Matt

I was heading out of London for the weekend anyway, now I can make an extra day of it. If people want to celebrate it then fair enough, but I really couldn't give a toss. However, surely Cameron should be imploring people to save the money for these dark days ahead?

yeah 3 years after the crisis started, and a year since he ran for office denying everything he's just owned up to........... Brown was banging the drum of the UK's light-touch regulation as he went around the world- he can hardly say he was pressurised into it. And he certainly enjoyed the tax revenues while they came flooding in. He is one of the architects of what happened to banking sector- the fact he put out a book on it is staggering. King equally was in a powerful position. It's all very easy to have such great hindsight- his comment the other week 'I wish I'd said more at the time' is alarming. He was governor of the BOE! On the other side, Hector Sants. the man who was in charge of the failing FSA is STILL involved in forming regulation!

No. Ashley knew about the debt (and lack of future income) and it was taken into account in the purchase price. He knew the debt was there, but I'm not sure he realised that the loans and overdraft etc had to be repaid on change of ownership mind. He just didn't even look at the public accounts if you ask me. Ashley would know that there'd likely be change of control provisions in the club's core debt.

I wonder if we were paying his wages he'd have been as injured?

Lets get a few things straight. We had £60-70m of long-term debt that wasn't on demand- it was in place (IIRC) until 2014. It only had to be repaid because the club was sold. So in other words, it had to be repaid. The ground additions were to be paid off £4.5m a year until 2016. By 2007, prior to Ashely buying the club they were already paying £7.3m in interest alone, almost 40% of which had nothing to do with the stadium enhancements, and in fact the debt grew wildly despite your claim of additional revenue from the addition of seats and corporate boxes. The net debt in 2007 was £70m, the interest payable on top of that figure. The figure had increased from 38 million just two years before, well after all of the stadium enhancements were completed and the associated repayment was finalised (payable until 2016). I don't disagree- but I think it's a common misconception that we were in a financial position because of our debt level and therefore being debt-free is automatically better than having any sort of debt. It's important to split up the stable, sensible funding for the ground expansion (a tangible, long-term investment) and the overdraft and trade creditors run up through the transfers and wage bill. It's not the debt, it's the type of debt and what it had been used for that did for us. I'm not denying the club was badly run- we went from something like +20 to -20 net cash in that period (which would broadly tie in with the net debt movement). I remember posting on here with alarm over what had happened to our cash level and that it pointed in only one direction.

Lets get a few things straight. We had £60-70m of long-term debt that wasn't on demand- it was in place (IIRC) until 2014. It only had to be repaid because the club was sold. Who put that debt there? The previous board, as they installed 15,000 extra seats and more corporate boxes, which generated more revenue than the cost of repaying the debt- ie enhancing overall profit for the club. So you should really be lavising praise. It was a very good deal. The overdraft, not quite so much.

That simply isn’t true. £135m was a stupid price to pay for a club that was apparently about to cease to exist, and we all know why he paid way over the odds. It’s ironic a man renowned for bargain buys should get so well and truly ripped off. Ashley gambled and lost. And is building a business so that our loyalty repays him for his largesse.

Not in P&L we dont, it will all go through at the point of the sale.

The majority of club debt was the amortising secured loan which built L7- yes the loan cost interest payments but increased attendances generated wnough revenue to cover that. Ashley's shareholder loans are a combination of all sorts but now predominantly represent funding cashflow rather than capital investment.

Macro models predicted a slowdown from the austerity drive but lets blame the snow, aye. It was an excuse of which any train company CEO would have been proud.

Now now Chez, it snowed. Let's hope the summer is not so hot we can't face a trek to the shops.

Impressive that you can tell it's a hugely successful budget already- you should get a job as a fund manager somewhere with that sort of instant insight.

FYP Can you imagine? We'll be top of the profit league

Depressing to think he was one of five or six quality attacking players we had at our disposals then.

Plenty do- you have to know when to cut your losses if things haven't gone to plan. Unfortunately for us Ashley does not seem to operate in that way.

Are you are suggesting that NUFC has a greater capacity of debt relative to earnings than Sports Direct?

I don't think the club have been shitting its pants about debt, I think it has been more concerned with the wage bill relative to income.

The better-off is that which has actually turned a profit more than once in the last ten years.

Also, he owns 100% of NUFC and only half of SD.

I will defer to any accontants on here, but I think you need to disclose based on what would have been paid by a non-related party, whether any cash changed hands or not (and I suspect not).

Also, on the SD advertising, this should be disclosed in the financials under 'Related Party Transactions'.

Ashley bought us on an adrenaline wave after the Sports Direct IPO and as a result massively overpaid for the club. He's in good company, there are a lot of investors who, in the cold light of day, now know they did likewise for all kinds of businesses. The question will be whether Ashley would be rational about this and consider an offer based on the true merits of the club's operations or whether he we fall into the trap of 'loss-aversion' with his pride unable to let him consider anything that could, on paper, be considered as a loss. It's hard to imagine what goes on inside his head, but I can't help but suspect the latter. Regarding asking price, he overpaid IMO as the share price didn't really reflect the worsening cash position. With high-earners on long contracts, he could have picked the club up much cheaper in 6-8 months later on. SJP is worth virtually nothing without a functioning football club, so in no way can you attach a valuation of £300m to it. For all the rules proposed on debt in football, at Liverpool's debt-laden structure forced out poor owners. We just have to live with ours.

Without doubt we have the weakest strikeforce in the league.

Carroll was injured for most of those games man. I know, but I'm talking about how difficult the job is for him. He knew what he was getting into in becoming Ashley's lapdog.

Will Ashley demand all of his money back, or will he tarka dal?