bealios

Second half today affirms that Jonas, Enrique, Carroll, Guthrie, Colo have improved as players, and are definitely top 6 - 10 players next year. With Barton and Taylor that's a fairly decent spine to work around.

GET THE FUCK IN!!!!!!

I'm afraid I might have cursed us this week. I only need Newcastle to win today for my 6 game accummulator to come in. I never win.

They still have a decent size membership, so they do what they should have been doing all along. Aim to get bigger, be properly representative, and focus on things which benefit fans such as the absurd decision to move the Plymouth game etc...

I don't think at all that it was inevitable that if we had stayed with Halls and Shepherds we would have went into administration. However, what is likely is that we would endured at least 3 years of Allardyce, as the pot dwindled, and the risk that the £70m banking facility that we had with Northern Rock was about to fall payable, and nobody was around to refinance it. I don't think this would have led to administration, as if we had kept Allardyce we would be about as good as Blackburn are now, so would have kept the Premier League cash. But around about the start of the 2010/2011 season we would have been in a dire financial position, one relegation away from doing a Portsmouth, with roughly the same quality squad that we have now (with perhaps less younger players and more seasoned pros playing in the Allardyce way). Mystic Meg eat your heart out.

Who would have thought you would have that view with your avatar! Seriously though, you could argue that the league as it is, is equally a mockery, as essentially 2nd to 4th place mean the same thing. I'm sure Villa's willingness to finish 4th instead of 7th with a play off system would be just as strong as Liverpool's incentive to finish 3rd instead of 4th in the current system. You could also incentivise the play offs by giving the 4th and 5th placed teams the away tie first for instance. I accept that the only way this whole thing will work though is if you cut the league down to 18 team. There is no way you're going to get 16 clubs voting for play offs AND a reduction in the league numbers, too much self interest.

Would like Arsenal to win the league.

Surprised that at least 3 other clubs voted against it as well - probably more on the basis that if it was close then they would have considered further discussions, but seems like there was no appetite for it. Perhaps the massive self interest evident in the game today meant the bottom clubs who realistically have no chance of making it didn't want to become further adrift of their own potential rivals and voted against it.

Probably this season, but if we don't go up this year the novelty will wear off, so its a one off thing. We'll also lose some of our remaining good players, so less to come and see.

I believe that the actual method of how it was being done was that the shares in Newcastle were being bought for a £1, and the £110m+ loan to Ashley (as it was then) was being bought for what we all think of as the sale price. So technically the loan isn't being written off from the clubs point of view, it is just being assigned to the new owner who buys the debt, but since the shares only cost £1 then the position is pretty much the same. I'm no tax expert, but from the little I do know I think that would mean that Ashley would face a massive loss on the share sale (£100m+), but might be able to move that loss around other companies in the group to offset against any gains, meaning the actual loss to Ashley would be a lot less (but still huge of course). But he wouldn't have been entitled to any more payments i.e. to sell the club for £80m but then start charging interest in the loans - he would have no further interest in NUFC.

I can't really say on an internet message board how I know, and to be honest it doesn't bother me that much if you or anyone else believes it or not, but it is true. It dropped momentarily to £80m, but I'm not saying it was just BM, I'm sure if somebody else turned up in that week with £80m deposited in Ashley's solicitors account he would have sold to them immediately. The reason it dropped was that £80m cash in the bank is better than negotiating for weeks without success on a £100m deal. It was the watershed moment - nobody seemed able to raise funds to pay £100m, and it was a quick move to see if anyone really had the cash. Clearly they didn't, and Ashley most likely decided that there was no point trying to sell a Championship club if noone was prepared to even pay £80m, might as well wait a year and sell a Premier League club. I think Ozzie is probably right - the £80m would have meant that Ashley didn't have to put in the immediate £20m working capital, so if he sold he would have been £100m better off than 1 month later. The only other party around at the time was Silius' lot, and nobody really believed they were serious. Plenty of people making offers and gaining publicity - not one person came up with the cash.

Happy Face - Ashley was selling the club for £100million, with no ongoing loan etc. You mention this is based upon the words of self confessed liars, it isn't. It is true, whether you choose to believe it or not. In fact, the price very momentarily did drop to £80m (plus a few additional fees) before he decided to keep it for the season. You do make a valid point though, if Ashley is so naive and bought such an expensive asset without proper work in advance, not knowing what he was doing, do we really want him running the club? The sensible answer has to be no, but at the moment I have no problem with him whatsoever remaining as owner, coming to and enjoying games etc. I just wish he would appoint someone half decent to run the club i.e. Rick Parry, David Dein.

Great thread, but hopefully not tempting fate. Ashley might get upset at the fat bastard chants, and think "I'll fuck that thread over". He then puts us into administration, accepts the points deduction and sells all of our players. To Peterborough. And brings back Souness.

I think everyone's entitled to slag off Ashley for the series of misguided and disastrous football and personnel decisions he has made since taking over, but as soon as those people start attacking the financial aspects it tends to dilute a previously perfectly valid point about his crapness at football decisions. The latest published accounts contained a statement from independent auditors (who cannot by law be another PR voice for Ashley) that NUFC were not a valid going concern, and they could only give the required statement of solvency whilst he continued to guarantee investment of funds. That was whilst we were in the Premier League. That enough should be enough to quieten any debate about whether he is somehow profiting from NUFC, so we can all focus on how crap his previous decisions have been (and whether they are starting to improve...)

Arsenal - The club Newcastle could have been if they had appointed the right man after Keegan in 1997 (or Keegan had stayed).

Genuine question, all those doubting that Ashley was genuinely prepared to sell the club over the summer, what do you think he was trying to achieve by "pretending" to sell it?

Villa and Everton reactions to us being relegated doesn't really mean anything to me, to be fair a lot of clubs reacted that way, it will always be that way if a "big" club goes down. If we relegated a club on the last day of the season, I reckon there would be a fair few chants to that effect aimed at the away fans from Level 7. Agree with the Spurs hatred, although for me its based upon a sense on injustice that no matter how crap they have been for a long period of time, the media love them, and talk about them as top 4 material every year. Despite not finishing in the top 4 for a long long time now. They also have a pissy little ground in a shit hole area of London.

...and who do you think it will be? For me I would love to see Villa do it. Like Martin O'Neill, like a lot of their players, like the fact that the club appears to be run properly and professionally. Like James Milner, and his refusal to follow the whole bling/nighclub/celebrity footballer culture. Like even more the fact that Man City would have another season not in the Champions League despite attempting to buy a place and getting rid of Hughes too early. I think Man City will get it though.

The finances in that article are roughly accurate. Ashley is keeping the club afloat. As quayside says, a lot of the trouble football clubs get themself into is through cashflow, and not the P&L account. The £20m injection is to make sure there is enough money in the bank to pay the players their massive wages. When the next accounts come out, I'm pretty sure that the "going concern" statement will only be given if Ashley gives further guarantees/assurances to finance the club for the next accounting period.

Frank Lampard used to smoke in his West Ham days. Straight after a game as soon as he got in the car out of the ground. A fair few West Ham players smoked in those days though. Their players lounge was mad - it was basically a portacabin at one end a car park, which served lemonade and orange in plastic cups, with plates of digestives.

Its too easy to blame the rules and the refs, the only reason we have problems with them are the cheating players. Its difficult if not impossible to stop that. As it is at the moment, the rules means faking an injury can benefit a team, because if the opposition is attacking, they will generally put the ball out or the ref will stop play. A lot of that actually comes down to history, and crowd reaction. If you changed the rules so that players who need treatment need to sit out until the next stoppage, or 3 minutes, or whatever, then there would be less play acting, but more fouls - since there is a clear benefit in taking a player out. You actually give players an incentive to hurt or injure another player, because as well as kicking the bastard, you might get them down to 10 men for a while. You can see why FIFA would struggle to sanction that.

When Ashley spoke about local involvement a couple of years ago I think he had local businessmen more in mind, along the lines of Barry Moat etc. I don't think he ever intended to have to work with a supporter group. Working and co-ownership with one is a hell of a lot different than the other. Whilst I wouldn't rule out one day the supporters having a small stake, in terms of decision making, unless you get to around 25% they will have very little say in how the club is run. Even then you have very little sway in a situation where the other owner owns 75%.

I think the softening towards Ashley might have something to do with the events at Portsmouth, Palace, Notts County etc, and if West Ham go down they will also be placed into administration, and their very existence might be in danger. In light of that, a season in the Championship and a clear out of a lot of high earning dead wood doesn't seem so bad...

He's got a lot more attacking ability than most people in the team, its just that he looks unfit and off form, which is obviously a problem in central midfield. Although I'm not saying they are of similar ability, it almost reminds me of the many games where we kept Robert in the team, even though he was laughably shite for a lot of the time when he was not on form, because there was the off chance that he might spank one in from 50 yards. A lot of managers seem to stick with certain "leader" characters even if they are off form because they bring experience, and when your drawing to the end of the season and are only 1 point clear at the top, maybe that is what is in Hughton's mind. Once the doubts creep in, you look to the leaders in the team. Once you start dropping players who have an off game (or 6), then it can send a message to the weaker characters, and fear creeps in. Towards then end of last season and in a lot of games under Allardyce when the crowd were at their most "vicious" (copyright Joey Barton) most of the players were too scared to do anything. Maybe I'm giving Hughton too much credit.

There are a lot of valid viewpoints in the last few posts, but what has just struck me is that you can sort of understand why a lot of other teams supporters see us the way they do. Many fans thought there was a risk we would do a Leeds at the start of the season, and here we are in February top of the league, and we're having a go at our manager for not dropping our top goal scorer and winner of a couple of player of the month awards earlier in the season. He has been shocking for the last few games, Saturday in particular, but then so have a lot of the team. You can't really slate Hughton for sticking with one of the key men from earlier in the season.