Sean

It is meaningless in accrual accounting sense. Not sure what your point is here - we have a guaranteed income that is due at various stages over the season. It makes perfect sense to borrow against guaranteed income streams. The income is unearned. Guaranteed future income in accrual accounting sense is not in the book yet. You are basically spending before receiving in accrual accounting sense. Even if Ashley showing "ambition", how about next year? Cut back spending or continue to spend the next year revenue? On top of that, I assume it's 3% interest cost per annum, so it's close to 3m interest cost. Why are 19 other clubs spending that way. Disregarding the sugar daddy club, lots of EPL clubs are actually doing a breakeven summer, and that's exactly the result of spending before receiving. They knew the income would jump last summer and so they spent the money a year earlier, and now they are taking it back by no more net spending this summer. However to those that failed the gamble and relegated, they would take a huge hit and that's exactly what we did during McClarens nightmare. I am not defending Ashley for not taking the gamble / tricked Rafa, just that I am saying it is unrealistic to ask him to do the gamble when he has failed once and I can't see the benefit for him to do it. As I said before, the money saved can act as the reserve for relegation cost and that's the best defence to him against Rafas ultimatum. So explain why our club has had so many income streams denied to it/taken away by Ashley? So that he can say the club's not as profitable as it is in reality. How much would we get for the advertising space taken up for free by Sports Direct? Take a guess. Fail to see why you're so invested in spinning things so ridiculously unless as mentioned theres some incentive for you.

Okay Dave, try to get it. To be precise, in terms of "spending power", it is related to "net profit", not cash. You can take a look at our accounts bottom line, the net profit. That's roughly the real saving. of course amortization played a part but roughly you can calculate our real spending power by this way (just for example): throughout 5 years we spend 10m net, and our profit is 2m per year, then our real spending power is 12m per year. Very rough one, but wont varied much. On the other hand, cash is related to "the payment". If we don't have enough cash in our bank, we need other means to finance it, either from players sales, bank loan or owner loan. This is not related to spending power, it's purely about the requirement for making a transfer to happen. Unless the two teams agreed to defer the payment, if a club has no cash on hand, it cannot buy any players. So in our case, what Ashley means for no more injection is 1. No more loss business (I.e break even) and 2. No more personal cash in case the club has no cash to pay for the transfer. It's complicated. Try to understand it. What a fucking knacker

How about just go to have a read on our annual account? I know ur hatred against the fat cunt but unless he bribed the accountant, the account is showing something else. He's outsourced as much as possible so that the club doesn't make anywhere near as much money in the accounts as it should - a lot of profit is diverted elsewhere, i.e. through Sports Direct. I know thats probably ly a bit hard for you to understand like.

This is the crux of the issue. No matter the protests etc the best way to hurt Ashley is by harming Sports Direct. How we go about that is another question though.

Lost for words. Where did anyone mention sugar daddy? Myself I'd like him to run us like an actual fucking football club, nothing more. I don't give 2 fucks about his personal cash, I would however like the club to have access to all the money it generates (and yes that includes profit from the club shop, and also money for all the fucking Sports Direct advertising around the place). Ashley is robbing us blind and taking the piss at the same time and some of us are thankful for that. Jesus.

Rafa could work with Ashley quite happily if he was cut from the same cloth as Pardew in terms of not giving a fuck about our club or our fans. It's not working because he is striving to improve not just the club but the way the club operates. I for one am truly glad that this is the case and am thankful that Rafa is trying to 'get our club back' as it were. But it comes across as if you might be happier if Pardew was back pretending everythings great and patronising the fanbase by coming out with gulf such as "we can't compete with (insert any club here)..

Ridiculous isn't it?! And still some can't see the wood for the trees.

Think the issue is we'll never know if someone wants it as Ashley has never been serious about selling. Pretending to invite offers whilst asking a price that is prohibitive is what he's done. Why would he want to sell when he's got it so easy here?

This. Rafa's already explicitly said there would be some tough times ahead and everyone, including us as fans need to stick together, and already a sizeable proportion of our fan base is panicking with some even starting to turn on and blame Rafa. Ashley must be fucking loving this. Makes me feel physically sick.

It's Luke Edwards sorry my mistake, but yeah not positive at all.

Article from Craig Hope in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/22/newcastle-managerrafael-benitez-says-mood-club-dictated-results/ Noticed theres a bit in there about Keith Bishop watching Rafa's press conference today. Don't believe I've ever seen it mentioned before, hope it's not another bad sign.

Dunno - whoever wrote it I think has hit the nail on the head.

Because, as much as I love Rafa to bits, he's allowed to be criticised sometimes. Did you read what I said at all? It's obviously Ashley's fault at the heart of it, but you can't tell me morale amongst fans (and probably players) would be this bad had we not been fed leaks all summer? <b>A</b>he's never outwardly said the players aren't good enough though. <b>B</b>He isn't responsible for fan morale, and that makes no difference to performances a anyway. <b>C</b>His job is to get the best for NUFC and he's trying to do that A) Yes he has...he has repeatedly said that the players coming in aren't necessarily the players he wanted. B) Errr, I would say that's a pretty big part of his job. C) No doubt he's trying to do what is right...I just happen to disagree with his overly negative stance/leaks. I'll repeat, I love Rafa and think for the most part he's doing to best job he can...just not in this instance. So would you prefer if he pretends everythings great and that he's not been lied to? Yes, absolutely. I'd prefer he dealt with issues in house and didn't make them public knowledge, which only results in ammunition for the press and a drop in fan morale. Come on man. It's not rocket science. Not sure why you keep thinking that people don't understand what you're saying. It's that you're saying it that people can't understand. You'd basically rather not know that shit is going on behind the scenes and be blissfully unaware that there are still serious problems. Naturally some people think that that's a bit odd. Nail on head.

Because, as much as I love Rafa to bits, he's allowed to be criticised sometimes. Did you read what I said at all? It's obviously Ashley's fault at the heart of it, but you can't tell me morale amongst fans (and probably players) would be this bad had we not been fed leaks all summer? <b>A</b>he's never outwardly said the players aren't good enough though. <b>B</b>He isn't responsible for fan morale, and that makes no difference to performances a anyway. <b>C</b>His job is to get the best for NUFC and he's trying to do that A) Yes he has...he has repeatedly said that the players coming in aren't necessarily the players he wanted. B) Errr, I would say that's a pretty big part of his job. C) No doubt he's trying to do what is right...I just happen to disagree with his overly negative stance/leaks. I'll repeat, I love Rafa and think for the most part he's doing to best job he can...just not in this instance. So would you prefer if he pretends everythings great and that he's not been lied to?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/07/the-fiver-newcastle-steve-mcclaren He's probably going through his address book now and offering incentives for people to join the PR battle against Rafa.

Or Keith Bishop. Wouldn't surprise me if some people are being paid backhanders to put across Ashley's propaganda.

to be honest, some of the negativity and rafa's body language during interviews must be getting through to the players. Not to mention what they thought about "Mike Ashley Speaks" on the opening day of the season either.

Well I never said he should have saved it, just pointing out the comparisons with Huddersfield actually signing a goalkeeper who pulled off a really good save. Elliot would never have saved Ritchie's shot if the roles were reversed.

I thought he was slow to react to the shot and was too far over to the right side of his goal. EDIT Look at how their keeper reacted to Ritches shot. Tim Krul is still far and away the best keeper at the club and I am staggered that he isn't even training with the first team. Yeah, in some ways the difference yesterday was the goalkeepers. They actually bought a new keeper and who saved Ritchie's effort. Meanwhile Elliot is nowhere near Mooy's goal. Add to that his atrocious kicking of the ball constantly putting us under pressure and we are always going to struggle. Not sure Krul would be any better mind, put simply we need a new goalkeeper urgently.

Yeah, we should probably write all our players off already. Seriously it's his first starts in the PL, give the lad a bit of time to adjust to the quality. Hayden has got the potential to get much better, that is likely to only come through more playing time though. He looked nervous/short of confidence to me yesterday.

That PR bloke would have set that up and then convinced Mike it was the way to go. Pressure was building due to Rafa's excellent relationship with fans and press. Yep. Sad part is a fairly sizeable proportion of our fan base has fell for it hook, line and sinker. That's a large part of the reason that I can't see him ever being serious about selling us. He's got it far too easy.

Probably to undermine Rafa's work, to piss the fans off and to stop ANY positive momentum we had going. Why? Because the cunt can.

Yep, but it seems like he's going to stay and try and fight for the good of the fans/players/club. Kinda like having a fan in the dugout taking on the owner. Main worry is Ashley cranks up the cuntishness in an attempt to force Rafa's hand. I'm thinking lining up a few deals for the last days of the window and then making sure they fall through. Hope not but can see it happening.

Obviously "unwanted", but a better option at centre midfield when chasing the game at promoted Huddersfield? Less obvious... He's probably not a better option then anyone. He was useless in France last season, no-one else seems to want him, Rafa doesn't seem to think he's a viable option. I can understand people wondering because we have hardly seen him play but theres no evidence to back it up. Rafa sees him daily so has a much better idea of his ability and attitude. People need to forget about him really.

As Mike Ashley you mean. At the end of the day Ashley controls the money and always has. We had no problem spending money, bringing around 12 players in and shipping nearly 20 out last summer, now however things seem to have changed as Rafa has said. It's Ashley responsible for this.