After the Ashley statement how do you feel?

[Guest gggg]

im happy he's going.......to many lies

 

He's released about three statements since he's been here and lied in all of them.

 

"The club doesn't owe a penny to anyone"

 

"Keegan has final say on transfers"

 

And now this one "We've got shitloads of debt to pay off and all these deluded geordies want us to go and buy Robinho and Berbatov, I was prepared to get £20m out of my back pocket every season..."  Aye, right.

[Montey]

OMG what if paris hilton bought us!!!!!

 

At least we'd know what the new team mascot would look like:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/00/812_image_17.jpg/250px-812_image_17.jpg

[GM]

Don't blame him for wanting to sell up, bearing in mind that mob rule has always won the day at SJP, and he must feel there's no way back now,especially if his safety & his family's safety has been put in jeopardy by the idiot fringes of the fanbase.

 

I suspect the current economic climate has as much to do with his decision to sell up as recent events have, though.

 

So in summary I'm just worried for the club's future now. Very, very worried.

[mrmojorisin75]

Don't blame him for wanting to sell up, bearing in mind that mob rule has always won the day at SJP, and he must feel there's no way back now,especially if his safety & his family's safety has been put in jeopardy by the idiot fringes of the fanbase.

 

I suspect the current economic climate has as much to do with his decision to sell up as recent events have, though.

 

So in summary I'm just worried for the club's future now. Very, very worried.

 

short term worries me now as much as the long term - as predicted our lack of activity in the market during the summer is coming home to roost once it's too late to do anything about it

 

unless a takeover is completed very, very quickly indeed (unlikely) this has a chance to seriously start affecting things on the pitch, once you get into a rut it can be hard to get out of - as we saw last year

 

a clean sweep is needed now and a big appointment as manager

[GM]

I think we're already teetering on the brink of self-destruction as a club anyway, mojo.

 

We'll be firmly wedged in the bottom 3 by Christmas.

 

[Tooj]

OMG what if paris hilton bought us!!!!!

 

At least we'd know what the new team mascot would look like:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/00/812_image_17.jpg/250px-812_image_17.jpg

 

[Offshore]

If he'd come out and said similar about a week ago, maybe this could have been avoided or if he'd promised to sell then maybe we wouldn't be looking so unownerable and unmanageable.

[mrmojorisin75]

I think we're already teetering on the brink of self-destruction as a club anyway, mojo.

 

We'll be firmly wedged in the bottom 3 by Christmas.

 

 

i'm not sure i'd go that far yet but if the ownership thing drags on there won't be a permanent manager in place, which suggests the shambolic efforts on saturday may become the norm

 

we need the injured parties back, fast...but how many times over the years have we seen struggling teams with players who just aren't as eager to get back into the fray, as opposed to a team that's winning

 

[GM]

Martins apparently wants away, N'Zogbia too and I'd expect to find that Given & Owen feel the same way...and I'd imagine the mood in the dressing room is way beyond shit.

 

This feels just like watching a loved-one destroy themselves on a binge of drugs and alcohol  - you can see what's going to happen, but you can do nothing to stop it, as this situation has now got its own unstoppable, terrible momentum...

 

Feels worse, in some ways, than the darkest days of the Shepherd reign.

 

[Guest saintscoobz]

sorry but it has been jobs for the boys since ashley took over.  i believe that his business model could have been sucessful, only he has hired complete idiots in the key positions.  Dennis Wise is a complete C~~t and should never have anything to do with NUFC as long as we all shall live.  Derek Llambias has no proven record as a football chairman, who is this guy?,  and now he sits in our directors box every week.  i would probably do a better job than that twonk.  Mike Ashley generally was a sound guy, he could have been good for newcastle, he seemed to have the clubs best interests at heart, but he forgot one thing, the power of the fans.

 

If Ashley was at the healm for a few more years and the person who had quit did not have 'godlike' status on tyneside then Mike might just have got away this.  Unfortunately he's been here for 2 minutes and Keegan is still in the memory of (almost) all of our living memory as being a god on tyneside.

 

Sorry Mike, I'm glad your going, take the cockney twats with you, especially Llambias, he's a knob 

[LoveItIfWeBeatU]

This statement throws up a lot of questions.

 

What has Dennis Wise ever done to be considered more of a football expert than Keegan?

 

That £20m out of Ashley's own pocket. What about the TV money, season ticket sales, merchandise sales, etc? Surely he'd be making a profit every year.

 

Thanks a lot Mike. You've basically said you aren't going to 'subsidise' the club any more so were fucked until you find a buyer as no one will want to be the manager.

[Guest toonchina]

It seems lots of people believe Ashley had never thought about selling this club until what happened in the past 2 weeks.

 

more funny and childish than the club itself.

[Guest johnson293]

Thanks a lot Mike. You've basically said you aren't going to 'subsidise' the club any more so were f***ed until you find a buyer as no one will want to be the manager.

 

I wondered aout that as well - the fact he says he wont be subsidising the club any further.

 

I presume this just means that where he stated he'd have been happy to add £20m to the transfer kitty - he wont now, and I presume that any further payments he had planned towards the debt (however much is left), he now wont make.

 

The club is now funding itself on earnings, merchandise, etc and any remaining debt remains to be paid off at whatever rate/terms.

 

So presumabely, if we aren't sold before January, the transfer kitty will be whatever is left in the pot from the summer, plus any money from further sales.

 

Cheers Mike!

[toonpete1892]

I for one is gutted. The whole keegan debacle has demolished any hope our club had of securing a future! Ashley was willing to invest in the club but needed it to be stable before the big changes were made. Things needed to be changed after the dark days of sheperd (money being spent before it was even there, the spending of major sponsorship deals intended for 5 years, giving big names massive contracts just to win fans over, etc). He took a gamble buying NUFC and could and would have had more success elsewhere but he saw the potential and faith that the toon army has

 

I wouldnt be surprised if he runs the club into the ground before leaving, the treatment and insults he has been given for at least trying to save a rapdily sinking ship is childish! Thank you mike for giving a ticking bomb some hope - it was good whilst it lasted.

 

Good luck to whoever takes over is all I can say! and good luck to the club for its survival in ten years time, because once the fashion of buying clubs and players is over there wont be clubs like newcastle united, man citeh and chelsea.

[Guest Synthespian]

No I still don't support him as a manager should have the final say on all footballing decisions.

The porblem was, it was a crossing of lines with no clear say.

 

Wise should have been scouring for young talent, who "could" play in the first team, not who "would" play in the first team.

The problem - I think - related to the fact that Wise was having too much impact on the first team with his scouting, and not putting enough effort (on Keegan's view) into the signings he felt he required for the first team.

[kingkerouac]

If Mike Ashley is successful in offloading the club, he will walk away with a more than tidy profit.

Let's not start feeling sorry for him, eh?

[Neil]

The fact is that surely the statement was going to be criticised anyway. Cynicism reigns supreme it seems.

 

People want a statement, they get it, and criticise it, people don't get a statement = "no communication".

[AfroP]

How much more of a laughing stock could we possibly be?

the national press have already started spouting their garbage about how poor mike ashley has been forced to sell because of the fans never accepting him etc etc

The more this whole saga draws out the more i worry about the future of the club.

How many people are going to want to spend money on a football club with the problamatic recent history we have?

Whats to say that we dont get somebody buying the club that happens to be mates with Big Sam or god forbid graeme souness?

and then appoints one of them? will fans protest more and drag it out even further? where does it all end?

 

I'll admit that I had no problem with Ashley, yeah he made unpopular choices but at the end of the day he did what he though was best for the club, and we are certainly a hell of a lot better off now than what we were under the previous regime, from a business/financial point of view. Keegan apparently knew what he was getting into when he joined up, but I agree with him that the manager should not have any players forced on them from board lvl.

 

There is a lot of garbage that needs sorting out at the club and us fans need to allow it to get resolved without going ballistic every time something happens we dont like.

 

lets just hope fat fred does'nt decide to come back and take the club off mike

 

 

 

[Slim]

If Mike Ashley is successful in offloading the club, he will walk away with a more than tidy profit.

Let's not start feeling sorry for him, eh?

 

Already said he did not do it for the cash.

[Robster]

If Mike Ashley is successful in offloading the club, he will walk away with a more than tidy profit.

Let's not start feeling sorry for him, eh?

 

Already said he did not do it for the cash.

 

I actually believe that part. Its a fairly well acknowledged fact that football is not a profitable business to be in if your the club's owner.

[Guest guinness_fiend]

If Mike Ashley is successful in offloading the club, he will walk away with a more than tidy profit.

Let's not start feeling sorry for him, eh?

 

Already said he did not do it for the cash.

 

I actually believe that part. Its a fairly well acknowledged fact that football is not a profitable business to be in if your the club's owner.

 

Tax break-tastic.  Offset losses from the club against your profits in other areas - corporation tax?

[OzzieMandias]

How do I feel?

 

I'm still catching up on all this. I was a very long way away when Keegan resigned, in a place where I could only get online once in a blue moon, with the world's slowest connection and a jumbled-up foreign keyboard. Just got back to "civilisation" yesterday.

 

But I'm basically angry. Angry with just about everyone. Angry with Ashley for getting the strategy right but the tactics completely wrong. Angry with Keegan for walking. Angry with the press for fanning the flames. Angry with the self-righteous idiots who demonstrated.

 

While I've been on a 16-day holiday, we've gone from what looked like a decent if not spectacular transfer window to a completely disastrous situation. And as far as I can see, just about everyone except the players are to blame.

[quayside]

No sympathy for Ashley.

 

Assuming we believe that he did not buy us to make a quick profit as he says, it seems to me that he bought the club without a clue what he was buying into. Apart from the lies, lack of communication, shambolic PR and Wise and co the simple fact is he didn't understand what makes the place unique. Also he may be a rich man, but he isn't rich enough to own a club of our size. He cannot provide the essential funding thats needed to keep pace with other clubs of similar size. So he's completely out of his depth on all counts imo.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

If Mike Ashley is successful in offloading the club, he will walk away with a more than tidy profit.

Let's not start feeling sorry for him, eh?

 

Already said he did not do it for the cash.

 

I actually believe that part. Its a fairly well acknowledged fact that football is not a profitable business to be in if your the club's owner.

 

Tax break-tastic.  Offset losses from the club against your profits in other areas - corporation tax?

 

Its unlikely that we are part of a tax group involving Sports Direct and his other companies.

[Guest Edd]

Thanks a lot Mike. You've basically said you aren't going to 'subsidise' the club any more so were f***ed until you find a buyer as no one will want to be the manager.

 

I wondered aout that as well - the fact he says he wont be subsidising the club any further.

 

I presume this just means that where he stated he'd have been happy to add £20m to the transfer kitty - he wont now, and I presume that any further payments he had planned towards the debt (however much is left), he now wont make.

 

The club is now funding itself on earnings, merchandise, etc and any remaining debt remains to be paid off at whatever rate/terms.

 

So presumabely, if we aren't sold before January, the transfer kitty will be whatever is left in the pot from the summer, plus any money from further sales.

 

Cheers Mike!

 

So Ashley is driven out by the fans and now those same fans are complaining because he wont continue to put his own money into the club.  You couldn't make it up.