As Dog's Breath says whilst technically what you say is correct in reality I very much doubt that it is. Ashley is the person in charge of the finances as Ashley is the Club. If we had a "proper" board then things could be different but we don't really have a board as such just Penfold reporting to Ashley. If anyone really thinks this is all down to Penfold (excluding Pouchy) then they really, really do need their heads examining. The criteria, the price etc is all down to one man, Ashley. Ashley is the old Mr Ford when he said you can have any colour car you want...so long as it's black. Ashley's modern day version is we can have any player we want...so long as he fits my criteria on wage, age and price.
The proof will be at the end of the season when or if we go down. The fact is our football is ****e. It’s not fun to watch and the players are ****. If that’s what we are to accept then **** it. I would rather watch some Sunday league team where players are just enjoying the game and there is entertainment. The ****e we are dishing up is akin to boredom. Money has ****ed football over for most clubs other than the rich. Our management team are incompetent. They can’t do **** all. What does Charnley actually do. Ashley can maybe be exempt for some of the blame to a tiny degree.... nah can he **** he has made mistake after mistake after mistake. Charnley is a puppet who replaced Pardew. Rafa is a smoke screen to keep the fans on side. It’s all proper ****ed. It’s comical. For the record if we stay up it will be a miracle done purely by Rafa and he will deserve mannager of the season. Having said that I can’t see it cause he is too stubborn negative and totally predictable. Ashley does not want us relegated he wants us to stay up with minimum investment. Simple! If any ****ing toon fan is enjoying this regime and season then **** me your crazy!
I looked some time back at this and recall that the Keegan / Sir John Hall years were generally profitable. It went downhill when Hall junior and Freddie got involved. My point was more of a point that KK was far more useful than maybe history books, and our younger fans, will give him credit for.
I think the books were being cooked a little. I'm sure we borrowed money against the stadium and so on, and then Ashley had to foot the bill. Which was his own fault for doing no due diligence. Shepherd tried to defend all this after he left but I'm sure the accounts bore it out. In his 5 years our net transfer spend was £39m. About 7.5m per season ish. At the time that was quite a lot of money. We were not hauling all that back in to be honest when you think of what we invested in the stadium and so on. I wouldn't swap that time for anything at all. It was what going to football games should be about. The landscape has changed dramatically though and only the very rich can compete in the PL. Ashley himself has conceded he cannot and would like out to give the club a chance. We are static because we don't have enough investment. Ashley is running the club within its means, reinvesting all the money it generates. I mean we can moan about is self interest with advertising but the reality is he has pumped his own money in to keep us above water at times. He has also never hidden what he bought the club for, Sports Direct, his main business interest. So he is entitled to some pay back realistically. I cannot blame him for running the club tight either, the love affair between him and the fans soured a long long time ago and is not repairable.
