Sean

It's really not. I'd be happy with someone who wanted the best for the club and was prepared to try to grow the club, not scale it back and sabotage it.

Stabilising the club in the premier league would increase the value of his asset. The first season back is always going to be the most expensive however once he has a squad fit for the PL the spending can be scaled back. Yup, but what if your manager tell you give me money or we must relegate then? In fans perspective it must be give. What if it's your own money? Any contingency plan you can do? ? Loves Pardew and Ashley and seems to have something against Rafa?

As far as I know, kit sponsorship should be the most expensive. I really doubt our club sponsorship could be more than what we got from northern rock wonga 888 etc. Sean, listen to the points rather than trying to win an argument, of your own making. Ashley is not a 'sugar daddy' is not going to take a loss. The Sports Direct shit-smear across the stadium isn't going to make-up 40 million. Keep telling yourself that then if it keeps you happy. Where has 40 million came from anyway? I've never mentioned a figure.

As far as I know, kit sponsorship should be the most expensive. I really doubt our club sponsorship could be more than what we got from northern rock wonga 888 etc.

Please explain what is loan from club owner and why it has increased to 129m term loan + 33m further loan = 164m as per latest account A loan is money owed (to Ashley), which needs to be paid back at some stage and is interest bearing (we pay for it in free advertising). It is not the same as putting money in and expecting nothing in return. The debt was 70m when he bought us (mainly related to late 90's stadium extension as a 57m mortgage which had to be repaid in the event of a change in ownership). He then added 29m to pay off existing player transfer fees that were spread out in one go, another 29m as the cost of the first relegation (his mistake) and another 33m after the second relegation (again his mistake). He also profits from this loan fiscally as he offsets it in his holding company, hence paying less tax over his profits. So in short: no, a loan is entirely different to putting his own money in (as most other club owners have done by the way). Give me examples that a normal club in EPL would have an income item called "owners donation". He could have signed a sponsorship deal with sports direct and funded us that way. You know, pay for the advertising space. Yea, by market price, additional 4m per year? unless it is the difference between relegation or not, would this help to give us an additional Batshuayi? Have you got evidence to back up your £4m a year figure? Preferable using a similar sized club, and a similar amount of sponsorship granted (including the team going to do meet and greets at Sports Direct and also the huge roof advertising)?

Not defending him? OK then.

Please explain what is loan from club owner and why it has increased to 129m term loan + 33m further loan = 164m as per latest account A loan is money owed (to Ashley), which needs to be paid back at some stage and is interest bearing (we pay for it in free advertising). It is not the same as putting money in and expecting nothing in return. The debt was 70m when he bought us (mainly related to late 90's stadium extension as a 57m mortgage which had to be repaid in the event of a change in ownership). He then added 29m to pay off existing player transfer fees that were spread out in one go, another 29m as the cost of the first relegation (his mistake) and another 33m after the second relegation (again his mistake). He also profits from this loan fiscally as he offsets it in his holding company, hence paying less tax over his profits. So in short: no, a loan is entirely different to putting his own money in (as most other club owners have done by the way). I'll never ever get the Ashley line about not knowing about the repayment of the debt to fund the stadium. Change of control provision is included in pretty much every loan agreement - even if you did no due diligence at all, you would expect there to be one. In any event, it's relatively common to speak to a bank and ask them to continue to provide the loan. 100%, he knew all about it. It's just a great excuse to not invest and to get some simpletons to agree with that.

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.