BigWalrus

Still think, if it needs supporting, he'll whack money back in just as quickly. Ultimately it's one of many companies he has cash in, and he'll move it around to where its needed.

On field attitude hasn't exactly been brilliant to be fair.

There's still no interest on the loan from MA.

He has - Sissoko, Debuchy, Haidara and Mbiwa were all signed after this. We're trying to move away from funding running the club by pumping more money in. If we can fund player purchases from the funds generated by the club, we're doing well.

That is superb

Just whacked that on facebook. I await bites.

Time to backtrack... Ignore the points above about cash use and return on investments as they don't really apply given that I'm looking at the right set of accounts now. Although the conclusion is the same (net debt hasn't materially changed) the way to get there is different. Last year we had a positive £9.5m cash balance. This year we have a £343k overdraft. Over the course of the year, we've used the cash to pay back some of MA's loan. From MA's standpoint, the cash isn't generating any return by sitting in the bank, therefore he's better off using it where he can make more money. He's taking his loan back in chunks. I imagine this will continue for the next few years.

Ha, schoolboy error. I've gone and downloaded the Football Club accounts rather than the consolidated group accounts. That might change my view somewhat!

Both of those, technically, are fine. The first point is that the cash was officially loaned to NUFC, so it's not being taken out of the club, it's just being repaid. If the loan had been with the bank, with set repayments, it wouldn't be seen as the bank taking money out of the club. The point about commercial deals doesn't really have any substance to it. The accounts state that the short term element of the loan is secured against next year's (ie 2012/13) TV revenue. So effectively MA is going to have his loan repaid by the TV money, which is disclosed separately to the commercial income.

Note 14. Bank overdraft in 2012 - £11,685k Bank overdraft in 2011 - £2,070k

Yes, from a high level, NUFC has paid MA £11m and taken out bank borrowing to fund this. It may have been done near to the year end, which would explain why the interest payable balance is low, so we could expect an increase there. It's clear that a football club isn't going to give him the return that he'd get elsewhere (such as by taking over a high street retailer etc). NUFC has some high value assets (eg SJP) which banks will happily secure loans against. Given that the club will always struggle to generate any huge profits, it's sensible to use some bank funding rather than continue to use your own cash. If we ignore the relatively small £2m variance year on year, the debt is roughly the same, but we'll now have an interest charge to pay on the increased overdraft. From MA's point of view, this charge will be smaller than the gains he can make elsewhere by using his cash on more profitable ventures, so he won't have an issue with this.

I wouldn't take any notice of the directors' report by the way - it's littered with errors.

Where are you getting your figures from? Net debt this year: There is no cash on the balance sheet, so we have £11,865k overdraft, £18,000k due in one year to MA, £110,000k due in + 1 year to MA - total of £140,865k Net debt last year: There is no cash on the balance sheet, so we have £2,070k overdraft, £140,000k due in one year to MA - total of £142,070k The cash movements in the year are obviously a bit more involved than just a loan being repaid and an overdraft being taken out, but effectively, it looks like the club has extended its overdraft to repay some of the cash. From MA's personal point of view, he can probably get a much better rate of return on his cash elsewhere. For his £140m invested, he's getting a pitiful 1% return. He could easily beat that with other investments, so it makes sense to extend the borrowing from the bank to fund that. If he needs to stick cash back in to support the club, I have no doubt that he will, even if it's just to protect the value of his investment in NUFC. The money paid to Mike Ashley hasn't reduced NUFC's debts. They have replaced the MA loan with the increased overdraft.

I enjoy the use of evidence to support the outings. It's a far more coherent argument than, "fuck off mag", without anything other than an opposing viewpoint to back up your point.

I wonder how long it is before the old, "they're paid £x per week, they should be fitter" argument comes out. If it's rest that's going to make the difference, West Brom haven't played in 2 weeks.

Yep, it's the constant playing that does it. The game against the mackems was a combination of a few elements: Sissoko / Cabaye / Jonas / Mbiwa / Cisse all having played pretty much every minute of the last few weeks Debuchy, Ben Arfa, Taylor, Tiote all having just returned from injury and lacking in match fitness Whilst the break might help, I'm not sure it's going to make a massive difference. Cabaye has been pulling up with his dodgy groin in pretty much every game (whether he stays on the pitch or not). Having a few days rest isn't going to sort that problem out. We struggled in midfield at the weekend partly because Cabaye was leggy from the first minute. We would have been better off with him not there.

You're right that there are no practical implications. I don't think the auditors would ask a company to be less cautious in their loan treatment, it goes against everything they stand for! Presenting the loan as a current debt with the narrative about supporting the club would be a more prudent treatment that the auditors would surely prefer.

Nice. Has anyone ever been outed and hung around anyway?

The most interesting point, which hasn't been picked up on, is that the loan has been reallocated to be due in greater than one year (it was previously a current liability). Perhaps Ashley now has no immediate desire to sell the club.

Who is Big Chris Holt? The comment about still turning a profit despite paying back £11m on the loan... The loan is entirely balance sheet based. It's a simple case of reducing the loan and reducing the cash balance, with zero impact on profitability. And its completely different to paying out a dividend. This is Ashley taking back a chunk of his own cash, he's not making a return on the investment. Loan goes down, cash goes down. Net debt remains the same. Shepherd and Hall didn't put a penny in, so didn't have the ability to receive loan repayments.

And the club hasn't slapped £25m price tags on everyone. The majority of football content in the papers is completely fabricated to fill pages. If a big offer came in, I'm sure we would consider it, but on an individual basis.

We may have a poor goals against column, but that figure is horribly skewed by conceding 11 in two games with most of our team missing.

For £7m he would represent a good bit of business, as long as he doesn't want us to match the £80k a week he's on now.

Ben Arfa doesn't appear to be able to last any more than 10 minutes. I'd resist starting him, as we're only going to have to take him off again.

New manager syndrome too. Just as it would be wrong to write a manager off after two games, I also think it's too soon to judge him on two performances (I appreciate that you're supposing rather than judging at this stage...)