Ashley Stay or go

I can't believe I'm backing the Pie Man either but using the fact that he's tying our best players on long term deals as an arguement against him is just daft. He is a businessman first and foremost and wants the club to be profitable and financially sound. He has invested heavily in the club and wiped a lot of the debt. Yes he's made mistakes . . . . ok a lot of mistakes but from what I've seen in recent months things are looking up. We do however have to wait until the summer to see if he makes good on his promise to reinvest the money from the sale of the gypsy boy.

 

Spot on.

Moat seemed to provide the common sense, Llambias on the other hand.............................

 

Moat was also keen on **** up Freddie's decent plans for the stadium expansion and stadium hotel

 

Trouble is I think Moat realised he was in a no win situation and decided he was better off back at his day job.

 

Wasn't it Chris Mort?

 

hahaha

You are bloody right!!!!

we were getting confused with that Barry Moat character.

 

Doh! Yeah you're right. Moat was a mate of Gazza's with anger issues and a shotgun. Chris Mort was a character from a Terry Pratchett book.

 

My head hurts!!!!!!

 

my bad lads, sorry for the confusion.

 

SNAP!

I went to a technology funeral last night.

 

Go enough said.

 

What's a technology funeral?

Do people sit around and set fire to their I Pads and say nice things about it whether they liked it or not?

 

Pretty much.

Part of my job remit is to get rid of redundant technology and last night we celebrated the demise of one that had become the bane of my existence

Took 18 months but the damn thing is buried now.

 

There have been some good posts on this thread so I'm not going to quote them all but I agree with Alfie and simonbh7 here. Ashley *seems* to have a good plan for the club in the sense of long term contracts bringing stability (Christ, haven't we all been pleading for stability for years?!) and reducing the wage bill (I think I read somewhere that in the season we were relegated our wage bill was around 85-90% of our turnover!!). He's pumped money into the club which effectively kept us afloat because with the debt we were in and the amounts of interest we were paying on those debts we could have gone under. (AHA! Here is the blog that looks in detail at NUFC finances: http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/12/newcastle-uniteds-finances-in-black-and.html )

I reckon he's also now got a manager which he is willing to back, not publicly obviously otherwise the media would be all over it ("vote of confidence" and all that ****) but behind the scenes and, fingers crossed, financially in the summer. As people have said, the summer will be when he shows his true colours and I completely agree with that but I'm quietly confident that we will have money to spend. He's a ruthless businessman, he will know that he can either take that £35m, put it in his pocket and leave us as a meandering mid-low PL team or invest anywhere between £20 - 35m, push us up the league table and earn more for league payouts, potential European matches and be more attractive to both sponsors and potential investors in the future when he does pack up and sell.

It's taken me so long to write that I bet this thread has gone waaayyyy off topic by now

EDIT: yep I was right haha

EDIT No. 2: I was also impressed reading the interview with Graham Carr the other day when he said that he's in constant contact with Ashley about who he's scouting and is keen for updates. Time will tell whether that's 'cos he wants to improve our team or his bank balance but it's a positive sign. I'd much rather have an owner who is interested, wants to be kept updated and lets the scouts scout who they want rather than someone who has no interest in what goes on and just wants the big name, cash money signings... think Man City if you will!

 

Good post Tommy, exactly what I mean't but put much better.

 

It was either write that or draft 3 sets of accounts... was a no-brainer really