronic element within the club (And we have more than our fair share of them unfortunately) seem to have driven him out, but I must say one thing: Why the hell couldn't he have released that statement (Or at least the first half of it) last week? I'm pretty confident that if he had, then all would have been well. All the demonstrations were in favour of Keegan simply because he was the only one who was willing to communicate with the fans over the last few months. Nothing at all has come out from the club beyond a couple of terse statements regarding KK's departure, and we've all been left completely in the dark over Ashley's intentions for the club and his vision for the future. It's widely acknowledged that Ashley has attempted to extend an olive branch to Keegan to get him to stay, perhaps in light of the statement released we should be adult enough to do the same to him?

He comes in, clears the debts, puts a structure in place to secure top young talent (Anyone disappointed by any of the signings?) and then gets hounded out by the fans. Aren't we clever? Sure, he didn't spend gazillions of pounds and sign Robinho. But then we never know what went on between Kev and the recruitment team. I can't help but feel that Ashley has had a really unfair time from our "fans" over the past couple of weeks, when he might not (Stress MIGHT NOT) be the man to blame. Llambias and Keegan both seem far more likely protagonists to me.

Why was he sat there by himself today? Because nobody knows who the fuck he is or what the fuck he does.

I voted "Yes" because all the alternatives I've seen scare the living shit out of me. Poyet? Ince? Wise? Fuck that.