Mike Ashley

[cp40]

im not fooled by any of this.

[Stu]

im not fooled by any of this.

 

you will join the dark side...eventually

[Christmas Tree]

Its just all coming together for Mike.

 

London, Sept 26 (ANI): Sportswear tycoon Mike Ashley is believed to be back with ex-wife Linda, whom he paid out 50 million pounds in one of Britain’s largest ever divorce settlements back in 2003, as the couple was spotted having a meal together recently.

 

The Newcastle United FC owner was seen enjoying the meal with Linda last week at an Indian restaurant in Hoddesdon, Herts, after arriving in a chauffeur-driven black Bentley.

 

According to friends, Linda has put her home up for sale and is spending almost all her time at her 48-year-old ex-husband’s 18 million-pounds mansion.

 

“Mike never wanted to lose Linda in the first place. He adores her and always has. They’ve found their spark again,” the Daily Mail quoted a friend as telling the Sunday Mirror.

 

“He’s happy, she’s happy, and to the amazement of people who know them, Mike and Linda are now getting back together,” the friend added.

[mrmojorisin75]

50m transfer kitty for pards in january!!

 

:omg:

[mouldy_uk]

Its just all coming together for Mike.

 

London, Sept 26 (ANI): Sportswear tycoon Mike Ashley is believed to be back with ex-wife Linda, whom he paid out 50 million pounds in one of Britain’s largest ever divorce settlements back in 2003, as the couple was spotted having a meal together recently.

 

The Newcastle United FC owner was seen enjoying the meal with Linda last week at an Indian restaurant in Hoddesdon, Herts, after arriving in a chauffeur-driven black Bentley.

 

According to friends, Linda has put her home up for sale and is spending almost all her time at her 48-year-old ex-husband’s 18 million-pounds mansion.

 

“Mike never wanted to lose Linda in the first place. He adores her and always has. They’ve found their spark again,” the Daily Mail quoted a friend as telling the Sunday Mirror.

 

“He’s happy, she’s happy, and to the amazement of people who know them, Mike and Linda are now getting back together,” the friend added.

 

So basically he wants his 50M back

 

[Christmas Tree]

Another Ashley story today in Abu Dhabis The National.

 

 

Astute Mike Ashley has a nerve building Newcastle United the right way

 

Damn that Mike Ashley. How dare the colourful owner of Newcastle United seek to run his football club like a normal business.

 

How dare he not spend the eye-watering £35 million (Dh541,5m) the club received from Liverpool for Andy Carroll on a raft of expensive replacements.

 

I mean, what is he thinking building a competitive team by signing players under the age of 26 with a resale value and attempting to balance the books? You've got to spend, spend, spend, Mike.

 

He is, of course, thinking rationally, and applying the normal rules of business to the crazy world of football.

 

Whatever your viewpoint on Ashley - the thoughts of former managers Sam Allardyce, Kevin Keegan and some fans would probably not be suitable for this publication - he is unquestionably a shrewd entrepreneur with remarkable business acumen.

 

That is evidenced by the £950m it was reported earlier this year he had amassed from the retail sporting goods market.

 

It might not have been splashed on headline-grabbing transfer fees but Ashley has put his money where his mouth is.

 

He purchased for the club for £134.4m in 2007, and then injected another £110m to reduce the club's debt. He was also propping up Newcastle to the tune of £500,000 a week the season before last.

 

The list of top English clubs who have encountered serious financial problems is lengthy. Plymouth Argyle, Leeds United, Portsmouth, the names go on.

 

So if Ashley decides not to invest the money back into a loss-making business then why shouldn't he?

 

 

The same people imploring Ashley to splash the cash will be the same people ready to castigate him for overreaching should the marquee signings the fans and some members of the media demand.

 

And, anyway, forking out vast sums on transfer fees and wages brings no cast-iron guarantee of success.

 

What Newcastle have shown so far this year during their unbeaten start which has catapulted them up to the dizzy heights of fourth - and let's stress it is still very early days - is that, with the old values of good coaching, sensible recruiting and a good team spirit, it is possible to create a team capable of mixing it with the elite.

 

And how refreshing that is.

 

 

Thing is if we can keep this run going and creating positive stroies, you never know who may come wading in with lots of oil money.

[thomas]

Only took her 8 years to blow through 50m, amazing financial restraint for a woman.

[Guest axel]

Only took her 8 years to blow through 50m, amazing financial restraint for a woman.

Your avatar

[Colocho]

I don't want us to sign players based on their potential re-sale value.

[BottledDog]

I don't want us to sign players based on their potential re-sale value.

 

Then stop looking at it that way. We're buying young players, players who have issue with their clubs, or recent injury problems who have potential to develop into players that normally wouldn't come to a club like ours.

 

If they fulfill their promise, we do well, and naturally the price goes up and bigger fish may snap them up, giving us money to attract or retain better players in the future. If not, the risks are minimised.

 

Where's the downside? Oh right, inevitably good players will leave. Yeah, like that doesn't happen anyway at the vast majority of clubs, whatever recruitment policy you have in place.

[bealios]

I don't want us to sign players based on their potential re-sale value.

 

Not entirely, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Players who we sell for more than we bought them for generally sell for more because they have been great signings rather than poor signings. Great signings mean they have performed at a level higher than what the original price suggested.

 

The down side is that you also miss out on the Beardsley/Bellamy type player who is at the end of their career but might still be a great signing, although I think in this day of huge wages, it is rare to come across a top player towards the end of their career who still has the professionalism and the hunger to perform well for a mid table club.

 

 

[JH]

She'll marry him, divorce him, take half of the club, spend all of the transfer kitty to piss him off, sell it to billionaire Arabs on the cheap and they'll take the other half off Ashley.

 

Yey

[Dokko]

She'll marry him, divorce him, take half of the club, spend all of the transfer kitty to piss him off, sell it to billionaire Arabs on the cheap and they'll take the other half off Ashley.

 

Yey

 

I could see the club being drawn in to a divorce battle ala Dream Team style, its got to happen.

[BlueStar]

The other down side is things happen like you go into a transfer window needing a striker, and instead sell your best striker.  And then if the players in the next transfer window that suit critera of things like "Injury worry, twat, fallen out with club, contract wasn't checked properly, agent is a friend of a friend" don't happen to be strikers, but goalkeepers and midfielders, then you simply don't get a striker.

[AlanSkÃrare]

Our model looks like it's got influences not only from Arsenal, but from Udinese and maybe even Valencia.

 

I think it's forward thinking, sane and pretty successful. We won't challenge for any major honours, but we'll stay competitive and attract good players. A lot better than the past five or six seasons.

[ChezGiven]

I'm open-minded so one way i've looked at thing is that fter appointing Keegan in early 2008, the financial and economic climate became very harsh and either as a result of this or through a realisation of the quantity of money required to put that squad right (and also the loss of money of getting rid of players) there was an upheaval and change of strategy some time in early 2008, a realisation that it couldnt be done or a decision not to bother trying. For whatever reason, i think they found themselves in a hole and they changed everything. Keegan wanted to build on the team with big money signings (recognising what we all recognised that THAT squad / team needed at least 50m spending on it) and clashed with the board who were in the middle of realising all their assumptions about the business they bought were wrong. The fall out and subsequent treatment of Keegan i believe taught Ashley a massive lesson, that the fervour and passion at a football club can mean a player or manager has more power than the owner himself. Must have been an unusual feeling for him. The fact that he eventually appointed Shearer suggesting either one last roll of the dice or a machiavellian move to discredit a powerful potential enemy?  I still cant work out whether he didnt care if we were relegated or not or actively planned it. Appointing Shearer suggests they wanted to avoid it but looked at in retrospect (and given the seemingly intelligent way the squad has been assembled financially this season) it seems they couldnt have done much more to ensure relegation occured. (Then again why panic buy Nolan in January when Barton got injured?)

 

The backdop to his whole regime has been the lying, the horrible defacing of the stadium, the idiocy of giving a job to the odious dwarf Wise, the treatment of Keegan, the long running episode regarding selling the club, Hughton in, Hughton out, Pardew in, Carroll out, unknown (sic) and mercenary frogs in, backbone and embodiment of the club (Nolan / Barton) out, no proper striker in. At the time every single one of those actions looked stupid and in the treatment of a club hero downright despicable.

 

However, once you've dealt with the Keegan issue, the list of things that have pissed people off is beginning to unravel a bit. The Carroll deal looks like good business for now, replacing the inexperienced Hughton with Pardew also looks as though it has worked, not rushing to spend 11m on Ruiz looks sensible given the relative goal scoring records of Best and Ba, Cabaye is better than Nolan, Obertan & Marveaux are definitely quicker than Barton if nowt else, Santon may be a replacement for Enrique. 

 

He's brutal (Keegan), ruthless (Shearer), calculated (Hughton), manipulative (his first season), opportunistic (Carroll) and exploitative (SD Branding) but i think ultimately (after wavering around not knowing which way to go) they have settled on a strategy. For those who are more negatively minded than this post appears to be, my question is 'what do you think that strategy is?'. After reading 1000s of negative words about Ashley i realised something important: there were numerous negative 'narratives' about Ashley that tried to encapsulate in a sentence his evil plan. 'Asset stripping' was an early classic, 'Profiteering', 'using NUFC as an advertising vehicle for SD', 'Selling club', 'Yo-yo club', 'West Brom model', 'buy cheap, sell high', 'buy based on re-sale value' etc some of them often expressed by the same person whilst being inconsistent with each other or actual events. Which of the Barton, Nolan or Enrique deals did we make money on? Where does the lack of profit on these deals fit into the narrative, which narrative? He just wants to reduce the wage bill? How come its gone up then?

 

The fact remains that there has been little consistency to Ashley's regime and much brutality that positioning anything postive that he has done as anything other than luck can set you apart as blinded and foolish. The season isnt old enough and our current trajectory is still unsure enough to mean i wont try and say anything for certain. However, the one strategic narrative that does make sense, the one Sir John Hall says Ashley expressed when he bought the club does give me some reason to be postive. If he wants to market SD to markets outside the UK and use the profile of the premiership to help drive the global growth of SD then the most effective way to do that is through having a successful NUFC that doesnt cost the world to run, good enough to threaten the top of the table and too good to be relegated, all within a wage bill of around 60 to 80m depending on financial performance (based on a target income of 100 - 120m per year). To do all that though, SJP is going to look like the premiership equivalent of Poundstretchers. I've heard this point of view discredited as 'an insanely expensive way or promoting SD' but of the 280m invested, he still has 140m of it in the asset and presumably the rest can be recuperated eventually. If he gets the price he paid back when he sells it and the debts to him are paid off then eventually its not an insanely expensive advertising campaign. Just an ugly one.

 

I'm not going to pretend i wasnt worried and pissed of on Sep 2nd but one thing i wont do is keep ascribing things that have gone well for us all down to luck. At some point if things continue to go well, somebody has to take some credit. Likewise if it all goes pear-shaped.  He hasnt proved his doubters wrong yet but the way we have started this season has given them food for thought. One thing the doubters are not wrong about is that this club has more potential than Ashley is currently aiming for. Our financial performance is not that great, matchday revenues and commercial revenues have massivley dropped since he took over, there is at least 20 to 30m of revenue left on the table. If he starts to build these revenue lines, adds more quality to the squad and doesnt sell our best players then am sure more people will feel more postive. Unfortunately, as Sean Custis said yesterday, as soon as things start going well he manages to do something to fuck it up. Lets hope that inevitable moment is a while off for now.

[BlueStar]

Our model looks like it's got influences not only from Arsenal, but from Udinese and maybe even Valencia.

 

I think it's forward thinking, sane and pretty successful. We won't challenge for any major honours, but we'll stay competitive and attract good players. A lot better than the past five or six seasons.

Sounds more like the Wigan model of "Come, play in the premier league, play at Old Trafford, share a pitch with superstars like Dzeko and Bale, get your face on telly and know that if any decent clubs spot you you can be straight out the door."

[thomas]

Our model looks like it's got influences not only from Arsenal, but from Udinese and maybe even Valencia.

 

I think it's forward thinking, sane and pretty successful. We won't challenge for any major honours, but we'll stay competitive and attract good players. A lot better than the past five or six seasons.

Was thinking the same about Udinese not too long ago but the more I thought about it the less I can see Mike taking their approach.  Il Zebrette's loan list is freaking insane.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udinese_Calcio#Out_on_loan They're like some kind of nexus of talent for Serie A. 

[Dokko]

Great post like Chez.

[AlanSkÃrare]

Our model looks like it's got influences not only from Arsenal, but from Udinese and maybe even Valencia.

 

I think it's forward thinking, sane and pretty successful. We won't challenge for any major honours, but we'll stay competitive and attract good players. A lot better than the past five or six seasons.

Sounds more like the Wigan model of "Come, play in the premier league, play at Old Trafford, share a pitch with superstars like Dzeko and Bale, get your face on telly and know that if any decent clubs spot you you can be straight out the door."

 

Don't think Wigan attract any good players. Valencia and Palacios are both decent aquisitions but that's what you'd expect during a five year stay in the league. Rodallega, Figueroa and the likes - nah.

 

We might be taking a role of a stepping stone, but I don't think that means we'll be flirting with relegation every time someone leaves.

[Christmas Tree]

Don't come sauntering over here dragging my thread back out of the gutter you shit! 

 

At some point Chez you will feel free to express the truth in fewer words. The brilliant businessman who owns us is indeed a visionary and very quickly learned a long time ago that the current "business model" is the only viable one in todays climate of oil magnates and crazy wages.

 

Unfortunately his implementation has been ham fisted, accident prone and brutal.

[Fenham Mag]

Chez has it spot on ,what any respectable Newcastle fan will be thinking .

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Great post by Chez, hopefully the next disaster is a while away as you say. If this season goes well it could be the start of a few successful years, as long as we use it to build on rather than settle on.

[AlanSkÃrare]

I think "buying players with a resale value" isn't necessarily what people make it out to be. Look at a club like Tottenham. It's been Daniel Levy's way of doing things for many years now, and they've had some steady progression since they started doing it (i.e. after Bentley, Bent etc.) . In their case - and hopefully in ours - buying players with a resale value is more about not paying premium price than trying make an actual profit.

 

In the cases of Berbatov and Carrick, they would have been daft not to sell, and you can safely say they've managed to replace them. In our case, looking at things as they stand now, we can only compare those player sales with Carroll, which at the moment looks a good piece of business, of course with the emotional and iconic reasons being overlooked. Our scouting network seems to be improving every transfer window, and I'm struggling to recall a signing that hasn't worked out for us in recent seasons (Perch aside). The board have hopefully put faith in the right people in terms of player recruitment, which is key for this model to work. Now I might be completley wrong and it might be Ashley's plan to sell all of his bargains as soon as he get's a decent offer, but if it's not, then we might have a good system on our hands that I think can bring relative success to the club.

[TRon]

I'm open-minded so one way i've looked at thing is that fter appointing Keegan in early 2008, the financial and economic climate became very harsh and either as a result of this or through a realisation of the quantity of money required to put that squad right (and also the loss of money of getting rid of players) there was an upheaval and change of strategy some time in early 2008, a realisation that it couldnt be done or a decision not to bother trying. For whatever reason, i think they found themselves in a hole and they changed everything. Keegan wanted to build on the team with big money signings (recognising what we all recognised that THAT squad / team needed at least 50m spending on it) and clashed with the board who were in the middle of realising all their assumptions about the business they bought were wrong. The fall out and subsequent treatment of Keegan i believe taught Ashley a massive lesson, that the fervour and passion at a football club can mean a player or manager has more power than the owner himself. Must have been an unusual feeling for him. The fact that he eventually appointed Shearer suggesting either one last roll of the dice or a machiavellian move to discredit a powerful potential enemy?  I still cant work out whether he didnt care if we were relegated or not or actively planned it. Appointing Shearer suggests they wanted to avoid it but looked at in retrospect (and given the seemingly intelligent way the squad has been assembled financially this season) it seems they couldnt have done much more to ensure relegation occured. (Then again why panic buy Nolan in January when Barton got injured?)

 

The backdop to his whole regime has been the lying, the horrible defacing of the stadium, the idiocy of giving a job to the odious dwarf Wise, the treatment of Keegan, the long running episode regarding selling the club, Hughton in, Hughton out, Pardew in, Carroll out, unknown (sic) and mercenary frogs in, backbone and embodiment of the club (Nolan / Barton) out, no proper striker in. At the time every single one of those actions looked stupid and in the treatment of a club hero downright despicable.

 

However, once you've dealt with the Keegan issue, the list of things that have pissed people off is beginning to unravel a bit. The Carroll deal looks like good business for now, replacing the inexperienced Hughton with Pardew also looks as though it has worked, not rushing to spend 11m on Ruiz looks sensible given the relative goal scoring records of Best and Ba, Cabaye is better than Nolan, Obertan & Marveaux are definitely quicker than Barton if nowt else, Santon may be a replacement for Enrique. 

 

He's brutal (Keegan), ruthless (Shearer), calculated (Hughton), manipulative (his first season), opportunistic (Carroll) and exploitative (SD Branding) but i think ultimately (after wavering around not knowing which way to go) they have settled on a strategy. For those who are more negatively minded than this post appears to be, my question is 'what do you think that strategy is?'. After reading 1000s of negative words about Ashley i realised something important: there were numerous negative 'narratives' about Ashley that tried to encapsulate in a sentence his evil plan. 'Asset stripping' was an early classic, 'Profiteering', 'using NUFC as an advertising vehicle for SD', 'Selling club', 'Yo-yo club', 'West Brom model', 'buy cheap, sell high', 'buy based on re-sale value' etc some of them often expressed by the same person whilst being inconsistent with each other or actual events. Which of the Barton, Nolan or Enrique deals did we make money on? Where does the lack of profit on these deals fit into the narrative, which narrative? He just wants to reduce the wage bill? How come its gone up then?

 

The fact remains that there has been little consistency to Ashley's regime and much brutality that positioning anything postive that he has done as anything other than luck can set you apart as blinded and foolish. The season isnt old enough and our current trajectory is still unsure enough to mean i wont try and say anything for certain. However, the one strategic narrative that does make sense, the one Sir John Hall says Ashley expressed when he bought the club does give me some reason to be postive. If he wants to market SD to markets outside the UK and use the profile of the premiership to help drive the global growth of SD then the most effective way to do that is through having a successful NUFC that doesnt cost the world to run, good enough to threaten the top of the table and too good to be relegated, all within a wage bill of around 60 to 80m depending on financial performance (based on a target income of 100 - 120m per year). To do all that though, SJP is going to look like the premiership equivalent of Poundstretchers. I've heard this point of view discredited as 'an insanely expensive way or promoting SD' but of the 280m invested, he still has 140m of it in the asset and presumably the rest can be recuperated eventually. If he gets the price he paid back when he sells it and the debts to him are paid off then eventually its not an insanely expensive advertising campaign. Just an ugly one.

 

I'm not going to pretend i wasnt worried and pissed of on Sep 2nd but one thing i wont do is keep ascribing things that have gone well for us all down to luck. At some point if things continue to go well, somebody has to take some credit. Likewise if it all goes pear-shaped.  He hasnt proved his doubters wrong yet but the way we have started this season has given them food for thought. One thing the doubters are not wrong about is that this club has more potential than Ashley is currently aiming for. Our financial performance is not that great, matchday revenues and commercial revenues have massivley dropped since he took over, there is at least 20 to 30m of revenue left on the table. If he starts to build these revenue lines, adds more quality to the squad and doesnt sell our best players then am sure more people will feel more postive. Unfortunately, as Sean Custis said yesterday, as soon as things start going well he manages to do something to fuck it up. Lets hope that inevitable moment is a while off for now.

 

Brilliant post. I agree with more or less all of it. I find it hard to trust Ashley but deep down I think we are being run along sensible, if over cautious lines. Buying players with a resale value will prove successful over the long run, although it might be difficult to build an established team for a couple of years.