Carlito

This thread seems to come around to this point on a weekly basis. They didn't meet the first asking price, therefore they mustn't have much money. If I had enough cash to buy a Mercedes but I decide to buy a Ford, do I just walk onto the forecourt and pay the sticker price? With every passing week the 'fair value' based on the probability of survival is falling. Someone charging in would have already seen £40-50m paid to Ashley that could otherwise have been invested in the squad and club facilities. My gut instinct is that the deal is largely done, there is no point announcing it and losing any 'new owner bounce' while the current squad continues to struggle. Most likely to be announced between the Man City and Brighton home games. There is also no reason why the potential owners have not already gone through the FA/PL processes in parallel such that the deal can be completed in the minimal possible timeframe. Honestly I mostly agree with this, though I think that last part is what they'll be doing now. I'd guess the meeting over a curry was them agreeing a deal, and the rest of this month will be them going through the final checks with the FA/PL.

Piss easy. 4-1

Hopefully nothing replaces it around the stadium as well and it's just removed. Hate what his branding has done to the overall look and feel of the place.

Can’t with FFP can we? Pretty sure it was said we could spend up to 85m within this season or something the other week.

Keegan back in any capacity would be amazing for us. Imagine having him as part of the transfer team? He could sell this club to absolutely anybody.

Imagine it man. STAAAVELEY - STAVELEY -STAAAAAAAVELEY we can't face this league alone, STAAAVELEY - STAVELEY...

He hasn't been away for long on his 'holiday'. A matter of days? :: House shopping for when the deal goes through.

It does though; why wouldn't it? The closer we are to no longer being a PL entity, the value is bound to decrease. And the more likely Ashley is to take the money and run. We're not really any closer or further away from being a PL entity though, it's December. Hopefully you're right about Ashley though obviously. That depends on whether or not you see us being able to shake off the losing mentality without any investment in January. Personally I can't see it because the players we have, even in the Championship last season were prone to silly mistakes and dropping their heads.

Stuff like this really is making a huge difference. Absolutely incredible, and thank you to everyone involved for all the hard work that has gone into making this possible.

We've only played 1 team you could class as around us for a while now. Watford, West Brom, Bournemouth, Leicester. Unless you mean in terms of quality in the side, then I agree A win against any of those and we'd have been top half.

I love that we have Rafa but he has to take his share of the responsibility now. He's getting it wrong every week, against teams around us.

Been saying it for ages. Brings absolutely nothing to the team. In fact he makes us worse. Complete waster.

In true Ashley fashion, he ordered two of the chicken curry for £6.50

He’s the Katie Hopkins of football, attention seeking that continues because they consistently get bites. 100% this. He just spouts a load of uninformed crap to get attention. He gets that attention because he's a confident speaker so people tend to think he actually knows what he's talking about.

Ashley screening his calls obviously

Game over I think

:lol: classic television

The difference being Rafa is having a go at the club, Pardew was sticking up for it. Its completely different, and comes from a man that actually knows what hes talking about. Don't really care tbh, i don't want to hear excuses regardless of what the reasons are. It's bullshit at the end of the day, we all know Ashley is a c*** of the highest order so what point are you making. Also you know damn well if anyone else said that they'd get lambasted, regardless if they are having a go at the club or not. What has he said there that is wrong? Was wondering that myself. As it was said, Pardew defended the club and criticized the fans in post-match interviews. He even dedicated wins to Ashley for f***s sake There's no comparison when Rafa is echoing everything we think about Ashley. You might not want to hear excuses but they're the reason we are where we are. The team isn't good enough and needs major investment. I mean it's just common sense surely? If you pay £5m for a striker, then you are going to have to be some sort of genius to turn them into a prolific goal scorer in the Premier. You could argue that we've got two more expensive strikers in Mitro and Gayle and we should play them...but even they aren't proven Premier level strikers. Right. I think anybody in Rafa's position with £5m and 24 hours left in the transfer window would have done the same thing, whilst hoping they can get something out of him. A throw of the dice is better than nothing at all. Kind of similar to Sibierski who, perhaps unexpectedly, did a respectable job on the cheap. You can't blame Rafa for Joselu missing the majority of chances he's missed though. Money buys quality, and these days £5m is a drop in the ocean compared to 10 years ago.

The difference being Rafa is having a go at the club, Pardew was sticking up for it. Its completely different, and comes from a man that actually knows what hes talking about. Don't really care tbh, i don't want to hear excuses regardless of what the reasons are. It's bullshit at the end of the day, we all know Ashley is a c*** of the highest order so what point are you making. Also you know damn well if anyone else said that they'd get lambasted, regardless if they are having a go at the club or not. What has he said there that is wrong? Was wondering that myself. As it was said, Pardew defended the club and criticized the fans in post-match interviews. He even dedicated wins to Ashley for fucks sake There's no comparison when Rafa is echoing everything we think about Ashley. You might not want to hear excuses but they're the reason we are where we are. The team isn't good enough and needs major investment.

Damning, that like. Poor Joselu though Serves him right for posing as a professional and missing 50 sitters. Having said that, he'll probably cry himself to sleep tonight reading that

If they had the right mentality it would be affecting them in the right way I'd have thought. Should the takeover go through then their futures are definitely in doubt because they aren't performing to the level they should be. Instead of feeling sorry for themselves you'd think they'd man up and show what they can bring to the table in order to secure their futures here. Yedlin, Ritchie, and Shelvey were practically walking back most of the time today from the looks of it.

It's definitely easy to think that way given everything he's done, but on the other side of the coin it's just baffling to think he'd want to throw away so much money from an offer he'll likely never see matched. It might sound a bit naive but would he really cut his nose off to spite his face when over 300m is on the line?

Yep. £50m wiped off the price after that performance. And yep Ashley and Rafa at the next board meeting.

Probably best to bottle up all the emotion for next week when Pardew's West Brom totally batter us