quayside

Pistone?

Nailed on red card for a foul on Cabaye.

This was from June. He probably didn't knew what his situation would be come end of August. Barton apologist.

Probably had some sort of abuse like that - it's a fairly regular thing, not many of our squad have been spared over the years.

He already has, so have others, Ashley and his posse are c*nts. It's old news.

Agree we have lost a tough character and excellent player. And he may well not be replaced. But it's not always been a bed of roses whilst he's been here tbh. We've had one good full season from him but imprisonment, injury, that f*cking stupid sending off against L'pool, twittergate etc haven't helped the club's cause one bit. If he stayed we'd just be counting the hours until the next JB "incident".

He'll play it however he thinks will get him the most attention.

He also may have used that line because it's true.....He doesn't have any handle on Ashley's money, and that's the way it is at virtually every club.

We've never seen Sammy take a penna have we True, and have not seen him take a free kick either....

It's a bit weird that for penalties and free kicks our best shouts, by some distance, are Shola and Ryan Taylor respectively.

Sounds about right! I think he found himself with a shed load of cash after the SD float and fancied the idea of owning a football club so he could show off to his mates (such as Paul Kemsley). He found a willing seller in SJH and just wanted to get it done.

I'm not sure if you're saying funding the stadium with debt a good move or not. I think we were better off with a bigger stadium and £40m or so of debt on the balance sheet. As long as we were continuing to more or less fill the ground, that element of the business would be net cash positive. Interesting stuff on the other loans, would be interesting to know which forays into the transfer market they financed. I am saying the business case for the stadium expansion was excellent, and using debt to fund it was the only solution at the time. However as we reached the 2005-2007 era the club, as an entity, was suffering from financial mismanagement and wasn't generating positive cash flows, so servicing the debt was an issue.

It was affordable because it was taken out to finance the expansion of the stadium to 52,000 seats and a significant increase in our corporate hospitality capabilities- this was drawing in considerably more than the cash required to service the debt. If net-net the expansion makes money, it doesn't matter what the position is for the overall business. You need to look at that in isolation as a sensible move for the business. We had not (as far as I am aware) plugged cash flow gaps with additional loans, although the club was in a very worrying position with regards to its overdraft (and only a banker's sneeze away from being in a very uncomfortable position)- which is why I still find it odd that Ashley paid so much for the club when it was headed for a very rocky 12 months cash-flow wise. I don't think anyone would dispute the financial merits of the decision to expand the stadium, it was a truly excellent move in every respect. But in order to be able to afford to service a loan you have to be generating positive cash flows from your day to day business. And at the time Ashley took over we were not doing that. Contrary to what you say we did plug cash flow leaks with other loans and this was not purely done through an overdraft it was done through a variety of loans. As I said earlier these were at increasing rates of interest. The proof is in the 2007 accounts and we had collected loans as follows: - £42.5 million at 7.65% interest secured on future season ticket and hospitality income - £13.1 million at 8.55% interest secured on future sponsorship income - E4.5 million at interest of LIBOR +2.25% secured on the first team training ground - £8 million at11.72% interest secured on future broadcasting income - £1.5 million secured as a second charge on the training ground plus an overdraft of £11 million. Whatever method Ashley used to value the club it didn't have anything whatsoever to do with his perception of it's ability to generate positive cash flows. His lack of due diligence would have left him unaware of the true state of the finances.

Thought I wouldn't be far off with 2014 so if in 5 years all debts aren't paid off then Ashley has proved himself to be worse than shepherd financially, that's amusing Because under Shepherd we were definitely going to be able to pay off the debt as it fell due.........? I think it was either 2016 or 2017 and IIRC the loan was amortising using a 'locked-box' approach from ST revenues. The pressure would have been more on cashflow in the intervening period. Our problem at the point we were sold was not the debt- it was well-structured and affordable- it was the size of the wage bill and the impact it had on the cashflow. It was leaking cash at an alarming rate. You don't need due diligence to realise that- we knew as much from the plc accounts! As I said above it was 2016. How could the debt be affordable if the club was leaking cash at an alarming rate? Affordable means sustainable out of the clubs existing and future cash flows. Up until that point the club had simply plugged cash flow leaks with more loans at ever increasing interest rates.

Thought I wouldn't be far off with 2014 so if in 5 years all debts aren't paid off then Ashley has proved himself to be worse than shepherd financially, that's amusing Because under Shepherd we were definitely going to be able to pay off the debt as it fell due.........?

Struggling to envisage a reality where NUFC would have been a position (under Shepherd) to pay back £55m stadium redevelopment loan by 2014. Looking at those sick 2007 accounts I can only agree with that. I've put the actual balances due on the loans as at 30/06/07 in my post above. We also now know there was a fairly grotesque recession just around the corner, just how that would have affected Barclays' thinking is anybody's guess. Mind you I don't think that the bank would have done anything drastic simply because it would have been piss poor publicity for the bank that sponsors the Premiership to pull the plug on one of the teams that play in it.....I think Everton's debt is with Barclays as well.

The £43 million that was secured on ticket sales and hospitality receipts, was due to be repaid by 2016. There were also several other loans totalling £23 million that were repayable at various times up to 2010.

He knew most of it was there, he didn't know he would have to pay it off within two months. I still can't believe that Ashley didn't ask to see the terms of the various loans we had. It would have taken about 2 mins to check whether there was a change of control clause - which there would normally be anyway. Maybe he knew the clause was likely to be there, but he didn't think the bank would activate it. He may have thought the bank would regard the club as being in the hands of an owner with deep pockets and would be happy to continue the credit line. There is also the fact that the club was in the process of making a loss of £30 million for the year. Ashley would not have known that but the bank would have had an inkling, assuming there wasn't some seriously creative accounting info being fed to them.

He knew most of it was there, he didn't know he would have to pay it off within two months.

http://www.nufcblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Accounts.jpg From the 2010 accounts I didn't know that, interesting. As everyone says, will be fascinating to see what the next accounts say. I have repeatedly pointed these out before but the blind like to be blind. The note you and Jayson refer to merely says that certain amounts were repayable not that they were repaid. There is a huge difference. If you look a bit further you will find (on page 11 of the accounts) that Ashley had provided further funding of £7 million after 30th June. The accounts were signed on 5th January. This means that rather than taking any of his loan back he had, in fact, increased it to £147 million between 30th June 2010 and 5th January 2011. Surely if something was repayable it had to have been re-paid unless the terms were re-negotiated? The whole of Ashley's loan is repayable on demand, he hasn't demanded it so it's not been repaid - not that the club could repay it in one hit if he did demand it. Edit: that should say the bulk of Ashley's loan not the whole.

http://www.nufcblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Accounts.jpg From the 2010 accounts I didn't know that, interesting. As everyone says, will be fascinating to see what the next accounts say. I have repeatedly pointed these out before but the blind like to be blind. The note you and Jayson refer to merely says that certain amounts were repayable not that they were repaid. There is a huge difference. If you look a bit further you will find (on page 11 of the accounts) that Ashley had provided further funding of £7 million after 30th June. The accounts were signed on 5th January. This means that rather than taking any of his loan back he had, in fact, increased it to £147 million between 30th June 2010 and 5th January 2011.

Not really - that is how it works at just about every football club. Managers don't hold the purse strings and don't get involved with financial negotiations.

Agree. I think it's Llambias trying to portray himself up as the new Daniel Levy - and failing utterly.

The thing is that no one really knows who is pulling the strings at the Arse. Is it the board not releasing funds because they've got financial commitments, and using Wenger (and his reputation) as an excuse? Or is it really Wenger being stubborn and refusing to be seen to be pushed or pressured to do anything by anyone?

Warnock said he reckoned they'd get four or five players by the end of the window. Just can't see one of them being Barton though. Would be horrible. I may be getting a bit optimistic here, but I would hope one of those players is one of our shitty expendables. Thought the same last night. Get some Premiership experience in Neil. Get Alan Smith. Or James Perch. Why not go crazy and get both? and Lovenkrands. C*nt - beat me to it