Park Life

Even Mourinho was only on 3.25 at Chelsea.

Best 3. Abdoulaye Faye (Stoke) - Tony Pulis made a number of canny signings this term, but the capture of Faye from Newcastle was arguably his most important. The 31-year-old brought strength and leadership to Stoke's defence and delivered a seemingly countless number of outstanding performances. How Newcastle could have done with him rather than Fabio Coloccini this year... Worst 4. Fabio Coloccini (Newcastle) - After hawking the Argentine around the Premier League for years like an unwanted rug in a Moroccan bazaar, Coloccini's advisors finally secured him a big-money move to that most welcoming of clubs, Newcastle. He didn't disappoint, either, delivering a series of execrable performances that got worse as the season progressed. Looks like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons, but without his defensive nous. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/robkelly/blog...s_of_the_season

Personally with Shearer in place FS will be better this time round and he understands football a million times better than MA.

Totally agree with the first sentence. Hence the lack of any real vision or 'plan'. They had something sketchy in mind with regard to the Spurs system of buying breakthrough players and selling 2/3 seasons down the road, but that was about it.

If he wants his 100m back he'll never get a buyer. The bank thing can be restructured I'd imagine with a guarantee from the new buyer. Matt would know more.

I sometimes lay in bed laughing and Mrs P says..."What is it"? Well nobody could understand it could they?

The problem we have is that football clubs rarely make any money.

He'll put the club into administration before he accepts that. Gemmill is right. The price to an interested party is £200m but Ashley has structured the finances so that the price tag is only £100m. The 'club' effectively doesn't owe anything at the moment as he owns it. However as soon as he flogs it, he'll be owed an extra £100m and you can guarantee he'll be more of a cunt than any loan shark from your worst nightmare. We're fucked basically. £200m for a championship club? And not a very good one at that! Why would he put it into administration? That removes his control over the business. If he liquidated it tomorrow he'd get less than selling the whole club, so that is not going to happen. Other creditors might seek this route if things on the bank side did not improve. A lot rests on what the score is with this Barclays overdraft- are we using it? If it's maxed out then we are not in good shape. Any buyer will have to plug this on day 1. Buyers would not put themselves at the mercy of Ashley as a debtholder even if he did want that back. They'd either pay it off entirely or agree a 'discount' price to pay him back here and now. He wants the sale- that shifts negotiating power away from him. That's why I don't understand his front foot approach. Softly - softly keeps his position intact and he has time to get a buyer by stealth. He can't meet Shearer's terms. He can't do that AND say he's staying. We're fcked then.

He'll put the club into administration before he accepts that. Gemmill is right. The price to an interested party is £200m but Ashley has structured the finances so that the price tag is only £100m. The 'club' effectively doesn't owe anything at the moment as he owns it. However as soon as he flogs it, he'll be owed an extra £100m and you can guarantee he'll be more of a cunt than any loan shark from your worst nightmare. We're fucked basically. £200m for a championship club? And not a very good one at that! Why would he put it into administration? That removes his control over the business. If he liquidated it tomorrow he'd get less than selling the whole club, so that is not going to happen. Other creditors might seek this route if things on the bank side did not improve. A lot rests on what the score is with this Barclays overdraft- are we using it? If it's maxed out then we are not in good shape. Any buyer will have to plug this on day 1. Buyers would not put themselves at the mercy of Ashley as a debtholder even if he did want that back. They'd either pay it off entirely or agree a 'discount' price to pay him back here and now. He wants the sale- that shifts negotiating power away from him. That's why I don't understand his front foot approach. Softly - softly keeps his position intact and he has time to get a buyer by stealth.

He'll put the club into administration before he accepts that. Gemmill is right. The to an interested party is £200m but Ashley has structured the finances so that the price tag is only £100m. The 'club' effectively doesn't owe anything at the moment as he owns it. However as soon as he flogs it, he'll be owed an extra £100m and you can guarantee he'll be more of a cunt than any loan shark from your worst nightmare. We're fucked basically. £200m for a championship club? And not a very good one at that! No way he can add his 100m. Doesn't make sense. Why not? Newcastle United Football Club are in debt to Michael Ashley to the sum of £100m. So long as he owns the football club this is a negligable amount as it's his own interest that the money is invested. The football club still retains a value outside of this loan amount which he's listed as £100m. So if someone buys the club for £100m, it is still in debt to Mike Ashley to the tune of £100m. Are you seriously telling me he'll forget about this? Particularly as he's haemorraged half his fortune and is now reported to be only worth £700m? Nobody will pay 200m for the club.

To think Aston Villa was purchased for 62m.

He'll put the club into administration before he accepts that. Gemmill is right. The to an interested party is £200m but Ashley has structured the finances so that the price tag is only £100m. The 'club' effectively doesn't owe anything at the moment as he owns it. However as soon as he flogs it, he'll be owed an extra £100m and you can guarantee he'll be more of a cunt than any loan shark from your worst nightmare. We're fucked basically. £200m for a championship club? And not a very good one at that! No way he can add his 100m. Doesn't make sense.

Thanks. Not too bothered about a couple of transitional seasons as long as the club is still there in its current form. The new buyers will need to invest around 130-160m on top of purchase if we stay out the PL for 2 years by my clumsy sums.

The £100Mil was 'loaned' to the club, it wasn't money invested. So I'll be surprised if he'd just 'write' it off. Can't see it myself. When he put that money in, he was still in his honeymoon period. Do we know for sure that he loaned it to the club, and I don't know much about this - would it be legal to suddenly declare it as a loan after things started going pear-shaped? From http://www.nufc-finances.org.uk/... Lots of good stuff in the 2008 results section of that site. Roughly the current situation is that we have to find 20m every 3 months for player wages. Without PL money that is a considerable danger. After July they will be trying to halve that I'd imagine.

A distant last. I'm convinced he'd get more in a sale than in admin. FA rules about 'football creditors' being repaid in full as an obligation of league membership make things difficult for other creditors. I think football creditors would include players, not just other clubs so admin is no way for us to be rid of the wage obligation. A few lads at work deal with 'problem' business and their list of priorities is very different to how a bank would normally approach a business. A lot depends on where Barclays is. The external creditor element has made the situation very difficult. We don't want to end up at the hands of any bank-led restructuring mobs. What's your gut feeling Matt, could this go bad?

My understanding is that the club debt inc the one to MA is 170m in total. Does anyone really know? This isn't the real issue however, running costs inc wages are at club killing levels.

So basically you're saying that the price of the club has barely dropped at all then? Why would he even attempt that, after failing to do it when the club was in the premiership? He was asking anywhere between £300m and £450m according to reports last year. The Dubai lot were quoted a fantastic sum and said no immediately (didn't even meet the main man he was asking so much).

Good balanced outlook. The other advantage is that progressively over the summer most of the high earners will go.

Rubbish.

Fucking hell I hope not. Shepherd bled black and white though, that is the thing. don't be fucking stupid man. Freddy and his cohorts got us into over 100m of debt in the first place. whilst ashley is a complete prat freddy fucked us over and walked away with several million in the bank. you should keep such shite for Newcastle Online Your response times aren't what they used to be Neef.

Fucking hell I hope not. Shepherd bled black and white though, that is the thing. don't be fucking stupid man. Freddy and his cohorts got us into over 100m of debt in the first place. whilst ashley is a complete prat freddy fucked us over and walked away with several million in the bank. How exactly did he fuck us over? The 1996 and the 2003 teams were the best weve had since the 1950s. We genuinely challenged for the title and played in the champions league. Yeah we were in debt, Man United are currently in £800million debt. Theres not a club in the top half of the table that isnt in debt. he attracted big players and stumped up the cash when it was needed for the likes of Sir Les, Asprilla, Shearer, Robert, Owen, Ginola. Yeah he wasnt perfect but hes got one thing that MA has never had. He genuinely wants the club to be successful, he didnt treat us as a cash cow. Sure, he made plenty money, but you dont hoy the sort of money about like he did if you are trying to take the club for all its worth like our current owner. Id have him back in a heartbeat Last time I checked there were only 2 clubs in the whole of the PL not in debt and one of them was Hull.

I'm struck by it being strange that he semingly talked to Shearer in "good faith" and then what- wakes up yesterday and says ah fuck it I can't be arsed anymore. He has demonstrated himself to be an impulsive arsehole but I think this tops the lot. I suspect he can't/won't give Shearer the assurances he seeks and his arse has dropped out Et moi.

...with money from outgoing +15m to spend, what would the feeling be on here?

He does have form. True, but surely not even he could try it again I don't know man, whenever I look at his profile with SD it rings alarm bells.