Lotus

Bit like Gervinho...

If people behave like fans/supporters then of course. If people start to behave like customers instead then he's in a big pile of his own poo.

I really don't like being the kind of guy who pisses on others chips but Ashley's judgement since taking over Newcastle has largely been poor. Consecutive mistakes cost the club heavily. As the 2011/12 season hasn't even started let alone finished i have no idea if his judgement will prove any better this year. We'll wait and see. We certainly can't look to his past at the club for a good precedent though.

Well, you and I are a very long way apart in terms of satisfaction if that's the eventual outcome. So if we sign Ba and another striker, you still won't be satisfied? How many strikers were you expecting us to buy this summer? No, Dresden said if we didn't sign another striker he would be ok with that. That means he's ok with swapping Carroll for Ba. That's not good enough for me like.

Well, you and I are a very long way apart in terms of satisfaction if that's the eventual outcome.

Not predicting the future but so far the Carroll money has allowed us to sign 2 freebies with dubious injury records. This is what has actually happened so far.

We're without our 2 highest scorers from last season. You can't assume we're better until you the new lot play. It's nice to be optimistic but don't confuse it with facts.

Jesus H.

Was that NE5 using a ghost account?

What we have is an owner who's made lots of consecutive bad decisions that have cost him money and us good football. Now what i'm worried about is that his decisions will still cost us good football. If he can make money back, good for him, but as a fan, it's my entertainment i'm interested in. I don't think we're running at a loss anymore so i think having the club punch it's weight for a season or 2 would be appreciated given how he's f***ed up so royally from the day he arrived. He f*cked up royally with Keegan, Wise, Kinnear leading on to relgation etc etc and that cost him money. He did at least then have the sense to fund a very expensive squad in the Championship (I know some put that down to luck) so that we got back up. The key thing really is, as I said on another thread, what level of exposure is he prepared to accept on his investment in the club? I freely admit I haven't got a clue if he wants to reduce his loan from cash surpluses in the club or if he is ok with things as they are. I have to say I can't see anything to suggest he is prepared to increase that exposure. I love it when you use dirty words

I don't believe we need to sell players to balance the books. If we do then they're f**king useless at running this football club.

Of course it is, but if they increase in value it's because they're doing the business for us, in which case why would we sell them? We should be signing players who we expect to perform well for us and that's it. Their value increasing should be inconsequential unless they specifically want out of their own accord. The scenario that people seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about is if a player like Cabaye does well, and then three years down the line attracts the interest of a CL club, who offer a big fee. Well at the worst, we've got three years of good performances out of a player who we didn't have to invest a lot of money in. Who knows, we may be on the fringes of the CL ourselves, and able to persuade the player to stay. A lot of people are worried that Mike will rub his hands, and sell at a profit. That's not necessarily the wrong decision, if the money is re-invested wisely. The likes of Arsenal (Anelka, Overmars, Petit) and Spurs (Berbatov) have been able to progress by selling players on at large profits. The main concern would be if Mike pockets the money himself and uses it for purposes outside the club, like the Glazers. I can't see any evidence that that is his aim. The Carroll sale gets cited as an example, but even Keegan has admitted that he went for an inflated price that he wouldn't himself have turned down. The danger is that because Ashley isn't popular, everything he does gets seen negatively - even the signing of Cabaye. I know a lot of people on here aren't sold on the plan that the club are working to, but more importantly the players who have come in seem to have been convinced that we're on the right lines. The main concern for me is that if we sell players for a profit the money doesn't ADD to our transfer fund but gets absorbed in pushing down running costs which appears to have happened with the Carroll sale.

What we have is an owner who's made lots of consecutive bad decisions that have cost him money and us good football. Now what i'm worried about is that his decisions will still cost us good football. If he can make money back, good for him, but as a fan, it's my entertainment i'm interested in. I don't think we're running at a loss anymore so i think having the club punch it's weight for a season or 2 would be appreciated given how he's fucked up so royally from the day he arrived.

Of course it is, but if they increase in value it's because they're doing the business for us, in which case why would we sell them? We should be signing players who we expect to perform well for us and that's it. Their value increasing should be inconsequential unless they specifically want out of their own accord. This is my take on it. Buying a player as a financial investment is a different motivation to trying to improve a team sensibley.

I'm afraid it's made me more cynical tbh. The idea that we're signing players who will be 'hard to hold onto' unless we're challenging for europe and then NOT signing quite enough players to actually do that just makes me wonder if the board are buying stock, waiting for it's value to go up, sell on and then say to the fans that the player wants CL football and as we all know, we can't quite achieve that with the likes off Man City and Chelsea with their spending power blah blah blah. Sounds like they're already sowing the seeds of the idea of selling these players on. I so hope i'm just being negative but i just felt that, listening 'between the lines' so to speak, there's no actual intention to build a footballing side, just an enviroment where by players are brought in, given exposure and sold on for profit.

That's a good point but i suppose not all signings will work out so having someone with some stock left in them makes sense. A little voice in the back of me mind thinks it might be something else though.

I doubt we were ever really serious about Wickam because he hasn't proved himself worth them money. Sturridge i think would be out of our range (not what we can afford but what we'd be prepared to pay).

me too + swap colo and taylor Its not FM man........ Oh and i would have Marveaux over Jonas at home definately. Well done, you found the smiley i almost used for your stupid post. As if it matters what order you list the CB's in ffs You know, i agree the order of the CB's isn't particularly important but what i don't get is why you have to be such a high handed little bitch in around 90% of your posts. Am not tbh but if you dont like dont read them Edit: As i made a flipant comment in the first place it was only in response the the smiley but never mind eh? You are actually. You seem to enjoy being clever and you can a bit of prick about it imo. I'm not of a mind to put anyone on a ignore list so i have to read your posts along with all the others. Silly comments i can read all day long, i'm sure i make even make a few but shitty little comebacks get tiresome tbh.

me too + swap colo and taylor Its not FM man........ Oh and i would have Marveaux over Jonas at home definately. Well done, you found the smiley i almost used for your stupid post. As if it matters what order you list the CB's in ffs You know, i agree the order of the CB's isn't particularly important but what i don't get is why you have to be such a high handed little bitch in around 90% of your posts.

I don't know why he'd mention us then. I could understand if he was using our name to try and get the bigger clubs interested, but when he's already said he's had interest from Inter & Liverpool anyway, why throw in our name as well if we haven't expressed an interest? Seems a similar sort of player to Matuidi, same mould, same price bracket, etc. so could see us being interested in Sissoko if we're looking at Matuidi too which seems the case. sissoko is,from my limited viewings, the better player but if we couldn't get him then i wouln't be crying if we got matuidi. Matuidi on the left of a mid 3 with Tiote and Cabaye would have a certain balance to it.

Don't see how. Marveaux's best position is on the left. N'Zogbia's best position is on the right. Ben Arfa's best position is in the middle. Where does Jonas fit in? Or does he not count? Competing for a slot on either flank. Especially when we need someone to put a shift in.

Don't see how. Marveaux's best position is on the left. N'Zogbia's best position is on the right. Ben Arfa's best position is in the middle. Just going off Youtube, Marveaux is indeed and inside left forward. Going by my own eyes, Zog is naturally left sided but can play right and cut in. HBA looked like he didn't like to be tied to any particular position on the pitch!

Mate recently saw some of Yaya Toure's documents including bank statements. Wages were just over £366,000 per month (nett).

If we could get Sturridge for the same money who would you guys prefer?

Anyone got a little worry at the back of their heads that this is just a bluff to show Enrique/Barton/Nolan we're serious so they sign contracts and also to help ST sales? I mean, if we get him for 10M Euro then great, bargain, but being seen to be chasing these kind of players could just be us making a display of 'ambition.' Apologies if overly cynical.