ChezGiven

Unfortunately, that doesnt make any sense. You cant expect the club not to go bust and be in debt. Remember this is from a critical piece from an independent observer of football finances. The rate at which you borrow is based on your risk and the extent to which your business is up to its neck in debt. If Shepherd had wanted a personal loan at the bank, the rate wouldnt have been 11.72%. The club could lend at that rate though. You should also care if the club is in debt / making a loss. If the club makes a loss each year, the debt mounts up until it goes bust. The only way to stop this is to have a benefactor subsidising the club. This is anti-competitive and is certainly not allowed in Europe for companies competing in the common market. This is why Platini wants it to change, which it will. Then you dont want to need a benefactor just to stay afloat, especially if that benefactor is actually just subsidising Smith's wages, an inefficient and pointless exercise.

No. £138m is the cost of the club which Ashley lent to SJ Holdings when he purchased the club. £107m is the net debt position in 2008, 4 months after Ashley took control giving a gross debt of £245m in 2008. This increases because the company continued to make losses in 2008 so that gross debt of SJ Holdings and the club became £282m in 2009. The money owed to Ashley by SJ Holdings fell from £138m in 2008 to £132m in 2009 because Ashley paid himself £6m back. This is the main idiotic thing i can see as far as i can tell. Precisely. He paid himself back part of the purchase price out of the club’s coffers, which implies he sees the loan to SJP Holdings as a loan to the club. I can’t belief anyone is falling for this holding company nonsense, even the FA have seen through that one. Yes but at the same time you see the bank loans reduce to £0m in that figure and it then states "Since the 2009 year-end, Ashley advanced a further £25.5 million to keep the club ticking over in the Championship" Not sure what you are trying to imply but him being personally £6m better off wouldnt be accurate.

No. £138m is the cost of the club which Ashley lent to SJ Holdings when he purchased the club. £107m is the net debt position in 2008, 4 months after Ashley took control giving a gross debt of £245m in 2008. This increases because the company continued to make losses in 2008 so that gross debt of SJ Holdings and the club became £282m in 2009. The money owed to Ashley by SJ Holdings fell from £138m in 2008 to £132m in 2009 because Ashley paid himself £6m back. This is the main idiotic thing i can see as far as i can tell.

More concerning that he didnt think to drop Ranger back to the right wing and shift Barton inside. Which is what anyone with an ounce of sense would have done.

Substituting a substitute in your first game whilst trying to be as low key as possible? Sounds like the betting debt theory to me tbh.

Also But So that from a pure cash point of view, we reduced costs by £2m more than we lost revenue last year. I also think the TV allocation from last season is a bit conservative, we were on TV every week last year. Not sure how it works in the FA though. It does make me wonder how much of our expected record loss for last year will be Interest, Taxation, Depreciation and Amortisation.

Important bits The largest loss comes the year he took us over (August 2007), the losses are steadied but his attempts to reduce them further in 2009 cost us our place in the premiership.

not sticking my head up my arse at all. And while I don't particularly care for the thought that other fans see us dismissing being 8th in the table, there is a long way to go yet, this season. I just don't think Mike Ashley will ever harbour any serious ambitions at this football club, a few results [defeats or wins] is neither here nor there. On the other hand, I didn't care when other fans supposedly "laughed" at us, so why give a toss if they think we are "arrogant" ? [ presume that is what you are getting at here CG ] I don't think I'm either anyway, I'm just aware we are one of the biggest clubs in the country, and I'll counter that by also admitting that we have never had the success to justify that to other supporters - hence the reason they aren't aware of how big this club should be. Good post. There is a long way to go and it was only a few weeks back i was brimming with optimism just to come crashing back down to earth when we looked shit again. Yes i do think we might look a bit arrogant by saying we are struggling because others wont look at it the way we do. They dont have the gnawing feeling at the pit of their stomach that things will go to fucking shit without warning (that all too recognisable feeling we all felt last monday) and they havent watched us all season and seen that along with the potential to play well, there is also a team of shite just waiting to dribble out the back of 11 pairs of shorts at a moment's notice. They just see the geordies are in 8th, arent they doing well. The proximity in points to 17th place is rarely mentioned. As for the ambition question, the only thing i can say is that with the new financial rules coming in, business margins and large home crowds will give us an edge over oil men and chicken farmers if expenditure is limited by turnover. A decent manager is the crux of the issue though, so who knows what Pardew will bring to that.

We're 8th and have had some absolutely brilliant results and there is no reason for optimism? Also, i know people dont like CT's opinions but tbf, i'd be embarrassed to let fans of other clubs see us characterise 8th as struggling. We all know why we can think that because we all expect it to go wrong. However, as of today, we arent struggling this season. I'm optimistic that we will strengthen this January based on the last 2 windows. I'm far less optimistic that Pardew can keep us going at the same level nevermind improve us but lets wait and see. Ashleys a cunt but i'm not going to stick my head up my arse because of it.

Knocking one out in his birthday suit earlier

I always thought Monkey's Fist was on KK's side.

So is your opinion that if he hadnt bought us we would now have gone. If we hadnt been sold, there would have been no clause but i believe the intention of Sir John was always to sell his stake and he chose the perfect moment to do so, however opportunisitcally. By 2008 we had a business going into 150m of debt with falling revenues. Something had to givem whoever was in charge.

My reading is that the revenue trend was going down and the as we know, the cost base is largely fixed by medium term contracts on the highest item on the accounts. The starting point was a loss-making business, so with the revenue trending down further, costs realtively fixed and finance from the banks exhausted (the critical piece in the jigsaw) the losses just got bigger. You say that "Spending as a percentage of turnover could have been reduced effectively in the long term, with a sensible approach to buying/selling/management" but its the year on year that matters. Given the stickiness of wages, he had to sell players since the banks werent lending any more. The fact that we made a profit when he had the facility to lend the club more in 'that' window was stupidity but all this is irrelevant. If he hadnt treated Keegan the way he did and we had kept going without relegation we'd all be praising his financial contribution. The Keegan incident and the subsequent behaviour (Kinnear and the window) are what makes him an idiot, not the financial stuff (although they are implicitly linked of course).

My spies are everywhere. I actually go on holiday to Hossegoor every summer which is literally the same town as Capbreton. Our lass's family has a house there.

Aye, its a bit confusing as ever with bloody accountants. 138m is SJ Holdings debt, which does cloud the issue somewhat as they own the club. Two things are important, Ashley paid himself 6m back the year we got relegated. With 107m of debt in 2007/8 we would have gone bankrupt during the financial crisis.

You should be looking at the Gross Debt line in the club's account, not SJ Holdings. That went from 77 to 107 the year he bought the club, which was a result of decisions made in 2006/7. The following year the gross debt went from 107 to 150. Thats the year immediately following the sale and is based on revenues and costs set down in decisions in 2005,6,7 as this is how contracts and business and stuff works If you buy something that is haemorraghing money, then 2 years after you buy it in debt, your debts are much much bigger. The 138m added to the debt of SJ Holdings is the 138m it cost to buy the club. Ashley created a vehicle (tax reasons etc) to buy the club and therefore needed to transfer the money across to do so. The debt is whats on top of the 138m, which is truly observed in the trend from 2005 of 55 to 70 to 77 to 107 to 150 by 2009 reflects the underlying performance of the business over the whole period. By rights we should have gone bankrupt in 2009, 14 months after he bought the club.

Cant see them going for Shearer, too much of a risk. I saw the clip of the Venky's on SSN last night, they look like a couple of utter mugs too. Hope it doesnt go too badly for your lot Billy.

Why are we discussing him leaving? Pardew on record saying not selling him was condition of taking job and he has come out and said he does not want to leave. Think thats about as certain as it gets isnt it?

Birmingham didnt manage a shot on target against Wolves and only 3 off which included Phillips' dreadful header. Thats the second time thats happened to them this season too apparently. They are extremely well drilled and have a few good players but are a bit over rated imo. I think we can get a draw out of this one. Would be more than happy with that anyway.

Fast becoming a twitter legend, like a cross between Robbie Savage and Stephen Fry. Happy Birthday sunshine.

Well said.

Imagine what we'd be like if Ben Arfa had stayed fit and Barton hadn't been suspended? Probably top four and one Mr Hughton still in a job. Ben Arfa and Barton both played against Stoke and Blackpool...at home....we lost both those games. Suppose that's the benefit of a hypothetical argument rather than a fact based one though. We looked better when Ben Arfa came on against Blackpool and looked worse when he went off against Stoke I agree though. I'm more disappointed with the Fulham result than either of those two btw. Imagine we had got the deserved equaliser against Blackpool and nicked one against Fulham. We'd be on the same points as Bolton. Or not beaten Arsenal and Liverpool, we'd be virtually in the relegation spots. Its mad how fine the line is between success and failure. On that point, Ben Arfa could have added more than just 2 points to our total if he had continued to adapt well.

Apparently Lee Dixon is also concerned about the forthcoming christmas special on Michael Jackson.