quayside

Shepherd may have been an ignorant fat c*nt but why would Hitzfeld have ever even considered coming to us? He's nearly 60 years old, has spent all his career managing Geman or Swiss clubs and we are, lets face it, more than a gnats cock away from Champions League football.

Still behind bars - bail refused - giving video evidence tomorrow (I think?).

Surprised that a lot of people on here seem to think Owen won't start.

£6 million for Enrique i have to admitt he has spent badly I heard he stormed out when he wasn't even on the bench for Derby, can't blame him. Probably BS like but it wouldn't suprise me So he really is the new Bert Luque....

I see this question has a thread of its own now - so er yeehaw like...

A question - Can those anti Sammers who describe him as pathetic, a c***, clueless, a bulsh1tter etc provide a realistic list of replacements who would be guaranteed to do a better job? I'm not trying to be too confrontational here I am genuinely interested in who people think 1) would accept the job if offered it and 2) would definitely do a better job and 3) why you are sure they would do better. If you want to turn the clock back a few months to the time he was appointed and look at the same questions thats fine as well.

Smith was better than martins today. Martins was f****** s*** and looked to be in the huff in the first half when he couldn't be bothered to move his arse. It's bizarre how people see things differently. I thought Oba had a good go at playing wide right today until we switched when Duff came on. As I saw it they had about 2 shots on target (the second one was a very poor goal to concede imo), scored both and that created a sh1t load of pressure. We looked ok going forward for the most part - anyway scoring 2 at home against Derby should = 3 points.

Ignoring the agenda driven opinions, this is correct. The whole balance of the team is wrong, I've been saying so for over 12 months, the sale of Solano and Dire - even though he disappeared down a big hole for many matches - has made it worse. Somebody at the club decided not to replace Solano, and Dire with someone who actually plays. Was it Allardyce's decision, if so he wants shot. Or was it a financial decision by the club ? If it was, to balance the books, and if this is going to be their approach, stand by for real mediocrity. Those who prefer balancing the books will then have nothing to complain about. This is a fairly basic point and it would be nice to know the answer. Solano and Dire both wanted to go mate, for different reasons, but they did. One I was happy to see the back of, the other not so. I've no agenda my friend - you're not a bit paranoid by any chance

Hmm... thought Smith played an important part in our (admittedly scrappy) first goal. I also thought we didn't win today due to piss poor defending especially on their second goal. Agree though that Dyer (as a footballer) and Solano were not replaced last Summer. I don't know if Sam wanted them gone or not - I had the impression at the time that both of them moved because they wanted to not because we wanted them to.

Doubly bitter as he was Roeder's mate too. Now he gets nowt from the boardroom and not much off the coaching staff either. It would be different if he was consistent but he always tended to play down the poor performances under Roeder. Under the reigns of Souness and Roeder he hardly ever blamed the manager (or for that matter Chairman, focussing mainly on the foreign players who wouldnt give him interviews. How many times did he often cry that it wasnt Roeders fault the coffers were dry. Martins and NZogbia were often cheap and easy targets, taking the brunt of criticism. He obviously didnt want to ruffle the feathers in the managers office. I'm jumping to conclusions but i'm sure it wont have escaped Allardyce's attention that whilst he managed Bolton, Oliver wrote several damning articles on him following Newcastle v Bolton games. If SA is loathe to give Anal an exlusive or interview then to pettily snipe at him from Thomson House is nothing short of pathetic. I've seen a huge change in the context of his recent articles. I don't believe he is getting his interviews anymore. His supposed "exclusives" are all straight from .co.uk too. There have been a couple of instances recently where the players and Allardyce have specifically rubbished stories that originated from Anal. I'm thinking of the "3 senior players went to Allardyce complaining" story strongly denied by Given and Harper. There was also the "Allardyce spoke to Erickson about Man City's interest in buying Owen" story denied by Allardyce.

I think the big difference was the feel good factor. We had the pain of losing a match to a s**** Wolves team, missed out on a CL place. Then as you say go forward year we beat Chelsea with 10 men & which meant we WON a Intertoto place. We drew with the s**** Wolves team, which was bad enough at the time. Going forward a year the players were cheered off after we drew with Chelsea to finish 14th and no European football. As #9 says it was bizarre as there was nothing much to feel good about there. The Intertoto celebration was a further year after that and understandable considering we'd been in about 15th spot at the beginning of February when Souness was sacked.

True. Can't believe people are writing him off already (if they are). A great signing. Just hope the c*nt stays out of prison.

You can put all sorts of interpretations on who replaced who in the summer transfer window. But as I see it Geremi replaced Solano and Smith replaced Dyer. Geremi and Smith don't even begin to offer us what Nobby and Dyer did. And let's just, for a moment, think about Dyer the footballer and forget the baggage.

Born and raised in Tynemouth - but have lived in the south since I was about 6 years old. No idea if I'm a Geordie or not but I've only ever looked out for one team.

He has not managed in the lower leagues though & his English is pish. The same applies to Shearer tbh.

why do you ask? We beat Leicester and then drew with West Ham, but I'm not sure what it proves further than I've already said which was to answer your question. We also finished 11th the following season, when he had 3 transfer windows (jan/summer/jan) to improve things, but still we gave him more time, and it paid dividends in the 3rd season. because i think we will lose our next three games Well if we lose the next two (which has to be a real possibility) and assuming Sam then survives for the home game against Birmingham on the 8th - lose that and surely it's adios.

No problem at all with that, that's the way you have to be in business unfortunatley. He didn't become a billionaire being a nice guy I'm sure! Too true - the key fact about Ashley is he's done it himself. Can anyone name a "self made" nice guy billionaire?

Jimmy Bullard has a face that could stop a clock tbh.

If you think we've even got a hope of signing Huntelaar when Chelsea have already made it clear he is one of their targets, its time for a reality check - if we lose Owen - highly likely in my opinion - we are going to have a hell of a job getting anyone who will score 20 goals per season ; City are already doing well without him and even if he misses half their games, he will do enough to get them into the Top 5 - probably at our expense... No chance of us getting Huntelaar unless we pay him incredibly high wages, like Owen high ... He won't be at Ajax for long, that's for sure. Especially as he now has Bert Luque competing for his place in the starting line up

The bit in bold above is regularly trotted out by scousers as being proof that Owen was gutted at having to join us. I have always wondered how Ballague would have known about Owen's tears - was he in the North of England at the time mixing it with Owen's nearest and dearest?

But now that the club is private I doubt accounts will ever be filed publicly. Private companies don't have to file annual reports. We'll probably never know exactly how he invested the money. Not so - all UK companies have to file accounts at Companies House. And for the sum of £1 you can download them from the Companies House website.

Strange quote from Eriksson "Sam Allardyce is a fox" :parky:

The 2nd scenario you mention doesn't seem to tally with the way it has been described, i.e. him putting his own money in. Some clarification is needed though. In either scenario it would still be his own money. The money has been used to pay off an external lender but it's a case of whether he has put it in as as capital or loan. If it's capital then it does not form part of the debt of the club. If its a loan then it would still be shown as debt but would just be from a different lender. Sorry - don't want to get into too much bean counter speak here but there is an important distinction. I don't know about anyone else but I think it's quite scary for Chelsea that they owe Abramovich well over £400 million. Could get entertaining for the rest of us if it all goes wrong at Stamford Bridge though I know it's still his 'own money' in either case but at no point has a loan been mentioned. The club is private now so there is no requirement to say anything tbh. By the same token at no point has share capital been mentioned. Has it ever been publicised that Abramovich has loaned Chelsea more than £400 million? You tell me, you're the one who brought it up Not that I have seen - plenty of coverage of how many zillions Abramovich has invested but I've never seen owt about what sort of funding it is.

Your scenario is really just a technicality though. Unless I''ve missed something St James Holdings now owns all of the share capital of Newcastle United, and Ashley owns all of (or if not the significant majority of) the capital of SJH. Therefore the only person Ashley has to answer to in terms of the accounts of Newcastle United is Ashley himself. Hence, whever the money was put into the club as share capital (highly unlikey imo) or just effectively gave the club the cash is irrelevent unless there is a structured repayment (again I doubt this to be the case in the short term at least). Ashley (for all his good work so far) is unlikely to die as the owner of Newcastle United, therefore he will be looking to ge this money back (including the debt repayment) at that point. He can (theroetically) make more return on his cash by leaving it in the club (more funds = better transfers = more prize money) than he would in a bank. Sorry if thats a bit muddled, just grabbing 5 mins here at work so can't proof think this through! No that's not muddled. Think you are right about St James Holdings and can't disagree with the rest of what you say. My point was more aimed at whether the loan has been wiped or not and the difference between capital and loan finance. The Abramovich example is an extreme one but I think its interesting that he has not shown the commitment to convert so much of his funding into capital. Makes Chelsea Limited's balance sheet look extremely sick as well! What does that mean in laymans terms? It means that, due to the loans owed to their owner, Chelsea are technically insolvent (by about £300 million) and if Abramovich was so minded he could pull the plug on it. But if he had put the money in as capital instead of loan that danger (although remote) would not exist. There's a further subtle difference. With a loan the money can be demanded by the lender and it would be extracted from the club - for us this is not the doomsday scenario it would be for Chelsea but it means money would leave the club permanently. With share capital it's easy to put the money in and difficult to get the money out unless the shares are redeemable preference shares, a special class of share which can be cancelled. Typically to get your money back on normal shares you have to sell them on. Therefore if Ahsley has put the money in as share capital, I would take it as a vote of confidence in the club, a sign he wants to invest for the longer term, and doesn't - like certain corpulent former shareholders - want to get money out of the club in the short term. Quite. We'll just have to wait until the next accounts are filed to find out how the finance has been structured.