Thumbheed

The thing is, for 12 years no press has really got behind the shambolic running of the club and forced the issue like they have with others. We don't have the national profile to warrant it I suppose after years of underachievement. So how many people outside our club truly understand the impact Ashley is having on us? Every week 50k fans turn up and "support the team". Every single week 50k create a great atmosphere for millions of fans worldwide who are totally oblivious to the strife and disarray that is at our club. Every single week 50k put on an almost picture perfect environment for the marketing of his tat. He has a worldwide marketing tool that is being fed by the very people he is trampling on. The biggest impact we can have on Ashley is by showing the world our discontent in the only way we can; an empty stadium. Lets have people worldwide see an empty stadium and question why. If Ashley can use the club to pursue his own agenda, then the smartest thing we can do is to do the exact same thing. We should be doing everything in our power to create a negative brand association as it's literally the only interest Ashley has in our club. We don't need protests, we don't need flags, we don't need some bald cunt walking around with a coffin, we need to boycott this club until changes are made. Imagine paying for music from an artist who's had their best days but keeps churning out shit because they're still getting the money. That's us.

Sadly, for as long as the fans dont realise that by 'supporting the team's they're supporting the regime', we'll constantly be in this situation.

Don't even care about his ability as a manager. The man was just pure class. There's not many people out there who can engage a club like Rafa does. His managerial ability to replicable but his ability to engage the entire city is not. He's a rare breed. Absolutely gutted.

No, not yet, doubt he will either. If he has lied, well i'd rather he faced it up and apologised. Then that would be it, we all do daft things to seek attention, it's no biggie to forgive him. We all don't go to those levels though, man. Football's emotive. It's pretty cruel for someone to manipulate those emotions for a 'kick', especially at a time like this. Same as it would be cruel for anyone to do the same in any other emotive scenario.

Isn't Thumbheed from Blackpool? I'm not, no.

I know it's Darren Gough of all people, but everytime I hear the words "goalposts" and "moved" my heart sinks. We all know he's definitely got a precedent for that. The idea that Ashley may even entertain the idea of jeapordising this sale or the re signing of Rafa does worry me with reagrds to his intentions with BZG.

My views were that Rafa was in a win win situation if he signed up, but I guess I hadn't really factored in Rafa's commitment to his principles. There is literally no precedent of him shying away or doing a U turn on any of them.

I'm not privy to the kind of information that's available to you, so I have no choice but to base my opinions on the words of those very numpties. I'm very open to the idea that whilst there is clearly a load of horseshit out there, there's also no smoke without fire.

Kenyon’s deal never got off the ground as he couldn’t get the investors on board. Doubt much has changed there. He’s never been owner material. Ashley might very well be playing some last minute asshole moves with BZG, or maybe it’s the other way around.. There’s a reason the Bishop machine sprung to life this week. Why? Maybe it’s all good to go and the reports about them wanting Mourinho are true? So they wait and let Benítez walk and Ashley gets all the flack. Not read the latest quotes from Mourinho on his next job have you? Odin do you just say this stuff to be popular on here because it seems it. What you going to tell us next the Sheikh wants Rafa out but has Keegan lined up as director football. Or Sheikh wants to re open Shearers bar by the end of the month? What line are you going to feed us next to be popular... I have no interest in being popular. This thread is tiresome. Not unlike having brat children in the back of a stuffy car on the way to the Lake District.. “are we there yet?! Are we there yet?!” Mourinho didn’t say he didn’t want to manage nufc, he said he wanted an interesting project. The reality is he’ll go somewhere that has a chance of winning something and will pay his massive salary. If he doesn’t get that he’ll take a step back and do international management. Back to the main point. Just look at the facts. The statements which have come out. Why would you doubt them? Do you really think Mike Ashley got a leading Dubai conglomerate which is many times the size of Sports Direct to make false statements and risk their reputation just so Mike Ashley could f*** Benitez over? Think about how mental that sounds. Yes Caulkin is a respected journalist when it comes to this club but everything he’s written has been guess work over the last few weeks. He didn’t have the scoop on the takeover, he hasn’t had any direct quotes from Benitez. Everything he wrote earlier is just his opinion. And why not, being negative is the safe call when it comes to this club. Seems to be your safe space too.. I'd been quite optimistic about all this, partially on the basis that we hadn't heard anything from the club since the news broke, but now that we're approaching judgement day, it's a very worrying sign that we're starting to hear murmurings of discontent.

Cringey at worst.

You're a WUM. How has he not made money owning us? Go on tell us all. If he loans us money, we owe it him back. He's been getting advertising (around £8 million a year) free, taking profit from sales of merchandise. If he ever wants to sell us, he'll make a hefty profit. But no he's not made a penny. Poor Mike eh. Well show me where you get these factual figures from I have asked several times. The accounts, which are the official record of NUFC show that over the 12 year period he has been owner of the club he has lost a substantial amount. As for making a hefty profit if he sells that's the one point I do agree on and it's the only way he will make a hefty profit also, which was the original point I was making. There's definitely a bit of over-simplification in there. Sports Direct has undoubtedly benefitted from its association with the club and therefore, Ashley has as well. What would be the cost of advertising at the stadium to the level he has? £25m per season? Any loss that might show on the balance sheet has been recouped, probably many times over, whether directly or indirectly. Presumably the club shop revenue would have to be specified on the balance sheet, but would how much of that is siphoned off to SD have to be declared? NUFC purchase merchandise through SD to sell as SD get it at a better rate. SD then get a percentage of merchandising profits. People claiming Ashley doesn’t benefit? FFS. Nobody said he doesn't but can you say to what amount he does benefit? Mike Ashley himself says he wanted to use Newcastle united as a vehicle to expand Sports Direct. I suggest you check out their financial history to get a clue of the benefits he's gained over these past 12 years. For what it's worth SD was at about 220p per share before he took over, and peaked at 907p per share at about 2014. I'd say they aren't 2 mutually exclusive situations.

I havent followed that closely in recent days so forgive me but is any of that based on what we know or is it your idea about what's happening? I mean "looking into the structure of how it works"? Where are you looking? Quite a few different resources actually. I contacted a guy from Telangana who explained their BZG deal to me. So basically they signed an MoU of 2 billion investment. That 2 billion is spread around through various construction and telecommunications companies over a period of time. They come in and do the work and absorb the costs, the region gets the infrastructure (roads, fibre optic lines etc) which BZG owns. They make the money back (and then some) on tolls and then contracts with other service providers to use what they have built. They’re in everything for the long term. They’ve built many sky scrapers over there. I’m not in any way worried about their credentials. Now that is interesting The fact they have various big projects like that over the World in reflection is a good sign. The Sheikh is also partners in business with people who have invested $100million into Sports companies like One Championship which makes me think their credentials to get investment for us is far better than I first thought. It’s easy to get fooled by the terrible website into thinking they are third rate. They have thousands of employees, a quick check on LinkedIn and there is an abundance of them up there. All doing various roles in different sectors. Think a part of what they do is business services. Not unlike Mitie in the UK. But they also have their finger in energy (oil, gas and renewables), construction (civil, residential and professional) and then an investment arm for their wealthier members. https://www.berkshirehathaway.com Worst homepage in the world.

So if you know everything in this thread to be false, remind me again, why you're still posting in it? I think 100% of the fantasists accept the fact you think they're fantasists - what else is there left for you to say?

I hope they stick with Rafa, he just seems the perfect fit and I'm not sure any other manager could engage the club in the way that he does, but I'd be naive not even entertain the idea that after putting down £350m, new owners may want their own man.

It absolutely wouldn't.

With what scenario would they not be taking the piss?

Ground breaking stuff that.

To be fair there's 3 or 4 teams spending at similar levels. When was the last time a West Ham manager had more than a season AND investment? I can't remember such a good spread of top quality players outside the big guns within any league.

We haven’t made too many bad sales really. Just not enough signings. A sale is a bad sale if it's not adequately replaced. I'd say there's been lots of players during his tenure that weren't replaced with equal or better players. From what I've seen of Longstaff, I think he's actually one of the better players we've had during Ashley's time. Factor in the fact he's local and a youth product, plus the fact we don't actually know how good he is or could be amounts to this potentially being the worst of the lot.

Mad if we were to sell him. Would easily rank as the worst sale Ashley has made.

I think the attempt to buy is real, however, I think it's worth baring in mind that the money that's being spent to get this far is a drop in the ocean for these guys so not necessarily as significant for them, as it might be for some like us.

I read that the other day. If I was the owner of one of the bars prosecuted, I’d claim that the evidence was stolen and therefor invalid. Did you study Bird Law?

Would happily accept a Mexican Tacover.

There's not even a grey area with this situation, it's all or nothing.

Does nobody find it even slightly strange that as Rafa was refusing to sign the contract, a few days later this takeover gossip suddenly appears? I know lots will say its a conspiracy. Ashley has been trying his best to sell us for the best part of 10 years. Nobody has matched his value or if they did they didn't have the cash. Come on man Look at the bigger picture. Ashley has known about this 'takeover' since before April 17th (proof of funds supposedly sent), probably long before then, so why bother pretending to try to sign Rafa up? Surely at this stage we can discount Mike Ashley PR conspiracies? It seems like the only question here is whether the takeover goes through or not. I'd be far more inclined to believe this was a publicity stunt from BZG. There are far more signs pointing to this than there is it being an Ashley cuntcoction. It would make less sense for him to not offer Rafa anything, proof of funds or not. If this is the case, then you'd think Ashley would have come out and said so - unless it's nice and convenient for him to have these stories floating around? Anyway, for all we know the buyers may be for real, but Ashley leaked the interest to the press when he did. We don't really know anything concrete in regards to this wholly predictable affair this mooted takeover has become. If it becomes apparent that that's the case, I imagine he will, much like he did with Stavely and Kenyon. For what it's worth I don't believe it is a publicity stunt but of all the conspiracies that are out there, this ones the most plausible. The only consistency under Ashley's tenure has been that he does not give a single fuck about the fans; leaked stories to undermine detractors, yes. An orchestrated fake takeover including direct statements from the supposed buyer and many sources citing progress to some degrees so that he can mug Rafa off; I very much doubt it. My take was that the leak came from BZG and the follow up statements would back that view up. At a guess, I'd say it was to ward off other buyers by giving off the impression they're far further along than they actually are.