quayside

I've heard this from someone claiming to be ITK. Some years back Taylor used to go out with Carroll's current girlfriend (and now mother of Carroll's child). Taylor had started texting her recently for some reason, she told him to stop, he didn't. She told Carroll that Taylor had been texting her. Carroll confronted Taylor and the rest is history.

Anyone know Saylor's expected return date?

Thats the way it is. His job is to get the ball into areas that can hurt the opposition, but if he's losing the ball or going down a blind alley he'll try and get a free kick so that Guthrie or someone can put some pressure on instead. I don't like some of the stunts he pulls to get a free kick but he's just doing his job.......it's a cynical old game these days.

Dafter things have been said in this thread. Not sure I agree but there is some merit to the suggestion. The real problem is that some have some fanciful idea that football hasn't changed since Bobby's time as manager. It has and those changes in football finance have been significant. Abramovich and Mansour have wealth that very few anywhere can compete with. We will never have the organic growth and associated income of Man Utd either. Basically top level football is a game of how much money your owner has and it is worse than it has ever been.The days of John Hall and Jack Walker are well gone. The biggest decision we made in the last decade was how and when we replaced Bobby. Freddie f***ed that one up royally. That doesnt mean I appreciate Ashley by the way. I don't have much time for him or Freddie. Pointless thread really as most won't listen and several seem incapable. I strongly believe that relegation was not necessary - but apart from that slight difference agree with what you say.

Whether it's true or not, it will always look like Gibson blew it when he sacked Southgate. I suspect the decision to spunk millions on Alves was never forgiven, and in the whole process the bigger picture was bypassed and Boro ended up with a shitter manager.

Has to be an early contender for scariest thread title of the year.....

If anyone ever thought our current owner was some sort of do-gooder/philanthropist then a bit of basic research would soon set them straight. He's crapped all over people throughout his business career, and very few people who get as far as floating a company on the stock market and pocketing almost a £billion in cash in the process are any different. It's the real world and it won't change. Our main source of comfort has to be that he was rich enough to be able to fund his mistakes and, although different views prevail as to why it happened, he found a way back to the Premiership. And if any of the fans of our previous board want a happy thought to help them sleep they can just remember that when Ashley bought this club he got well and truly shafted. If he's prepared to get out, write off a good chunk of money, find an owner who understands the business (and has deep pockets) then it's possible that there is a God.

What a fantastic comparison Hiddink Because its not about managerial ability, its about standards and being lied to, so any man worth his salt wouldnt have been impressed with what was going on, obvious really, but I assume you already know that too? PSV Eredivisie Winner : 1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2005–06 KNVB Cup Winner : 1988, 1989, 1990, 2005 European Cup Winner : 1988 Real Madrid Intercontinental Cup Winner : 1998 Chelsea FA Cup Winner (1): 2009 Netherlands UEFA Euro 1996 Quarter Finals 1998 FIFA World Cup Fourth Place South Korea 2002 FIFA World Cup Fourth Place Australia 2006 FIFA World Cup Second Round Russia UEFA Euro 2008 Semi Final Keegan Newcastle United Football League Division One: Champion 1992–93 Fulham Football League Second Division: Champion 1998–99 Manchester City Football League Division One: Champion 2001–02 England Euro 2000 : Group Stages I think the fact you are pretending I'm comparing Keegan & Hiddink as manager's in terms of achievements says it all, your not reslly interested in having a sensible conversation are you? More interested in your ' eeee god look how far out he is '. I was comparing how ANY manager would have felt when Dennis Wise told them the Gonzalez story. I'm sure someone like Hiddink would not accepted stuff like that, like most managers. I think you already knew that, but were still sad enough to dig up every detail of the cv's of both managers. Why did you compare his reaction to what you suppose Hiddink's would be then? Because its not about managerial ability, its about standards and being lied to, so any man worth his salt wouldnt have been impressed with what was going on, obvious really, but I assume you already know that too? There's potentially nothing wrong with the system they wanted to implement. The problem was that they didn't make it clear who had what roles, and that they ultimately appointed the wrong people/personalities into every role in their system. If they wanted a manager who would work under a director of football, Keegan should have been a million miles away from the top of their shortlist. Likewise Redknapp.

they will have to be shrewd if the reported wage levels are anything to go by, do you think the recent signings are good enough for the premiership, do you know the length of their contracts ? Bob, we wont actually know until we see the likes of Routledge, Williamson etc play in the EPL. What I will say is that the likes of Dann, Johnson at Birmingham, Lescott at City, Baines at Everton and quite a few others, have come from lower divisions and done well in the PL so it is not beyond the realm of mpossibility that our signings will also succeed. Furthermore, if you look at the teams near the bottom of the PL, I dont think any of them are that much better than us, if at all. Also, there are plenty of good quality players around who would more than likely jump at the chance of coming to NUFC at realistic prices and whilst most peoplke on here would like to see Arsenal type football played, realism says that workmanlike performances are the order of the day under Hughton and that hasnt done the likes of Birmingham, Villa, Everton any harm this season at all. Maybe we can see a sim ilar response next season. I've seen these players, I'm not going to watch the smoggies or anybody else, as you are telling people to do, but I don't think they are as good as the players he has sold. What do you think of them ? You are probably right there, to a certain extent. However, the players who left, no doubt, with the undoubted skill they had, failed miserably to mput that skill to good use for the club. Ask yourself, how many have suceeded since they moved! Given, Milner are the only ones I can think of. Viduka retired, Owen spent most of the season benched as did Beye, Martins at Wolfsburg? What has he done there? Even Edgar at Burnley cant get a game there. So, as for their undoubted skill, yes, they were skillful but only when they felt like it which wasnt very bloody often, was it? The players coming in have substantially less salaries, points to prove and who knows yet, maybe huge successes in the PL. I would much rather be top of the CCC at the moment than bottom of the PL. Your comment about managers was very relevant and certainly a major mistake by Ashley last year, which so far, he has learned in his backing of Hughton. I actually think CH will do well next year and believe he deserves a great deal of credit for this season's success. Ashley put his faith in him and he has rewarded that faith, so far. Lets look ahead and not back. I don't think Hughton will do well, especially with one hand tied behind his back and being forced to buy cheap players. Ashley lost his best chance of succeeding when he lost Keegan, he then had a chance to rectify it by backing and appointing Shearer, if only to unite everybody in the short term, but he blew that as well. He had the support of supporters at first but he has lost it himself. Take your point if you mean uniting the fans in the short term, but we don't know whether all the players would have united under Shearer. Ashley has made many mistakes but I can't see a scrap of evidence that rejecting Shearer was one of them. Listening to the anti Ashley chanting at games and feeling, it will take a lot to change that. Doesn't address what I said. What evidence is there that rejecting Shearer was a mistake? The fans have certainly had a bit of a chant about Ashley but does that mean rejecting Shearer was a mistake? Fans shout about a lot of things. There was a lot of moaning about Caroll and Jonas (and others) earlier in the season, so does that prove that Hughton sticking by them was a mistake? Would you be convinced Hughton knew what he was doing if one week he praised Carroll & Jonas, saying they were the best players we had in the squad and we were going to build the team around them, then dropped them the next week and never played them again? I don't give a toss what Hughton says about his players in public, it's totally irrelevant as most managers talk shyte at times in the media. And what's more I have no idea the extent to which Hughton knows what he is doing, or how much influence he has on what happens on the pitch. I'm just making a ridiculously simple point - that there is no evidence that appointing him instead of Shearer was a mistake.

they will have to be shrewd if the reported wage levels are anything to go by, do you think the recent signings are good enough for the premiership, do you know the length of their contracts ? Bob, we wont actually know until we see the likes of Routledge, Williamson etc play in the EPL. What I will say is that the likes of Dann, Johnson at Birmingham, Lescott at City, Baines at Everton and quite a few others, have come from lower divisions and done well in the PL so it is not beyond the realm of mpossibility that our signings will also succeed. Furthermore, if you look at the teams near the bottom of the PL, I dont think any of them are that much better than us, if at all. Also, there are plenty of good quality players around who would more than likely jump at the chance of coming to NUFC at realistic prices and whilst most peoplke on here would like to see Arsenal type football played, realism says that workmanlike performances are the order of the day under Hughton and that hasnt done the likes of Birmingham, Villa, Everton any harm this season at all. Maybe we can see a sim ilar response next season. I've seen these players, I'm not going to watch the smoggies or anybody else, as you are telling people to do, but I don't think they are as good as the players he has sold. What do you think of them ? You are probably right there, to a certain extent. However, the players who left, no doubt, with the undoubted skill they had, failed miserably to mput that skill to good use for the club. Ask yourself, how many have suceeded since they moved! Given, Milner are the only ones I can think of. Viduka retired, Owen spent most of the season benched as did Beye, Martins at Wolfsburg? What has he done there? Even Edgar at Burnley cant get a game there. So, as for their undoubted skill, yes, they were skillful but only when they felt like it which wasnt very bloody often, was it? The players coming in have substantially less salaries, points to prove and who knows yet, maybe huge successes in the PL. I would much rather be top of the CCC at the moment than bottom of the PL. Your comment about managers was very relevant and certainly a major mistake by Ashley last year, which so far, he has learned in his backing of Hughton. I actually think CH will do well next year and believe he deserves a great deal of credit for this season's success. Ashley put his faith in him and he has rewarded that faith, so far. Lets look ahead and not back. I don't think Hughton will do well, especially with one hand tied behind his back and being forced to buy cheap players. Ashley lost his best chance of succeeding when he lost Keegan, he then had a chance to rectify it by backing and appointing Shearer, if only to unite everybody in the short term, but he blew that as well. He had the support of supporters at first but he has lost it himself. Take your point if you mean uniting the fans in the short term, but we don't know whether all the players would have united under Shearer. Ashley has made many mistakes but I can't see a scrap of evidence that rejecting Shearer was one of them. Listening to the anti Ashley chanting at games and feeling, it will take a lot to change that. Doesn't address what I said. What evidence is there that rejecting Shearer was a mistake? The fans have certainly had a bit of a chant about Ashley but does that mean rejecting Shearer was a mistake? Fans shout about a lot of things. There was a lot of moaning about Caroll and Jonas (and others) earlier in the season, so does that prove that Hughton sticking by them was a mistake? don't you think the anti-Ashley feeling would have stopped if Shearer had been appointed ? Briefly - and then Shearer would have been judged on results. And if the team hadn't delivered on the pitch it would have been the same carnage as if Hughton hadn't delivered. But the fact is Hughton has delivered so there is no evidence that Ashley made a mistake in this case. And btw Hughton had far more experience of coaching and training football teams than Shearer. And yes of course he was cheaper....

they will have to be shrewd if the reported wage levels are anything to go by, do you think the recent signings are good enough for the premiership, do you know the length of their contracts ? Bob, we wont actually know until we see the likes of Routledge, Williamson etc play in the EPL. What I will say is that the likes of Dann, Johnson at Birmingham, Lescott at City, Baines at Everton and quite a few others, have come from lower divisions and done well in the PL so it is not beyond the realm of mpossibility that our signings will also succeed. Furthermore, if you look at the teams near the bottom of the PL, I dont think any of them are that much better than us, if at all. Also, there are plenty of good quality players around who would more than likely jump at the chance of coming to NUFC at realistic prices and whilst most peoplke on here would like to see Arsenal type football played, realism says that workmanlike performances are the order of the day under Hughton and that hasnt done the likes of Birmingham, Villa, Everton any harm this season at all. Maybe we can see a sim ilar response next season. I've seen these players, I'm not going to watch the smoggies or anybody else, as you are telling people to do, but I don't think they are as good as the players he has sold. What do you think of them ? You are probably right there, to a certain extent. However, the players who left, no doubt, with the undoubted skill they had, failed miserably to mput that skill to good use for the club. Ask yourself, how many have suceeded since they moved! Given, Milner are the only ones I can think of. Viduka retired, Owen spent most of the season benched as did Beye, Martins at Wolfsburg? What has he done there? Even Edgar at Burnley cant get a game there. So, as for their undoubted skill, yes, they were skillful but only when they felt like it which wasnt very bloody often, was it? The players coming in have substantially less salaries, points to prove and who knows yet, maybe huge successes in the PL. I would much rather be top of the CCC at the moment than bottom of the PL. Your comment about managers was very relevant and certainly a major mistake by Ashley last year, which so far, he has learned in his backing of Hughton. I actually think CH will do well next year and believe he deserves a great deal of credit for this season's success. Ashley put his faith in him and he has rewarded that faith, so far. Lets look ahead and not back. I don't think Hughton will do well, especially with one hand tied behind his back and being forced to buy cheap players. Ashley lost his best chance of succeeding when he lost Keegan, he then had a chance to rectify it by backing and appointing Shearer, if only to unite everybody in the short term, but he blew that as well. He had the support of supporters at first but he has lost it himself. Take your point if you mean uniting the fans in the short term, but we don't know whether all the players would have united under Shearer. Ashley has made many mistakes but I can't see a scrap of evidence that rejecting Shearer was one of them. Listening to the anti Ashley chanting at games and feeling, it will take a lot to change that. Doesn't address what I said. What evidence is there that rejecting Shearer was a mistake? The fans have certainly had a bit of a chant about Ashley but does that mean rejecting Shearer was a mistake? Fans shout about a lot of things. There was a lot of moaning about Caroll and Jonas (and others) earlier in the season, so does that prove that Hughton sticking by them was a mistake?

they will have to be shrewd if the reported wage levels are anything to go by, do you think the recent signings are good enough for the premiership, do you know the length of their contracts ? Bob, we wont actually know until we see the likes of Routledge, Williamson etc play in the EPL. What I will say is that the likes of Dann, Johnson at Birmingham, Lescott at City, Baines at Everton and quite a few others, have come from lower divisions and done well in the PL so it is not beyond the realm of mpossibility that our signings will also succeed. Furthermore, if you look at the teams near the bottom of the PL, I dont think any of them are that much better than us, if at all. Also, there are plenty of good quality players around who would more than likely jump at the chance of coming to NUFC at realistic prices and whilst most peoplke on here would like to see Arsenal type football played, realism says that workmanlike performances are the order of the day under Hughton and that hasnt done the likes of Birmingham, Villa, Everton any harm this season at all. Maybe we can see a sim ilar response next season. I've seen these players, I'm not going to watch the smoggies or anybody else, as you are telling people to do, but I don't think they are as good as the players he has sold. What do you think of them ? You are probably right there, to a certain extent. However, the players who left, no doubt, with the undoubted skill they had, failed miserably to mput that skill to good use for the club. Ask yourself, how many have suceeded since they moved! Given, Milner are the only ones I can think of. Viduka retired, Owen spent most of the season benched as did Beye, Martins at Wolfsburg? What has he done there? Even Edgar at Burnley cant get a game there. So, as for their undoubted skill, yes, they were skillful but only when they felt like it which wasnt very bloody often, was it? The players coming in have substantially less salaries, points to prove and who knows yet, maybe huge successes in the PL. I would much rather be top of the CCC at the moment than bottom of the PL. Your comment about managers was very relevant and certainly a major mistake by Ashley last year, which so far, he has learned in his backing of Hughton. I actually think CH will do well next year and believe he deserves a great deal of credit for this season's success. Ashley put his faith in him and he has rewarded that faith, so far. Lets look ahead and not back. I don't think Hughton will do well, especially with one hand tied behind his back and being forced to buy cheap players. Ashley lost his best chance of succeeding when he lost Keegan, he then had a chance to rectify it by backing and appointing Shearer, if only to unite everybody in the short term, but he blew that as well. He had the support of supporters at first but he has lost it himself. Take your point if you mean uniting the fans in the short term, but we don't know whether all the players would have united under Shearer. Ashley has made many mistakes but I can't see a scrap of evidence that rejecting Shearer was one of them.

I think the idea is if you are running a football club as a business (as opposed to the Man City, Villa model) it's virtually impossible to make it work if you spend more than 50% of your income on wages. The last set of accounts for us were when we were in the Premiership in 2007/2008. Income was £100m wages were £70m and other running costs were £50m so we lost £20m as a result. Whereas if wages had been at 50% of our income we would have broken even - so in our case the theory sort of works. Fair point although I'd imagine a large amount of the other costs were debt repayment. No. The other costs are things like the running costs of SJP (and the training ground), the write off of player transfer costs, publicity etc. There was no repayment of debt in 2008, and even if there was it wouldn't form part of the overall profit or loss. In fact if what we are told is correct there has been no repayment of debt since 2007 when Ashley took over, which is when he replaced the club's existing external debt with his own money.

I think the idea is if you are running a football club as a business (as opposed to the Man City, Villa model) it's virtually impossible to make it work if you spend more than 50% of your income on wages. The last set of accounts for us were when we were in the Premiership in 2007/2008. Income was £100m wages were £70m and other running costs were £50m so we lost £20m as a result. Whereas if wages had been at 50% of our income we would have broken even - so in our case the theory sort of works.

wages maybe closer to 50% of turnover but that will mean little if he uses any excess to pay his loans back before the club is ready. I agree he has a lot to prove next season, like I said he has to spend some cash in the summer, we can't expect huge sums to be spent but he has to buy quality and replace the likes of Butt and Nolan. And yes he has to hold back on getting some of his loans back but nobody can predict what he'll do, but the question is, is mike ashley steering Newcastle in the right direction, I can't see how the answer can be no. At the very very best, if all you (and they) say is true and he's making the tough financial decisions to sort us out and the past year has been beneficial in terms of cost cutting, then I think the most you could say would be that he's put the brakes on our decline and there's a lot more work to do to start moving in the right direction. I don't believe that's the case though because, as I've said, the debt has been increasing at a far greater rate since Ashley arrived (and continues to do so). If we go up all The Ashley supporters are insisting he'll spend the money needed to keep us up....undoingh all the "good work" he's done bringing down costs. It's a logical fallacy. I've seen nothing to suggest he would spend whatever is needed to guarantee Premiership survival. The two options for me are either punting that we creep through somehow with a minimum spend - or he tries to sell the club sharpish.

How do you know he was pissed?

I hate your f*cking posts on finance. I find myself trawling back through old sets of accounts only to discover that you are usually wrong Not that anyone was particularly interested in club finances at the time but: In 1998 the club had £25 million of cash sitting on deposit a long term £15 million bank loan was the only debt, on a turnover of £45 million wages were only running at 54% and the clubs net worth was £55 million. In 2001 the club still had £16 million of cash on deposit, the debt had risen to £55 million as a result of the stadium expansion, on a turnover of £55 million wages were running at 49% and the clubs net worth was £23 million. In 2007 Ashley inherited something far worse than this. Ive explained the June 2007 financial situation more than once and am not going to do so again. To say we had been in a worse situation in the past is complete and utter crap. Although your post was not directed at anything I said, just for the record I certainly don't think trying to get an accurate view of what happened in the past is in any way some sort of defence of the c*ck ups Ashley has perpetrated since he took over. It is just a matter of putting where the club was at the time of the takeover into full perspective. I don't have accounts from back then, so I can only go by what's on nufc-finances It has a net debt in 2001 of £66m http://www.football-finances.org.uk/newcastle/2007/assets15.gif In 2000 before income from the expansion started coming in it has turnover at £45.1m and wages at £28.9m, ie 64.1% http://www.football-finances.org.uk/newcastle/2007/payrol12.gif http://www.football-finances.org.uk/newcastle/2007/income6.gif If his figures are wrong I wish you or one of the other accountants had told him ages ago, because I don't think he's interested in us any more and is more concerned with Premier League clubs now it's mission accomplished with NUFC. The only thing I know about that website is that the author used to post on here and piss NE5 off. I've never had the time or inclination to do any sort of detailed review of what's on there. To be honest I never took much of an interest in the club's financial state until Ashley took control and Mort started talking about it. The website does seem to get confused on what is debt and what is normal trade creditors though.

I hate your f*cking posts on finance. I find myself trawling back through old sets of accounts only to discover that you are usually wrong Not that anyone was particularly interested in club finances at the time but: In 1998 the club had £25 million of cash sitting on deposit a long term £15 million bank loan was the only debt, on a turnover of £45 million wages were only running at 54% and the club’s net worth was £55 million. In 2001 the club still had £16 million of cash on deposit, the debt had risen to £55 million as a result of the stadium expansion, on a turnover of £55 million wages were running at 49% and the club’s net worth was £23 million. In 2007 Ashley inherited something far worse than this. I’ve explained the June 2007 financial situation more than once and am not going to do so again. To say we had been in a worse situation in the past is complete and utter crap. Although your post was not directed at anything I said, just for the record I certainly don't think trying to get an accurate view of what happened in the past is in any way some sort of defence of the c*ck ups Ashley has perpetrated since he took over. It is just a matter of putting where the club was at the time of the takeover into full perspective.

Sounds like Ashley still hasn't won everyone over then Whether by luck or some sort of judgement, or maybe a combination of the two, the set up this season should be adequate to get us back in the Premiership. I really can't believe Ashley is here for the long haul so, if promotion is achieved, I think it's likely we will see yet another attempt to sell as soon as the season is over. The club has to be more marketable with its guaranteed TV revenues, and that plus the lower cost base will push it towards viability. In the sell scenario the main concern is obviously who is out there to buy it? We can only hope it attracts a stellar investor. Some may find it hard to believe but there could be worse owners than Ashley. Even NE5 believed that iirc. Its quite possible that we end up with an owner as clueless as Ashley was when he bought in, but without the funds to pay for the mistakes.

It's comments like this that make me about some of our support, football is emotive, but after 12-18months you'd hope that people would start to get a sense of perspective, particularly when other events in the footballing world unfold and shed some light on the underlying situation at every business. Footballing-wise, there have been some horrendous mistakes made, especially the attempt to sign Harry Redknapp (wtf?!) then the doomed appointment of KK; however, it is noticeable that their decisions are improving (even if it's just because they are making fewer of them). Business-wise, we can only really go off the numbers published at the end of every year, as we all know that the club have deliberately misled the supporters in the past. To date, the financial situation is improving, so I find it hard to fault Ashley for those decisions. So what's the problem with HTL's point??? The "whole series of bad decisions" made by the "inept wankers" led a lot of people to draw the conclusion that they were deliberately trying to destroy the club. The ineptitude is beyond question. Drawing the conclusion that were deliberately trying to destroy the club is laughable. 1. Did ashley deliberately buy the football club without understanding exactly what he was buying? 2. Did ashley deliberately appoint Keegan? 3. Did ashley deliberately install a system that would not possibly work with a manager of that temperament? 4. Did ashley deliberately back Wise over Keegan? 5. Did ashley deliberately appoint a bloody joke as a manager? 6. Did ashley deliberately appoint a coach as a manager? 7. Did ashley deliberately appoint Shearer as manager, a man has no previous experience, thereby showing his panic at the situation? 9. Did ashley deliberately put the club up for sale then withdraw it from sale more than once, undermining the entire football club? 10. Did ashley deliberately see a surplus of money from transfer dealings during Jan 2009? 11. Was the club relegated by 1 point at the end of that season? Whether the b****** deliberately set out to ruin the club is not the point because nobody said that anyway, but his actions have lead to almost total ruin of the football club and there is no excuse. It wasn't just his actions though, you can't simply ignore what went on beforehand under Shepherd where we borrowed heavily and sooner or later the belt would have to be tightened. You can't just roll Souness and Allardyce's time here under a carpet when so much damage was inflicted by these appointments. I never have. I know they were bad appointments, especially sourness. I've said so numerous times. I also know that those who are somehow supporting ashley now are the same people (like mandiarse) who were telling everyone to give sourness time to build his own team. I also remember that when I posted I didn't want the Board to back Sourness with money in the January window I was slated and told that the Board HAD to stump up the cash otherwise they would be confirmed as being s****. I do understand that people want to whinge on about the previous Board because we had a good team but didn't win the title, especially after only signing 3 players in 2003 when we should have apparently signed half a team, but everything Ashley has done has been far worse than anything done by the previous Board. So what? The previous board sold up and f***ed off with the money because they wanted to. No one held a gun to their head otherwise they could still be here now...and in fact if they wanted to invest some cash they could buy it back same way as Ashley did. But they won't because they don't want to put their money in Newcastle and neither does anyone else. Until someone does it's pointless whingeing at the only bloke who's putting anything in no matter how reluctantly he's doing it. how much are supporters putting in ? How many people on here go to games If you mean what the club collects annually in Matchday revenues it's not known for this season yet. When we were in the Premiership it was between £30m and £35m every year between 2005 and 2008. Edit: On your second question - don't live locally any more so go to about 5 home games a season. don't supporters put more money into the club than Mike Ashleys says he is doing ? Supporters won't get it back like he will do when he sells too. Does he not realise that dropping down a league has hit revenue ? In that respect the supporters always have put more money in than the owners, the only difference now is that the current owner is putting something in himself. Explain how he will get back what must now be well over £250million when he sells the club? And yes it may well have occurred to him that revenue has dropped since relegation.

Like who? People normally mention David Dein at this point, not a cat in hell's chance he'd decamp to SJP especially if it was purely as a salaried employee. Anyone know what Rick Parry is doing since he was bounced out of Liverpool?

It's comments like this that make me about some of our support, football is emotive, but after 12-18months you'd hope that people would start to get a sense of perspective, particularly when other events in the footballing world unfold and shed some light on the underlying situation at every business. Footballing-wise, there have been some horrendous mistakes made, especially the attempt to sign Harry Redknapp (wtf?!) then the doomed appointment of KK; however, it is noticeable that their decisions are improving (even if it's just because they are making fewer of them). Business-wise, we can only really go off the numbers published at the end of every year, as we all know that the club have deliberately misled the supporters in the past. To date, the financial situation is improving, so I find it hard to fault Ashley for those decisions. So what's the problem with HTL's point??? The "whole series of bad decisions" made by the "inept wankers" led a lot of people to draw the conclusion that they were deliberately trying to destroy the club. The ineptitude is beyond question. Drawing the conclusion that were deliberately trying to destroy the club is laughable. 1. Did ashley deliberately buy the football club without understanding exactly what he was buying? 2. Did ashley deliberately appoint Keegan? 3. Did ashley deliberately install a system that would not possibly work with a manager of that temperament? 4. Did ashley deliberately back Wise over Keegan? 5. Did ashley deliberately appoint a bloody joke as a manager? 6. Did ashley deliberately appoint a coach as a manager? 7. Did ashley deliberately appoint Shearer as manager, a man has no previous experience, thereby showing his panic at the situation? 9. Did ashley deliberately put the club up for sale then withdraw it from sale more than once, undermining the entire football club? 10. Did ashley deliberately see a surplus of money from transfer dealings during Jan 2009? 11. Was the club relegated by 1 point at the end of that season? Whether the b****** deliberately set out to ruin the club is not the point because nobody said that anyway, but his actions have lead to almost total ruin of the football club and there is no excuse. It wasn't just his actions though, you can't simply ignore what went on beforehand under Shepherd where we borrowed heavily and sooner or later the belt would have to be tightened. You can't just roll Souness and Allardyce's time here under a carpet when so much damage was inflicted by these appointments. I never have. I know they were bad appointments, especially sourness. I've said so numerous times. I also know that those who are somehow supporting ashley now are the same people (like mandiarse) who were telling everyone to give sourness time to build his own team. I also remember that when I posted I didn't want the Board to back Sourness with money in the January window I was slated and told that the Board HAD to stump up the cash otherwise they would be confirmed as being s****. I do understand that people want to whinge on about the previous Board because we had a good team but didn't win the title, especially after only signing 3 players in 2003 when we should have apparently signed half a team, but everything Ashley has done has been far worse than anything done by the previous Board. So what? The previous board sold up and f***ed off with the money because they wanted to. No one held a gun to their head otherwise they could still be here now...and in fact if they wanted to invest some cash they could buy it back same way as Ashley did. But they won't because they don't want to put their money in Newcastle and neither does anyone else. Until someone does it's pointless whingeing at the only bloke who's putting anything in no matter how reluctantly he's doing it. how much are supporters putting in ? How many people on here go to games If you mean what the club collects annually in Matchday revenues it's not known for this season yet. When we were in the Premiership it was between £30m and £35m every year between 2005 and 2008. Edit: On your second question - don't live locally any more so go to about 5 home games a season.

I'm fully aware Hall wanted to sell and had done so for a number of years before Ashley came along, I've said so on numerous occasions. It was well known he wanted to sell long before anyone was predicting imminent financial meltdown (in fact in spite of freely available sets of accounts on the club website I don't seem to remember any of those predictions until after Ashley tbh). He managed to do so and attract potential buyers without appointing short term interim managers or putting the whole club in limbo over the Summer though. I mentioned the stock market value as that is the price Ashley had to pay to buy the club at the time. Whether the club was worth that figure was down to the potential buyer to decide, but it wasn't some arbitrary figure put on the club by the Halls, Shepherds and the other shareholders. The club was for sale, and it was for sale at the market value. If you are going to take the point of view that complaining about the running of the club is "pointless whingeing" if the club is up for sale, then you have to surely agree that it was pointless whingeing back then too. Really not sure what you're on about with the price rise once the "word on Hall's discussions with Ashley got out". Unless I missed it there was no hint of it until it was deal done with Hall. Ashley bought the shares off Hall for £1 per share, and he bought the rest for £1.01 per share. Hardly a rocketing increase. There's not much detail on the share price graph in the article you linked to, but it looks like a steep but gradual increase in shareprice throughout 2007 at a time when a large increase in TV revenue had been announced and Premiership football club ownership was becoming fashionable amongst those looking to make a name or a profit. I would imagine the graph would look similar for any other club on the stock market at that time. Ashley may have paid a few pennies per share extra, but saying it was "nowhere near £130 million" is simply not true. I believe Shepherd would have loved to have bought the club, the minor problem of him not having enough money to be able to afford it MAY have been one of his reasons for him "chosing" not to. Just guessing there though. The freely available sets of accounts did not include projections, hence the insolvent position and the full extent of the situation at 30th June 2007 was not known about by anyone outside the club until the accounts were filed in 2008. And 2008 was, of course, post Ashley. I have never defended the way Ashley sought to sell the club. Arguably he was doing what plenty of people had been urging him to do, but the effects of his doing it the way he did in the early part of the 2008/2009 season were nothing short of catastrophic. I don’t think his efforts to sell last summer made a lot of difference to anything much as it turned out. FWIW I think his decision making is getting better, but his PR through Llambias is still a disaster. The only market price of anything is the one that someone is prepared to pay and that was obviously the basis of the deal when Ashley bought in. The stock market is a reactive mechanism and as I said it simply responds to known or widely believed information, hence when a good or poor set of results are published there is a reaction. Similarly it reacted to it being known that there was a serious possibility of the club being sold, and it reacted on the news of Ashley’s negotiations with Hall. The only other clubs I can find whose share price reacted in the same way at that time were as a result of takeover speculation (Birmingham and Spurs). You say: “If you are going to take the point of view that complaining about the running of the club is "pointless whingeing" if the club is up for sale, then you have to surely agree that it was pointless whingeing back then too.” You’ve lost me with that. I just don’t see what your point is. I would guess everything is for sale at a price but is the club up for sale now? If it is it’s being kept very quiet. And who was whingeing about the club being up for sale back then? I was just making the point that it clearly was up for sale and the previous (majority) owners wanted out imo. I think Ashley paid over the odds for the club (entirely his fault) although you obviously don’t. Values of football clubs are highly subjective since most of them don’t make money but I don’t think we were worth twice the price that Lerner paid for Villa. Not that it makes any difference now. Maybe Shepherd could not afford the club on his own but he was certainly aware of the possibility of getting backing to buy it. And, as I said, he had had plenty of opportunity to do something like that. Oh and thanks for drawing attention to my “chosing” typo – classy

There are just a few people other than Ashley putting something into the club either directly or indirectly, and their combined contribution far exceeds Ashley's. Llambias for one would do well to remember this. So to paraphrase the above post - no one should complain about anything Ashley does because he bought the club and no one else is willing to pay the price he has put on it to buy it off him, so "whingeing" is pointless? Your choice, but not for me. The mere fact that the chanting is annoying Llambias and Ashley show that it is not in fact totally pointless. For now it may not have the desired effect of getting him out of the club, but at least it encourages articles such as this to counter the "Mike saved the club" spiel that's once again being pushed out to anyone who'll listen. BTW, I hope no one agreeing with BT's post was "pointlessly whingeing" about the old board (or even encouraging people to protest and boycott matches) when Hall was looking to sell but no one until Ashley was willing to pay the stock market valuation for the club. That would be a bit hypocritical wouldn't it. Not sure what your point is about the stock market value tbh. Stock markets react to known situations and known negotiations. The stock market value of the club was about half what Ashley paid for it until the previous board starting seriously touting it around. Remember Polygon and Belgravia? Belgravia even completed due diligence, and I can assure you from my own experience you do not go through that unless you are a willing seller. And even after that it got nowhere near £130 million until the word on Hall's discussions with Ashley got out. Just one further point, Shepherd had plenty of opportunity to buy it if he had wanted to. He obviously had his reasons for chosing not to. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6904072.stm