Mike Ashley

[Spudil]

Newcastle fans take far too much interest in the f***ing finances these days. Conditioned into it I guess, pathetically clutching to the club's profits as though they genuinely mean something to them. Get in! We saved money by outsourcing the catering! I'm going to float into work on Monday, brilliant. We have a better wage to turnover percentage than some other clubs above us in the league, happy days. YES!!!!!!!!

 

As long as the club's not going to go under (and it's not - many thanks Mr Ashley, please let me suck you off for not losing yourself hundreds of millions of pounds), I couldn't give a flying f*** about anything but the football.

 

You must know this is a fatuous argument Dave.

 

We are on a Newcastle forum discussing our club, and a big part of that is what happens with signings, ticket prices, wages and all of that. And to ignore the limitations of our finances is also stupid, otherwise every club would just be splurging money everywhere because it's impossible to go under, right?

 

I would love to just be interested in football too, but I don't see how you can be when money is such a massive part of the modern game. It's regrettable obviously.

Dave's right though. NUFC supporters have been conditioned to judge the health of the club in purely financial  terms.

 

Who judges the health of the club purely financially? I don't know anyone on this forum. It's just the heated discussion tend to revolve around people believing we should spend more.

 

And who conditioned us?

 

With you defending the lack of signings following it.

 

 

Honestly not trying to do that. I just accept that the club now has a transfer policy that it will adhere to, and that this policy has delivered us some quality players. I also believe that we were left in a really bad situation after throwing money at one bad signing after another in the past.

 

It would be great if Ashley was ready to bank-roll £50m of signings a season like Man City and Chelsea, but he obviously isn't and I don't really hold that against him. He seems to be learning how to run a football club.

 

Anyway, we've done this argument to death and nobody is going to be persuaded when we're doing so badly on the pitch.

 

You just can't help yourself

 

Way to ignore a post.

 

Why? No one wants or demands 50 million investment a season. Most seasons we make a profit or thereabouts on player trading. If you cant see how this is an utterly absurd straw man argument then I don't know what to say to you.

 

FFS man, I'm not saying anyone is demanding this. Maybe it was unwise to include it because people would focus on it and use it to have a needless pop.

 

As I've said, the 'middle ground' argument is basically pointless having, because everyone will differ on where they are happy for the line to be drawn.

 

Well lets try the middle ground between 0 (we average somewhere around this) and 50 (your arbitrary figure). So 25m. I think most would be happy with spending that.

 

As I said, a pointless argument.

 

If you say so I'm convinced the vast majority (at least on here)  would be satisfied with a 25m  investment on players per seasom.

[madras]

Newcastle fans take far too much interest in the f***ing finances these days. Conditioned into it I guess, pathetically clutching to the club's profits as though they genuinely mean something to them. Get in! We saved money by outsourcing the catering! I'm going to float into work on Monday, brilliant. We have a better wage to turnover percentage than some other clubs above us in the league, happy days. YES!!!!!!!!

 

As long as the club's not going to go under (and it's not - many thanks Mr Ashley, please let me suck you off for not losing yourself hundreds of millions of pounds), I couldn't give a flying f*** about anything but the football.

 

You must know this is a fatuous argument Dave.

 

We are on a Newcastle forum discussing our club, and a big part of that is what happens with signings, ticket prices, wages and all of that. And to ignore the limitations of our finances is also stupid, otherwise every club would just be splurging money everywhere because it's impossible to go under, right?

 

I would love to just be interested in football too, but I don't see how you can be when money is such a massive part of the modern game. It's regrettable obviously.

Dave's right though. NUFC supporters have been conditioned to judge the health of the club in purely financial  terms.

 

Who judges the health of the club purely financially? I don't know anyone on this forum. It's just the heated discussion tend to revolve around people believing we should spend more.

 

And who conditioned us?

 

With you defending the lack of signings following it.

 

 

Honestly not trying to do that. I just accept that the club now has a transfer policy that it will adhere to, and that this policy has delivered us some quality players. I also believe that we were left in a really bad situation after throwing money at one bad signing after another in the past.

 

It would be great if Ashley was ready to bank-roll £50m of signings a season like Man City and Chelsea, but he obviously isn't and I don't really hold that against him. He seems to be learning how to run a football club.

 

Anyway, we've done this argument to death and nobody is going to be persuaded when we're doing so badly on the pitch.

 

You just can't help yourself

 

Way to ignore a post.

 

Why? No one wants or demands 50 million investment a season. Most seasons we make a profit or thereabouts on player trading. If you cant see how this is an utterly absurd straw man argument then I don't know what to say to you.

 

FFS man, I'm not saying anyone is demanding this. Maybe it was unwise to include it because people would focus on it and use it to have a needless pop.

 

As I've said, the 'middle ground' argument is basically pointless having, because everyone will differ on where they are happy for the line to be drawn.

 

Well lets try the middle ground between 0 (we average somewhere around this) and 50 (your arbitrary figure). So 25m. I think most would be happy with spending that.

 

As I said, a pointless argument.

 

If you say so I'm convinced the vast majority (at least on here)  would be satisfied with a 25m  investment on players per seasom.

where from ?

[AyeDubbleYoo]

So Ian and the other new Neville Chamberlain poster, what should we the fans be demanding of our ownership right now, in this time of, dare I say crisis ?

 

I don't see a lot of solutions coming from you "sensible supporters", just criticisms of others who criticise the  policies of this club.

 

No need for the digs cheers.

 

I don't have any 'solutions', it's not really a problem/solution situation.

 

If it was up to me I would spend a bit more right now to get a CB and a forward in. But I don't know what that amount would be, and whether or not it's more than we're already looking to spend, so I don't try to argue in those terms. And I also don't have a problem, in principle, with the way we are going about our business at the moment.

[Guest tollemache]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

We have usually had to sell to buy under Ashley, that won't change.

 

I've seen no evidence to suggest that we won't just keep pursuing our targets and buying them if we can, while selling if we think it's worth it

[Spudil]

Newcastle fans take far too much interest in the f***ing finances these days. Conditioned into it I guess, pathetically clutching to the club's profits as though they genuinely mean something to them. Get in! We saved money by outsourcing the catering! I'm going to float into work on Monday, brilliant. We have a better wage to turnover percentage than some other clubs above us in the league, happy days. YES!!!!!!!!

 

As long as the club's not going to go under (and it's not - many thanks Mr Ashley, please let me suck you off for not losing yourself hundreds of millions of pounds), I couldn't give a flying f*** about anything but the football.

 

You must know this is a fatuous argument Dave.

 

We are on a Newcastle forum discussing our club, and a big part of that is what happens with signings, ticket prices, wages and all of that. And to ignore the limitations of our finances is also stupid, otherwise every club would just be splurging money everywhere because it's impossible to go under, right?

 

I would love to just be interested in football too, but I don't see how you can be when money is such a massive part of the modern game. It's regrettable obviously.

Dave's right though. NUFC supporters have been conditioned to judge the health of the club in purely financial  terms.

 

Who judges the health of the club purely financially? I don't know anyone on this forum. It's just the heated discussion tend to revolve around people believing we should spend more.

 

And who conditioned us?

 

With you defending the lack of signings following it.

 

 

Honestly not trying to do that. I just accept that the club now has a transfer policy that it will adhere to, and that this policy has delivered us some quality players. I also believe that we were left in a really bad situation after throwing money at one bad signing after another in the past.

 

It would be great if Ashley was ready to bank-roll £50m of signings a season like Man City and Chelsea, but he obviously isn't and I don't really hold that against him. He seems to be learning how to run a football club.

 

Anyway, we've done this argument to death and nobody is going to be persuaded when we're doing so badly on the pitch.

 

You just can't help yourself

 

Way to ignore a post.

 

Why? No one wants or demands 50 million investment a season. Most seasons we make a profit or thereabouts on player trading. If you cant see how this is an utterly absurd straw man argument then I don't know what to say to you.

 

FFS man, I'm not saying anyone is demanding this. Maybe it was unwise to include it because people would focus on it and use it to have a needless pop.

 

As I've said, the 'middle ground' argument is basically pointless having, because everyone will differ on where they are happy for the line to be drawn.

 

Well lets try the middle ground between 0 (we average somewhere around this) and 50 (your arbitrary figure). So 25m. I think most would be happy with spending that.

 

As I said, a pointless argument.

 

If you say so I'm convinced the vast majority (at least on here)  would be satisfied with a 25m  investment on players per season.

where from ?

 

You'll have to be more specific with your question man

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

We have usually had to sell to buy under Ashley, that won't change.

 

I've seen no evidence to suggest that we won't just keep pursuing our targets and buying them if we can, while selling if we think it's worth it

 

That's obviously the situation.

[Guest tollemache]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

Good luck with that, but fair enough. I'd imagine being below 60% would suddenly become the most important thing.

 

Well you are more than entitled to that utterly gratuitous, pointlessly speculative pessimism I suppose

[ChrisMcQuillan]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

We have usually had to sell to buy under Ashley, that won't change.

 

I've seen no evidence to suggest that we won't just keep pursuing our targets and buying them if we can, while selling if we think it's worth it

 

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/oh-please.gif

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

Good luck with that, but fair enough. I'd imagine being below 60% would suddenly become the most important thing.

 

Well you are more than entitled to that utterly gratuitous, pointlessly speculative pessimism I suppose

 

Dave's posts really suffer when we're having a bad patch. I don't blame him like, and obviously he's a forum legend, but they are terrible.

[Guest tollemache]

er go on then... evidence please (to McQuillan)

[Unbelievable]

Nobody is making any money from NUFC really, except the players and staff. There's no gravy train to be on.

 

Way to ignore a post too. It was quite obvious that by gravy train in the context of my post I meant Premiership (TV money etc).

 

Fair enough, but where is the money going? Honestly wasn't having a go, I just don't understand who is on what gravy train.

 

Oh, do you mean us just trying to stay up? If so I totally missed that.

 

Yep.

[Dave]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

Good luck with that, but fair enough. I'd imagine being below 60% would suddenly become the most important thing.

 

Well you are more than entitled to that utterly gratuitous, pointlessly speculative pessimism I suppose

 

Dave's posts really suffer when we're having a bad patch. I don't blame him like, and obviously he's a forum legend, but they are terrible.

 

Someone's still touchy about the relegation worry post.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Nobody is making any money from NUFC really, except the players and staff. There's no gravy train to be on.

 

Way to ignore a post too. It was quite obvious that by gravy train in the context of my post I meant Premiership (TV money etc).

 

Fair enough, but where is the money going? Honestly wasn't having a go, I just don't understand who is on what gravy train.

 

Oh, do you mean us just trying to stay up? If so I totally missed that.

 

Yep.

 

Understood. Agree that shouldn't be our only objective for sure.

[EthiGeordie]

I wish he had some boiling blood in him. QPR snatch his target go and get M'lla he is having second thought about it. Make us proud. I use to have his back even when we relgated but I don't right now. until MA sells us we dont go forward.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Because it'd mean that we can go out and buy even more players without stretching our wage bill - which we're now trying to do. It means we're on track for having a great first XI and some decent backup and still staying below that 70% barrier

 

Good luck with that, but fair enough. I'd imagine being below 60% would suddenly become the most important thing.

 

Well you are more than entitled to that utterly gratuitous, pointlessly speculative pessimism I suppose

 

Dave's posts really suffer when we're having a bad patch. I don't blame him like, and obviously he's a forum legend, but they are terrible.

 

Someone's still touchy about the relegation worry post.

 

 

I'm fucking terrified to post anything that I might have contradicted earlier. And that's probably a lot.

 

As I said, don't blame you really.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I wish he had some boiling blood in him. QPR snatch his target go and get M'lla he is having second thought about it. Make us proud. I use to have his back even when we relgated but I don't right now. until MA sells us we dont go forward.

 

Ashley you mean? I thought he was thought of as being a pretty ruthless bastard in business.

[Unbelievable]

Nobody is making any money from NUFC really, except the players and staff. There's no gravy train to be on.

 

Way to ignore a post too. It was quite obvious that by gravy train in the context of my post I meant Premiership (TV money etc).

 

Yeah but you're still arguing that the owners are leeching the money out, or that someone is feeding on this giant treasure trove of cash we have, or will have. Someone still has to be on that gravy train or there's no problem. If the club are on the gravy train then great, but you seem to think it's the owners, personally, who are benefiting

 

I'm not arguing that at all. My argument is this club currently seem happy just to be a side show in the Premiership and run a small profit.

[Guest malandro]

Newcastle fans take far too much interest in the f***ing finances these days. Conditioned into it I guess, pathetically clutching to the club's profits as though they genuinely mean something to them. Get in! We saved money by outsourcing the catering! I'm going to float into work on Monday, brilliant. We have a better wage to turnover percentage than some other clubs above us in the league, happy days. YES!!!!!!!!

 

As long as the club's not going to go under (and it's not - many thanks Mr Ashley, please let me suck you off for not losing yourself hundreds of millions of pounds), I couldn't give a flying f*** about anything but the football.

 

You must know this is a fatuous argument Dave.

 

We are on a Newcastle forum discussing our club, and a big part of that is what happens with signings, ticket prices, wages and all of that. And to ignore the limitations of our finances is also stupid, otherwise every club would just be splurging money everywhere because it's impossible to go under, right?

 

I would love to just be interested in football too, but I don't see how you can be when money is such a massive part of the modern game. It's regrettable obviously.

Dave's right though. NUFC supporters have been conditioned to judge the health of the club in purely financial  terms.

 

Who judges the health of the club purely financially? I don't know anyone on this forum. It's just the heated discussion tend to revolve around people believing we should spend more.

 

And who conditioned us?

We've had five years of Mike saved the club from extinction, Mike has pumped £300zillion pounds into the club to save it from extinction, we have no money, we have to rename the ground because we have no money etc etc.  the agenda has been to scare us into thinking NUFC are some small time club who will go bust if they demonstrate any ambition. The response to anyone who dares suggest we could afford to spend a bit more on transfers or adopt a more competitive wage structure is always to rant on about Shepherd and going bust.

 

It's nonsense.

i don't think anyone is denying that there is money there to spend but they are after value aswell. i think we could afford to pay 10million for debuchy in the summer but it's not value and we've been caught out far too much with that in the past. (not saying thats how much they wanted, just making up figures for example sake)

 

We don't know if we paid more, less or the same amount for Debucy than we offered in the summer. What we do know is that we needed a CB, a full back and a left sided midfielder but ended up buying a midfielder. Value for money matters but it does seem that it's the only thing that matters, building a balanced squad always comes across as an after thought.

 

I find it hard to believe the club would go bankrupt if we paid a bit more to land the players we need when we need them.

 

[ChrisMcQuillan]

er go on then... evidence please (to McQuillan)

 

I think what worries me are Keegan's words a few years back after Pardew became manager.

 

He talked about deliberate bidding that would come up short, so that it appeared to everyone as though a serious attempt had been made to sign players.

 

I think we've learned by now that Ashley is about profits and margins.  I'm not sure how they got him to agree to Cisse, but we've barely spent that again in the 12 months since.

 

Ashley's had numerous opportunities to really push on since last January, and yet continues to fall short, failing to get players over the line.  How much of it is this "rigid wage and transfer structure", and how much is just propaganda from the club to ensure we keep buying tickets?

[Guest tollemache]

Are you referring to Debuchy for example? He was the biggest near-miss of the summer but then we clearly weren't doing it just for show because we've just gone and signed him. And as far as the Cisse fee goes, had QPR not come in for Remy, we'd have spent pretty much that fee again a couple of days ago. So I don't really think any of that holds water. It just looks to me like we're sticking to our transfer policy and plugging away at getting our targets on sensible terms.

 

We don't try to make a profit so the club can arbitrarily sit on some money. We try to make a profit so we can be in a stronger position in the future. If we made a steady loss, it would be to the eventual detriment of the team because we'd be forced to sell players. Making a steady profit = much much better in the long term. Obviously.

[madras]

er go on then... evidence please (to McQuillan)

 

I think what worries me are Keegan's words a few years back after Pardew became manager.

 

He talked about deliberate bidding that would come up short, so that it appeared to everyone as though a serious attempt had been made to sign players.

 

I think we've learned by now that Ashley is about profits and margins.  I'm not sure how they got him to agree to Cisse, but we've barely spent that again in the 12 months since.

 

Ashley's had numerous opportunities to really push on since last January, and yet continues to fall short, failing to get players over the line.  How much of it is this "rigid wage and transfer structure", and how much is just propaganda from the club to ensure we keep buying tickets?

wouldn't that mean we wouldn't sign anyone, no cisse, no anita, no santon etc etc ? i'm sure it was reported we had agreed fees for gameiro and gervinho but the players received better offers as much from a footballing point of view as a financial one. (maybe wrong, just paper talk after all), debuchy heavily intimated that lille moved the goalposts and i think (may be wrong again) that we met the price for de jong but were gazumped.

 

all in all it;s difficuilt to say what the club should do when you're basing it mainly on media stories.

[Guest neesy111]

er go on then... evidence please (to McQuillan)

 

I think what worries me are Keegan's words a few years back after Pardew became manager.

 

He talked about deliberate bidding that would come up short, so that it appeared to everyone as though a serious attempt had been made to sign players.

 

I think we've learned by now that Ashley is about profits and margins.  I'm not sure how they got him to agree to Cisse, but we've barely spent that again in the 12 months since.

 

Ashley's had numerous opportunities to really push on since last January, and yet continues to fall short, failing to get players over the line.  How much of it is this "rigid wage and transfer structure", and how much is just propaganda from the club to ensure we keep buying tickets?

wouldn't that mean we wouldn't sign anyone, no cisse, no anita, no santon etc etc ? i'm sure it was reported we had agreed fees for gameiro and gervinho but the players recieved better offers as much from a footballing point of view as a financial one. (maybe wrong, just paper talk after all), debuchy heavily intimated that lille moved the goalposts and i think (may be wrong again) that we met the price for de jong but were gazumped.

 

all in all it;s difficuilt to say what the club should do when you're basing it mainly on media stories.

 

Pot and Kettle.

[ChrisMcQuillan]

Are you referring to Debuchy for example? He was the biggest near-miss of the summer but then we clearly weren't doing it just for show because we've just gone and signed him. And as far as the Cisse fee goes, had QPR not come in for Remy, we'd have spent pretty much that fee again a couple of days ago. So I don't really think any of that holds water. It just looks to me like we're sticking to our transfer policy and plugging away at getting our targets on sensible terms.

 

We don't try to make a profit so the club can arbitrarily sit on some money. We try to make a profit so we can be in a stronger position in the future. If we made a steady loss, it would be to the eventual detriment of the team because we'd be forced to sell players. Making a steady profit = much much better in the long term. Obviously.

 

So the club saved how much on Debuchy in the six months?  £1m?  How many league places will that cost us over the course of a season?  Impossible to predict.  But let's say 1.  Isn't that at least £3m in reward money? 

 

The club have made an enormous mistake in failing to invest.  In this case, it simply is penny-pinching and gambling, when in actuality the costs of signing the players would probably have been completely negated by improved league position. 

[Rich]

I genuinely don't think there's anything Machiavellian going on, just think they get as much "joy" out of balancing the books as they do seeing us perform well. I'd even go so far as to say that whatever joy they do get out of us performing well is probably in-part due to how much better we'll be financially as a result.

 

I don't think any money is disappearing or anything, and I never have done.

[Unbelievable]

I genuinely don't think there's anything Machiavellian going on, just think they get as much "joy" out of balancing the books as they do seeing us perform well. I'd even go so far as to say that whatever joy they do get out of us performing well is probably in-part due to how much better we'll be financially as a result.

 

I don't think any money is disappearing or anything, and I never have done.

 

 

Shame we don't support a balance sheet.