David Kelly

Appointing either of those two, quickly or otherwise is harly going to appease anyone!

Isn't Tavistock a makem franchise?

Look how much the Halls and FFS made and they were paying out big wages and transfer fees. TV money is going through the roof, internet money will probably dwarf it soon.IF they get enough owners to agree to stop a collective deal for the premier league and for each team to sell its own rights it will go up even more Hes got people buying season tickets three seasons in advance, every player isavailable at a price and he is scouring Europe for cheap talent to sell on at a profit. Sounds like a tasty erarner old son. The Hall's FFS argument doesn't really compare though as they bought the club when it was at its lowest ebb (after years of a board doing exactly what you are saying Ashley is doing) and therefor cheap. They floated it when the PLC craze was in full flow and made shit loads then. At the time the club was in a faw worse state than we are seeing now and they realised that all that was needed was a bit of reasonable investment and they could make a fortune on the back of the 'sucess' that the investment brought. Ashely doesn't have that oppertunity now that it's already been done. The TV money argument only stands up if we stay in the premiership and he doesn't alienate the customers. He's already failed in the second part of this and if he goes along the path you believe he will fail in the first part too. I just don't see it as a sustainable way to make money out of a football club. I dont know the figures for the Halls and Shepherd and how much they were earning from the club for the last few years, and tbh I havent got time to go looking. I take your point about buying the club at a low ebb. I still think they were making a fairly good packet year on year, but I may be wrong. I think that he plans to do enough to keep us in the Premiership, but on a budget that wont harm his bottom line. I dont think he is thick and the team he has put in place does seem have unearthed some talent. I think though that selling players at a profit whilst staying in the Prem is the aim. If he can get a steady stream of young foreign talent coming in who can acheive mid table placings and generate a profit after a couple of years he will be more than happy. As for alienating the customers I think he is banking on the combination of loyalty blind optimism and apathy that we can already see overcoming any short term anger. HE obviously doesnt care what anybody thinks about him personally, revels in it possibly. A team with a production line of young talent, too good to go down but without the serious investment to break into the top 4, with a huge fiercely loyal high spending fanbase. loads of media generated income. I think that is a hell of a way to make a lot of money. I'm sure the Halls/FFS still took a fair bit from us in the last few leaner years but this was probably financed by the fat man mortgaging the club to the hilt to pay for transfers. With regards to Ashley, if he won't/is unable to splash out the sort of cash that will allow us to comepete for the title, all we can hope for is to use what we have over the rest of the also rans (a bigger support/global name) and that he will allow us to spend what net income we can make on transfers to go as high as we can. We have to accept that any club that's not amongst the top four is going to have to be a selling club, because the way player power is now if one of those clubs comes calling the player will make sure they move. This is the best scenario I can see happening (very much what is happening with Spurs) and tbh is what I hope is his plans for us if he hangs around because I'm convinced he will never be an Abramovic type owner. The other side is what you're suggesting and that he's only here to make more money and will leave us with the bare minimum to ensure our premiership status and therefore his income. I may be just be being overly optimistic (if you can call it that with such low expectations) but despite a good potential revenue stream from TV, I just don't see it being an amount of money that's worth his while with all of the hassle that it brings (especially with such an initial outlay). We are certainly following the Spurs model in acting disgracefully to the manager, Spurs treatment of Jol was appalling. I just dont see any scenario where Ashley will run the club in a way other than to make a profit. He isnt in it for the glory of winning trophies or for public acclaim. His lack of personal investment and handling of the Keegan business shows this. Ashley could have easily resolved the situation if he desired. I think Keegan beleived to the bitter end he would step in, I also think Keegan would have swallowed working for the system had it brought in the players he seemed to beleive he was getting. He has bought the club for a reason and if you look at his business history it shows the same pattern, maximise profit and bugger what anybody else thinks. His history, events so far, the people he has put in place all point firmly in the same direction, and isnt pretty. I will concede that I dont think we are likely to be the new Leeds, he will protect his investment, having said that I think we could easily struggle this season, the squad is frighteningly small and I worry about anybody getting as much out of the squad as KK would've. Absolute best case scenario is we might win a cup, but even then we will have to get used to seeing the best players flogged off at any sign of a decent profit. The only good I can see is we will be profitable and streamlined enough to make an enticing target for takeover. I agree this is the best case senario.

Look how much the Halls and FFS made and they were paying out big wages and transfer fees. TV money is going through the roof, internet money will probably dwarf it soon.IF they get enough owners to agree to stop a collective deal for the premier league and for each team to sell its own rights it will go up even more Hes got people buying season tickets three seasons in advance, every player isavailable at a price and he is scouring Europe for cheap talent to sell on at a profit. Sounds like a tasty erarner old son. The Hall's FFS argument doesn't really compare though as they bought the club when it was at its lowest ebb (after years of a board doing exactly what you are saying Ashley is doing) and therefor cheap. They floated it when the PLC craze was in full flow and made shit loads then. At the time the club was in a faw worse state than we are seeing now and they realised that all that was needed was a bit of reasonable investment and they could make a fortune on the back of the 'sucess' that the investment brought. Ashely doesn't have that oppertunity now that it's already been done. The TV money argument only stands up if we stay in the premiership and he doesn't alienate the customers. He's already failed in the second part of this and if he goes along the path you believe he will fail in the first part too. I just don't see it as a sustainable way to make money out of a football club. I dont know the figures for the Halls and Shepherd and how much they were earning from the club for the last few years, and tbh I havent got time to go looking. I take your point about buying the club at a low ebb. I still think they were making a fairly good packet year on year, but I may be wrong. I think that he plans to do enough to keep us in the Premiership, but on a budget that wont harm his bottom line. I dont think he is thick and the team he has put in place does seem have unearthed some talent. I think though that selling players at a profit whilst staying in the Prem is the aim. If he can get a steady stream of young foreign talent coming in who can acheive mid table placings and generate a profit after a couple of years he will be more than happy. As for alienating the customers I think he is banking on the combination of loyalty blind optimism and apathy that we can already see overcoming any short term anger. HE obviously doesnt care what anybody thinks about him personally, revels in it possibly. A team with a production line of young talent, too good to go down but without the serious investment to break into the top 4, with a huge fiercely loyal high spending fanbase. loads of media generated income. I think that is a hell of a way to make a lot of money. I'm sure the Halls/FFS still took a fair bit from us in the last few leaner years but this was probably financed by the fat man mortgaging the club to the hilt to pay for transfers. With regards to Ashley, if he won't/is unable to splash out the sort of cash that will allow us to comepete for the title, all we can hope for is to use what we have over the rest of the also rans (a bigger support/global name) and that he will allow us to spend what net income we can make on transfers to go as high as we can. We have to accept that any club that's not amongst the top four is going to have to be a selling club, because the way player power is now if one of those clubs comes calling the player will make sure they move. This is the best scenario I can see happening (very much what is happening with Spurs) and tbh is what I hope is his plans for us if he hangs around because I'm convinced he will never be an Abramovic type owner. The other side is what you're suggesting and that he's only here to make more money and will leave us with the bare minimum to ensure our premiership status and therefore his income. I may be just be being overly optimistic (if you can call it that with such low expectations) but despite a good potential revenue stream from TV, I just don't see it being an amount of money that's worth his while with all of the hassle that it brings (especially with such an initial outlay).

Look how much the Halls and FFS made and they were paying out big wages and transfer fees. TV money is going through the roof, internet money will probably dwarf it soon.IF they get enough owners to agree to stop a collective deal for the premier league and for each team to sell its own rights it will go up even more Hes got people buying season tickets three seasons in advance, every player isavailable at a price and he is scouring Europe for cheap talent to sell on at a profit. Sounds like a tasty erarner old son. The Hall's FFS argument doesn't really compare though as they bought the club when it was at its lowest ebb (after years of a board doing exactly what you are saying Ashley is doing) and therefor cheap. They floated it when the PLC craze was in full flow and made shit loads then. At the time the club was in a faw worse state than we are seeing now and they realised that all that was needed was a bit of reasonable investment and they could make a fortune on the back of the 'sucess' that the investment brought. Ashely doesn't have that oppertunity now that it's already been done. The TV money argument only stands up if we stay in the premiership and he doesn't alienate the customers. He's already failed in the second part of this and if he goes along the path you believe he will fail in the first part too. I just don't see it as a sustainable way to make money out of a football club.

How much money can he possibly make like that though? If that's all he's interested in surely there are far easier and better ways for him to do it. I don't know what his plan was/is but you can't make much by asset striping a football club.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sport/footba...b.html?ITO=1490 This (if it is true) is likely to have a much greater impact than boycotting games that you have already paid for. This will all start to add up and hit Ashley in the pocket. Although it unfortunately could have the effect of reducing our transfer funds in the next window(s).

No just a announcement on the website or at least his name on a squad list somewhere. After all there was a bit of press about the kid when he was first linked.

Can I ask who on here who has a ticket is intending to boycott? I doubted there would be many and assumed it would more likely be the clowns who we saw knocking back cider for camera's who would go for this but it appears that there are a few who I would consider to be intelligent posters on here who seem to be up for it. I will add that while I'm not going to waste my ticket I don't see a senario at the moment that would see me getting a ticket for any cup games for the near future.

I agree with that but do we have any idea what that is? £12m might be a realistic figure given our overheads. You would like to hope it's more and hope we can find ways to increase profits overseas (which I think was what we were supposed to be doing with Steve McMahon) but I couldn't say whether that is realistic or not.

Maybe you can run a "sustainable" football club that way, but crack the "Top 4" (soon to be Top 5) I very much doubt it. The idea Ashley was peddling was slow sustained development, not infinite mediocrity and a nice profit. Very true, but very soon you will see that there is no way you can get past the money of Manure, Chelski and Citeh (provding everything is as it seems). This leaves Arsenal and the bin dippers, and it may be possible to surpass one of these if they stay under their current ownership and one of them misses out on the champions league a couple of years in a row and starts to feel the pinch financially. But I think we will soon see the senario that no one will be able to seriously challenge those top few spots without a cash imput that comes from outside of their normal revenue. On that basis if Ashely isn't willing/able to provide this additional imput then the only way to run the club is with the transfer policy they are following and try to win that second league behind the rich five. This may be disapointing senario and could be classed as a mediocrity of sorts (although if we were able to move to the top of the second tier of the permiership that would certainly be progress) but I'm not sure how else we can hope to go without additional/alternative backing.

Unsurprisingly then with this lot in charge, communication is somewhat lacking.

Tbf though surely if you want to run a sustainable fooball club there isn't much else in the way of options but to run a transfer policy such as this? Of course going behind your managers back isn't the way to go but unless you have an owner willing to put in £100m+ of his own money (which if Ashely isn't prepared to do that's up to him, it's his money not ours) you can't afford to spunk out all of this money on transfer fees and wages without getting massively into debt like we were starting to do under Shepherd and Leeds did dramatically under Ridsdale. If you want to spend more money you have to make that money by either buying players young and cheap and selling them on at big profits or gaining more tv/prize money by doing better in the league/Europe.

I don't expect many at all to boycott tbh and personally I am against it for a number of reasons. Firstly I pay a fucking fortune for my ticket and I aint giong to waste that money (any more than I already to by paying a fortune to watch the shite that's been served up for the past few seasons). Secondly the players are not at fault for any of this mess so I will still support them as the last thing I want is another season with the threat of relegation there until the last few games. And finally because I don't beleive it will do any fucking good at all. If we've paied for the tickets it doesn't harm the owner if we don't turn up to watch the match and tbh I believe Ashley will have already decided to sell or stubbornly stick it out and boycotting a game won't change his mind obout that. I would say that I would boycott official merchandice, Shearers bar and the bars at the ground but they don't get my cash anyway so I can't see it making much difference.

Amidst all of the hysteria surrounding Keegan's departure I might have just missed the official communication but does anyone know if we actually sold Krul and brought in the Aaron Spear kid?

Now that would be a popular choice!

Cunts of the highest order proving that they have no interest at all in what is best for the club. They have now reached a level of bad taste, bad decisions and incompetance that makes Shepherd look like a PR genius. Get the fuck out of our football club. You are not wanted.

The only way forward I see now is for Ashley to sell up. If he tries to bring in Wise and/or Poyet as manager it will not be accepted at all by the fans but tbh there's very few managers he could bring in that would receive much if any backing at all now as they would all come down to being his and/or Wise's choice. And surely any decent manager wouldn't want to come into this mess anyway. All I can see for the season now is players comepletely fucked off and handing transfer requests in. Surely there is no way that Owen will stay under this administration and when you lose your best player for these sort of reason others will follow and just like in the case of mangers, no decent players will want to come either. If we couldn't attract players before because of not being in Europe what fucking chance have we got now. The hope is that someone like this Indian guy can come in with hundreds of millions to splash about but tbh I'd be comfortable with someone who didn't have the resources to spend any more that what we can generate ourselves as long they had some fucking clue on how to run football club as Ashley quite clearly hasn't.

Mattias Fernandez - From Villereal if memory serves. Scored thirty odd in season one with twenty odd assists from an attacking midfield role. Player of the season and Eurpean midfielder of the year. Cost about £13m but by second season worth twice that. Pablo Piatti- Don't know if he's random but a young Argie midfielder who is a brilliant sub in season two and could be a starter for any team by season three. Only a couple of million to buy at the start.

Krul - GK Micah Richards - RB Carlos Salcido - LB Naldo - CB Argentinan kid who's name escapes me - CB Mascherano - DMLC Banega - DMRC Van Der Vaart - MC Jeremy Menez - AMRC Mattias Fernandez - AMLC Scott Sinclair/Henri Saivet- Striker Subs Give Anderson Martins Faye Pablo Piatti Defoe Senderos

The most worrying thing in all of this is the potential reaction of the players. We could well be left with a team bereft of any motivation to play for the club until they all hand in the inevitable transfer request come January. Which leaves us with absolutely nothing.

dont care about ashley, just want to keep keegan Tbh if Ashley goes I don't see it as a problem at all. Whoever comes in would have to have some serious cash just to buy the club in the first place. Ashley's hardly splashed out loads of money on the team but by removing most of the debt he has made us much more self sufficient. So even if we don't get a new owner who can make £100m + bids in one day we shouldn't be any worse off than what we've managed this summer. We aren't in danger of doing a Leeds anymore. We would be much worse off if Keegan goes as it's likely that Wise would be in charge and given his complete lack of support from the fans (and apparently the players) that can only be a bad thing.

Sacking Wise would be a PR masterstroke for Ashley. We all hated Wise before he came, were worried he would undermine Keegan when he arrived and most fancy him as a reason for all of this now. If Ashley wants to go back to Blu Bambu the best thing he could do would be to sack Wise and publicly support Keegan (give him full control of transfers). This is the only way he could get the goodwill towards him back. Regardless of what the whole truth behind all of this is.

please be true bout reliance Question is, would Keegan still be here by the time they took over? And if he was would they keep him? if they want the fans on their side i think keegan would have to be there Aye, I think this whole affair would show any prospective buyer the way to go with the manager.

Taking Devil's advocate to the extremes there like!