quayside

Kinnear is old school and 4-4-2 is all he knows. He hasn't got the wit to try anything different. When he subs someone it never results in a change of formation just a re shuffle of 4-4-2. The nearest I've seen to something different was away at Chelsea when we went 4-6-0.

Pretty much a like for like with N'zogbia in terms of where he can play. I find it remarkable that some people think that he wouldn't be an improvement on Duff (can't comment on Lovenkrands yet). He's a full England international, 24 years old, comfortable on the ball, has some pace and can actually take a free kick (anyone spot that?). We now live in a world where James Milner went for £12 million so that has set a benchmark for valuations of young English players. As we languish in the nether regions of the Premiership, and will probably continue to do so, how anyone can believe that, in our current state, he isn't good enough to play for us is beyond me. Anyways it's academic - the deal (if it ever existed) was dead in the water.

Ah, yes, so those who support Ashley do it because they are intelligent and knowledgeable people and those who do not do it because they are stupid. That's the reasoning of an idiot. To spell it out for you: your reasoning is the reasoning of an idiot. Ashley knew what he bought, or at least he should have. Most clubs have huge debts, and Newcastle's were known to be particularly bad. The debts and the cost of running the club were part of the price. If he couldn't afford it, he shouldn't have bought it. That's stupid. Demanding some ambition is not: without it, the club is headed for relegation. Ashley deserves no more sympathy than a landlord who lets his house fall down. Yup - can only agree with that. Whilst it is irritating to hear people wrongly accuse Ashley of pocketing money and not putting money into the club, he really should not have got involved in something that he could not afford to run properly. It is also quite obvious he knows very little about what it takes to run it successfully. In fact his running of Sports Direct has some remarkable similarities with what he has done at Newcastle. It looks like his decision to buy the club was spur of the moment and nothing more than a "hey look at me I'm a real big boy now I own a Premiership football club"moment.

JK hasn't shown any inlcination to experiment so far, even when he's had available players to do so. Straight down the line 4-4-2 with fit players selected in the the very predictable pecking order of experience over youth.

OK, I realise people are pissed off, but why has the finances thread been forgotten? The club is losing £20m a season. How exactly is Ashely pocketing cash? It's not.. Just a paper "loss".. OK, Ashley is putting £20m a year in to cover wages. Better? Nope, we made a loss due to player amortisation. Means nothing in terms of cash flow. I see. So in terms of cash flow where did the £30 million of new cash that Ashley put into the club during the year end up then? I'd be interested in seeing that actually. What was the clubs total cash coming in and total cash going out? (so no amortisation, none of Ashley's money ect, just club revenue minus real cash costs). I'm not claiming he's made money by the way, I'd just be interested in seeing that if you'd be so kind, just whenever you've got time. Its on the finances thread but I'll stick it on here as well: This is a basic cash flow for the year ended 30th June 2008 Cash out from day to day operations £5 million (Income roughly £99m less wages £70m and other operating costs about £34m) Interest paid on loans that have now been repaid £8 million Money paid out for players bought £27 million Money paid out for other assets £3 million Loan repaid £70 million Total out = £113 million Money in from sale of players £8 million Net cash going out = £105 million (£100 million funded by Ashley, the rest by the bank) So Ashley put in £100 million of which £70 million paid off old debt, meaning £30 million was used to keep the club going. There's no "paper loss" about that £30 million.

OK, I realise people are pissed off, but why has the finances thread been forgotten? The club is losing £20m a season. How exactly is Ashely pocketing cash? It's not.. Just a paper "loss".. OK, Ashley is putting £20m a year in to cover wages. Better? Nope, we made a loss due to player amortisation. Means nothing in terms of cash flow. I see. So in terms of cash flow where did the £30 million of new cash that Ashley put into the club during the year end up then?

is Taylor better than Duff on the wing? he certainly isn't better than N'zogbia. Horrible window yet again Really..a player from Bolton and one from wigan?? Shows how low our expectations are..buying off clubs around us.. Yep should have signed Lampard and Ronaldo. No one's asked for massive signings FFS Just an improvement on our squad I think we have done that. we have. but most people made their minds up months ago that we havent. In what way do you feel we've improved the squad? given wanted out and handed in a transfer request. little we can do about that. harper is a more than adequate replacement and is free. £6 million up + big wages gone. just a loss/a draw at best. n'zogbia WAS NEVER GOING TO PLAY FOR US AGAIN. lovenkrands WILL PLAY FOR US. £6 million up. win by default. nolan is better than butt, smith, geremi and is far more reliable than barton. win. taylor plays in many positions and is a decent squad player (squad depth innit). win. overall, improvement. not a huge one but an improvement. Every striker we have is carrying some kind of injury.. We only have two fit fullbacks ..... (I include Taylor in that) We have very little creativity from the middle of the park. There is no real pace in the team apart from Oba. Too many injured players, 17 year old untried kids on the bench. FFS man! we arent man city. we have essentially zero money so we weren't going to hugely improve the way most expected/demanded. We are also not Darlington, our owner has got a few bob and I know he has put a lot of money into the club already, however when we go down........... he'll be wishing he'd spent in January. he doesnt have as much money as you want him to have. i realise it was too late, but he did bid £16 million for 2 midfielders and we have been bidding for players throughout the window. how good kinnear is at "doing deals" should also be questioned. If we'd really been bidding for players all month (which I seriously doubt) we should have done better in the window and Ashley appointed Kinnear, (which imo was also a mistake). I'm afraid the buck stops with MA, who are you, his Dad? yes, the buck stops with him to a point. he's clearly given kinnear money but he hasnt spent it well (nolan seems fairly kneejerk and taylor was exchanged). Astonished that someone still believes that Kinnear has anything whatsoever to do with player transfers tbh.

Anonymous as in playing his first game with a bunch of strangers as team mates, putting in a shift and having the wit to get in position on the goal line to stop the other side scoring...

I doubt Kinnear has much say on how much we will accept for a player. True - I doubt he was even consulted.

Yup - heard that and posted it earlier on another thread http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php?topic=52480.7440 Someone in the know told me Defoe did not travel with Spuds today so could be true.

Have him. I'm done defending him and sticking by him. How the f*** can a striker not be able to play with another striker is beyond me. I mean, i can understand if a striker can't play as a lone striker but not being able to play in a 4-4-2 is a joke. He can't play with Pav, he can't play with defoe, he couldn't play with Keane and he couldn't even form a partnership with Berbatov. How can you not play with Berbatov ffs. Redknapp has made it obvious he dosn't rate him and i'm pretty sure we're open to offers for him (if we sign a striker that is). Even if we dont, a good bid will probably see Redknapp sell. Let me add that i do think he's a pretty decent/good player if playing for the right team (Everton, villa ect) and playing as a lone striker. I hear that Defoe has knacked himself in training today so would be surprising if Bent is released.

Rumour he's going to Hull for £2 million. No link, just a rumour I heard.

Meaningless link. Firstly its dated April 2008, and you may have noticed that the financial world is a different place now. Secondly the press haven't got a clue. He got £900 million when Sports Direct floated. How does anyone know whether he's spunked most of it on gambling, doubled it with shrewd investments in the stock market (he'd have to be pretty f*cking clever with whats happened in the last few months mind) or given it to a dogs home? The total market value of his holding in Sports Direct is now only worth about £200 million, having been 6 times that a couple of years ago. Don't believe what you read in the press when it comes to people's wealth.

In real money (ie cash) the loss for the year was the amount of money Ashley had to put in to keep the club going - £30 million. And that sum included very little invested in players, it was mostly just to make sure the club could pay the players and meet its minimum financial commitments. Is the net debt included in the accounts? If so is the change in net debt not a truer reflection of the actual monetary loss in a year? Is part of that £30m held as working capital sat in a bank collecting interest (replacing the overdraft facility we had)? Can anyone PM me a link to the accounts so I don't have to keep asking questions? (Before anyone says it I realise there's a need to have working capital, and am not suggesting we can just go out and spend it on players, I'm just curious about where the money Ashley's put in has gone) All debt is included in the accounts. The term "net debt" is one macbeth uses and I am not sure what he means. The figure he quotes for 2008 includes all normal trade creditors, which wouldn't normally be classified as "debt". He quotes two figures for 2007, one at £70 odd million which is correct and one at £124 million which isn't. The second one seems to be implying that debt of £54 million was originally excluded from the accounts in error, which is not true. His net assets graphs look spot on. Anyway the fixed debt went from £70 million to £100 million in the year. The additional £30 million was funded by Ashley. There is no bank account earning interest in the group accounts, the only bank account was overdrawn. I stuck a basic cash flow up on here earlier in the thread, but in slightly more detail the money has gone as follows: Cash out from day to day operations £5 million Interest paid on loans that have now been repaid £8 million Money paid out for players bought £27 million Money paid out for other assets £3 million Loan repaid £70 million Total out = £113 million Money in from sale of players £8 million Net cash going out = £105 million (£100 million funded by Ashley, the rest by the bank) I don't have a link for the accounts that works, I've only only got them on PDF. I think macbeth said he could email them if anyone was interested?

In real money (ie cash) the loss for the year was the amount of money Ashley had to put in to keep the club going - £30 million. And that sum included very little invested in players, it was mostly just to make sure the club could pay the players and meet its minimum financial commitments.

Perhaps if fans hadn't decided to protest and make the managers job unappealing then he would have appointed someone better, a few people did try and point this out at the time. West Ham were in a similar position to us with the manager leaving for similar reasons, yet they seem to be doing so much better than we are and the only thing I can see that's different is their fans let the club get on with appointing a new manager and got behind him. There is another difference. A lot of West Ham fans didn't think much of Curbishley and were happy to see the back of him. I don't think any section of their fanbase thought he was some sort of Messiah.

Prove it. And don't believe what you read in the press - they don't have access to any bank statements.

3 sources of money: 1) Loan to the club from a third party eg a bank. The latest accounts show the club to be technically insolvent by almost £40 million. The auditors were only prepared to sign off providing Ashley undertook to support it financially. Given what has been going on in the banking world recently I don't know how easy it would be to get a bank to lend. Of course servicing any loan would drain cash resources further. But calling in the debt in the event of default would be a messy business and could result in poor PR for the bank, especially if the loan was asecured on an asset such as the ground. If anyone on here can give an insight into what a banks view of lending to the club would be it might be interesting. 2) Another investor. I don't know Ashley but if you read about the way he has run Sports Direct - contempt for the shareholders, poor communication, dreadful PR, sticking with employees who aren't perceived to be good enough but are mates of his etc. And then you look at his running of Newcastle and there are parallels you might say. You do get the impression the bloke is a bit of a cock tbh. Would any investor want to come in and co exist in a financial relationship with Ashley? Especially as it might involve being a minority shareholder? Not so sure. 3) He sticks the money in himself. See this thread for views on whether he can or can't do that. He's already stuck in £40 million as working capital just to keep the club from going under by the way.

I've had doubts he's rich enough to own a Premiership club from the word go tbh. He's a chancer who saw an opportunity to own the ultimate executive toy and leapt in without having a clue what he was buying into and what funding and structure was needed to make it work None of us knows his true financial status (and neither do the press although they'll tell you otherwise) but the moment he bought the club in the 2007 summer transfer window we started operating on a "sell before you buy" basis which was a major clue imo.

He means HE made a profit. Or WE as in him and his brother maybe...

Do you honestly think adopting Ashley's methods (hiring an inexperienced DoF over the manager, net £0 transfers, allowing the star striker's contract to run down to get him off the wages, trying to sell the club, bringing in a manager unable to find a job anywhere else) back in 2001 would have got us into the CL? Is hindsight only ok to use when it's about Ashley then? Hindsight is used when you agree (or disagree) with actions at the time but subsequent events prove them to be wrong (or correct). In this case I agreed with the decision to push forward then and it proved successful, so it's not using hindsight on my part. Besides, Ozzie is the hindsight king. He'll love it. Remember the financial and on field situation at the time: The debt (£66m) was larger than the turnover (£55m) which relative to turnover is more than the "debt" now The club was making loses (£15.5 in 2000, £8.9m in 2001) which relative to turnover are equivalent to the loses now The club had finished 13, 13, 11, 11 in the previous years which is worse than our last 4 years. As I asked in another thread, should we have Cut back on signings and not brought in Bellamy & Robert Sold the likes of Dyer for a good profit Let injury prone Shearer's contract run down so he could leave on a free and we could get his high wages off the bill (after all, we had a ready made replacement coming through from the youth team). Got someone like Vinnie Jones in to buy and sell players over Robson's head. If it pissed off Robson and he left, should we have replaced him with someone like Dave Basset. Can I assume that the people commending Ashley for his prudence and vision for the club now would agree that we should have taken a similar approach back in 2001? Ozzie asked if Shepherd was going to get us back in the CL. Well in a similar position back in 2001, by being speculative, we DID get back into the CL. At the moment I can only see Ashley's way of handling the situation taking the club in one direction, and that's down. I can trace the 2000/2001 losses you quote from macbeth's website, but can't find reference to the turnover or debt of £66 million on there. I may have missed it. Did those figures come from another source?

The last bit is all news to me. Who is the other £49m owed to and how has Ashley managed to double the debt in a year and a half? Comforting to know that we're not expected to pay off the £100m before July like. The £49 million is owed to normal club creditors and is not fixed debt as such. £70 million debt was due to Ashley at 30th June 2007 after he paid off the clubs fixed debt and put some extra working capital in. The club then had another bad year incurring heavy losses, so he had to stick in a further £30 million to keep it going and resulting a total debt due to him of £100 million at 30th June 2008. So in your opinion is macbeth's intimation correct that the net debt in the 2007 accounts is wrong and should be £124m rather than £71m, and that the net debt grew from £61m in june 2006 to £149m in june 2008? Well I certainly don't think the accounts were wrong. Also I would disagree with him if he is classifying normal trade creditors as debt. They are not classified as fixed debt simply because they fluctuate and are not generally subject to a loan agreement. The piece you quote "This meant that in 2007 it looked as the the debt was £71m. When they realised that they had to pay off the mortgage they needed to add that extra amount in." seems to be saying that there was some hidden debt that wasn't disclosed. And that is not the case. The amount of the debt was disclosed but what was not disclosed is that it was repayable immediately if the club changed ownership. But there again I could easily be misinterpreting what he is saying tbh. You copying my posts? Made the exact same point earlier :colo: One thing about the creditors not being fixed debt.... Normally I would agree with that, but considering that a lot of the Toons creditors are transfer fee payments there is a strong case for including them as 'debt' despite the payments etc not being fixed. Sorry dude, haven't followed recent posts on here so had no idea I was copying your post, just got back and saw UV asked me a question. Thought it only polite to try and answer it Take your point about some of the debt being transfer money - although to lump it in as and refer to it without also referring to the fact that some of the clubs debtors are also transfer funds is perhaps a bit misleading....

The last bit is all news to me. Who is the other £49m owed to and how has Ashley managed to double the debt in a year and a half? Comforting to know that we're not expected to pay off the £100m before July like. The £49 million is owed to normal club creditors and is not fixed debt as such. £70 million debt was due to Ashley at 30th June 2007 after he paid off the clubs fixed debt and put some extra working capital in. The club then had another bad year incurring heavy losses, so he had to stick in a further £30 million to keep it going and resulting a total debt due to him of £100 million at 30th June 2008. So in your opinion is macbeth's intimation correct that the net debt in the 2007 accounts is wrong and should be £124m rather than £71m, and that the net debt grew from £61m in june 2006 to £149m in june 2008? Well I certainly don't think the accounts were wrong. Also I would disagree with him if he is classifying normal trade creditors as debt. They are not classified as fixed debt simply because they fluctuate and are not generally subject to a loan agreement. The piece you quote "This meant that in 2007 it looked as the the debt was £71m. When they realised that they had to pay off the mortgage they needed to add that extra amount in." seems to be saying that there was some hidden debt that wasn't disclosed. And that is not the case. The amount of the debt was disclosed but what was not disclosed is that it was repayable immediately if the club changed ownership. But there again I could easily be misinterpreting what he is saying tbh.

The last bit is all news to me. Who is the other £49m owed to and how has Ashley managed to double the debt in a year and a half? Comforting to know that we're not expected to pay off the £100m before July like. The £49 million is owed to normal club creditors and is not fixed debt as such. £70 million debt was due to Ashley at 30th June 2007 after he paid off the clubs fixed debt and put some extra working capital in. The club then had another bad year incurring heavy losses, so he had to stick in a further £30 million to keep it going and resulting a total debt due to him of £100 million at 30th June 2008.

The answer is because Fred is s***. Understand? The others are able to do it with reasonable debt. Fred cannot do it despite have huge debt. That's why I said your question is silly. The answer contradicts with your stands. You might say you're an accountant, but like Mike Ashley, you understand zilch about football. Well...I think it's unarguable that administration is an intolerable sin for an owner/chairman. That's the basic for any football club. End of discussion because I know you couldn't have any new points to add on. Give it up man. It is meaningless. So is it administration or liquidation that we headed towards under Freds last stand? Kecks off and arse bared in Fenwicks if that one gets a properly argued response