Happy Face

I don't see any difference in his ability to sell now or after the debt is clear. Debt reduction only increases the cost of the club to the buyer. They may as well buy now and structure the debt as they would prefer...or pay it off. There are not any interested parties sniffing about that Ashley is refusing to sell to right now, and I don't see them materialising down the line just because the debt is reduced. A sale is more dependent on the economy recovering than NUFC's balance sheet iyam.

Ashley sees it as exactly the opposite. He views all the debt that he accumulated on the day he bought the club as being a cost he should bare. He converted that debt (which was accruing massive interest) from a bank loan to a personal interest free loan, which is indefinite. The cost of relegation though, he sees that as one of the costs of his restructuring plan. Clearing out the expensive dead wood, getting incomings to match outgoings, so the club is self financing, now the club wipes it's own nose, it needs to pay back that debt. I wonder if he will stop at that once it's all paid though. I think it will. But that doesn't mean we'll start buying more expensive players, the club can build up a massive cash reserve like Arsenal, and have the same benefit of adding value for a sale.

Had a read and it seems to be saying exactly what we all said 4 months ago in that thread I linked to.

Keep meaning to read it, added to pocket for later.

It was planned long before January. It was a 2 or 3 year plan to recoup the cost of subsidising relegation, by taking out £11m (see how the balance dropped from £140m to £129m) then £18m,,,, Discussed in this thread... http://www.toontastic.net/board/topic/34154-ashleys-taken-l11m-out-of-the-club-in-2012/?p=1192217 This is what led to the one question I would ask in the Cameron thread. When is the £111m going to be due? Because we'll be running a massive surplus if he doesn't start paying that off too.

I just copied and pasted 'em from the premier league website.

The latest Breaking Bad in 30 seconds

I mean swap all our strikers, for all their strikers btw. Not sure we are as short as people worry, by comparison.

Just got virgin 60 Meg activated.

That's why he's still at the club. Whenever Pardew speaks in a meeting Ashley buzzes his secretary, Lord Sugar style, and has her send in Obertan. Fully kitted, for the rest of the meeting he stands next to Pardew who looks at his hands in his lap and fiddles with his wedding ring.

Ashley is a salesman. He has built a sales empire but doesn't personally get to sell anything in his shops anymore. The reported hands on approach he apparently takes when it comes to negotiating player sales seems to me to be the primary interest he has in the club. Competing with other chairman to see who can do the best in the market. Scaling up the trading he enjoys to a multimillion pound product that keeps it interesting. He's not going to buy players expensively on the last day of a window for the good of the team. That would be losing the game he is interested in, which isn't football.

That one I just posted.

The way you chase Ryder about there's only one of us jealous of anyone at the chronicle mate It's hand-wringing, howling at the moon stuff. Glad it gave you a warm glow though. I would ask if he intends to reduce the debt any further than the £27 million being paid back to cover relegation. The fact he was doing that was made clear in the accounts, but no indication whether he still plans to leave the remaining £100m odd as an outstanding interest free loan. If not then we will have a large cash surplus at the end of this season. If so, then we have another 4 or 5 years of paying it down to get debt free.

As a fan... 1. I don't give a shit if Mike Ashley enjoys owning the club. 2. I know he is not actively looking to sell the club. 3. I know Joe Kinnear cannot be justified. 4. I can see with my own eyes Ashley is treating Pardew like a mug. 5. I know he doesn't give a shit about single results, he'd prefer us to win, but as long as we do enough to stop up over a season he won't lose sleep. 6. Because he owns the club. 7. It's a site to drive traffic to his store and advertise his brand. It's not a reputable news organisation. 8. The fans are insignificant, he's running a business as he wants. 9. He (or the club) has articulated the plan repeatedly. Break even, top 10 is the height of ambition. 10. See 8. Doesn't care what the fans think. Doesn't communicate with reporters. If Mike Ashley sat down with Cameron and answered every question honestly, there'd be hell on. If he gave good PR answers, it would be worse. The best thing this regime have done is stop talking bollocks and just let fans judge them on their actions.

Was gonna say what a shitty set of questions/article for a professional journalist, then question 10 made me realise it's just been printed to appease online trolls with the sort of questions THEY would like to ask, despite all the answers being in the public domain.

CT says Pardew is. Not sure why.

We are looking for players to go on the bench. We said last year that's what we were after too. Those players we have looked at have an asking price beyond what Ashley is willing to pay. Don't see how Carr can be blamed for the market value placed on players and Ashley bring unwilling to match it.

Impossible criteria cannot be met...which that statement seems to acknowledge. No surprise you're willing to turn on Carr, who you have lavished praise on before, in order to avoid criticising Ashley.

Just been to Kinnear's, my local barber. Paid the bloke then he telt me "its fine as it is, just let it grow". Waste of money #nufc.

Not sure how it's a dig at Carr. Took it more as pointing at the budgetary constraints. Weren't willing to pay what they were valued at for back up.

They seem to be trying to redeem Walter somewhat by having Skylar and Jesse (and to a lesser extent, Hank) push him into doing bad things, and to be fair to the fella he's never killed anyone who wasn't part of the game. Jesse's bird died without him doing anything, he just let that happen, and the kid he poisoned was only ill with ricin like symptoms, the Lily of the valley never caused long term harm. Todd killed that kid in the desert. Was their anyone else? Jesse killed Gale. I think it will be the irony of the show that the ones that are supposed to be disgusted by "Heisenberg" and what he has done will be the ones to drive him to his ultimate last stand. Even Marie says she's only thinking of harming Walter, and let's Jesse stay on the condition it will happen. While agreeing with the disappointment over the latest episode overall, that is what stood out for me. He has now refused to harm both Hank and Jesse, while they are out to get him. They have had Saul suggest whacking both in a comedy fashion, so it sticks in the memory. At the end of the episode, when Walter finally made the call to Todd, it was a turning point for him to become murderous. And he did it only because all around him have turned on him, they want him to live up to the Heisenberg myth he created, but which didn't exist in reality at all. He's was still just Mr White, until the end of that episode.

I've ignored a great deal of the transfer talk, because it's bollocks and i always do. Were we not relatively clear that if Cabaye went we would spend...he didn't, so we didn't.

Why would he resign? Ashley has been clear from day 1 what the constraints placed on him are. I'm sure he's been even clearer in private. It's nothing like the Keegan thing where he was sold one vision and shafted with another.

That's what I liked about Saturday. Having Gouffran, Cabaye and Remy all on the bench was such a great boon, I was excited about them even while the game was dull. You need potential game changers available.