Jackie Broon

Well the mortgage or whatever it was came to that. There was also about £20m outstanding on transfers i think, sure they were complaining about that early on. Edit: That may have been part of the £67m though I think you're right about some of the extra debt being owed from transfers, which was leaked just before the first January transfer window and used as the excuse why we brought nobody in then. The fact that this is how just about every club bought players and paid the fees in stages over the player's contract (and still do) and he is just about the only club owner that pays 100% up front eluded him. Definitely remember them whinging about something to do with fees owed. Like you say its standard footballing practice, one of the many things he didnt understand buying when us on a whim with no knowledgable person alongside him. The main whinge was about the Owen deal, which was apparently paid for with up-front sponsorship money from Northern Rock. Meaning we basically had no main sponsor income until the deal ran out, but it wasn't debt as such.

Carroll was infinitely more than just a battering ram, when he played for us. Many people, including myself, were gutted that we accepted that £35m. In hindsight it was the right decision, but in the intervening years a lot of people seem to have forgotten just how good he was back then.

How about 91pts with Messi, Zabaleta and Romero still to play and Perez, Macheranoand and Garay on the bench. Howay the Argies!

In

The average cloggers won't put £20m in Ashley's back pocket when they leave.

He is just like any other ruthless businessman. Why does he need to acquire the adorations of hundreds of thousands when that is not even a prerequisite to gain him any £££. He can treat the fans like filth over and over yet 50 thousands spectators will still turn up week after week £££. He's loving it. But Ashley is a risk taker in business, this isn't anything to do with business, it's about revenge for the way the fans turned against him over Keegan's departure. He's keeping the club ticking along, siphoning off any profit and adding any loss to the 'interest free loan' which he'll get back when a buyer eventually comes along. Until then he's taking his spiteful revenge by keeping us in limbo.

We really didn't like. That's so wrong it's unbelievable like SanToon. We had an untested manager buying unproven players at market prices. We broke the transfer record for a proven player but we built towards that and loaned the money to do so. We built and built. Times have changed IMO. It's impossible to win a title through "gradual building" now If they can do it in Spain, why not here? One reason may be that in Spain they have an endless supply talent from South America who can be picked up cheap before they are established in national teams. Work permit restrictions mean English clubs don't have access to that huge pool of talent, unless they can afford to pay what it costs for established internationals.

Hall barely put penny into the club, and cashed in tens of millions when he left. Benefactor my arse! What we did in the mid 90s was driven by the resources the club could generate rather than a bottomless pit of oil money. There is no comparison with Man City, Chelsea and the like.

God I f***ing hate football. It is their team I suppose At least they recognize that their success has been bought. They'd be a nothing club otherwise. They clearly weren't Mancunian, they looked like they were probably from the UAE. I'm sure most of proper Man City fans fully recognise that though.

Me too, much better than City winning it. Not that them falling apart isn't slightly amusing mind. If we're ever going to win the league, it'll be the City way. What Liverpool & Ath Madrid have done this season is monumental, but they're exceptions rather than the rule. I relate to City fans pre 2010 far more than Liverpool fans so I'm happy with the (likely) outcome. Can't compare Atletico to Liverpool. History is very different. Squad built for FAR FAR less. No investment in the last few years. The entire Atleti starting XI away at Chelsea cost the same as Sakho & Sturridge. Plus they've had the distraction of competing in Europe. Liverpool have had a head start of 6-10 'European hangover' points on the teams around them this season. If they'd qualified for the Europa last season they'd probably be fighting for fourth right now rather than the title.

I thought that, but, there's a VAT exemption available for goods and services transferred between companies in the same group which he's probably taking advantage of.

f*** that s***! Seeing the Liverpool tv pundit mafia having the smug smiles wiped off their faces has been f***ing priceless! Man City are very much the lesser of the evils in the title chase. Couldn't agree more, its ridiculous the number of ex players they have in the media and they all spout the same nonsense. It's always a penalty for them and the ref got it wrong. Redknapp epitomises that, he is just such a bias tvvat it's untrue Abso-fuckin-lutely! I also can't stand the sense of entitlement of their supporters. They have had far more than their fair share of success over the past 40 years for what is fundamentally a club with no greater potential than the likes of ourselves, Spurs, Aston Villa etc. They just had thing fall into place at the right time (i.e. in the 70s and 80s when the rest of football was in a shambles) and huge slices of luck (that champions league final!). There's no reason why they have any more right to success than any other club, quite the opposite really. I'd love it if we manage to scrape a draw and scupper any remaining hope for them on Sunday!

Fuck that shit! Seeing the Liverpool tv pundit mafia having the smug smiles wiped off their faces has been fucking priceless! Man City are very much the lesser of the evils in the title chase.

More to do with a casino tab, allegedly. Surely that must've been paid off long ago!

Advertising revenue is VATable, if the club are allowing SD to advertise for 'free' as some sort of unofficial deferred interest on Ashley's 'interest free' loan, surely there should be be VAT due on that somewhere along the line?

Fair play. Just look forward to many years of humiliation at the hands of the mackems. ... who are in the relegation zone following a disastrous managerial appointment. I'm far from happy with Pardew and I'm not making excuses for him (he's more than capable of doing that for himself), I just can't see Ashley making anything other than a disastrous appointment to replace him.

This thread is getting f***ing ridiculous. I'm not Pardew's biggest fan but I remember willing us to lose to get rid of Allardyce, Souness and even Sir Bobby, as much as it shames me to admit it! It does no good, if Pardew goes we'll be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire just like we have time and time again in the past. The problems at Newcastle run much deeper than Pardew, if people think we're going to get in a replacement who'll do a much better job of coping with those deep-rooted problems they're f***ing deluded!

We got Cabaye for a bargain price and we were always going to be a stepping stone if he shone. He’s at the absolute peak of his form and value right now, but his form hasn’t been particularly consistent in the past. It makes sense to sell him now, even if he would be happy to stay.

They're the obvious ones, but they were all tough fixtures, fixtures that could go either way. It was the winnable games we didn't win in the run-up to the Man United home game that lost us the title. The signs were there at Middlesbrough when we got a fortunate win after Tino came off the bench and created a goal with a piece of absolute magic, then we lost away at West Ham and drew at Man City. They were the key matches. After the Man United home game we absolutely annihilated West Ham at home, it was 3-0 but it really could've been double figures, it was the most one-sided match I have ever seen! We should’ve easily beaten them at their place less than a month earlier, and Man City who were a relegation team. It was that blip that really lost us the league.

DAV-I-DAAAAAY!!!!

I'm sure this has been covered already, but it's about 'kin time commentators started to pronounce his name properly. It's Dav-i-day!

Carroll tends to do well in big games for Liverpool; games that he's fired up for. I think the fundamental issue with Carroll's Liverpool career has been that he doesn't really give a shit about the club and so can't get fired up for anything bit the big games. At Newcastle he was up for every match and he was fucking unplayable most of the time. A lot of people here clearly have short memories... they need to watch back the Villa, Sunderland, Liverpool matches, even that opening match of the season against Man U! I'd love to see him back and playing for a club he loves with fire in his belly!

Me too. As much as I love Cheik his passing is a bit wayward at times and he has a tendency to get caught dallying on the ball a bit too often to be a top, top level defensive midfielder... not too mention his habit of picking up daft cards. But, for whatever reason the press seem to over-hype our better players (Carroll being the prime example). Which is a blessing in terms of the massively over inflated transfer fees we can demand off clubs that are obviously too lazy/dumb to see the flaws that divide a £10m player from a true £20m+ player... but I'd rather see them realistically valued and stay.

It's been coming for a while. A couple of years ago someone I know who got to look at their books at the time of the Kirby stadium proposal told me they were absolutely fucked financially.

Probably being offered no more by QPR than we offered him back in January too.