quayside

Totally agree but it demonstrates the danger of paying too much attention to what the fans say tbh. The exodus from the stadium at the last home match of the 2004 season and the reaction to the opening games of the next played an important part in that decision imo. As the saying goes "be careful what you wish for". The board of a football club needs to be able to rise above that. Ashley/Mort may have made the same mistake - they have certainly taken a risk.

I agree. Sam should never have been sacked! Bollocks! He was and still is a joke of a manager with an ego the size of the town moor I doubt whether anyone on here really thinks that Sam is/was a top class manager. But the real issue is whether the decision to replace him in mid season with someone who is not obviously better was correct. And when I say not obviously better lets not forget we are talking about someone who has not managed for 3 years and whose only spell of real success ended 11 years ago. Unless they were confident of landing a replacement with a proven track record (see Spurs) the decision to sack him when they did was an unjustified risk imo.

It only goes up to 2006, but how are these clubs still in operation with year on year losses? Villa Blackburn Everton Man City Boro Football clubs are no different to any other business. If continuous losses are made over a number of years then the losses have to be funded by someone. That can be done in 2 ways - by borrowing or by equity finance. You would need to look at the balance sheets of all of those clubs to see how they are funded. I haven't done that but the information is available if anyone can be arsed to find it. Man City and Villa were plcs before their take overs so I would guess that they were funded by external debt (as opposed to loans or equity from the owners). Blackburn is funded by the Jack Walker Trust, Boro by Steve Gibson (and consortium I think). Everton is privately owned by a number of people - the major players are Kenwright with 25%, the Gregg family have about 23% and John Woods 19%. But I don't know how they are funded - looking at some of the stuff on UV's link about them it suggests they have had a few financial problems over the years. Going back to Newcastle. You can clearly see that the losses have been funded by external borrowing and the previous shareholders hadn't put anything in (at least not for several years). Nothing wrong with that but at some point the club would have to generate positive cash flows sufficient to pay off that debt as it fell due. And recent cash flows had been negative. It's stating the obvious but success on the pitch is the most sure fire way of making a Premiership football club pay its way. How you define success depends on the size of the club and its infrastructure. For Wigan or Fulham say it might just be staying up, but for us its more than that.

Word.

Chelsea's debt is about £500 million if that helps. The key difference with Chelsea compared to the others is that virtually all of their debt is owed to the owner of the club, whereas the others have external debt. I don't understand. What's the difference between Chelsea's situation and ours? Think he's on about the rest of the 'big 4' rather than us. As I see it he's saying Chelsea have a £500 million debt which is owed to Abramovich as he has been spending his own money on the club, whereas we have zero debt because Ashley paid it off with his own money, rather than we have a £75m debt owed to Ashley. It may be just a technicality, or it may be significant in some way. That's what I don't understand. I was talking about Chelsea compared to the rest of the top 4 as Alex said. As far as we are concerned Ashley put in £75 million but I don't know if it went in as a loan or as equity because it happened after the 2007 year end and the exact details aren't in the latest accounts. Interesting. I'd guess he probably did the same as Abramovich. So actually when people talk about Ashley having payed off the club's debts, in all probability the debts have effectively just changed hands and we don't know what the terms of the loan are (ie Ashley may still be charging the club interest on the loan). Could be.

Chelsea's debt is about £500 million if that helps. The key difference with Chelsea compared to the others is that virtually all of their debt is owed to the owner of the club, whereas the others have external debt. I don't understand. What's the difference between Chelsea's situation and ours? Think he's on about the rest of the 'big 4' rather than us. As I see it he's saying Chelsea have a £500 million debt which is owed to Abramovich as he has been spending his own money on the club, whereas we have zero debt because Ashley paid it off with his own money, rather than we have a £75m debt owed to Ashley. It may be just a technicality, or it may be significant in some way. That's what I don't understand. I was talking about Chelsea compared to the rest of the top 4 as Alex said. As far as we are concerned Ashley put in £75 million but I don't know if it went in as a loan or as equity because it happened after the 2007 year end and the exact details aren't in the latest accounts.

Chelsea's debt is about £500 million if that helps. The key difference with Chelsea compared to the others is that virtually all of their debt is owed to the owner of the club, whereas the others have external debt. Only because Roman has ok'd that, I think in another scenario this could still be precarious for the club. Roman has financed it that way so that if he ever decides to sell he will get the vast majority of his money back no matter what valuation is put on Chelsea Limited. The Chelsea debt is interest free and requires 18 months notice of repayment. So yes it certainly has its risks - the main one being Roman himself. But if he did call the debt in it would put Chelsea into a potential insolvency and he'd have a big risk of not getting all his loan back.

Chelsea's debt is about £500 million if that helps. The key difference with Chelsea compared to the others is that virtually all of their debt is owed to the owner of the club, whereas the others have external debt.

How much was the original loan? I'm sure it wasn't much different to £45 million. Sorry - don't know when the loan notes were first taken out or what their original value was. I only can go back as far as 2004 and they were in existence then. There was an agreed repayment schedule which would have resulted in them being paid off in 2016. But as I said the takeover triggered an early repayment.

UV posted - "I hadn't seen that article actually, so fair enough. He does keep harping on about it though. Am I wrong in thinking that a large part of that £75m was due to the stadium loan which had to be refinanced because of the takeover? ie if we had not been taken over that wouldn't have been part of the equation and was a long standing debt which was paying for itself over time? FWIW I'm not saying there wouldn't have had to be cutbacks under the old board, or that the takeover was a bad thing, just that we weren't as close to bankruptcy as is being mad" You are right about the debt. £45 million was repayable in instalments ending in 2016. The takeover triggered a clause in the loan agreement to the effect that the lender could call the debt in with 60 days notice. So Ashley got stuck with that. The other £30 million that Ashley put in was to satisfy the auditors that the club could carry on trading as a going concern. It was technically insolvent at 30th June 2007 so the auditors would have needed that assurance.

Yes, Mort tries to give that impression at every opportunity he can doesn't he. Actually it's the accounts that give that impression. A loss of 32.9m for a 12 month period and an injection of 75m needed to prevent the auditors qualifying the accounts as not being a going concern, according to the Guardian. Yes - that is more or less what the accounts say. Whether insolvency was a certainty without Ashley is another issue. The club would have had to find some more funding to get the auditors to give it an unqualified report. They had in fact spent nearly £3 million on a project designed to achieve that iirc. They probably would have got the backing from somewhere but it would obviously involve more debt and I can't believe that there would have been huge pots of money to spend on transfers in the near future. FWIW although the club is on a more secure financial footing now I don't think that Ashley and Mort should be beyond criticism for their running of it.

Rubbish. The fault is the man who employed Souness followed by Roeder followed by Allardyce. If Shepherd had employed a top European manager after Robson, to take over an excellent group of players, we would have moved forward and upwards. Instead, Souness was given the job. Ashley and Mort would have to take some responsibility if we go down. Ashley bought the club in the summer and it was his decision to keep Allardyce on and then not give him much financial backing. This was despite the fact that many clubs around us were investing more heavily. It was also Ashley/Mort's decision to adopt a cautious approach in the transfer market so that players were sold before players came in resulting in transfer targets being missed. It was Ashley/Mort's decision to sack the manager despite not having a replacement lined up. And when their first choice turned them down it was their decision to take the risk of appointing a manager who hadn't managed a club for 3 years. And it was their decision to do this in a transfer window at a time when the club was not mathematically safe from relegation. Whatever anyone may think of those decisions Ashley and Mort have to held responsible for the consequences of making them. and there you have it. Although some people would watch us sliding down to the 3rd division and just as long as he doesn't call our women dogs or say we are idiots for buying 40 quid shirts [i mean who is daft enough to pay 40 quid for a football shirt] then he'll be better chairman and owner than the fat b****** and the Halls. Just for the record I didn't intend my post to be a ringing endorsement of the old board by the way. It's just a list of decisions Ashley/Mort have made that have imo played a huge part in where we find ourselves now. Some of the more "questionable" decisions they have made are almost direct repeats of decisions made by the old board that (admittedly with hindsight) we now know to have been highly damaging mistakes. I know. I don't deliberately intend myself to make ringing endorsements of the old board either, but just by pointing out that the things they did do right maybe suggests they did a lot more things that were right than people realise, or in some cases, are prepared to admit and I don't mean you. I just agree with you completely that, for better or worse, its been Ashleys club since last summer so its all been his responsibility ever since. If he didn't want Allardyce he should have replaced him, or backed him. It was his choice. he did back him to the tune of what the previous board did on average didn't he ? he also backed him more than Gordon McKeag but didn't break the world transfer record did fat fred break the record every season ? no so why should ashley. telll you what, put your stats where your gob is and post the season on season net spend since shepherd took over then we'll compare. Sorry to butt in here but it's difficult to put a comparison like that in context tbh. You'd have to factor in the way revenues available from TV matches etc have grown. FWIW I think the only meaningful comparison of what we spent in the summer and in January is with clubs like Villa, Spurs, Man City maybe even Pompey now. Clubs similar to us.

Rubbish. The fault is the man who employed Souness followed by Roeder followed by Allardyce. If Shepherd had employed a top European manager after Robson, to take over an excellent group of players, we would have moved forward and upwards. Instead, Souness was given the job. Ashley and Mort would have to take some responsibility if we go down. Ashley bought the club in the summer and it was his decision to keep Allardyce on and then not give him much financial backing. This was despite the fact that many clubs around us were investing more heavily. It was also Ashley/Mort's decision to adopt a cautious approach in the transfer market so that players were sold before players came in resulting in transfer targets being missed. It was Ashley/Mort's decision to sack the manager despite not having a replacement lined up. And when their first choice turned them down it was their decision to take the risk of appointing a manager who hadn't managed a club for 3 years. And it was their decision to do this in a transfer window at a time when the club was not mathematically safe from relegation. Whatever anyone may think of those decisions Ashley and Mort have to held responsible for the consequences of making them. and there you have it. Although some people would watch us sliding down to the 3rd division and just as long as he doesn't call our women dogs or say we are idiots for buying 40 quid shirts [i mean who is daft enough to pay 40 quid for a football shirt] then he'll be better chairman and owner than the fat b****** and the Halls. Just for the record I didn't intend my post to be a ringing endorsement of the old board by the way. It's just a list of decisions Ashley/Mort have made that have imo played a huge part in where we find ourselves now. Some of the more "questionable" decisions they have made are almost direct repeats of decisions made by the old board that (admittedly with hindsight) we now know to have been highly damaging mistakes.

I'll discuss it if we go down. Until then it's a moot point. Whether we go down or not from this point on will have very little to do with what Ashley & Mort do now. That is in the hands of the manager, the players, and the other teams in the scrap. It is the decisions they have already made which have put us in the position where relegation is a distinct possibility. It's like saying it's okay to drink drive if you don't kill anyone. The decisions at the start of the season were cautious, which was understandable if frustrating for us as supporters. The decisions in January were high risk, showed a lack of understanding of the seriousness of the situation, and are deserving of criticism whatever the outcome. Keegan had 9 days to try and sign players in the transfer window. importantly, players that he wanted. At that point relegation was not on the radar and the decision was made to wait till the summer to get genuine targets which was sensible what we are seeing now is people coming out of the woodwork armed with a shitload of hindsight, now that we have failed to pick up points. If you are talking about people on this board that is a huge generalisation. Opinions were mixed about the sacking of Allardyce, the lack of a replacement, the timing of the sacking and the appointment of Keegan.

Yes. So what are we supposed to be discussing? That Ashley is a t*** or a hero? Or both at the same time maybe? That he has to be responsible for the consequences of his decisions. No idea if he's a twat or not tbh.

Yes.

With us playing Spurs, Hammers, Toffees and Pompey and Liverpool away and then Chelsea at home, I think it's fair to say we have 6 nailed on defeats to.. True but we do have a 3 point lead over Bolton.

Rubbish. The fault is the man who employed Souness followed by Roeder followed by Allardyce. If Shepherd had employed a top European manager after Robson, to take over an excellent group of players, we would have moved forward and upwards. Instead, Souness was given the job. Ashley and Mort would have to take some responsibility if we go down. Ashley bought the club in the summer and it was his decision to keep Allardyce on and then not give him much financial backing. This was despite the fact that many clubs around us were investing more heavily. It was also Ashley/Mort's decision to adopt a cautious approach in the transfer market so that players were sold before players came in resulting in transfer targets being missed. It was Ashley/Mort's decision to sack the manager despite not having a replacement lined up. And when their first choice turned them down it was their decision to take the risk of appointing a manager who hadn't managed a club for 3 years. And it was their decision to do this in a transfer window at a time when the club was not mathematically safe from relegation. Whatever anyone may think of those decisions Ashley and Mort have to held responsible for the consequences of making them.

We'll survive just and Keegan will be hailed by many as the Messiah who saved us from Allardyce. Cue the open top bus etc

Yup - was aware of that. Was there not plans afoot to build a new casino in town though? Either way, just regurgitating what I was told. The source is also no Walter Mitty - that's all I'll say. The man who he is connected to may well be, however and also has the motive for an agenda against the new owner. ffs

Although some of us aren't addicted at all - we are force fed.

Basically it's a given that you don't sack a manager in the Jan window. Particularly if you haven't got someone who is obviously better lined up - and even more so when you haven't got anyone at all lined up.

That is the only game he hasn't started when he's been available. He had missed the previous one v Spurs due to suspension. Conspiracy theory - maybe the clause says he doesn't get an automatic start following a spell out of the squad through suspension/injury.

Which means (like most in the thread) you miss the point being made entirely. Which is? I think his point is that when Spurs sacked their manager they got ina world class replacement in Ramos. When we sacked ours we got in Keegan... That's more of a description of events than a point. Maybe, but when Spurs sacked Jol, there wasn't any doubt who was going to replace him. The board decided that the time for him to go and started lining up the replacement. What Spurs did wrong was getting caught in Spain by the media. What Newcastle did wrong was to sack Allardyce and then think about who they could appoint to replace him. They thought about it, asked Redknapp, Redknapp thought about it, then said no, asked KK, he thought about it, then said yes. In that time the window was nearing closure and there wasn't enough time to recruit the players that the club desperately needed. That's where Ashley and Mort went wrong. Not the sacking of Allardyce but the failure to have someone in place to fill his seat. Indeed. If you sack a manager you need to do it at the right time and you must have someone who is obviously better lined up. Our previous board failed that test at least once and, in my opinion, the new board has made exactly the same mistake. Maybe they did it because they hadn't studied the clubs recent history to see why we went from being a top4/5 club to lower mid table - or maybe they had but just thought they knew better.

I agree with most of that except for where we would be with Allerdyce, I don't think we would have a single point more. In some ways I wish he was still here, just so he could get the stick he deserves and suffer the s**** we're having to suffer, instead of sitting at home with all those £millions. Well I don't think we'd have been humped like we have recently under Allardyce but who's to know. Would we have been better off spending £6 million on sacking Allardyce or keeping him on and spending that money on Lassana Diarra? what part of 90k don't you understand?? I assume that question refers to Diarra's alleged wage demands. I have no idea if that is what he was after or if it was just media crap. What I do know for certain is that he was available in January and whatever he cost and whatever he wanted as wages Portsmouth were prepared to meet. He is a young international player and is way better than what we have at present. If you are happy watching cloggers like Butt and Smith attempting to play deep midfield for us then fine - but I'm not. I find it depressing enough that we have lost so much ground to the top four that they are now out of sight. We have also lost ground to clubs like Villa, Everton and Spurs. Are we now expected to watch Portsmouth join the list (if they haven't already)? There is no bargain basement route back - it needs money and if we aren't prepared to meet the costs required then we can sit back and become the new Middlesbrough.