Kitman

Plainly his legs are unable to cope anymore with his size and weight. Much like a genetically engineered turkey at Christmas time, which has put on so much weight in anticipation of the chop that its legs can no longer support the rest of its body.

Don't know if this has been mentioned but we shouldn't underestimate our lack of attractiveness to decent players if we go down. Yes we might get rid of some overpaid wasters but if you're a good player why go to NUFC if we're in the championship? Because a) we won't be offering top wages anymore, that much is clear b we'd be in the mickey mouse league c) there'd be no high profile players left they'd heard of. Apart from Shola obviously d) the North East is not a draw card to players unless they're from there e) the stadium would be half empty f) our manager would be Joe Kinnear g) our owner has no ambition If anybody thinks we'll be signing decent players without offering big wages and transfer fees they're kidding themselves. We'll have enough trouble if we stay in the prem, they'd probably rather go to Hull at the moment. I fully expect us to make an offer for Dean Windass in the summer, and for him to turn us down.

Very poor value. Be seeing you.

Why are you still here Danny? Wouldn't you find it more enjoyable to discuss the Boro match on a spurs messageboard?

At the moment it's tough to be optimistic. I fully expected us to get beaten by MUFC and I've been gloomy about our survival prospects for a long time, so I don't know why I'm feeling so down about it. It's so sad to see us where we are now; riches to rags, reduced to rummaging in bins for leftovers.

That's a big IF imo. I fully expect DL to retreat into his bunker now and let his minions front up to these things. I have no axe to grind with the NUSC one way or another, in fact I really don't care what they do, but they shouldn't be surprised if the shutters come down.

Well isn't that what the membership fees are for? I'm grateful for the info by the way.

Butt's plainly in denial. He'll be saying Kinnear's the best manager's he's ever played for next.

What's the fucking point in publishing that? It's not telling us anything we don't already know. Very strange. Out of nowhere, and for no obvious reason that I can think of. It's also curious that the club is speaking on Keegan's behalf - strikes me as a bit odd anyway for the club to be making statements in the name of both parties. Why not just say the club is in the arbitration process and will be making no comments? And, as you say, it tells us nothing we don't know. I've been trying to work out what might have prompted this but can't think of anything at all. Because he is coming back, simple as. We're you bieng sarcastic there or not? Not at all, said in a post yesterday that I think they will be in crisis talks today and it wouldnt surprise me in the least if for a number of reasons, KK coming back was the final outcome. Fingers crossed anyway. Would be great but I honestly can't see it Fingers crossed though.. More likely it is preemptive PR. When they are forced to fork out millions of pounds in compensation to the Keegler, they can point to this press release as another example that they tried to rehire him. And because they had to pay him out there is only 4.60 left for summer transfers. That tickled me. £4.60 in the transfer pot I'm happy with that. 4.60 more than I was expecting.

I Agree - but they appear to be taking any criticisms towards them into account. Its a new thing, so it'll take a while to set up but i'm possitive that, provided it keeps going, it'll be a strong supporters group. They're clearly in it to change things for the better, so if nothing else, they have my support for that. Yes, they do, I agree. It's amazing how normal language sounds really offensive once you're in the public domain. Nobody's going to take the NUSC seriously until it learns the language of diplomacy, at least in public. Saying that, most often they get it right, it's more at the begining when they were venting frustrations that it came across wrong. It's hard to live those reputations down though. Oh and Asprilla I agree totally about the amateurish comment, plainly and simply because thats what we are, none of us are experts in these things, none of us are used to producing press releases or working out how to take on a massive company. What we are is passionate about the club and what we believe in, passionate about setting up a proper supporters club and dedicated to making it work. If we could wake up tomorrow and all the shite around the football club was sorted and we could get down to just organising the other supporters club stuff then Id be a happy man but we cant. For now this is hanging over us and needs to be exposed. If it ever achieves change at the club then great but if it doesnt then at least we will know we tried. The notes of the meeting do look and sound amateurish. Fair enough if they're for private consumption, not if they're published by the NUSC. Wouldn't take much to polish them up imo.

Time was when I would have absolutely hated the Mancs winning one trophy. Now I can honestly say I don't care one jot, that's what being out of the country can do for you. Plus my expectations of the toon are totally at rock bottom, and I don't care about other teams generally.

Mark Viduka's breakfast buffet?

They've been found out now, haven't they? I'm sure relegation wasn't in the 'plan'. Just goes to show that whilst it might look good on paper, it doesn't necessarily work in real life. Like Milton Keynes.

Would be an interesting comment on our youth policy

Apparently the zimmer frame needs to go back to the manufacturers for repair......

It would be like a deal with the devil really. Except with no excess of earthly pleasures to look forward to, just crushing mediocrity. However I can't see how any top manager would be willing to put up with our club, and it pains me to admit it. I also don't see how the lot in charge would have the vision or intelligence to recruit a world beater; if JFK doesn't come back I honestly think they'll be ringing round the likes of Venables and Graham on the day before the season kicks off, as the thought that they have to get off their fat arses and do something finally percolates through their flaccid underdeveloped brains to shake them from their complacency.

I'm scared that the next 3 matches will prompt a death spiral from which we can't recover. We lack the talent on and off the field to turn things around; we need a massive slice of luck to steal some points off one of the big boys imo.

This story is flame grilled shizzle served in a bun. As if KK would come back, and as if Ashley would take him back!

It's a measure of how far we've sunk that I think this would be a good thing. Not that I think he would touch us with a shitty stick. It would be a step down for him tbh as things stand.

Hey, you do the math !

Or "You know exactly what you're doing" The way I see it.... Ashley has paid £138Million for the club. The value of which can depreciate. He's loaned the club £100M, the value of which is set in stone. Using transfer income to spend on transfer outgoings would mean the club is run within it's means and Ashley's return depends for the most part on the value of the club. Deferring transfer income, and using loans from Ashley to buy up front in full means that Ashley is assured his money back. So the £20M he's supposed to have since put in on top of the initial loan has bought players whose value might drop, Xisco for example. But the £6m Ashley pumped in for him is a loan he's guaranteed to be paid back in full. The club might only recoup £2M from his sale, but Ashley is still owed the full amount. I assume he saw the money being paid out on Luque and thought to himself, "well I'll fund those sorts of signings and be guaranteed the return irrespective of the success of the player". But he's not getting a "return" as such, is he? He's just getting his money back from loan repayments, as the loan's interest free. Arguably if you view the loan as part of the acquisition cost, the club is funding the purchase of itself, at the cost of investment. Whether that profits Ashley ultimately depends on the value of the club at sale date, and if he's run it down to the bones of its arse then he hasn't achieved a lot. So the way I see it, this is about minimising his investment i.e he takes out the money he's put in as soon as he can. However he only benefits if the club goes up in value, which it won't if we're relegated, all the fans stay away, or Sky won't show our dreary matches on the telly. I think the current strategy's mainly about maximising revenue and minimising cost. His motives for that depend on how you view his overall intentions. It might well be about rebalancing the books but that's ignoring the realities of football i.e. you need to invest a) to compete b retain your best players c) to keep the fans happy. But I really can't work out why they'd want pay upfront for transfers and accept deferred payments - that just makes no sense to me, unless you want to behave like a corner shop i.e only spend the cash you actually have. I can perhaps see the sense in not spending sponsors money in advance but not this.

I'm not convinced his efforts to sell the club were ever sincere. It might however be that some of the problems have come about because he's been badly advised. I'm hopeful taking more of a direct interest will open his eyes to some of the problems. I'm not convinced he's any better than the old board as businessmen, he might just be tighter. We will just have to see because he's not going anywhere, you can't sack the owner. I suspect you and I won't see eye to eye on this but I'm certainly not in the 'Ashley Out' camp (yet). I'm more in the 'Ashley get a grip' camp. However I think you should post more, which is in no way connected to your avatar.

I never go on N-O, I wasn't aware there was a pro-Ashley faction. I assumed the only position you could reasonably occupy would be one that is against the current regime. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would think otherwise. It's kind of based around the idea the club would have been history (debt wise) if MA hadn't rode into town or summink. Imo there does need to be perspective amongst the critisism - in terms of it is good to see a lot of potentially promising youngsters coming to the club, it is refreshing, and because people aren’t happy with other things it doesn’t mean they cant appreciate more promising aspects. At the end of the day if 70% of the income is going out to wages then thats clearly a problem - but a lot of those wages should be clear in the summer - & we will see if they then act upon that. And at least Llambias is trying to explain things now, whether its utter lies, misguided ideas or total crap, a big problem was zero communication & we now have things to go off, and he's meeting fans. The flip side is the sheer lack of ambition wanting Kinnear long term, and the lack of clarity regarding Wise's role (no-one knows EXACTLY what he does/how much influence he has), which in turn discredits the image of the manager position. Wasting your time looking for perspective on here. This is the home of the Cockney mafia out brigade, although they pretend otherwise. I don't agree with you tbh. I've said that getting the wages down and building the scouting/youth side are sound ideas. The trouble I have with this lot is that they don't tell the truth, they're also trying to do it all too quickly and risking our status in the league. In my opinion, Shepherd would have had no choice but to do similar things to Ashley or risk us going completely to the wall. He blew the lot on us getting back into Europe but we didn't make it. The debts were growing and the advances were all spent. This. Ashley could be a good owner if he took his head out of his arse.

I never go on N-O, I wasn't aware there was a pro-Ashley faction. I assumed the only position you could reasonably occupy would be one that is against the current regime. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would think otherwise. It's kind of based around the idea the club would have been history (debt wise) if MA hadn't rode into town or summink. Imo there does need to be perspective amongst the critisism - in terms of it is good to see a lot of potentially promising youngsters coming to the club, it is refreshing, and because people aren’t happy with other things it doesn’t mean they cant appreciate more promising aspects. At the end of the day if 70% of the income is going out to wages then thats clearly a problem - but a lot of those wages should be clear in the summer - & we will see if they then act upon that. And at least Llambias is trying to explain things now, whether its utter lies, misguided ideas or total crap, a big problem was zero communication & we now have things to go off, and he's meeting fans. The flip side is the sheer lack of ambition wanting Kinnear long term, and the lack of clarity regarding Wise's role (no-one knows EXACTLY what he does/how much influence he has), which in turn discredits the image of the manager position. What I don't get is why some people are obsessed with debt. Every club has it. Whether we have too much debt is not up to the supporters to judge, that's up to the bank manager. Some people (not on here) seem more turned on by the club's books than the football. How does that work? If you get a hard on over the books, go and be an accountant imo. As if a numpty internet jockey can judge what the club/Ashley can and can't afford to spend, based on a set of historic records and guesswork! The example of Leeds is trawled up time and again. To me that's just scaremongering. I don't think Shepherd & Co were remotely as reckless as Ridsdale & Co. I don't doubt that we had overstretched ourselves and needed a period of retrenchment, but as always with the toon we've reacted in the opposite extreme and now our prem status is threatened through under investment - where a canny use of even the transfer profits to date would have made a massive difference. Aye, I agree in the way that some kind of debt will always probably come with success, definetely. In terms of wages, I'm not a mathematics genuis, but surley if 70% of the income is going on wages there's simply a problem there. I mean that the positive side is potentially having better young players coming through who are talented & hungry - something we have lacked over the years. I don't disagree at all with the need to bring wages down, ditch overpaid underperformers or invest heavily in youth. In particular I believe we couldn't sustain those wage levels in the medium term. What I can't understand is the thought that with a piss poor squad and manager we think we can get by with selling players and not reinvesting the money. In the short term it must be obvious that we can't rely on the current players to keep us in mind table, the evidence is there on the pitch and in our league position. I wasn't expecting mega-bucks but I was shocked that the January window went by with a net profit. That either smacks of complacency or obliviousness to our position. Judging by Llambias' recent statements, I'm beginning to think they are genuinely clueless about the state of the first team. That's not to say there aren't some positives by the way, but it won't matter if we're relegated, and that's what worries me most.

I never go on N-O, I wasn't aware there was a pro-Ashley faction. I assumed the only position you could reasonably occupy would be one that is against the current regime. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would think otherwise. It's kind of based around the idea the club would have been history (debt wise) if MA hadn't rode into town or summink. Imo there does need to be perspective amongst the critisism - in terms of it is good to see a lot of potentially promising youngsters coming to the club, it is refreshing, and because people aren’t happy with other things it doesn’t mean they cant appreciate more promising aspects. At the end of the day if 70% of the income is going out to wages then thats clearly a problem - but a lot of those wages should be clear in the summer - & we will see if they then act upon that. And at least Llambias is trying to explain things now, whether its utter lies, misguided ideas or total crap, a big problem was zero communication & we now have things to go off, and he's meeting fans. The flip side is the sheer lack of ambition wanting Kinnear long term, and the lack of clarity regarding Wise's role (no-one knows EXACTLY what he does/how much influence he has), which in turn discredits the image of the manager position. What I don't get is why some people are obsessed with debt. Every club has it. Whether we have too much debt is not up to the supporters to judge, that's up to the bank manager. Some people (not on here) seem more turned on by the club's books than the football. How does that work? If you get a hard on over the books, go and be an accountant imo. As if a numpty internet jockey can judge what the club/Ashley can and can't afford to spend, based on a set of historic records and guesswork! The example of Leeds is trawled up time and again. To me that's just scaremongering. I don't think Shepherd & Co were remotely as reckless as Ridsdale & Co. I don't doubt that we had overstretched ourselves and needed a period of retrenchment, but as always with the toon we've reacted in the opposite extreme and now our prem status is threatened through under investment - where a canny use of even the transfer profits to date would have made a massive difference.