bealios

Not entirely, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Players who we sell for more than we bought them for generally sell for more because they have been great signings rather than poor signings. Great signings mean they have performed at a level higher than what the original price suggested. The down side is that you also miss out on the Beardsley/Bellamy type player who is at the end of their career but might still be a great signing, although I think in this day of huge wages, it is rare to come across a top player towards the end of their career who still has the professionalism and the hunger to perform well for a mid table club.

This. And it needs to be done now, before his inevitable star man performances for the rest of the season alert the various shark agents turning his head. Put a 6 year deal on the table, give him his current wage which is outside the structure but he is captain FFS (but remember the relegation clause this time Decka). Put down a marker now to agents and other clubs that we are prepared to fight to keep our top players, and if Colo commits signs, less chance of the likes of Tiote, Cabaye and Ben Arfa looking for moves if they also have a storming season. In Garth Crooks team of the week on the BBC - and apparently completed 41 of his 43 attempted passes on Saturday.

I read this in the same way I read Llambias's statement about Mike Ashley not wanting to put his hands in his pocket whilst everyone thinks he is a cunt. Maybe if everyone stops the nasty chants we can all be friends and get a striker in?

True. Looking at some of the posts that guessed the answers (with some accuracy), it does show that despite the crap communication, most fans actually know what the state of the club is, how we're likely to do going forward, financial position etc. Despite Ashley/Lambias being hated figures, there are a lot of clubs out there in a worse position than us this year, and now the anger of not getting a decent striker in has subsided a little, I'm reasonably positive about achieving our aims this year i.e. top half finish

I felt just as gutted when he left as I did when Beardsley left for Liverpool, and would take him back in a flash. Doubt it will happen though, even if Liverpool want to get rid they will need to recoup as much as they can, and unfortunately I see the likes of Stoke or Villa offering £15 - £20m, which Newcastle would never match.

Aiming for 16th is a bit dangerous though, little margin for error!

Have to say completely disagree with this. People don't buy football clubs to make money, surely all of the evidence shows that, how many profitable clubs are there around? I can't imagine for one second that Ashley was prepared to spend £130m because he thought it would be good marketing for Sports Direct, and there was a slim chance he could defy the odds and make a profit. Too much risk, too little possible reward, does not fit with his (anyone else's business decision making). He bought it on a whim without much thought, he liked football, hence when an opportunity comes along to own one of the most famous football clubs, he jumped at the chance. After all, £130m was only a small part of this fortune as it was back then. And he would have a spare £100m to invest in the team - or so he thought. Things are different now of course, and I genuinely believe he is trying to run the club as efficiently (cheaply) as possible whilst retaining Premier League status to help with a sale (and avoid any further cash injections from himself).

it's based on the fact that Ashley and Lambias are using our football club as an advert for Sports Direct and aren't interested in the slightest in improving us a football team, not now, not ever. and for that i want them hounded out of town at the nearest opportunity, the only way i can see anything like that happening is if journalists start to highlight what they're up to so the common fan comes round to the idea. it doesnt mean i dont want us to win next weekend. Seems to be a fairly expensive way to advertise Sports Direct, £240m + for some signs on a stadium where a reasonable chunk of the people in that stadium would like to burn Sports Direct to the ground...

Those Secret Footballer articles are quite a good read, I wonder who it is?

On Ashley's New Year Resolution list, along with getting down to 13 stone. Think it was on that 'our aim is to finish 10th or above every season' thing. Not sure though, might just be talking out of my arse. If you think about it the perfect football financial model would be to maintain Premier League status (and not risk relegation) so that you keep the massive TV income, and do it by filling your club with young cheap low wage players with sell on value (and keep the player profit). The UEFA slots are not worth it, since the change in income isn't that great, and you further risk stretching the squad and need a bigger squad to compete in the larger number of games. Champions League places are out of reach realistically, without spending insane amounts, and even then the existence of Chelsea/Man Utd and Man City means that there is always a risk of spending insane amounts and still finishing 5th. So the sweet spot is probably between 12th and 7th - no higher or lower, and to hit the sweet spot by buying cheap players with potential sell on value, having a sensible wage cap. Seems depressingly identical to the model Ashley is running.

In answer to the question to what happens to the loan if Ashley sells, nobody knows for sure, but a good indicator is that when the club was for sale in 2009 for £100m, the deal was to be structured so that the buyer would purchase the loan for £100m, and the shares for £1. In laymans terms, after paying Ashley £100m the club would owe Ashley nothing, and he would have written off £140m (approximately).

It is a bit of a basic mistake to make - in any deal to buy a company which still has debt in place the first thing you check for is a "change of control" provision, lesson number one. It is the sort of thing you can find out within about 10 minutes if you have the document in front of you, it isn't something that needs a team of expensive lawyers working on for weeks.

As an aside, the more obvious way that that Ashley can get some money out of the club, is to re-finance. In the same way you would re-mortgage and move your mortgage from Natwest to HSBC, NUFC could move its loan from Mike Ashley to HSBC. Mike Ashley would be repaid whatever the new loan is, and NUFC would owe HSBC Xm. It would also need to pay HSBC interest, and I imagine these large football loans are around 8% or so. Issue is of course in the current market any lender wanting to loan NUFC £140m, they would struggle to get half of that.

Back to the original question, the answer is no it is not. A leveraged buy out is when someone uses third party debt from a bank for example to buy something (i.e. a football club), and then places the debt into that thing (i.e. into the football club) so that the football club is responsible for paying the interest, rather than the person who bought it. These interest costs are high, and they reduce the club from a profit making thing to a loss making thing, which for football clubs who rely on profits to invest on players etc. Instead they are being spent on interest payments, and that is why they are considered a bad thing. If the club is owned by a shareholder with no debt, there is no interest payments, so no reduction in profits available to spend. The Ashley purchase was simply structured so that he made the original purchase by acquiring all of the shares for £130m or so, and then loaned another £110m, but interest free. So the problems generally associated with a leveraged buy out don't apply. That lack of an interest charge like it or not was a good thing for the club, it meant we were not paying the £7m - £8m a year to Northern Rock.

Don't think there is anything wrong throwing someone young in, the bigger issue is playing someone decent next to them, particularly at centre back. Playing Situ for a few games in the Premier League next to Colo would hopefully do wonders for his development. A historic problem NUGC has had with introducing defenders new to the Premier League is playing them next to existing naff players i.e. Titus Bramble. Can't have helped Steven Taylor's development some of the centre backs he has played alongside over the years.

Sometimes you need someone in the dressing room having a go at the players telling them to pull their fingers out, and I can't see anyone on the pitch or in that dugout who could do that better than Barton to be honest

The worrying thing about this is that at any point in the season you will normally have 4 or 5 players out injured, and this 11 is therefore not a million miles in quality away from the team we will be fielding in the majority of premier league games as things stand.

I was woken up in the middle of the night by my missus, and then couldn't get back to sleep because for some reason I was angered about the thought of Alan Smith and his "great bloke" imagine and the fact that he "just wanted to play football", and what a load of complete bollocks that statement is, since he would rather sit in the reserves for Newcastle picking up his £60K per week than take a pay cut and go and play for a team (Leeds) he supposedly supports, to help them get back to the Premier League, after their tremendous fall from grace (where he was part of the team that kick started it). All footballers are cunts. Except :colo: and

So he was, should check Wikipedia first. 120 appearances over 4 years, at a net cost of £12m ish? Actually, when you look at it that way, probably one of the better value for money signings of the last 5 years.

You could argue that over the 5 year contract Enrique was not value for money. We made zero net on transfer fees, and paid £3m per year to get two good seasons. So roughly £15m net spend for two good seasons, one in the Championship. I love Enrique by the way and think he will be considered by the wider football world to be the best left back in the league by the end of this season.

Does the TV money not cover our existing wage bill? For any of the doubters, cast an eye of the previous available NUFC finances in black and white, you will see there is rather more money to spend than we are being lead to believe. That said, what is happening is the loan(s) put into the club from Ashley are simply being repaid, but rather than being transparent, we are being fed lies and being taken for fools by being told the money will be spent on players. Had the club been honest, I think we would all have been a lot happier about what is happening now with our eyes open. I've posted this previously with links to proofs of finances on another thread a month ago. Ashley is simply reducing the debt of the club to make it a more attractive asset to sell. Although I haven't looked at them, don't the latest accounts show that the loan to Ashley is still the same or higher, not less? Not sure how he is paying himself back if that's the case.

Stuck in traffic near Buckingham Palace heading to a pub where I'm not even certain the game is on. This is not helping the nerves.

Just checked his Wiki to see what he was upto. He left Derby in '07 at 28 years old and just hasn't joined a club since? Injury problems or what? Isn't there an identical story about Shepherd and Luque doing the rounds, although the numbers involved are about £30K and £70K! Love it. Wouldn't surprise me if true, either.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01967/riots-london_1967142c.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LlyEfT7NFTA/S-Ray7tdImI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/AU2PQ_kuojc/s400/ve_day.jpg Brilliant

As an aside and on the subject of aiming for Europe, as things stand at the moment would we even be allowed in under the football fair play rules? I know we're aiming towards a break even point in 2015, but if we qualify before then would we pass the financial tests, although I appreciate they don't apply yet. I think much of what Pardew says about being realistic about challenging for the top four is right, although the one thing that might change that in the medium term is these financial restrictions, if they are applied properly (I'm looking at you Man City and your £400m shirt sponsorship deal....).