Alan Shearer contract latest: long gone

[quayside]

So you're saying that the ability to make yourself a billionaire by building up a company from nothing into one worth over a billion. Then managing to sell part of it for even more than it's worth, whilst basically retaining control over it to the extent that you can afford to tell the people who bought-in where to go. Then when they try to get revenge on you in the only way they can by forcing down the price of your shares to below what they're really worth, you call their bluff and start buying them back at much much less than you sold them for. Is all down to luck?

 

Wow, that's one lucky b******!! I wish I had luck like that.

 

Yes. The subsequent performance proves beyond any doubt that the valuation process was flawed and those that carried it out cocked up and Ashley has exploited that - lucky.

 

So identifying and exploiting opportunities to your own benefit is all down to luck?

 

Whatever people think of the bloke for what's happened here, to say that he's become a billionaire due to nothing more than luck is... ...well, delusional really. There are a hell of a lot of lucky people out there, there's not that many billionaires.

 

Of course the fact that he created a business that was worth £x million was not all down to luck. Where he got lucky was turning some of that £x million into cash of about £1 billion when it wasn't worth that. And by moving up into that bracket of wealth he  thought he was rich enough and clever enough to own and maintain a Premiership football club - wrong on both counts tbh.

[johnnypd]

i dont think anyone is saying going from £zero to £2billion is just down to luck, but having a £500m business valued at £2billion certainly was.

[indi]

It's nothing to do with luck, he saw an opportunity and he took it, what's lucky about that?

[tmonkey]

It's nothing to do with luck, he saw an opportunity and he took it, what's lucky about that?

 

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us.

 

I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC.

[madras]

It's nothing to do with luck, he saw an opportunity and he took it, what's lucky about that?

 

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us.

 

I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC.

oh thats how it works. all these billionaires etc have never made losses or stepped outside their speciality and fucked up.

[tmonkey]

It's nothing to do with luck, he saw an opportunity and he took it, what's lucky about that?

 

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us.

 

I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC.

 

oh thats how it works. all these billionaires etc have never made losses or stepped outside their speciality and f***ed up.

 

Never said they haven't, nor have I implied anywhere that billionaires can't be good businessmen whilst still making susbstantial losses in alternative ventures.

 

The point here is that it's quite possible that Ashley isn't good at business in general, but that he may be where he is because he stumbled upon something that noone else was doing within the sports retail market. It's also possible that Ashley is indeed a smart businessman and made his billion by being sharp/shrewd. I'm not saying he's either, just that I can see why some people might consider him to be "lucky".

[madras]

It's nothing to do with luck, he saw an opportunity and he took it, what's lucky about that?

 

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us.

 

I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC.

 

oh thats how it works. all these billionaires etc have never made losses or stepped outside their speciality and f***ed up.

 

Never said they haven't, nor have I implied anywhere that billionaires can't be good businessmen whilst still making susbstantial losses in alternative ventures.

 

The point here is that it's quite possible that Ashley isn't good at business in general, but that he may be where he is because he stumbled upon something that noone else was doing within the sports retail market. It's also possible that Ashley is indeed a smart businessman and made his billion by being sharp/shrewd. I'm not saying he's either, just that I can see why some people might consider him to be "lucky".

my own personal thoughts are that he is a clever businessman (not just a retailer) and he came into this (NUFC) not as a business venture 1100% but for the fun. didn't do his homework and found out it would cost him a lot more than he thought.

[tmonkey]

It's nothing to do with luck, he saw an opportunity and he took it, what's lucky about that?

 

Maybe the notion that if someone else had already brought out a chain of low-cost branded sports goods where profits were made on non-branded products with high margins, then Ashley would be a commoner like many of us.

 

I appreciate the same arguement could be made for anyone who's earnt a fortune from being smart enough to do what noone else has done, but with Ashley showing his sheer and utter incompetence in running a football club I'd say the "luck" element applies moreso with him in comparison to someone like e.g. Bill Gates, who I could still see being a multi-millionaire through some other venture had someone else been the first to bring out an end-user orientated operating system where the licence was for each PC.

 

oh thats how it works. all these billionaires etc have never made losses or stepped outside their speciality and f***ed up.

 

Never said they haven't, nor have I implied anywhere that billionaires can't be good businessmen whilst still making susbstantial losses in alternative ventures.

 

The point here is that it's quite possible that Ashley isn't good at business in general, but that he may be where he is because he stumbled upon something that noone else was doing within the sports retail market. It's also possible that Ashley is indeed a smart businessman and made his billion by being sharp/shrewd. I'm not saying he's either, just that I can see why some people might consider him to be "lucky".

 

my own personal thoughts are that he is a clever businessman (not just a retailer) and he came into this (NUFC) not as a business venture 1100% but for the fun. didn't do his homework and found out it would cost him a lot more than he thought.

 

That's fair enough, and it's a view I'd sometime agree with depending on what mood I was in. After all none of us know him or what he's like as an entrepreneur.

 

Right now though, I can't look beyond Ashley buying this club without actually looking at the books to see what he was getting himself into. It's difficult to see how a competent businessman would do that. Why would anyone spend £130m buying a business without actually studying the accounts in depth? And if he was told by Hall, as per the rumours, that he had to buy the club within such a deadline that he could not perform due diligence, his business sense should have told him to drop it and look elsewhere straight away. As soon as someone imposed that sort of deadline on him, suspicions should have been raised to flashing red, wailing siren levels. Maybe it could be argued that he was passionate about buying the club and was prepared to accept the risk of a moderate adjustment on the fair values of assets/liabilities and amounts payable on demand, but even then it's still not all that impressive on his part, because the man had a limited budget that he was perpared to work with, and in light of this he should have checked to make sure that that budget and the corresponding plan wasn't going to be blown out of the window immediately after buying the club.

 

Is this how he makes all of his business decisions? Using his "gut instinct"? Doesn't bode well for him in future ventures imo.

 

Again though, it's quite possible that he was just unlucky with this one purchase, or that he's simply not suited to being involved with owning/running a football club.

[quayside]

Having started this discussion on whether Ashley was lucky or not I just want to emphasise that I am not, for one minute, suggesting that his building up of Sports Direct from nothing into a multi million pound business was down to luck. Some may think he was lucky in achieving that but I am not one of them.

 

All I am saying is that when Sports Direct was floated the valuation process was clearly flawed and that resulted in a gross over valuation of the company - and the evidence of this is there for all the world to see. As a result of that valuation he pocketed a much larger sum of money in cash than he should have. That was lucky.

 

Ashley then further expoited the situation by buying back shares at 40p per share when he had previously sold those same shares for  £3 per share. Many investors are extremely pissed off with Sports Direct.

 

[jimmymag]

Having started this discussion on whether Ashley was lucky or not I just want to emphasise that I am not, for one minute, suggesting that his building up of Sports Direct from nothing into a multi million pound business was down to luck. Some may think he was lucky in achieving that but I am not one of them.

 

All I am saying is that when Sports Direct was floated the valuation process was clearly flawed and that resulted in a gross over valuation of the company - and the evidence of this is there for all the world to see. As a result of that valuation he pocketed a much larger sum of money in cash than he should have. That was lucky.

 

Ashley then further expoited the situation by buying back shares at 40p per share when he had previously sold those same shares for  £3 per share. Many investors are extremely pissed off with Sports Direct.

 

 

"The value of shares can go down as well as up". Caveat emptor!

 

I've no sympathy for the investors in Sports Direct, they should have done their homework.

[quayside]

Having started this discussion on whether Ashley was lucky or not I just want to emphasise that I am not, for one minute, suggesting that his building up of Sports Direct from nothing into a multi million pound business was down to luck. Some may think he was lucky in achieving that but I am not one of them.

 

All I am saying is that when Sports Direct was floated the valuation process was clearly flawed and that resulted in a gross over valuation of the company - and the evidence of this is there for all the world to see. As a result of that valuation he pocketed a much larger sum of money in cash than he should have. That was lucky.

 

Ashley then further expoited the situation by buying back shares at 40p per share when he had previously sold those same shares for  £3 per share. Many investors are extremely pissed off with Sports Direct.

 

 

"The value of shares can go down as well as up". Caveat emptor!

 

I've no sympathy for the investors in Sports Direct, they should have done their homework.

 

Of course caveat emptor applies whether you are buying shares when a company is first floated or buying Newcastle United. Those Sports Direct investors had done their homework and were relying on a valuation prepared by so called experts, and it was clearly wrong.

 

But my point is very simple - Ashley got lucky with the valuation and exploited it. 

 

 

Edit: How did we get on to this subject on a Shearer contract thread 

[Wallace]

I can appreciate the logic of not appointing Shearer as permanent manager if one of the potential buyers is not keen.  However, as it would take a few weeks to conclude any deal, at what point would the new owners go out and recruit a manager?  If they are foreign owners, they would probably have to hire an advisor of potential targets.  Do you think they would have a manager on standby or wait until the deal is done before starting to think about it.  We have seen with recent appointments that it normally takes over a week to do the negotiations.  At this rate, it would be towards the end of July at the earliest.

 

I just don't know why they don't appoint Shearer on a 6 month deal to oversee the next few months.  If he does a good job, then they will want to keep him on and if not, then it won't cost them much to get rid.

 

 

[Thespence]

I herd most of that guff pre & post getting JFK in at SJP.

 

 

[Mattoon]

I can appreciate the logic of not appointing Shearer as permanent manager if one of the potential buyers is not keen.  However, as it would take a few weeks to conclude any deal, at what point would the new owners go out and recruit a manager?  If they are foreign owners, they would probably have to hire an advisor of potential targets.  Do you think they would have a manager on standby or wait until the deal is done before starting to think about it.  We have seen with recent appointments that it normally takes over a week to do the negotiations.  At this rate, it would be towards the end of July at the earliest.

 

I just don't know why they don't appoint Shearer on a 6 month deal to oversee the next few months.  If he does a good job, then they will want to keep him on and if not, then it won't cost them much to get rid.

 

 

 

This.

The only downside to this is would Shearer be happy with a non-comittal stance? This also raises problems that we have faced before, every manager wants to make their stamp on a club, their own players that fit the style of play they want. We could end up with new owners that don't want Shearer in charge and consequently a new manager who doesn't want the playing staff he's inherited thus creating another transitional period.

The sooner this is all rectified, the better. I think we'll see a new manager installed as the business deal comes to a close.

It just boils my piss that every passing day is another day other teams around us get a bigger head start and the bank ballance gets significantly lighter as we pay our overpaid useless squad to be on holiday. 

[merlin]

It's quite unbelievable how a successful (perhaps questionable) business man can make so many mistakes and not learn. Whenever there has been a decision to be made, he has made the WRONG decision EVERY time. I mean seriously, who the f*** advised him that it would be a good idea to advertise the sale of the club on a website aimed at communicating with fans? Beyond belief.

 

Business success involves a hell of a lot of luck.  Being in the right place at the right time with the right people around you can make even a complete moron a lot of money.  With us, Ashley seemed to be content to rely on his luck rather than good management and his luck just ran out.

 

The situation reminds me a bit of what happened with Alan Sugar a few years ago, when he bought Spurs. He ended up having to sack Terry Venables, who was the fans' favourite, and found himself out of control of his own business. Like Ashley, he was glad to get out in the end.

 

The only criterion for success in a business is making money. With a football club, success is trophies and there's a degree of customer involvement and interest in decisions which would normally be entirely up to an owner.

 

True.

Tbh I can understand people thinking that Ashley is deliberately running the club down because his decision making is so catastrophic that it seems inconceivable that he thinks he is doing the right things. But he is a trader and a chancer who got lucky in a market he understands. He thinks that means he has ability to run something else which he doesn't understand and like others before him (Sugar being one as you say) he is very wrong. People like Ashley are used to making decisions in their own time and in their own way, those that work for him know that and set things up around him accordingly. But in a business like a football club decisions are absolutely time critical and success depends upon the assets of the club being moulded into a cohesive unit (and not being viewed as a potential profitable resale). Ashley, though rich, isn't really very clever at all and I have thought since the word go that he was completely out of his depth owning a Premiership club.     

 

I'd kind of agree with your conclusion that there's a different skill-set needed to run a football club, when compared with running a business, and that Ashley has fallen short. I don't think it's the time pressure factor that's significant though, and I wouldn't say that Ashley has necessarily been lucky in his business life, any more than Sugar was lucky. In business, they each saw opportunities neglected by other people and went for it hell for leather.

 

The problem with a football club is that it is only partly a business. The other part is a kind of community institution in which the fans have a big influence, and in that respect it's like running a public service. The strain in running a public service is that you have the press, the government and the public on your back, demanding that you run things in a certain way, and you're not your own master. So a lot of what you would like to do has to be weighed up and compromises reached. So you get the worst of both worlds - you have to pick up the tab at the end of the day, but you don't get the free hand that you would get in business.

 

Like you said, maybe Ashley just doesn't have the kind of brain that can anticipate that kind of difficulty and deal with it. He's also used to shunning the limelight, and may not have the kind of thick skin you need in that very public position. I didn't like Shepherd, but he did have the hide of a rhino when the criticism started flying.

 

Strictly in the world of business, appointing Wise and Keegan together might have made a lot of sense. Keegan would produce an entertaining product for the customers and Wise would look after the long-term strategy and the finances. But in practice, that was a disaster. Keegan is more than an employee - he's a public figure with a lot of support and he wasn't averse to using that status to try to get what he wanted, despite what may have been written into his contract. Ashley has not been in control since that point, because he was never going to win a PR battle with Keegan. It's just not a situation that occurs in the business world.

 

Great response bobyule.

 

Just a couple of points of clarification:

 

I don't know so much about Sugar but I think Ashley was lucky. The flotation valuation of Sports Direct was way in excess of reality as subsequent results have shown (pre recession too) and he coined nearly a £billion in cash on the back of that. 

 

Also my point about decisions in football being time critical was more to do with planning the timing of decisions so that they are made at the best time for the club, given that there is a clear cut season, transfer window, pre season training etc. The timing and significance of these is known well in advance. And if you do have an unexpected event (e.g KK departure and JFK illness) mid season it becomes a matter of urgency to sort something out quickly. The run of results under Hughton's stewardship post KK where we lost to Hull and Paul Ince's Blackburn at home was a case in point.

 

Your second para on the difference between a football club and other businesses is about as good an analysis as I've ever read tbh.

 

Each of Ashleys shops make around £15-18k a day on a weekend your looking at over £20k a day and a replica shirt release day the shop in that area can make around £10k from the shirt sales alone. That's not luck. He has been able to make loads of money before the shops were floated from hard work hunting for grey market merchandise to flog in this country for dirt cheap then buying out companies to allow him to produce stock for next to noubt and sell it for huge profits. This is not luck.

 

Missed the point. Trousering a £billion of cash when floating a business at £3 a share when it is worth less than half that is luck. 

 

Added to which, his decision-making since has been unbelievable - and not just in the football world ; would anyone with an ounce of nous have invested 100m in Bradford & Bingley just when the whole Sub-prime debacle was being revealed...? I rest my case.

Many on here slag off SJH for being a 'money-grabber', yet with both MetroCentre and NUFC he 'saw an opportunity and took it, what's lucky about that'....!?? Noticeably, Sir John has NOT lost money subsequently as Ashley has - even Cameron Hall was messed-up by DH after SJH had retired....

 

No, Ashley HAS been lucky - Branson had a similar start in business, but unlike our dear owner, he weathered recessions and built a massive empire - anyone see the difference, I wonder..!?

[Mattoon]

It's quite unbelievable how a successful (perhaps questionable) business man can make so many mistakes and not learn. Whenever there has been a decision to be made, he has made the WRONG decision EVERY time. I mean seriously, who the f*** advised him that it would be a good idea to advertise the sale of the club on a website aimed at communicating with fans? Beyond belief.

 

Business success involves a hell of a lot of luck.  Being in the right place at the right time with the right people around you can make even a complete moron a lot of money.  With us, Ashley seemed to be content to rely on his luck rather than good management and his luck just ran out.

 

The situation reminds me a bit of what happened with Alan Sugar a few years ago, when he bought Spurs. He ended up having to sack Terry Venables, who was the fans' favourite, and found himself out of control of his own business. Like Ashley, he was glad to get out in the end.

 

The only criterion for success in a business is making money. With a football club, success is trophies and there's a degree of customer involvement and interest in decisions which would normally be entirely up to an owner.

 

True.

Tbh I can understand people thinking that Ashley is deliberately running the club down because his decision making is so catastrophic that it seems inconceivable that he thinks he is doing the right things. But he is a trader and a chancer who got lucky in a market he understands. He thinks that means he has ability to run something else which he doesn't understand and like others before him (Sugar being one as you say) he is very wrong. People like Ashley are used to making decisions in their own time and in their own way, those that work for him know that and set things up around him accordingly. But in a business like a football club decisions are absolutely time critical and success depends upon the assets of the club being moulded into a cohesive unit (and not being viewed as a potential profitable resale). Ashley, though rich, isn't really very clever at all and I have thought since the word go that he was completely out of his depth owning a Premiership club.     

 

I'd kind of agree with your conclusion that there's a different skill-set needed to run a football club, when compared with running a business, and that Ashley has fallen short. I don't think it's the time pressure factor that's significant though, and I wouldn't say that Ashley has necessarily been lucky in his business life, any more than Sugar was lucky. In business, they each saw opportunities neglected by other people and went for it hell for leather.

 

The problem with a football club is that it is only partly a business. The other part is a kind of community institution in which the fans have a big influence, and in that respect it's like running a public service. The strain in running a public service is that you have the press, the government and the public on your back, demanding that you run things in a certain way, and you're not your own master. So a lot of what you would like to do has to be weighed up and compromises reached. So you get the worst of both worlds - you have to pick up the tab at the end of the day, but you don't get the free hand that you would get in business.

 

Like you said, maybe Ashley just doesn't have the kind of brain that can anticipate that kind of difficulty and deal with it. He's also used to shunning the limelight, and may not have the kind of thick skin you need in that very public position. I didn't like Shepherd, but he did have the hide of a rhino when the criticism started flying.

 

Strictly in the world of business, appointing Wise and Keegan together might have made a lot of sense. Keegan would produce an entertaining product for the customers and Wise would look after the long-term strategy and the finances. But in practice, that was a disaster. Keegan is more than an employee - he's a public figure with a lot of support and he wasn't averse to using that status to try to get what he wanted, despite what may have been written into his contract. Ashley has not been in control since that point, because he was never going to win a PR battle with Keegan. It's just not a situation that occurs in the business world.

 

Great response bobyule.

 

Just a couple of points of clarification:

 

I don't know so much about Sugar but I think Ashley was lucky. The flotation valuation of Sports Direct was way in excess of reality as subsequent results have shown (pre recession too) and he coined nearly a £billion in cash on the back of that. 

 

Also my point about decisions in football being time critical was more to do with planning the timing of decisions so that they are made at the best time for the club, given that there is a clear cut season, transfer window, pre season training etc. The timing and significance of these is known well in advance. And if you do have an unexpected event (e.g KK departure and JFK illness) mid season it becomes a matter of urgency to sort something out quickly. The run of results under Hughton's stewardship post KK where we lost to Hull and Paul Ince's Blackburn at home was a case in point.

 

Your second para on the difference between a football club and other businesses is about as good an analysis as I've ever read tbh.

 

Each of Ashleys shops make around £15-18k a day on a weekend your looking at over £20k a day and a replica shirt release day the shop in that area can make around £10k from the shirt sales alone. That's not luck. He has been able to make loads of money before the shops were floated from hard work hunting for grey market merchandise to flog in this country for dirt cheap then buying out companies to allow him to produce stock for next to noubt and sell it for huge profits. This is not luck.

 

Missed the point. Trousering a £billion of cash when floating a business at £3 a share when it is worth less than half that is luck. 

 

Added to which, his decision-making since has been unbelievable - and not just in the football world ; would anyone with an ounce of nous have invested 100m in Bradford & Bingley just when the whole Sub-prime debacle was being revealed...? I rest my case.

Many on here slag off SJH for being a 'money-grabber', yet with both MetroCentre and NUFC he 'saw an opportunity and took it, what's lucky about that'....!?? Noticeably, Sir John has NOT lost money subsequently as Ashley has - even Cameron Hall was messed-up by DH after SJH had retired....

 

No, Ashley HAS been lucky - Branson had a similar start in business, but unlike our dear owner, he weathered recessions and built a massive empire - anyone see the difference, I wonder..!?

 

I also hopes he sells up, runs off with the mobey he screwed from our player sales and gets spanked still further in the stock market, seeing Sports Direct go into liquidation in the process. Oh sweet justice!

Not that I'm bitter or anything...

[Skirge]

OH MY FUCKING GOD NO JUST FUCKING NO!!

Chris Hughton on standby if Shearer walks away

Jun 11 2009 by Lee Ryder, Evening Chronicle

 

CHRIS HUGHTON is waiting in the wings to come in as Newcastle United caretaker boss for a third stint should Alan Shearer not get the green light from Mike Ashley to take charge.

 

This would most likely go down like a lead balloon on Tyneside, with fans being asked to part with their season ticket cash from today – 40 years to the day since United won the Fairs Cup.

 

Former Tottenham player Hughton took charge of United in the aftermath of Keegan-gate last September and again took the reins after Joe Kinnear when he suffered heart problems.

 

Hughton’s record in charge during the first stint was played four, lost four during what many Toon fans call Black September.

 

And when Kinnear was admitted to hospital just hours before the West Brom game in February, the win at the Hawthorns was as good as it got for the ex-White Hart Lane favourite.

 

Hughton then won just one game in six matches, meaning a tally of one victory in 10 games compared to Alan Shearer’s run of one win, two draws and five defeats when he came in to lift a demoralised and drained Magpies side on April 1.

 

Calls for Shearer to be installed as boss have been overwhelming since the season ended, with first- team stars Habib Beye, Sebastien Bassong, Steven Taylor, Steve Harper and Nicky Butt all giving their seal of approval, while Toon heroes Bobby Moncur, David Ginola, Pavel Srnicek, Rob Lee, Mick Martin, John Anderson and John Beresford have also backed Big Al.

 

However, the Chronicle understands that the current regime are unlikely to pour any more cash into the beleaguered club, with Shearer now out of contract and Joe Kinnear also seeing his deal expire on the final day of the Premier League season.

 

Fellow coach Colin Calderwood is also out of contract with United, while goalkeeping coach Paul Barron has a year left to run on his current deal and would probably be the man to assist Hughton.

 

And, after asking 120 local staff to clear their desks, managing director Derek Llambias appears content to work with the resources that remain at St James’s Park – including London-born Hughton.

 

Hughton is understood to have two years left on his Toon contract and is the favourite to take pre-season training on July 1, unless Shearer is offered the chance to continue what he has started at the club’s training HQ.

 

The Chronicle approached United for a comment on the situation from Llambias today, but the former casino boss refused an opportunity to relay information across to fans who received their season ticket renewal packs today. We asked:

 

:: WHAT is the latest on the managerial situation given that the club are now 19 days away from pre-season training?

 

:: WHY there has there been a prolonged silence from the owner?

 

:: AND, on the day that season tickets renewal forms are released, what are the incentives for fans to renew?

 

However, we are still waiting for those answers from Mr Llambias, who last spoke to the Chronicle 10 days ago.

 

Meanwhile, after Sebastien Bassong expressed his wish to quit Newcastle today via the French newspaper L’Equipe, it has emerged that he is not on the fire sale list circulated by leading agency First Artists who are acting for United.

 

Indeed the players who United have instructed not to sell include Bassong, Steve Harper, Tim Krul, Fraser Forster, Nicky Butt, Damien Duff, Steven Taylor and Habib Beye.

 

But while the rest of the squad are up for grabs, it remains to be seen whether United could resist any money offers for the likes of Bassong, Taylor and Beye, with several top-flight clubs carefully monitoring the situation and looking for potential bargains.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2009/06/11/chris-hughton-on-standby-if-shearer-walks-away-72703-23844162/

[NG32]

[nobby_solano]

fucking joke if that happens like

[NG32]

We're bonned.

[Dave]

Shepherd will keep Shearer sweet, don't worry.

[Lenny]

We're bonned.

 

James Bonned!

[Guest firetotheworks]

We're bonned.

 

James Bonned!

 

;D

[Skirge]

Shepherd will keep Shearer sweet, don't worry.

"Don't worry", fkn hell man I have done nothing but worry for the last last 12  months or so..

[morgs]

hughton as boss