bealios

He bought an established premier league club for circa £130m. At the time I think we had about £70m Northern Rock debt, which needed to be paid off. At the point the sale was being negotiated, we had just been relegated. Numbers wise, it's spot on. This was back in 2009 in the aftermath of Portsmouth/Leeds etc. Honestly, that was the deal. As I said above, several parties had the £100m figure, the £80m figure literally came out at the last minute. But it was never £80m plus debt.

It wasn't. It was £1 for the shares and £80m for the debt. By your reckoning, that was £80m for the club, and the debt was about £110m at the time, so £190m. Sounds bizarre, but £80m was genuinely the price. It was £100m for most of the sale process though, and I'm not convinced that it would have gone for £80m if I'm honest.

It was. Albeit that was probably (from memory) a one week window. You have to remember back in 2009, none of us had the confidence that if you go down you come straight back up. I remember watching that WBA game first day of the season when they scored, thought we were going to drop again. If we went down next season, I imagine a lot of fans wouldn't be too concerned, given that the two promotion seasons have generally been more enjoyable than anything else.

It was actually £80m for a very short time in August 2009. Bargain.

I was at the same book signing. What a guy. By the time I met him it was already 90 minutes after he was supposed to leave. Delay was all down to the fact he was talking about football and doing photos with every single person in the queue. If you could sum up everything that Is wrong about this club, and football in general to be honest, it’s that someone like that is not suited to it.

The whole lack of due diligence thing didn't mean he didn't know about the loan, it was more that he didn't realise that it became immediately repayable following a change of control. He knew the loan was there, and the price of £135m reflected that loan. If the club didn't owe £100m to the banks, the club would have been worth a lot more. Being very simplistic, you could say that a debt free NUFC in 2007 was worth £235m, but the fact that there was £100m owed to banks meant Ashley was only going to pay £135m. Assuming NUFC in 2018 is being sold free of Ashley's debt, then it would appear that the £250m would be a tad on the low side if you look at it as how much 2007 NUFC should have increased in value to 2018 NUFC, given the huge increase in TV money. Even after the turmoil of the last 10 years, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that a £235m 2007 NUFC has increased to at least a £300m 2018 NUFC. Perhaps more, given that the international TV money isn't going to disappear any time soon. If you look at the increase in value of other Premier League clubs, then that percentage increase isn't a bad example. Isn't the huge increase in TV money offset by the huge increase in player fees and wages? Also considering we have sold most of our player assets, that means we will have to spend one hell of a lot just to catch up with the rest of the division as compared to two years ago. To a degree I think it is, but I think a lot of clubs are a lot healthier now in terms of wages to turnover ratio - we certainly are.

It wasn’t a £100m loan though when he purchased it though. Off top of my head; He paid £129m for the Club The 15 year mortgage (secured each season until 2015 via 40K season ticket sales IIRC) on level 7 became immediately due on any sale so he had to pay that and he paid up all money owed on players we had purchased (I think) – I think in total it was about an extra £74m to his £129m purchase. He then had to put loans in to cover relegation in 2009 and 2016 (both the fat w*****’s fault and which he should write-off if he had any decency about him – look at how much Ellis Short has written-off down the road) to the tune of about £65m. Yeah, I was just using £100m as an example. I think you're right on the £74m loan, which I think was the Northern Rock part. There were other facilities as well, a huge overdraft facility with Barclays, which they wanted paying down as well - although that part was still in place when the club was up for sale in 2009. On the 2009 sale, he was writing off the loan. Well, strictly speaking, the loan was getting repaid in full and his shares were being bought for £1 - but same net result, a £100m sale (which dropped to £80m for a very brief period). In 2018 he is obviously forming the view that the club is in a much better position, so he can get his money back and more. Going to look a right twat when we go down and don't bounce straight back up, which I don't think we will do this time if it happens.

The whole lack of due diligence thing didn't mean he didn't know about the loan, it was more that he didn't realise that it became immediately repayable following a change of control. He knew the loan was there, and the price of £135m reflected that loan. If the club didn't owe £100m to the banks, the club would have been worth a lot more. Being very simplistic, you could say that a debt free NUFC in 2007 was worth £235m, but the fact that there was £100m owed to banks meant Ashley was only going to pay £135m. Assuming NUFC in 2018 is being sold free of Ashley's debt, then it would appear that the £250m would be a tad on the low side if you look at it as how much 2007 NUFC should have increased in value to 2018 NUFC, given the huge increase in TV money. Even after the turmoil of the last 10 years, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that a £235m 2007 NUFC has increased to at least a £300m 2018 NUFC. Perhaps more, given that the international TV money isn't going to disappear any time soon. If you look at the increase in value of other Premier League clubs, then that percentage increase isn't a bad example.

That's absolute class. Those guys clearly put a massive amount of effort and resource into that. If anyone involved in that is on here and needs some contributions just PM me.

Unfortunately it is perfect logic. Now we're in the Premier League, we're the perfect advertising board for Sports Direct which goes worldwide and costs nothing. It funds itself.

Unless the money already sits outside of China.

Surprised so few votes for Shelvey, although at the same time can't really argue with Gayle, Ritchie and Clark getting more.

Definitely don't want to start a new thread for this, but does anyone have any idea how much it costs to book a corporate box for one game (and if it is even possible)? Thinking of doing a client thing for the Leeds game in April.

Savage sounds like that Jimmy Liddell scouse commentator.

A genuine "Keegan First Coming" moment. European Footballer of the Year signing for Newcastle in Division 2. We know how that turned out. It is going to be a long pre-season. Can genuinely see season tickets being at least as high if not higher than in the Premier League.

Incredibly torn, in any other set of circumstances I would want Palace to win this. Maybe a Palace win on penalites, where the last Man Utd pen hits the bar and rebounds to the half way line, hits Pardew in the face and he falls down, and shits his pants on live TV.

Is there anyone here who wants Palace to win?

That's true, but on the plus side they got to watch some fairly glorious periods. Being a fan through 92 - 97 was magical, more so than the Robson years to me because of where we had come from. I wouldn't swap that for a one off lucky cup win like Portsmouth, Boro, Wigan etc. Seeing your team come from near extinction to playing the best football in the country if not the world at the time and getting so close to that title must have meant a lot to anyone who had watched us from 1968 with not a great deal to shout about.

Never did mind Souness as a player, pundit or manager of other sides. Dreadful appointment for us, especially given the squad at the time.

Fact is, there's a lot of average managers who have a formulaic approach to management - work hard, close down, track back, good shape, defend, play the percentages. With a half decent set of players you'll secure a mid table slot. Perfect in an environment where staying up and milking the TV cash is the be all and end all. You need a bit more about you as a manager to get the best out of a player like Ben Arfa. Reminds me a bit of when Keegan told Beresford and Rob Lee they would need to do Ginola's running for him because of the talent he had. Seriously doubt Ginola would have been such a success in today's game, and that isn't meant as a sleight on him.

God, I'd forgotten about Rob Lee at Wembley. Phillipe Albert against Man Utd was amazing, but it was more about the whole game, was living in Manchester watching it in a Manchester pub at my first year at uni after the title near miss.

Sorry if this is NWOAT, but was watching an old DVD today and was thinking what was the single goal I celebrated the most. Not a goal which in hindsight was important, or on replays was a fantastic goal, but more that at the time it was such a goal that I was screaming uncontrollably at the time and trying to get to the pitch, despite the fact I was in an upper tier. I'm torn between Tiote against Arsenal, Kelly against Portsmouth or Cole against Villa. On TV it was Bellamy against Feyenoord. Nearly broke a TV, nearly lost a girlfriend, did break a table. A random one would have been an equaliser to Millwall in the 92/93 promotion season when down to ten men. I was young.

The thing which might make this happen a bit earlier is that QPR are fucked, and they need to sell before they buy. Bit risky for them leaving to the last week in the window if they're serious about coming straight back up again, given the amount of crap in the squad they need to sort out.

Doing get me wrong, I know it's being incredibly optimistic, I always get that way in the close season. Especially with no Pardew. But two box based strikers might not be so daft, if you're also starting with Aaron's and Cabella for instance. Shearer and Ferdinand didn't too badly with Gillespie and Ginola. Wouldn't work every game obviously, just a bit tired of seeing us start games against weaker opposition as if we're playing Chelsea away every game.

If we had gone into this season with Colo, Mbemba, Mbiwa, Taylor and Dummett, with Janmaat, Haidara and a new RB I don't actually think that would have been too far away from a top 6 pool of defenders, with the like of Lascalles as back up.