quayside

Is that right? I would have thought that all our assets would have a value on the balance sheet. Not that I know much about this stuff! Players are valued at what they cost us. That value is then wrtitten down over the duration of the contract. Carroll cost us nothing so his value in the balance sheet would have been nothing.

I don't think the club selling Carroll for £35m shows that they lack ambition. Failing to reinvest that money back into the squad will show a lack of ambition. True, that is kind of what I'm trying to get at. I just don't think they will reinvest the a lot of the money, which is why I am bitter about the sale. TBH selling a player for the all time british record signing of an english player doesn't demonstrate that we'd sell our best players due to a lack of ambition. It shows that if you want our best players, you better be willing to cough up the dough to pay for them We'll see what happens with Enrique and Tiote in the summer ... I agree tottally with the sentiment of distrust that you have, I have it too. But there a number of reasons I'm certain that they won't leave 1) Where are they going to go? All the top teams have it covered 2)Even if a top team do want them as benchwarmers, are these teams gonna pay over ten million minimum for a benchwarmer? Mind you if we do go down they'll be gone as well as the fact that I don't hold high our chances of keeping them if we don't bring any players in. Hypothetically speaking ... Evra leaves Man Utd for a Barcelona/R. Madrid/Inter type club for £8 million. Guess who they come to first? Liverpool shed Konchesky ... they come for Enrique. Barcelona look for a long-term replacement for Abidal (plus he's Spanish). Man Utd finally get rid of Hargreaves, Tiote could be the athletic DM they've needed for years. Abramovich continues to pump transfer funds into Chelsea, so they bid £15m. West Ham stay up, and Redknapp finally gives up on Parker, guess which DM they come for. Call my viewpoint grim, but with these bastards as owners I've lost all optimism for this club. Just think we're going to become a conveyor belt for talent, Ashley's cash cow. Do you know what a cash cow is? Ashley will be lucky if he ever breaks even let alone makes a profit out of Newcastle United. I have a business degree ... so yes. You seriously think he can't turn this club into a "nice little earner" for himself? Decreasing wage bill, emphasis placed on "developing young players" to be harvested in the future - leading to increasing revenue from transfer sales. He sold Carroll for £35 million, Tiote and Enrique could realistically go for a combined £22 million. This situation would put him £47 million in profit from 3 players. Let's say Ben Arfa has a good season next term, he could be worth £12-15 million by the end of 2011/12. And he would still be considerably short of the £200M plus he has already invested into the club. So no, I think it is a long way from becoming a cash cow or a 'nice little earner'. Well he saved a good £55 million on wages last season alone. Even with the players we've signed since, our wage bill can only have gone up £15 million a year. I'd say compared to this time 20 months ago, our wage bill has decreased by at least £40 million a year. Neesy, I don't think Ashley is trying to get us relegated this season. 2008/09 however ... £55M, hahahaha. Where you getting those figures from? NUST??? No chance that owen, martins, viduka, beye, duff, bassong, xisco were on £55M between them. January 2009 - January 2010 (Being modest, I think) Given - £60k N'somnia - £30k Owen - £105k a week Bassong - £30k Viduka - £65k Martins - £75k Cacapa - £30k Beye - £30k Duff - £70k Gonzalez - £10k (being very modest) Geremi - £40k Comes to around £50 million a year. Given - £3m Insomia - £1.5m Owen - £5m Bassong - 500k (no chance bassong was on 30k) Viduka - £3.5M Martins - £3.5M Cacapa - £1.5M Beye - 1.75M Duff - £3M Gonzalez - 500k Geremi - £2.5M Grand Total Of: Around £25M a year. You need to back to school mate. To get £50 million I added the player sales to the saving in wages. I can't believe I've just witnessed Neesy schooling someone on N-O this is Hall of Fame worthy I thought it was pretty clear he was including the transfer value, to be fair... But yeah, this hasn't looked good, I'll give you that, heh... I didn't find it that clear tbh because his original post said: "Well he saved a good £55 million on wages last season alone."

...... on his all too infrequent days maybe. I'd still rather have honest pros playing for us and Ranger has the potential to be a better player than Martins. That said I wouldn't bet against him notching tomorrow because we've just seen it so many times before. And if our fans boo every time he touches the ball it will double the likelihood of him scoring.....

Carroll scoring at the Arse was one of the pivotal points in his career.

Yes. The whole debate about what clubs spend in the market is just a pissing contest. We've spunked big money on utter crap in the past but if we can bring in the players we need (say of the quality of Tiote) for not very much I really couldn't be arsed what our net spend is.

He's had all sorts of abuse on here "not a footballer" etc. But I like him, he's not a conventional wide player but he is a constant threat down our left that the other side cannot ignore. He draws in opposing defenders, wins free kicks and takes the pressure off our defence. He does a good job for us imo.

That'll probably be something to do with the fact they didn't properly 'sack' Di Matteo but rather placed him on gardening leave. di matteo was head coach as well He was. It's because WBA have a director of football (or similar title) and he will be Woy's boss.

Yes Taylor hand ball was given as a penalty - his arms were down by his sides, really was not a penalty

I've got a memory of Parker putting the ball in the net that night, it was disallowed of course, but my warped head is telling me it should have stood.

I suppose Woy is one of the very few known managers who might be able to handle reporting to Dan Ashworth instead of being the head honcho. He has worked in that structure before during his spells overseas.

Just when you think the club has exhausted all your reserves of emotional energy, the word gets out that Shola is going to play in a mask.

Can't we just discuss why Sepp Blatter is a c***? Would that be a capitalist c*nt or a mixed c*nt?

Had a feeling this thread might go off track a bit.

We certainly do not have great options up front. Although there were also concerns before the season started about our ability to score goals. In fact, as of now, only the top 4 sides in the league have scored more. We've even put a few in since AC stopped playing, so you never know how it will pan out.

Ah that good old commitment speech

It's done on annual income and in 2009/2010 we were in the Championship and our income was well down.

WBA have a director of football, so the job is chief coach not manager. No established manager is going to take it on.

http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/62/69/0,,12306~158050,00.pdf Campbell, S Taylor, Ameobi, Barton, Guthrie, Lovenkrands, Enrique, Smith, Best, Coloccini, Gutierrez, Harper, Nolan, Routledge, R Taylor, Williamson, Xisco, Forster, Krul, Perch, Tiote, Ben Arfa, Ireland. 24 + Kuqi = 25 Loan players can't be replaced (outside the deadline). Sorry if I'm misunderstanding this but why are both Ireland and Routledge included in our squad - one loaned in and one loaned out? Surely it would be one or the other?

When he gets on the pitch he just has to work hard. Thats all i'm expecting. Yup. Put himself about, be a nuisance, run into a few defenders, and try and keep the ball at the other sides end of the pitch when required.

people are acting like we should have been working from the end of december to bring in a forward anyway BEFORE we sold carroll on february 9th i was expecting us not to have to make joke signings like this We all know what happened and did not happen in January and the situation it left us in and its been discussed relentlessly on other threads. This thread is about a player we are signing as a temporary back up in February, who did you expect?

People are acting like this is the club's direct replacement for Carroll. Jesus Christ what were people expecting on February 9th? If he gets on the pitch he's a cheap f*cking body who might score a goal, might help us score a goal, might keep the ball at the other end of the pitch when we need it and will be gone in May.

The middle names are great Aye some corkers. Also, Alan Smith not having a middle name tickled me for some reason Peter Rosenkrands Lovenkrands And I'll bid Kevin Anthony Jance Nolan.

Room for 3 actually, Xisco and Routledge aren't on our list anymore if thats how it works number wise. Beat you by 1 second

Only 24 named on that list? And Xisco and Routledge are included (so is Ireland). Surely that leaves quite a few gaps that could be filled?

Yes the release of Routledge looks like a mistake right now. I would think that AP was thinking that the club would sign Larssen and he would have Gosling as a back up. Mind you Barton seems to be holding that position down at present.