NJS

I can't remember a time when I haven't read and absorbed knowledge just for the sake of it. I dropped geography for 'O' level due mainly to a shit teacher and not having enough options available but its always been a great love of mine - I can read atalases for hours. History at school was taught by a teacher who was very exam focused so we only learned what we had to but since then I think I've absorbed a good spectrum. That applies to more general knowledge as well. Used to be a keen pub quiz goer and I still have an underlying desire to do Millionaire - the usual nerves disclaimer aside, I've quite easily done full runs to the top prizes watching.

Sometimes even propping up things which look like a "loss" is cheaper in the long run - places like Germany propped up their industries in the 80s and saw them come out stronger in the long run. Compare that with the wastelands of the NE and elsewhere left over from Thatcher's "reality". The tories are also very happy to subsidise BAE, BNFL and of course most of all the fucking farmers without complaint.

Or Trotter spending millions on Siemens to try and save his seat.

Shocked at Stevie like - saw the title and assumed it was the stupid Irish teen cunt.

The bloke couldn't sing live 20 years ago - fuck knows what that many years of further abuse have done to his voice.

Im not arguing with that but listening to Renton you would think that this was just a tory master plan. The scale in which the NHS was privatised under Labour was huge. I don't think I've ever denied that Blair was completely Thatcherite when it came to too many things. Having said that, in his defence he sold himself as a pragmatist rather than ideallist - your current boys are the latter which is much more dangerous.

Completely opposed by the Tories of course - no wait.... No regulation proposed in the past or even now would have prevented it - the underlying facts are that governments (and 99.99% of the public) didn't understand what the banks were doing but were happy with the "rewards".

Seen that on a few US TV shows (though they call it "Epi")

Internal markets were introduced nto the NHS under Major as well. Of course that's a long way from having to pay to see a doctor which isn't far away now.

Why don't you address the simple point that the financial crisis was global CT? Too awkward a question?

The Vatican came out with some stuff a while ago about how they were confident any aliens would be God's children too - no word on why we got his "only son" and what the poor aliens had to do with instead.

I tend to agree - you can't use the argument that human morality is generally derived from being social, empathatic animals (as I do) so any attempt to set that morality from an arbitrary book is superfluous - and then write such a book.

what planet do you live on ? Find me any articles from 2007 that anticipate a sale. If it was so obvious then why do you think they wanted to sell? Who says they wanted to sell? SJH seemed keen but I’ve never seen anything from FF confirming he did. The Hall/Shepherd "split" was one of the most interesting things about it imo - in fact I'd give Shepherd credit for his reluctance versus Hall's eagerness to sell.

Chance to perve over Kate Humble surely?

what planet do you live on ? Find me any articles from 2007 that anticipate a sale. If it was so obvious then why do you think they wanted to sell?

You mean the club who've followed Ashley's latest blueprint? (Only spend money generated by transfer profits)

The sale was completely out of the blue man - I don't believe you could find one person who "wanted rid" of him as nobody had the slightest idea the club was up for sale - more made up opinions for other people.

Stupid tackle by Crouch for the red but he should have lamped Carvalho's heed off for being a twat.

The thing is PP it looks like to some extent they had seen the writing on the wall as they were looking at refinancing/investors/sale so a "blind" faith that they had something up their sleeves is imo going a bit too far. As it stands now as Chez posted, most if not all the premier league clubs only exist as going businesses based on guarantees in one form or another from rich owners. The Halls and Shepherd never had to do that explicitly based on a mixture of timing and I have no problem admitting good times on the pitch. However that was then, this is now. I think the failure of Moat to buy the club based on Barclays bot accepting him as a guarantor (my reading) shows that as it stand its hard to see an alternative mode other than an underwriting owner. The question then becomes what does that owner want? Is he an Abramovitch or an Ashley/any of the others? They have to chose between running the club purely for "fun" or trying to run it "properly". As I've said before, I think the worst thing about Ashley is that he either doesn't know or hasn't decided which one he wants. My real hope is that he still wants to sell but again that depends on the intentions of any new owner.

They were absolute nutters. How can you interpret the Bible literally when it is full of contradictions? No wonder they are mad. There are no contradictions when it comes to homosexuality though.

Im sorry I must have missed the post on this, where does this figure of £30m per year come from? I'd guess the 34m loss in Shepherd's last year repeated.

"Get the football right and all else follows" sounds sensible but there has to be another side to that - you could look at Leeds and Portsmouth as good examples of it crashing and burning badly. fuck me. Two clubs out of how many ? Lets have it your way then. Lets try and win the title or attempt to qualify for the Champions League on a consistent basis while selling our best players to our rivals behind the managers back and replacing them with inferior replacements offered minimal wages. Can you tell us any good examples that have done this ? Or are you accepting that we are no longer contenders and have no chance in the future, as in the likes of Stoke and Bolton ? "Get the football right and all else follows" is EXACTLY how it works in football. This is like banging your head against a brick wall. The teams that take the most shots at goal generally score the most goals. The teams that have the most quality footballers generally generate the most income, the teams with the best quality footballers are generally the ones who get it right on the pitch and increase their income. What is difficult about this ? Whatever way you look at it, you people are letting your blind irrational hatred of an individual or individuals dominate your entire judgement. How sad can you get. Seeing as Toonpack predictably doesn't answer my question about his mans "plan" he so fervently backs, where do YOU think we will be with 5 more years of Mike Ashleys "plan", bearing in mind his long term aim is to finish 10th ? YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. How would you pay for an assault on the top 4? If you say "like we did pre-2007" then the next question is who will lend us the money? In answer to your question - about the same as we are now - as we were in 2007 - in debt with our heads just above water. If Shepherd was still in charge where do you think we;d be now?

"Get the football right and all else follows" sounds sensible but there has to be another side to that - you could look at Leeds and Portsmouth as good examples of it crashing and burning badly.

I would never attempt to argue that everything Shepherd did was good, far from it but I do have one simple overriding belief that "success on the pitch breeds increased revenue", that was Shepherds mantra and frankly should be what all football clubs strive for. Running as we do on the logic that we should break even and all will be good regardless of how we achieve that financial sweet spot is not the way to run a football club. The sales of players key to our season is a fine example. Maybe we've hit lucky with Carroll but relegation can be attributed to the sale of Given, with him in goal we would have gained that extra point. Selling Carroll was the same gamble and fortunately it appears to have paid off. Will next years gamble be as fortunate? What happens when the couple of players we buy a season dont include a Tiote or Ben Arfa but more Perch's? Both chairmen have gambled on players, Shepherds was that purchasing proven big names would do the job, he was unlucky with the likes of Owen but none of the 20k that turned up to chant his name predicted that just as us on here didnt. One thing that did come from it though was the increase in merchandising/sponsorship etc that come from these types of signings which helped to increase the revenue. Ashleys gamble is on cheap players making it big to then be sold and a portion of the proceeds invested in the next "big thing". Id be interested to see any examples of successful teams based on that model. how many times does this need to be explained to these fools ? Coherently, without insults and with facts to back the posts as PP does would be a good start

I thought she was with lamearse? I think its Ashely's daughter - Llambias' bird is the classic mutton dressed as lamb, home counties gold-digger type.