scoobos

He made a complete twat of himself last night, but all our players looked fired up in a frustration kind of way. I still think he's good enough for the league, but perhaps 3rd choice centre back for us, he's leagues ahead of willo , for example.

Agree totally Happy Face, why the fuck we keep playing good players out of position is beyond me. It damages them, and takes them out of their comfort zone completely, Sissoko, Arfa, Mbwia, Anita, Tiote, the list just goes on of Pards trying to make people "Total Football" when they are still learning the league and their trade. We seem to have a redevelopment policy, not development. That said, if Ashley doesn't sanction buying players for the positions he needs wtf is he supposed to do. Probably in a minority but I have sympathy for Pardew at the moment, and for most of last year, hes getting fucked over by lack of resources. I always thought Pardew had potential if only he got time to learn a good style for NUFC, hes got no chance with a skeleton squad and the rug pulled out from his feet every six months. Finally, on topic, I thought we did have a defensive strategy, build from the back, defensive work from forwards etc - problem is we are shit at it. Krul was legend last night, the City fans thought he was mint, they also had good things to say of sissoko, but I didn't think he actually played as well as he could last night, seemed tired.

Vossen is fucking special man, really special. But he wont come, hes turned down loads of clubs over the years (my mate at work was a massive fan of his)

Bang on, nothing more depressing for me than seeing toon fans recycle Ashleys BS propaganda. "spending the Cabaye money" ffs... sure mate, sure.... Bringing up Carroll is too true too, I think we've done it with every player we've bloody sold, we have no chance of seeing them re-invest even 50% of it. Lets no mention the tv money ey.

For as long as it looks like he can turn a profit in the long run. For a football club, we've generated a lot of cash with minimum expenditure. We do have him to thank for avoiding administration, but he's using the same fiscal approach even now its not possible. I seriously can't see him going :/

yup, I thought that as soon as we started colour coding them all those years ago. That said, nufc.com is saying we're buying 2 , so I might have to eat my own arse.

Happy face is dead on and I reckon the likes of sissoko, Anita and mbwia are all in the same boat. Expecting non premiership players to make impacts in the first season is a bit much, unless they are strikers. These 25 mil players might be premiership ready, but most aren't. On topic, uff what a bag of shite. The players all just looked really frustrated and angry all game, seems they feel the same as most of us. Somethings got to give.

Lets go easy, this might be on club orders, we all know how Ashley deals with players when he sees a sale. No way he's going for 10 though. Does make me wonder if those rumours of him leading a players revolt last year were true . Desmond , for the love of god change that avatar , who is that anyway?

Ah you understate your research skills.

Well, before the match I reckon you might be dead on for cabaye, sadly for the wrong reasons tho, as he has an arsenal move to play for

Jonas is out, so who knows maybe CT will get his wish

Ok explain this then. http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/mash-(uk)-holdings Seriously, mikes business engine has only 100 quid capital? This isn't much different to what I'm saying mikes doing with nufc either : http://news.sky.com/story/1100798/vodafone-earns-5bn-but-pays-no-corporation-tax But even if you do things right, there's nothing a few posh meals with the head of hmrc cant put right

Now there's something we can agree on, they are. MASH is a LTD not a PLC, so the only thing that needs to be "disclosed" is the annual return, right? There are NO shareholders, its a private Class 1 share , all of them to Ashley. Look up Vodafone and see what happened there, its almos identical to the abuse I'm highlighting and they are all doing it. The gov't excuse is that they are wealth and job generators and would go elsewhere. In my time as a company director,ive learnt that tax is basically an honesty / morality policy for anyone other than paye staff. Apologies for once again derailing a thread for a tax argument

Mash holdings owns puma or some shit like that too though doesn't it? If he's the only share holder then he does profit from savings on Corp tax because he gets a big divvy right? These subsidiaries are individual businesses in their own right, like nufc, sd are. I believe he owns the following brands too, which he will spread any profit through in similar manners, e.g: (I could be wrong on some of these) Donny, liillywhites, karrimor, Dunlop, Slazenger, puma (shirt deal anyone?), kangol, Lonsdale, a majority in umbro, the list probably goes on. Most of these ar leveraged through deals with MASH for exclusivity rights, again masking profit as investment. I'd like to continue but I do know I could just be super suspicious, but if be very very surprised if this isn't what's going on. Umbro and nufc next is my bet.

depends dunnit, on how much he charged, and also how much of that profit is being put into Republic , or one of the shatty manufacturers he's bought. I'm not saying its exclusive between NUFC and SD, this guy owns tens of companies, including the manufacturers who provide his stores with product. Unfortunately, its perfectly acceptable for him to spread his "Profit" from SD across all his little subsidiaries, if Tescos can do it with 100's of millions, then I'm pretty sure Ashley can. I'm a bit shamed really that I'm apparently so off the mark, as I've dealt with running businesses and taxes and accountancy for nearly 10 years now. It's like Tesco's for example, they announce profits, push out the divvies and then somehow manage to "invest" that money in some warehouse in Indonesia and therefore reduce their liability. Quarterly profits and Annual profits often don't match, like starbucks another example 2 mil quarterly profit, but when it comes to return time, there is no profit as the monies have been invested into other subsidiaries. I saw the relationship between NUFC and SD as the same. I'll leave it though, as although you do, I don't like washing my dirty laundry in public, especially if I'm losing face.

This is where I struggle to understand Ashley as a shrewd business man. Expecting to get back his investment sure, but if he's loaned the cash, that loan transfers when the clubs sold right? so all he really needs back is the cost of the club and then his loan. I mean, if he really wanted , he could put an interest rate on those loans of whatever he wants, sell the club and cream it for years. There are also all the benefits he can't quantify but are there, like the Sports Direct advertising, the increased media coverage of his businesses etc . I think he wants PROFIT not to break even.

I wish we had a PM system to discuss this between us. In my mates company which turns over a considerable sum, he saves loads by "investing" in his Plan B company. Any spend on expenditure is out of profit and therefore he saves on his Corp tax bill, I seriously don't understand why its not the same. In my little company, anything I spend on expenses for marketing comes out of profit too, so I do save corp tax on that as it would be profit. But , we don't have a PM system and I've made an arse out of myself enough in the past few weeks. That said, I'm off to Cayman in 1 week, so tax isn't a worry anymore thank fook <smug mode>

Converse to those that think protests are pointless, I reckon not renewing is pointless, as there are always going to be thousands of fans who couldn't get season tickets who will snap them up hoping to keep them for the good times years down the line. So Ashley will feel nothing. For all I think about the destruction of the club, I still see turning up on the match day as a special thing. My first days as a toon fan was being brought up to Newcastle with my best mate and his dad and sitting through endless defeats and shite matches in awful weather but still shouting them on (mid to late 80's for years was poor). I went to 11 away matches last year and even that still brought back the excitement of St James. What I'm trying to say through ramble is, even when we are living through this, as much as you want to, you will still yearn for your seat if you throw it away, or I would anyway. Protests and damaging that twats ego so much he just ups and fucks off is the only hope I have of hurting him. You'll never see me in Republic or Sports Direct, which is what I think he really cares about - but turn down a match day ticket, no way - even if we get drubbed tonight I'll still get something out of it . Shame you poor fuckers have to put up with my whining afterwards and before though

You know what, I really didn't think I wrote that. The paranoid side of me still thinks I didn't. But, that said, sorry ewerk, I apologise unreservedly. I'll wind my neck in a bit now. I still reckon he's tax dodging tho, wont budge on that, but we will only see when the financials come out for the Wonga takeover.i reckon we'll see a big charge to SD for that sponsorship deal.

Good read again, where do you get all this stuff from???

To get back in victor Mildred character, I'd worry that if he goes to arsenal it will make pardew look terrible, cabaye will shine in a team like arsenal and fingers will point as to why pards couldn't get the same level from him. In normal circumstances that might not be a bad thing but given that we wont get anyone better or god forbid we'll get Joe.

Why after being such a miserable sod all summer am I excited for tonight? Ashley can't kill me off completely!

Bit late posting on this one, but the stat based post by Tom? Was eye opening, on paper even though he had a "bad year" he still performed quite well on paper. Ill be sad to see him go, but my personal view is that he hasn't looked happy for a long time now and there's no point carrying someone who isn't fully into the team.

No need to apologise mate, you are the rant Ying to my rant yang. I've ranted my fingers off this season break. I say relegated you say top 4, hopefully we'll have something in the middle.

There are more games than city, but yeah tbh I wouldn't mind him getting 30 mins or so if we are in an unwinnable position.