peasepud

And these are the hard cold facts of football today. Speculate to accumulate is fine if you have a individual prepared to gamble a very large ammount of money. Is speculating to accumulate working for Ellis Short? The best way IMO to come to the business model for today, is to assume you have just taken control and your off to see the bank manager. But it will always come bact to the fact that in the whole wages are strangling the game. But its not and you dont see that because all you associate the word "competing" with is the top 4. You talk about being debt free like its something we are, yet we're in way more debt now than we ever were pre-Ashley. You talk about buying players like its a dirty statement yet its the be all and end all of football, its how football clubs progress, dont do that and you stand still. Every time wages are mentioned people bring into the equation the percentages, if its too high a percentage of turnover then you need to reduce wages. Theres always another way to reduce the percentage but Ashley, you and many many more dont ever see it as an option yet its how business is done in every other industry. You increase the turnover, its not a difficult concept to grasp. Man United have it sussed yet they have one of the highest debts going, pay some of the highest wages and yet still manage to turn a £110m profit. When the next accounts are released we will see another drop in turnover which in turn will see the wage bill highlighted as concern. Cue stage 2 of the sales process. What will that do? reduce turnover even more. Gate receipts these days are not that important in the great scheme of things but theyre a oood indication of how a club is doing. We're down 6.14% How?? Revenue's which are non-TV have all but plateau'd throughout football. Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham make up almost 60% of the Prem League revenues. In 2009/10, the revenue for those clubs grew by 5%, which looks canny, but more than two-thirds of that increase (£56 million) came from Man City, with their “friendly” Middle East deals and there was almost no growth from Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool. Overall Prem League revenue has risen by 77% (about £500 million) since 2004 but that's nearly all TV money and very little of that growth has come in the last three years and match day revenue growth has effectively stalled, it actually decreaased 5% in 2009/10, while commercial revenue barely grew at all (3%). You can't just take turnover in isolation and using Man U as an example is extremely flawed, they are the richest club on the planet and just about the most succesfull. I would also suspect that we'll actually see a record revenue for NUFC in the next accounts. Our historical high revenues were in our Champions League years, the CL money these days has grown out of all proportion from then, as has the TV deal, the clubs that have stayed in the CL are the one's who have benefitted, the money is such, that it's almost a self fullfilling prohecy. You're missing the simple revenue, only looking at the one massive hit, a massive hit that all Premiership clubs have. Take this plan of Ashleys and present it to Warner Brothers, will they take is as the way to make movies? will they shite Its entertainment, entertain people and they'll want to watch you again and again, they'll want to buy the shirts, mugs, bags and novely Y-Fronts. Get into other markets, Asia, Autralia, North America etc, all big potential fanbases and all with money to burn. Its no secret that all of our past turnover etc is off the back of when we were "the entertainers". A good investment sensibly spent, be that from Ashley or the banks, in the team will lead to better performance on the pitch which in turn leads to higher gates, higher gates lead to more pies, pints and shirt sales. Better performance leads to more corporate boxes etc. Better performance on the pitch ultimately leads to higher advertising revenue. This concept of "you cant touch the top 4 so lets not bother attempting to" is a disgraceful way to look at things. Aim for top 4 and get 6th is way preferable to aim to survive and rejoice at 16th.

Good idea... I’ve talked a bit (OK, ranted a lot) about fighting back and see this as a small opportunity to do just that. Not by asking searching questions but by asking 12 questions as banal as Tecato’s pizza topping. It’s not like any searching questions are going to get anything other than the usual spin cycle, might as well take the piss out of the latest PR stunt organised by the EC. Show them were not quite the thickos they take us for. Even though I'm not Twittered up, I like this idea. Are you thinking banal, as in pizza topping, or tangential, like his view on how the Libya situation will impact the Serie A? Although Im in the "show it to be the farce it is" camp that YNH talks about, I think getting a hugely asked "what colour pants do you wear" would mean that Ryder didnt include it for that very reason, ie we want serious questions. One question, RT'd to include @lee_ryder and @MSIDouglas in it that is a serious hard hitting one. Maybe, just "how much money is set aside for a striker in January?"

And these are the hard cold facts of football today. Speculate to accumulate is fine if you have a individual prepared to gamble a very large ammount of money. Is speculating to accumulate working for Ellis Short? The best way IMO to come to the business model for today, is to assume you have just taken control and your off to see the bank manager. But it will always come bact to the fact that in the whole wages are strangling the game. But its not and you dont see that because all you associate the word "competing" with is the top 4. You talk about being debt free like its something we are, yet we're in way more debt now than we ever were pre-Ashley. You talk about buying players like its a dirty statement yet its the be all and end all of football, its how football clubs progress, dont do that and you stand still. Every time wages are mentioned people bring into the equation the percentages, if its too high a percentage of turnover then you need to reduce wages. Theres always another way to reduce the percentage but Ashley, you and many many more dont ever see it as an option yet its how business is done in every other industry. You increase the turnover, its not a difficult concept to grasp. Man United have it sussed yet they have one of the highest debts going, pay some of the highest wages and yet still manage to turn a £110m profit. When the next accounts are released we will see another drop in turnover which in turn will see the wage bill highlighted as concern. Cue stage 2 of the sales process. What will that do? reduce turnover even more. Gate receipts these days are not that important in the great scheme of things but theyre a oood indication of how a club is doing. We're down 6.14%

Its a serious question though that needs debate in itself. Is the purchase of players currently at the highest level really trophy signings or is it simply that because Owen failed?

After 3 games. Still 7 places, 4 points and 2 on goal difference better off. Scored 2 less and leaked 4 less

I wonder what would happen if we got a question trending on twitter? Could Ryder ignore it? if he did then it would show it to be a farce.

TBF, I don't think that anyone has came out and said that was the plan. They have said that they wanted the club to be self-sustaining iirc. Though that in itself is very difficult to attain for any football club. This is the issue, for a football club to be self sustaining it has to have a good income, we dont, or at least we dont have anything like the income we had previously. Im not getting into an Ashley v Shepherd debate again but previously we had excellent income, sitting nicely in the top 20. Now we are dropping rapidly. Ashleys view of self sufficiency is players in funded by players out. CT your argument about the stock market crash is seriously flawed, there were few winners out of that, one of them being the fat man himself. He had floated SD and took a massive profit, that was why he decided to buy us. Then the crash came and he bought it all back at a much reduced price. My argument about business models has always remained the same, you have to speculate to accumulate. Its an entertainment business, if you dont provide a good enough level of entertainment then you lose money. By that though I dont mean borrow £200m and buy the Man City first team but spend money in transfer windows. When you sell a player it should be to replace them with someone better not gamble on someone hitting the big time. Once youve got those proven players in and theyre doing a job for you then keep them, prove to them that you have ambition and work towards getting higher up the table. Scout these players by all means but dont put all eggs into that basket and never ever allow your club to run without an established striker, that is simple suicide. I love how the counter argument in favour of Ashleys policy is to accuse Shepherd of trophy signings, can anyone tell me who they were? Shearer? Ginola? Asprilla? Solano? or are we talking Owen?

In some other thread I agreed to put down my reasons and thoughts on where this football club is heading. These arent based on any ITK or amazing foresight into the future merely the fact that I think I have Mike Ashley sussed. This football club is a business to him, he never bought this to "have fun" as it was made out, he didnt buy us because of some boyhood love for the club. He bought us because he could see a profit to be made. Many believe that profit was to come in the form of turning a chunk of the land into a supercasino. The space above the Metro Station already having planning permission but with such a cost involved in actually building anything substantial there that it just isnt viable. What he does see though is a number of revenue streams for himself. Advertising for his main business, numerous television appearances where the name is splashed everywhere, a ground full of people all forced to look directly at the name of his company. Thats more a plus point though than a reason to pay £138m. Ashleys plan (and its fairly well documented by the Chairman) is to turn this club into a profitable vehicle, to do that he needs to make incomings exceed outgoings. There are two ways to do that, reduce costs and increase revenue. Unfortunately, MA only knows one option and thats to reduce the costs. Its how he operates in business, buy it cheap, pile it high and get low paid staff to push it out the door. It works to bring in the money but does nothing for brand loyalty or even image. Most people (even non NUFC fans) would agree, they feel dirty coming out of Sports Direct. Its the Netto of Sports Shops, they should sell "Svens Bookstore" carrier bags at the door to hide the SD one in. This unfortunately is his view for NUFC, bring in players at a reduced cost, pay them lower wages than other clubs and hope that they come good so they can be touted to bigger clubs for a fat profit. Trouble is to do that he has to take a gamble and buy those players that come with baggage of some sort. It was questioned at the time but if Ben Arfa and Santon are such amazing prospects then how come they were sold to us so cheaply and more importantly how come nobody else was fighting us for their name? In Ben Arfa its injury, he had problems before coming to us and then was unlucky to get a terrible injury early on. In Santon it appears that his heads not quite been there. Now coming to England could be just the thing to sort him but alternately it could have the opposite effect. Either way with these players its a gamble, if they come good then we have to be resigned to losing them, the clubs made that clear on many an occasion, lowering the expectations and arguing that they cant compete with the "big clubs" even a chairman of this club thinking that should never be allowed. We have a wage policy that talks about removing the high earners and refusing to renew contracts that are as well paid as previously, regardless of how well the player has performed. Some see that as sensible, I see it as dangerous slope. We allegedly have a wage cap now of £50k pw but have at least 2 players who are on more than that (Colo and Smith) therefore any player we look to sign has to be willing to accept lower than that. Any player worth anything will look at Smith and question why they should get less than him. We have worked now since last September to remove players that are around that amount. In each case replacing them with someone younger and on less. A year ago the average wage may have been say £50k (total guesstimate), this year it will be more like £30k. What happens then? the club will look to trim it further because there will always be players at the top end of the pay and by having them you run the risk of others wanting towards that. So you sell the highest earner who generally will be your better players (I exclude Smith from that) and purchase someone new for less. Not just that but you ensure that the difference at least covers the wages for the length of the contract. This is one of the reasons we insist on handing out 5 year contracts to new players. eg Player x is on £50k pw with 3 years left on contract, we sell him for £11m Money in = £11m + £7.5m saved on wages. Player y is then bought for £4m and given a 5 year contract on £25k pw, automatically you allocate the other £7m from the sale of player x to pay the wages of player y for 5 years (6.2m). This means that youve broken even over the entire length of their contract and can argue you dont have another £7m to spend on another player. However player y, starts to play well, hes a good buy and catches the eye of a bigger club (prob Liverpool) who offer £8m for him after 1 year, making him an offer of £40k pw. Player rightly sees hes worth more than his £25k and looks for a pay increase, club says they wont be held to ransom etc and fire up the chopper. Result? Player sold for £8m, club argues that he was greedy and wanted more money. Fans call him a twat. £8m in and £5m of that originally allocated £6.2 is saved however fans dont know that, they knew there was no money to spend before this so now we have £8m kicking about. Player z is then bought to replace player y however now we only have £8m and that has to cover 5 years wages as well. Clearly we cant afford to pay £4m for one and match the £25k wages so we spend £3m on one that accepts £20k, total outlay £8m Now a player that costs £3m and is willing to accept £20k pw is unlikely to be to the level of a £10m man on £50k, yet realistically they are player x's replacement admittedly via player y. At the same time, as you lower those wages you ultimately lower the wage cap, you cant justify paying some new player £40k when all the existing ones earn a max of £35k. Somewhere down the line you hit break point, players you bring in are nowhere near good enough to hold their own in the Prem, I believe that is, at most, 2 years down the line. Many will argue with me that we've signed some good players under this strategy and potentially we have, I say potentially because it can go either way. Cabaye has looked good so far but thats after 3 games, there was a time when Ranger looked like a prospect, now however hes a dangerous liability with little to no chance of making first team. This football club is now built on lies and deceipt, "we will spend all of the Carroll money on strengthening the squad", "we tried to buy a striker" etc etc etc its one lie after another all designed however to create tension in the ranks and split the fans. When it comes to that Derek is a genius, he doesnt say much but when he does it always manages to get some people on side and some with the opposite view while online fights and arguments break out. Then theres the amazing 10 year Season Ticket deals, sign up for ten years and the price is frozen even if we get Champions League. Oh and you can get out of the deal at any time, no charge, no liability. You cant lose. Bollocks, there is no businessman worth his salt that would commit himself to no price increases for a decade, unless of course he knew that he could cover those losses elsewhere ie with a constant reduction in the wage bill. Forcing fans however to sign up to the "12th man" covers his options, next season there wont be an increase in ST prices however you can bet the Club Membership will increase. Its like the old "no Imcome Tax increases, oh btw weve stuck 2p on National Insurance". And this 10 year deal? How well has that done to build up the famous "12th man"? clearly not very well at all, attendances are down heavily, no longer do we see 50k, this season we will see more than one sub 40k game. This post has become a long rambling pile of shite tbh but the basis is that all I see in the future is constant stream of players out the door with new ones in, each time cheaper than the last. No good can come of that. Once in while we'll see some flash of brilliance pass through that revolving door, when we do someone will snap them up. Leaving us lumbered with the shite ones.

The thing is thats what makes this forum different to others, we all take the piss out of each other. If theres something that can be latched onto ie the formations/ losing a bet then people will do. CT takes some stick, his pictures been all over the place and allsorts but he sees it for what it is, a piss take. He laughs along and has not left the site in a huff......unfortunately.

Always happy to help, give up on the flounce, laugh it off and realise that you've been shafted royally by Dekka and Co. Come Monday when you've paid up you'll see a totally different style of post in this thread.

Seriously man kidda, get a grip. You lost a bet, took some stick, take it like a man and laugh it off, once the debts paid people will be applauding you, just ask the last kid to make a rash bet on this lot doing the right thing. Hes taken a load of stick but is still remembered for paying up when he lost.

Thats me. But what gives you the fuckin right to put my name up on here.......thats gotta be against the rules? How do i upload a screenshot? tbf the fact that its splashed across your website makes it fairly public. And I expect the declaration on your SA to be at least £45k based on you paying yourself £25k pa, working on the logic that you need tools, petrol, phone, premises, vehicle, petty cash etc etc then thats a fair enough valuation. I was going to offer a helping hand on your site once you'd paid up but frankly business is booming so my fees a grand. Its tax deductible of course.

Now that the transfer window has closed, we have had some time to reflect on the business we have conducted over the summer and frankly Martin from accounts thinks its been fantastic. Our aim was to secure young players who represented a good profit margin. The majority of our transfer dealings were completed in the early part of the window and we feel we have signed some players of exceptional profit potential. Yohan Cabaye, Sylvain Marveaux, Mehdi Abeid, Demba Ba and Gabriel Obertan were all brought in early and we have seen these players settle quickly into the squad and already look likely to have a high resale value next year. Earlier this week we were delighted to sign Davide Santon from Inter Milan to fill our left-back position after the departure of Jose Enrique. Davide is an excellent young prospective resale and we're sure he'll be another superb addition to the bank. We also welcomed young goalkeeper Rob Elliot from Charlton Athletic who is willing to accept peanuts and will help us force out Harper whos on bigger wages after getting Fraser Forster off wage bill. Of course we had also hoped to secure a further striker in the window, in addition to a bloke we picked up for nothing. Work to bring a striker into the club began early in the summer. Negotiations were complex and protracted and fortunately we managed to hoodwink you lot into thinking we had a priority target. Whilst we did turn our attention to alternative prospects in the latter stages of the window, we have a very laughable transfer policy and will not make knee-jerk decisions at the last-minute which are not in the best interests of the clubs balance sheet. We understand that supporters will feel frustrated that we did not sign another striker during the window, but think about it, we have Leon Best and Shola, plus when Ben Arfa comes back he'll be like a new signing.

I posted it a while ago then "I Love Sir Bobby" I think it was posted about his mate in the signage business *just as long as you credit the original story break with me.... ITK me like

Mr Your Name answered your post perfectly tbh just a shame he hadnt quoted you. Hes spot on though, most of us (Leazes clearly included) dont expect to sign £20m strikers or overhaul the playing staff each season by clearing out and bringing in all the latest and greatest players from round the world What we do expect is sensible use of the resources available and honest answers from the club. Selling our best striker and leaving us short in January was mental to say the least but to then ignore the fact in August and still carry on is just disgraceful. We have clearly set our stall out now that no player can be purchased unless funded by the sale of an existing one, where does that put us next January then? Theres a whole thread to be had on this which should be seperate and its something Ive talked about for a while now but this clear out of high earners isnt a short term measure, its the whole future plan of the club and one that if followed will see us cease to exist as a Premiership club within 2 seasons and possibly be a lot worse. He didnt answer my question because I was referring to Leazes CL constant claims without a plan or major investment not the genarlised lets build each year stuff that No Name refers to and which I agree most of us would like to see. I do agree with you however that good sensible debate can be had about how you do live in this two tiered league and whether you think our "business model" can achieve that or whether it will lead to our demise as you suggest. Its wishful thinking though in this current climate imo to think you can simply hold on to your best players, and keep adding more quality to it. Sound simple and ideal but falls down on many fronts if you dont have an owner prepared to chuchk in out of his own pocket every year. Theres a blog from some Guardian chap here today which is entitled a cause for optimism about NUFC http://www.thefootballramble.com/blog/entr...ism-on-tyneside The bottom line is had we bought a striker, most would have been fairly happy. I agree though, a good debate to be had, particularly if the extremist views are put on hold and a sense of reality is brought to it. The problem is that you see the likes of mine and Leazes views as extremist, I see it as perfectly sensible. Thats why we never agree because you go into "Team nasty are picking on me" mode. I'll create the thread later detailing my vision of the future under Ashley, before you dive into it and dispute though, check it back against the history of the last 4 years if you're wanting to ensure the extremist views are put on hold.

Took about 10 seconds tbh, I just entered 'Patronising Twat' in the search engine and it was the first result. Wasnt asking how long it took or how you did it pal! Just the very fact you did it speaks volumes to me about you! Oh of course I recognise your name now! We have crossed swords before havent we! I presume you came offf second best judging by your unwarranted and juvenile abuse! tbf I dont think we need a search to dispute that one like

surely with enrique it was sell him when we did or lose him for nowt due to his contract?? as for nolan - ive argued in another thread he was pretty much sold for footballing reasons ie cabaye brought in with ben arfa to play the withdrawn striker role. as there was effectively no place in the starting 11 for him he was sold. what irks me about Enrique [and Barton] is that if the club had shown itself to be progressive and seriously aiming to go higher and stay there, they maybe would have been happy to sign new contracts and be part of it. Thats all you have to do to keep these sort of players, but we chose to piss them off and fuck them around. Add Given to that list, the loss of him resulted in relegation, simple as.

Presumably with Ashley's debt the club has a bit less control over when it gets paid off. For instance if there was 35 mill lying around in a bank account, Ashley could demand the cash rather than it being used say to buy a new striker. Assuming his debt was repayable on demand of course. Nope, a bank could take all of the money at any time it liked (as Barclays all but did once in the late 80's) if Ashley increases the debt in the club to pay himself back all he would be doing is creating losses which he himself would be liable for or at least have to cover. Your statement forgets that Ashley as the single owner with no shareholders, to all intents and purposes, is the club. If he's recovering money, it would be by reducing the debt the club owes to him from the operating subsidies he's put in, which based upon the lack of spend this window, may be exactly what he's doing. Recovery of the £130-odd Million would come when and if the club is sold again. I'm sorry I don't understand this. If you have a loan agreement with a bank, and are honouring the terms of it, why can the bank take all of the money any time they like? And why would they want to? In addition, I never said anything about increasing debt to pay himself back. Your last point is exactly what I was saying - if the club is cash positive, and does not require subsidising anymore, then he can use surplus cash to repay all his debts. Which a bank couldn't demand if the terms of the bank loan are being honoured. Maybe I've got this wrong. Happy to be corrected, try not to be a patronising twat in the process, eh? Exactly, different thread but thats why the club was never in danger of going bust, we had manageable debts and a good level of income. Man U prove it perfectly, debts of over £600m yet they are one of the most successful clubs in the world and produce a £100m+ profit.

everybody wants that man. But we don't need it to act bigger than competing with the relegation candidates in the premiership. I agree with that bit Leazes, but there's the ocean and the big blue sea between " competing with relegation candidates" and breaking the top four. Bit more realism in your posts (kettle pot btw) would lead to less arguments, particularly given you were once an Ashley Fan. Absolute bollocks, you know, but choose to ignore the fact that LM isnt talking about us suddenly chasing Man U, hes talking about competing for anything. Making a push onwards and upwards, be that over 2, 3, 4 or more years. Putting in the hard work to increase the clubs profits not just decrease its outgoings and spend on players of the required calibre needed to do just that.

Mr Your Name answered your post perfectly tbh just a shame he hadnt quoted you. Hes spot on though, most of us (Leazes clearly included) dont expect to sign £20m strikers or overhaul the playing staff each season by clearing out and bringing in all the latest and greatest players from round the world What we do expect is sensible use of the resources available and honest answers from the club. Selling our best striker and leaving us short in January was mental to say the least but to then ignore the fact in August and still carry on is just disgraceful. We have clearly set our stall out now that no player can be purchased unless funded by the sale of an existing one, where does that put us next January then? Theres a whole thread to be had on this which should be seperate and its something Ive talked about for a while now but this clear out of high earners isnt a short term measure, its the whole future plan of the club and one that if followed will see us cease to exist as a Premiership club within 2 seasons and possibly be a lot worse.

Give the lad a chance At the end of the day its entirely possible that hes a little strapped for cash until payday etc and tbf if that was me Id probably not want to come onto a thread and admit that so lets just have a couple of days breather then lynch him!

Looks to me like they're checking them and resecuring the dodgy ones. Why? Because you wouldn't move the gantry randomly along if you were removing them, you'd do them one after each other. Thats a very fair point like.

Seriously? You believe we have a squad of players who give a fuck? We got rid (rightly or wrongly) of those that did, Nolan, Barton, Enrique and are desperate to peddle Harper and replaced them with others who have had issues either with injuries or their attitude. Its a different topic whether these players are more gifted/ better prospects than those theyve replaced but theres nothing at all to show that the squad we have will take the bull by the bollocks if we go on a losing streak.

so good, nobody else seemed to be bothered about going for him. I dont doubt hes a good player but theres been injuries and other problems which seem to have given a warning to other clubs. As Ant says, hes a Right Back who has filled in at Left Back, lets not rewrite history now. Head & shake I swear FM has a lot to make up for Just to make it clear, this has the potential to be a very good signing. But wonderkid? clear intention to the world? major force in football? fuck off man.