Matt

My personal opinion is that this is total bullshit. NVA come out and say they need another £50m- why? If they have £350m already then that will easily buy NUFC sooner or later. It seems a bizarre way to approach the deal. If the majority of the money came so easily- why the difficulty in finding the last drops? IMO the bid will founder on some spurious technicality with NVA management having very nicely gained a lot of free publicity. Just as likely, this is the equivalent of getting your mate to bid on ebay to get the price up on something you're selling.

They're a shambles of an outfit and I'm amazed they've lasted this long. You've got to be very, very good to survive as a low-cost airline right now and only Easyjet and Ryanair can claim that. Jet 2 won't be around too long either, though they might make it into next year.

This being your first post is a bit of a give-away tbh.

I had to run through so many misconceptions with people last night that in the end they decided to shut up about football.

A lot of the bars round Liverpool St are pretty busy until about 7.30-8 when people start to get trains home.

I agree with a lot of that. I do think Ashley had the right idea, started to go about it the wrong way and has since presided over an absolute shambles and left himself in a situation where he will have to sell up. Just to interject with my finance hat on- I dont think burdening the club with debt will be possible- typically a debt financing will involve a clause whereby earnings to debt ratios (EBITDA:Net Debt) must stay within a certain level or else they are in default on the debt. I don't think we can enter such an arrangement as our earnings will not be high enough to keep this leverage to a suitably low level. In the current climate, I doubt such a package would be available for some time. Indeed even short-term bridge financing is unlikely before the new year so any investor will need access to cold hard cash to complete the deal. Refinancing will only be possible once the financial performance of the company improves. Encumbering the club with risky (and therefore expensive) debt will only serve to increase interest costs and prevent investors getting any sort of return.

I just hope that the lessons of the latter years of ShepHall and the farcical reign of Ashley are duly noted, we can't keep on making these mistakes. Ashley will sell out to the highest bidder- rest assured his 'concern for the long-term future of the club' is paper thin.

Railway Tavern? I work over the road from there so I'm up for a pint or two. There's another good pub there but it's called the White Hart so may be a bad omen.

More chance of selling the club now, I think this will see the asking price come down- they have to justify the club valuation and clearly there is little to justify Ashley's valuation on a sensible business basis. I think we'll see this concluded (before due diligence) in the next two weeks.

Happy Birthday feller!

What are the three things you're best at (quality-wise, not too specific)?

Bad homosexual puns on band names. Don't see what's too bad about that tbh!

Get to work on Wagner's Ring.

Dom Passantino was music editor at my student newspaper. He kindly took to losing the editorial election by launching a bottle of coke at the people on the stage. Pleasant chap.

27th only.

This is my greatest concern. Imagine all the SSN cameramongs with their votes- "RONALDO 4 TOON LOLZ". Some of their ideas are decent but the share ownership structure is a mess- these things should be kept as simple as possible so as to rule out future disputes. I still don't think an all-cash buyout is a particularly efficient way of executing the deal.

His name rings a bell- seem to remember some other tosh about us being penned by him before. What a goon.

Maybe if she was writing for a fanzine or presenting on Talkshite. I wasn't aware the Guardian had become a wind-up outlet.

Here's how a leveraged buy-out works (or worked seeing as very few get done in the current economic climate). The potential buyers set up a BidCo (for example Red Football Ltd at Man Utd). The investors have to inject equity (their own hard cash) into the BidCo and must arrange with banks or other investors (such as hedge funds) to provide the remainer of the money required to buy and run the club. The more debt to each bit of equity the more leveraged it is said to be. As you can always choose not to pay a dividend- but always must pay your interest on debt* then the more debt, the more pressure on the business to perform and generate the cash required to keep people paid. The banks and other debt investors are granted security over the shares of the company BidCo bought so that if they default on the loans, the borrowers get to effectively repossess the club, they may also be given security over specific assets (this can include players registrations). While there's nothing to stop Ashley from putting a more debt-oriented capital structure in place, from his point of view it makes no sense. As he is sole owner, the club and his wealth are all tied up. The more cash the club has, the more the club is worth and therefore the more he can sell it for. He's nothing to gain by taking on debt to improve cashflow as this is more expensive for him than simply raiding the piggy bank. So I don't think this is a likely outcome. * Man Utd have a thing called a toggle, where you can choose to pay interest or roll it over so it's somewhere in between debt and equity. The rates are exhorbitant and I don't think Red Football have paid it once yet. It's a bit like a massive credit card really.

I'm not quite sure what people are expecting here. Anyway, I'd be up for it depending on when it was- really can't promise anything without a date. Unlike 2J's lass.

Happy birthday!

I'm half tempted to knock up a couple of those

More or less, yes.

Lets think beyond one or two games for a moment. Let's say there's a widespread boycott of the Hull game. 10,000 in. Horrific for those left in there, dispiriting for the players and shows the club falling apart (which admittedly is partly the message a boycott is trying to put across). Without a bit of fire at home games, why would our better players hang around? It's not for the European nights, the high-flying league performances or the much vaunted 'London effect' which seems to obsess so many players these days. The fans, and decent wedge, is why they are here. So they players will be pretty dispirited, performances will suffer and the media will enjoy the cycle we perpetuate. And maybe Ashley will sell. In comes Anbami or whoever, sorts everything out and it's happy days (he won't be bringing back Keegan that's for sure- not once he's seen who happens should he leave). But what if Ashley stays put? He thinks he can get a better offer in the summer and heads to Bermuda with his attache. So we boycott Blackburn game too? Where does it end? At what point do we limp back, tail between legs, incapable of resisting and knowing the team are struggling in such untenable conditions. Failure. Ridicule. However unpalatable this may seem, Ashley has locked in your cash and if big names want to leave in January he can whack the wage bill right down. In his mind the best option would be to spend the minimum possible to stay up- have a tiny squad and go to some Sheikh- there you go, this club is a blank canvas, rich with cash which he sells for tidy sum. Maybe no-one wants to buy it. Maybe we keep stamping our feet, arguing amongst ourselves until the club is reduced to rubble. Mike Ashley can afford to lose £250m and still live like a king. Can we afford to lose the club? People have not realised that however strong our indignance, it is likely to be met with indifference. You can piss into the wind as hard as you like, it won't make a difference.