Improvements since Ashley came.

[Geordie1974]

Yeah you do win something. You win the right to keep on being a football club.
The balance sheet might not mean anything to you at the minute. You want the money spent and fair enough...whatever money you know there is to be spent, mind you.

But what happens when it gets spent and wages have doubled and we are no better off in the league stakes or trophy stakes?
Do we just go again in trying to ship out players on high wages and long contracts only to find they won't budge because no other club will pay that kind of wage.

What then?

Just remember all this because we've been through this.

So if the balance sheet is that important to you,how come you want Rafa out when nearly every transfer window he turns a profit.
Don't mention the football as you have already stated you want Championship football over being a Premier League club.

[ghostrider]

So if the balance sheet is that important to you,how come you want Rafa out when nearly every transfer window he turns a profit.
Don't mention the football as you have already stated you want Championship football over being a Premier League club.

Everything about Newcastle United is important to me.
I'd love another Shearer.
I'd love another Ginola.
I'd love a home grown Gascoigne type.
I'd have no qualms if they were bought for 20,000 squillion cadillion each on wages of 10 million per hour, each...as long as the football club could support that and add to and replace as and when required, without suffering.

I'm not interested in what's in the kitty as long as we end up with a squad of players who give a falook and a manager that trains those players to go out and have a go in all games, from attacking drill to midfield drill to defensive drill.
A balanced unit that want to play for the club and are capable of doing so.

I want to win the premier league, the FA cup and champions league with a side salad of league cup and to be also handed the world cup as an extra for winning every cup known to football.

Yes, I want it all.



But the thing is, I can't have it all and I cannot live in the past, either.
I'd love to relive the Keegan era but that is all finished.

I'd like Ashley to spend a bit more money and have a manager that can genuinely put it to effective use, offensively, not just over cautiously.
I don't believe we have an owner who is willing to spend big anymore.
I also don't think we have a manager capable of providing us with enjoyable football.

I'd happily see Rafa walk tonight. Happily.
I hate his football. In fact I detest it and then some.

[toonlegend]

What extra would the club have to spend. Any rough idea?

not really but commercial revenue alone dropped from 28mill to about 15 mill whilst other clubs commercial revenue in the same period increased 5fold or more - on that premise our commercial revenue should be in the region of 28 x 5 = 140 million - that may sound excessive but even dropping 40 million that still leaves 100 mill to spend that we don't have now.

and thats per year

[Andy1981_2]

I'm fairly sure we would have. There was nobody serious about buying into us at that time and Hall was not prepared to go any further or borrow any money against his own estate/family wealth, which left Shepherd in an untenable position, anyway.
And no way would Shepherd be able to carry on after that.


He did save us as far as I'm concerned. What you think, is your entitlement.

It's difficult to say for certain how things would have played out, since we don't know what decisions Shepherd would have made (good or bad) I guess, but even if he didn't intend on borrowing more money, we were operating within our overdraft in at least the couple of seasons before Ashley came in (we made profit in some years prior to that too), so there was no tangible risk of administration (the accounts are all viewable on Companies House's site). However, you might expect that we'd run out of ways to really push the club on just by simply operating within our means (which is the same issue we have at present, so in that respect there'd minimally be no difference between the past and the current owners). However, since Ashley bought the club the PL TV revenue has gone from £1.025bn to £5.136bn, so it's not unreasonable to say that just by staying in the league we could have avoided administration (and invested in players to accomplish that, assuming our recruitment was sound).

The main questions over the previous owners in terms of where the club was headed were, in my opinion, in terms of manager appointments and player recruitment. It's laughable now looking at the 2006 accounts and seeing them herald player acquisitions like Michael Owen, Emre, and Albert Luque as 'operational highlights'! I think they'd lost sight of the project by the time of their (disgraceful) sacking of Sir Bobby, and it's conceivable they'd have continued to chase Champions League football with 'marquee signings' of players like Michael Owen who, we now know, thought himself finished before he put pen to paper here. If they'd done that, they could easily have blown through the five-fold increase in TV revenue and seen us drop out of the league, which is when administration would become a real issue. We're 'lucky', in a sense, that Ashley relegates us by being too frugal, rather than by spending shed loads on big names who don't deliver, but that's a curious thing to be thankful for!

[ghostrider]

not really but commercial revenue alone dropped from 28mill to about 15 mill whilst other clubs commercial revenue in the same period increased 5fold or more - on that premise our commercial revenue should be in the region of 28 x 5 = 140 million - that may sound excessive but even dropping 40 million that still leaves 100 mill to spend that we don't have now.

and thats per year

Ok but as even I agree we do need to spend more money, I also know that to do so we would literally have to get it right first time in terms of that amount, because that amount of money creates one huge extra on the wage bill which then ends up taking up the lions share of our revenue.
Then (as I said earlier) we end up in the other dire scenario of not being able to shift players should they turn out like the Michael Owens and the Damien Duffs of the football club.

As I mentioned earlier. I want the best for Newcastle United. We all do...but I'm not in control of the internal finances or the mind of Ashley himself and I could easily read into it in a totally negative way...but I don't see it all as that.
I see it in a few different ways as potentials for good bad and/or ugly...or simply indifferent. mixed bag.

Basically it's a natural thing to want to follow the West Ham type or Everton, even if certain fans think we don't have to spend quite as much.
West Ham are a classic bunch because they appear to be ambitious.
But if they fail to play among the elites their players become burdens due to extreme wages.
The major problem from there is in having another last chance saloon crack at it by buying a bit better player only to find their wage bill has now basically taken up any surplus money they had as the next profit, leaving them like sitting ducks.

[toonlegend]

Ok but as even I agree we do need to spend more money, I also know that to do so we would literally have to get it right first time in terms of that amount, because that amount of money creates one huge extra on the wage bill which then ends up taking up the lions share of our revenue.
Then (as I said earlier) we end up in the other dire scenario of not being able to shift players should they turn out like the Michael Owens and the Damien Duffs of the football club.

As I mentioned earlier. I want the best for Newcastle United. We all do...but I'm not in control of the internal finances or the mind of Ashley himself and I could easily read into it in a totally negative way...but I don't see it all as that.
I see it in a few different ways as potentials for good bad and/or ugly...or simply indifferent. mixed bag.

Basically it's a natural thing to want to follow the West Ham type or Everton, even if certain fans think we don't have to spend quite as much.
West Ham are a classic bunch because they appear to be ambitious.
But if they fail to play among the elites their players become burdens due to extreme wages.
The major problem from there is in having another last chance saloon crack at it by buying a bit better player only to find their wage bill has now basically taken up any surplus money they had as the next profit, leaving them like sitting ducks.

yes they need to continue to play amongst the elite...

however the word relegation wasn't even in our vocabulary regarding future of the club before ashley... aye it might have happened.. but then again it probably wouldn't have... since ashley though the most prominent word in our vocabulary is RELEGATION.

so an hardly be counted as having took the club forward/improved us

[ghostrider]

It's difficult to say for certain how things would have played out, since we don't know what decisions Shepherd would have made (good or bad) I guess, but even if he didn't intend on borrowing more money, we were operating within our overdraft in at least the couple of seasons before Ashley came in (we made profit in some years prior to that too), so there was no tangible risk of administration (the accounts are all viewable on Companies House's site). However, you might expect that we'd run out of ways to really push the club on just by simply operating within our means (which is the same issue we have at present, so in that respect there'd minimally be no difference between the past and the current owners). However, since Ashley bought the club the PL TV revenue has gone from £1.025bn to £5.136bn, so it's not unreasonable to say that just by staying in the league we could have avoided administration (and invested in players to accomplish that, assuming our recruitment was sound).

The main questions over the previous owners in terms of where the club was headed were, in my opinion, in terms of manager appointments and player recruitment. It's laughable now looking at the 2006 accounts and seeing them herald player acquisitions like Michael Owen, Emre, and Albert Luque as 'operational highlights'! I think they'd lost sight of the project by the time of their (disgraceful) sacking of Sir Bobby, and it's conceivable they'd have continued to chase Champions League football with 'marquee signings' of players like Michael Owen who, we now know, thought himself finished before he put pen to paper here. If they'd done that, they could easily have blown through the five-fold increase in TV revenue and seen us drop out of the league, which is when administration would become a real issue. We're 'lucky', in a sense, that Ashley relegates us by being too frugal, rather than by spending shed loads on big names who don't deliver, but that's a curious thing to be thankful for!

That's a very good post.
And yeah, it might be a curious thing to be thankful for but it still leaves scope, however dim some think it could be.
I liken West Ham's owners to Shepherd and co in that sense.
An ambition it seems but a spin of the barrel of the gun in Russian roulette.

[ghostrider]

yes they need to continue to play amongst the elite...

however the word relegation wasn't even in our vocabulary regarding future of the club before ashley... aye it might have happened.. but then again it probably wouldn't have... since ashley though the most prominent word in our vocabulary is RELEGATION.

so an hardly be counted as having took the club forward/improved us

The thing is it's easy to forget the yesteryear relegations when you're on a roll of good times and then back on a roll of bad times/mediocre times and the odd sniff at the good.
1977-78: Years out of the top flight: Six.

1988-89: Years out of the top flight: Four.

Of course, it's not the premier league to championship but it was the first division to second division drop.

You see, we were well used to it.
I remember it all as you will.

Of course things have massively changed money wise but the same struggles were there with feast and famine exploits by the board.

This time around Ashley does similar but our two relegations resulted in just 1 season out at a time and a title winning return to the top flight.
As for taking this club forward, I'd say it's been a bit of a see saw type push, rather than any big steps in any direction, good or bad.

Our major mindset has been, in being nostalgic about the Keegan/Hall era when we became everyone's second most favourite team, it seemed.
We tend to overlook the PLC change when it all started to take a bit of a dip and then from there it became a game of panic buying and the grabbing of any manager that appeared to have a name for pulling power.

Today does not match up, for sure.
I wonder if it ever will, even without Ashley.

[TheOtherTerryMac]

The thing is it's easy to forget the yesteryear relegations when you're on a roll of good times and then back on a roll of bad times/mediocre times and the odd sniff at the good.
1977-78: Years out of the top flight: Six.

1988-89: Years out of the top flight: Four.

Of course, it's not the premier league to championship but it was the first division to second division drop.

You see, we were well used to it.
I remember it all as you will.

Of course things have massively changed money wise but the same struggles were there with feast and famine exploits by the board.

This time around Ashley does similar but our two relegations resulted in just 1 season out at a time and a title winning return to the top flight.
As for taking this club forward, I'd say it's been a bit of a see saw type push, rather than any big steps in any direction, good or bad.

Our major mindset has been, in being nostalgic about the Keegan/Hall era when we became everyone's second most favourite team, it seemed.
We tend to overlook the PLC change when it all started to take a bit of a dip and then from there it became a game of panic buying and the grabbing of any manager that appeared to have a name for pulling power.

Today does not match up, for sure.
I wonder if it ever will, even without Ashley.

Good honest post Ghost and very true but money wise the TV money has increased 5 fold since Ashley took over and we still haven’t beaten a very old transfer record

If you take a serious look at our current squad I don’t think any of our players would be an automatic choice in the starting line up of the big top 6 clubs

We used to be one of these clubs which is all in the past. Apart from promotions from the Chimpo and a bit of excitement the last 11 years have been dire under Ashley.

I wouldn’t be bothered about spending time in the Chimpo at least we would be winning more than we lost as all we can look forward to with the current set up is a season long relegation battle every year. Last season was an exceptional finish but for the majority of the season we diced with relegation.

[ex_pat_magpie]

We weren't established in Europe before Ashley took over. We were established in the art of severe debt so bad that we were going nowhere other than down the pan, rapidly.

You state this many times.

Can you show absolute proof of this.

Just proof and only proof without the surrounding padded out waffle. Only the proof please.

Not needing to mention debt also as most of Sir John's residue was from the costs of developing the stadium. Ashley has saved millions by neglecting to keep it up to scratch and yet has more than doubled the debt.

Now show some concrete solid proof.