gjohnson

Katy Brand, easily. Caveat is that she'll only accept if you can get your cv onto a single sheet of A4.. Or you can prove if a strawberry is dead or alive

So...premier league says the bid is withdrawn so nothing to reject...the club says there has been a bid rejected. Who do you believe? It's like being asked to choose who to get in bed with Jo Brand or Katy Brand. One would definitely be more fun, but one has the dirt and filth. Either way you feel minging in the morning

Long and short is someone is lying somewhere. Unfortunately have to think it's the club given their proven legal history of 'intentionally and deliberately misleading fans'. PL are just as guilty but truth probably lies somewhere in between their conflicting statements. Sounds like submitting a report to answer a specific question and the examiner changing it slightly so even though it's been answered it's not been answered in a way to get the marks

32 for Robert. Been a bit iconic for me since he left. Started with Kevin Gallagher. Sometimes a number just becomes associated with a player...helps if they're really good or really shit. Could you genuinely see anyone other than an Ameobi in 23?

I'm willing to retract my statement that there was nothing going on. Obviously something was, but don't see how this is going to get PIF back, and isn't just a tactic for Ashley to get a bit of money out of the PL. Even if he's right and wins, he gets compensation....probably top 6 funded, but it doesn't bring the actual investors back, just shows the PL being questionable in behavior. May be some longer term implications in the longer term, but I think the best we would see out of it is Masters resigning with a promise to review the OD test

Who's Calvin Phillips? Never heard of him either

Even if anything is still happening, the Barclay stuff will be her priority at the moment. I'd certainly be concetrating more on trying to get hold of 1.5b than trying to arrange taking charge if a new company

The obvious response is that every conversation is being held privately now so her not talking publicly is a good thing. Roll on the summer 2021 takeover saga. A more obvious response is that there's nothing going on so there's nothing to say

So essentially 21m disappeared in to the void of a balance sheet despite the physical assets still being on the books

Wrong or right, that write off was definitely used as an accounting trick to hide how much should have been available

Every club (and business) should write off an asset if it's not actually of any value any more. If a player has no re-sale value and is rotting in the under-23s their asset value should be impaired and expensed. Actually, looking at the NUFC accounts, I'm not even sure this happened. 2017 - Amortisation and impairment of players' registrations: £35,753k 2018 - Amortisation and impairment of players' registrations: £41,336k 2019 - Amortisation and impairment of players' registrations: £38,611k Not a significant variance there. Think the whole idea of a big random increase in write-offs one year to massage the profit figure might have been a myth. Pretty certain it was widely published that they wrote off a load. Might have been in a rare Charnley statement, but they definitely used it as a reason for not spending the vastly increased tv money while the likes of brighton and Bournemouth spent significantly more edit...weren't the write off placed under exceptional costs rather than amortisation. Pretty sure Saivet was in there and that's a hell of a lot more than amortisation

Still a feeble amount compared to other sides. The excuse that we couldn't invest as much as others is still there and will be the go to when rock bottom after 10 games. Swear the club is still living in the mid90s where 7m would get you a good probably 'B' list player. Not one of the very best, but still very good...Kind of Asprilla signing, and completely not realized that these days the equivalent is 30-40m at least. Yes they paid 40m for Joelinton, but that was clearly a massive balls up somewhere down the line

Didn't they claim that they'd written off the value of his contract including wages for the duration to look like they'd spent the money already...don't understand accounts that well but I'm sure that was the perceived consensus here....make the wage bill look massively inflated while not actually paying anything out as a veiled excuse for not spending What they did was write off the asset value of a number of players from the balance sheet, which increased the expenditure going through the profit and loss account and therefore decreased our reported profit figure. The actual players themselves were never disclosed, so it's hard to judge how justified it was from an accounting perspective. It was nothing to do with wages. The asset value is determined by transfer fees and any other costs related to the transfer (agent fees for e.g.), so the value of Colback's write off would've been trivial any way because he came on a free. If a player comes off the wage bill he comes off the wage bill. The accounting doesn't particularly matter - it's less cash going out of the business which is what matters. Isn't asset value also based on how much the contract is worth? As Colback was free, if you exclude his contract he would have never been an asset worth more than 0, so how could he have been written off without some creativity in the numbers Contract value (i.e. salary) doesn't factor into asset value - it's transfer fee plus any other directly attributable purchase costs. But you're right - Colback's value on the books would've been trivial (agent's fees, any other costs associated with the transfer itself). The idea the club booked a big write-off on Colback was invented by this forum/NUFC twitter. Well either way they did it, it made them look like they spent a hell of a lot more than they actually did, and used it as an excuse for not spending later, or to make the profit look more healthy should any of the written off assets actually be sold. Writing off the value of an asset you still have is surely just a way to hide money. Nearest thing I can compare in real terms is if I fill in a tax return and write off the value of my car, but then keep the car which is officially worth 0, but in real life is worth about 10k. I still have a 10k asset, but on paper it looks like I don't. Well aware it's not that simple, but that's how it reads to a layman

Didn't they claim that they'd written off the value of his contract including wages for the duration to look like they'd spent the money already...don't understand accounts that well but I'm sure that was the perceived consensus here....make the wage bill look massively inflated while not actually paying anything out as a veiled excuse for not spending What they did was write off the asset value of a number of players from the balance sheet, which increased the expenditure going through the profit and loss account and therefore decreased our reported profit figure. The actual players themselves were never disclosed, so it's hard to judge how justified it was from an accounting perspective. It was nothing to do with wages. The asset value is determined by transfer fees and any other costs related to the transfer (agent fees for e.g.), so the value of Colback's write off would've been trivial any way because he came on a free. If a player comes off the wage bill he comes off the wage bill. The accounting doesn't particularly matter - it's less cash going out of the business which is what matters. Isn't asset value also based on how much the contract is worth? As Colback was free, if you exclude his contract he would have never been an asset worth more than 0, so how could he have been written off without some creativity in the numbers

Didn't they claim that they'd written off the value of his contract including wages for the duration to look like they'd spent the money already...don't understand accounts that well but I'm sure that was the perceived consensus here....make the wage bill look massively inflated while not actually paying anything out as a veiled excuse for not spending This is the accounting trick I guess. Assume Colback is worth nothing (fair in my view), then his value is surely just his remaining wages? Since he's presumably been paid by us till his release, as we didn't pay up his contract to let him be a free agent until it expired his wage should still be on the overall wage bill? More than likely massively wrong, but that's how it looks to an accounting ignoramus

It's weird, most people on here think it's weak but then I speak to others and they think it's good. In the words of another poster...it's all relative. Could you see any of our midfielders starting for a better team? How much does the Longstaffs being local kids cloud the judgement? Would Shelvey get in to Wolves/Everton/Leicester teams? Would Hayden get a look in at at Spurs?

We had already written off his wages. It's not beyond this club to have continued to include dthem in normal wage costs. There's probably some creative accounting trick which will have let them do it so they can continue to plead poverty. Wouldn't surprise me at all...pay a knowledgeable account a few hundred thousand to look like the salary has been paid in full, while still paying the wage then claiming a high wage bill as an excuse not to spend millions. Sounds like a typical Ashley MO to me

Well there's clearly some deception somewhere. If the common belief holds that the budget includes wages then that 35m is long gone, pending sales. Alternatively the 35m figure was plucked from nothing to keep up the pretence of being perennially skint, which doesn't hold true either since newly promoted Leeds can go and blow 27 on a single player. Or as someone suggested there's a significant sale coming from somewhere...and that suggests StMax as he's the only one that could probably be moved for a decent profit on initial outlay

All these targets are massively unispiring. Picking from relegated teams is never a good plan unless they're standout players. Admittedly they're all better than what we have, but at the end of the day if they were better they might not have been relegated. Was a bit different when we went down as they players were clearly good, just massively mismanaged

Bringing Shola out of retirement would be an upgrade on what we've got

More than likely to have been mentioned at least, but doubt it would lead to anything

This amuses me far more than it should

Got a massive feeling Messi wouldnt be as good in Premier League. Not based on any evidence. Will do well compared to most of the leagues cloggers, but see it being more like Zola's time at Chelsea...lots of skill and good moments, but not masses and masses of goals

There's no anger intended, but criticism yes....in terms of journalism at least. He's done a very good job in getting readers/subscribers for his articles which is more than likely a part of his remit given that he works at a subscription based publication. Just saying that reflectively most of his articles were nothing more than nicely dressed up click-bait, carefully and subtlety worded so they looked like facts but were in fact just opinions. It's an admirable talent, but totally designed to get the 'thickos' as another user put it to generate money for The Athletic. Being articulate and sympathetic to a cause does not mean you are a good journalist. Not saying he isn't, but checking sources should be the first thing to do. I write a fair few scientific articles, and if i can't show at least one peer reviewed confirmation it's laughed out of the place before even being considered for publication. That doesn't make me a thicko, or spouting gibberish, as some have claimed, that makes me credible in my field

Not thick at all. Looking at the situation with critical eyes Nothing to stop him doing some actual journalism and checking to see if what he's been told is actually based in any kind of factual world. Unless it was just an interview and reported as one, rather than taking a single source as gospel That's fine in most scenarios, but with one source (we are assuming) involved in a highly confidential process, I'm not sure how feasible that is. In that case a decent journalist wouldn't report as fact, and would write as an opinion piece. Probably not feasible to report with checks, but that should have been made clear. You are literally spouting complete and utter gibberish like. I don't know how thick people have to be to see it the way you do, but George has made it abundantly clear every time he's shared his bits of info that "the buyer's believe...", "it's from the buyer's", "the buyer's have been told there are no red flags". All of those things are true, or were true at the time of reporting. As far as I'm aware, as someone who knows George a little bit, he hasn't once said that "THE TAKEOVER WILL BE APPROVED ON DAY XYZ". Saying news should have confirmed and verified sources is hardly gibberish. George may have had a confirmed source, but was never verified. Reading his pieces he only hints at this but does present it as fact even though technically he doesn't. His reports convinced a lot of people that he actually had an insight into what was going on, which over the last few weeks has been revealed as to be not the case. His source is literally Amanda Staveley. How much closer to the deal do you want him to be? Maybe try to check to see if she was telling the truth? Not saying he didn't, but there's no published evidence that he checked on what she was telling him. He's published opinion pieces to look like fact while technically not presenting them as fact. He got a lot of people's hopes up by being good at gaming the news system, which is a sort of admirable quality but isn't up there for his long term credibility