AyeDubbleYoo

Nice to see you acknowledge something good about the club.

So it hasn't been coinfirmed, thanks. No it hasn't been "coin"firmed if you are talking legal jargon. I'm not sure what coinfirmed even means unless you are writing with a New Jersey accent. Wouldn't that be confoimed?

Best - finish around 8-10th with some good performances thrown in, similar to last season but with better football and maybe a cup run. Worst - start badly and fans turn on the team. We battle along for the rest of the season and finish about 15th.

Aren't our prices common knowledge anyway? They probably just didn't get round to responding to the survey because we now only employ 2 office staff. A day out at SJP is pretty good value compared to a lot of Premier League clubs. A bottle of water is £2.20 at Arsenal FFS.

True, and Mike Ashley doesn't put up with being insulted by his employees. So the two together was never going to end well.

The timing of him doing that makes it look quite reactionary doesnt it? Not something that would have persisted. Look at his reaction to Nolan being sold, his initial comments before coming around to "well thats just how clubs work" hours later. He'd have been fine man, we've dealt with this very badly. Yeah, I've said before that in a week's time he might be fine, that's the kind of guy he is. The problem is a week after that, or the next time something happens that he doesn't like.

He's still here!

Yep, I think the fact he was leaving anyway is a big factor in this whole thing. Sure he would have been handled differently if he'd had 3 years left on his contract.

I just realised that original question was about NUFC's wage cap, and not the principle of wage caps in football generally. Therefore I can see how I looked like a dick for suggesting it should be lower!

What are the basis for these posts, other than pure hope that we are not dealing with this situation in an awful manner? The basis for mine is that he's quite an unstable and outspoken character, who is now unhappy at the club. Therefore he might well unsettle our players more by training with them than by being made to train alone. If I was R Kelly and could turn back the hands of time, I would just fine Joey and try to move on, but that's not the situation. What suggests he's unhappy at the club though? Some tweets alluding to the idea that its not being run well? Supposed stories of frustration at the way we were playing while we lost to leeds? Compare that to any viewable interaction with the other players & what hes said about staying here. Its not in his benefit anyway to be a negative influence even if he moves on for his career. Well if he's not unhappy he's certainly doing a good impression of it. If I thought he would think logically like you and not cause any problems because it wouldn't be in his interests the I'd agree with you, but if that was the case he wouldn't have done the tweeting in the first place.

From the horses mouth: Mike Ashley has only ever put money into this football club. He has never taken a single penny out. 'And he won't take a single penny of this £35m either - all the money will go to the club and we are already working on identifying transfer targets for the summer.' /ignored If you're talking about me, I've responded every time this has been raised, in the best way I could. You're really not helping this thread. Really? I must have missed it. Run that bollocks by me again, I could do with a laugh Thought so. By the way have you got your season ticket yet? We're clearly getting nowhere here, I don't want to be one of "those people" on the internet that engage in this sort of pointless argument. I was trying to do you a favour in case you hadn't heard about Newcastle's brand new feeder club, Bottom Line Wanderers. They don't play any games as such but you do get a copy of the latest accounts through the post every month See my previous post, let's stop it now.

Come on man.

He will come out and say he was beginnig to be a disruptive influence, but we will replace him. He could probably get away with something like "the club have decided that they can't have a player publically causing disruption and have taken the decision they thought was right, but I'm sorry that there's no way back for Joey". Not saying it's true, but if I was doing his PR that's the line I would give him!

It depends on how successful you think other options would have been I suppose. Say that they had fined Joey a couple of weeks' wages and told him to stop abusing them on Twitter, would that have worked?

How on earth can you believe Ashley has any decent PR or press relations going on? Everyone hates him FFS.

You're arguing a point which is 2 years out of date. We were relegated and had to cut costs and that's behind us now. Yes, we still have the debt but that debt is supposed to be an interest free loan from the owner who we are told has no intention of taking any money out of the club, which is a lie anyway as he already has taken money out. We're now in a situation where we have cut our costs and have started on a recovery and we need to invest to sustain the recovery, not cut costs. This is the most reasonable argument on that side. The question is where should the balance be. The problem, and where football is different to other businesses, is that it's very difficult to equate investment with return. In manufacturing, I know if I invest enough to make 100 more things, I get a certain profit on those things. Football has no such guarantees. Do you agree that it looks like Ashley does not really care where we finish, as long as its not the bottom 3? That it looks likely the club is not being ran with progression on the field on mind, instead to keep things ticking over with PL status and reducing the wage bill until a buyer comes in? I think he would like to achieve whatever success he can within the limits he has now decided on. So yes, he only wants success if he can do it quite cheaply. Whether it has anything to do with selling I'm not sure, I just think he has decided he wants to limit the amount he has to subsidise us by. I think it's unlikely he will find a buyer in the near future - if he does 20 or 30 million here or there won't make any difference to them anyway. So yes, sadly finance does come before footballing progress with him, I can't deny that.

It's a shit decision. The situation wouldn't come up in most other clubs. You can thank Ashley & co for that. True, but Joey Barton isn't most players either.

What are the basis for these posts, other than pure hope that we are not dealing with this situation in an awful manner? The basis for mine is that he's quite an unstable and outspoken character, who is now unhappy at the club. Therefore he might well unsettle our players more by training with them than by being made to train alone. If I was R Kelly and could turn back the hands of time, I would just fine Joey and try to move on, but that's not the situation.

You get more money for each position you go up in the league and you could estimate that a higher position will mean greater income form other revenue such as sponsorships, advertising, gate receipts etc. True, the problem is that you could spend more and finish lower. What I'm saying is that it's not as easy to guarantee a return as in conventional business, therefore someone like Ashley might decide to cut his losses and play it safe-ish, gambling that we can do just as well with reduced investment in players.

From the horses mouth: Mike Ashley has only ever put money into this football club. He has never taken a single penny out. 'And he won't take a single penny of this £35m either - all the money will go to the club and we are already working on identifying transfer targets for the summer.' /ignored If you're talking about me, I've responded every time this has been raised, in the best way I could. You're really not helping this thread. Really? I must have missed it. Run that bollocks by me again, I could do with a laugh Thought so. By the way have you got your season ticket yet? We're clearly getting nowhere here, I don't want to be one of "those people" on the internet that engage in this sort of pointless argument.

I'm sorry, but that's absolutely pathetic. Damaging for the morale of the entire team, watching their sometimes Captain made to train alone. Disgusting. I might be even more damaging to let him train with them TBH. I don't know either way, but it's certainly possible.

From the horses mouth: Mike Ashley has only ever put money into this football club. He has never taken a single penny out. 'And he won't take a single penny of this £35m either - all the money will go to the club and we are already working on identifying transfer targets for the summer.' /ignored If you're talking about me, I've responded every time this has been raised, in the best way I could. You're really not helping this thread. Really? I must have missed it. Run that bollocks by me again, I could do with a laugh

You're arguing a point which is 2 years out of date. We were relegated and had to cut costs and that's behind us now. Yes, we still have the debt but that debt is supposed to be an interest free loan from the owner who we are told has no intention of taking any money out of the club, which is a lie anyway as he already has taken money out. We're now in a situation where we have cut our costs and have started on a recovery and we need to invest to sustain the recovery, not cut costs. This is the most reasonable argument on that side. The question is where should the balance be. The problem, and where football is different to other businesses, is that it's very difficult to equate investment with return. In manufacturing, I know if I invest enough to make 100 more things, I get a certain profit on those things. Football has no such guarantees.

From the horses mouth: Mike Ashley has only ever put money into this football club. He has never taken a single penny out. 'And he won't take a single penny of this £35m either - all the money will go to the club and we are already working on identifying transfer targets for the summer.' /ignored If you're talking about me, I've responded every time this has been raised, in the best way I could. You're really not helping this thread.

You don't seem to be at all bothered about what the management does to the club, the promises made to the fans or the players. When the manager of a club publicly announces that every penny of the Carroll money will be invested into the team, it's pretty common knowledge that it mean's any contract renewals, transfer and agent fees so to come out of this window with a smaller squad, and making a net gain is indefensible. Why brazenly lie about it? Why not explicitly tell the fans at the time it's intentions with the money instead of intentionally misleading? FWIW Ashley was loaning the club money interest fee, so has every intention of getting every penny back, so there is no point trying to make out he is Mr Charitable. Of course I care about what happens to the club, but I don't think any major damage has been done. The relegation was horrible, but we managed it well and bounced back strongly. I don't expect us to be at any risk of relegation this season, but that's just my opinion. Obviously we won't get in the top 6 either though. It was a mistake to promise that all of the money would be invested in the team. I don't know whether Pardew was told to say that knowing it was false, or he was led to believe it was true. I suspect the latter. Either way, no money has gone out of the club. Ashley hasn't taken a penny out. I've never said he's Mr Charitable, but he's not an asset stripper either.