gekkotime

Hoarding SD adverts all over SJP may piss a lot of people off, but -- again, from a purely economic standpoint -- it's a fairly zero-sum trade-off for him. While SD gets 'free' advertising which is worth a couple of millions, the club he owns gives up the same value in commercial revenues which it would get if it put up paid ads on those places. Given that he's not reinvesting a penny the club makes, it wouldn't really make a difference if another company would pay for advertising in SJP and SD would spend the same amount of ad money elsewhere. He could just take that money out of the club. That would still piss a lot of people off, although probably not as many and not as much as the SD adverts.

Not sure most fans are unhappy with our scouting at present or our transfer philosophy, we were 3-4 signings away from fighting for the top 4 in my opinion without the big money signings. The issue is there is now no transfer plan other then to sell for profit and the club in generally has no direction or actual ambition - this is shown clearly by the appointment and sticking with a sub standard manager and back room team. In the most part we have a team of internationals yet a coaching setup sub League 1, we have no identity on the pitch and we are slowly loosing out identity off also. Personally don't agree that its about returning to the boom and bust era of Shepard but atleast showing some controlled ambition on all fronts, starting with a new manager who can mould a team that actually knows what they are doing once they cross that line. I don’t think the club lacks ambition, but they are cautious and pragmatic in their approach. In contrast, the fans of every football club are energised by dreams of glory, and what the club have said does cut against that. No-one dreams of finishing 10th. The trouble with putting a dreamer like Fernandez or Ridsdale in charge is that it will eventually go belly-up, unless you’re something of a bottomless pit of money , like Abramovich. So every club, bar the exceptional, has to have some kind of financial discipline. The problem with Shepherd was that he spent all the club could possibly afford in terms of debt, we got a break and made the CL, but then there was nothing left to push on with. The second season we made the CL places, all we could buy was Bowyer on a free. Then there was the inevitable slip backwards. The aim has to be that if we get that bit of luck and make the top four in the future, we’re in a sufficiently healthy position financially that we can take advantage, and not come to a full stop. Youth development, hitherto neglected, is another part of being in a good financial state when opportunity arises. So in the absence of a Mansour, I’m not yet convinced that Ashley’s general strategy is wrong. He’s made some poor decisions, the latest being Kinnear, but overall I’m prepared to give things a bit longer. I wouldn’t say Pardew is sub-standard incidentally, but that’s another debate. This is not a terribly wrong account of what's going on, it's just that you are mistaken when it comes to ambition and motivation, I believe. Now, this is all speculation, but the way I see it, Ashely's main 'ambition' at this point in time is to recoup his investment, so the aim is to turn in a profit. From a purely economic standpoint, the safest way to achieve that seems to be mid-table mediocrity. The biggest source of income for the club is media revenue (if I'm not mistaken, roughly 60% of turnover in the latest accounts), which is fairly evenly distributed among Premier League teams, and is only partially affected by the league position as long as the club stays in the league (more on this later). The second is match-day income, which of course may decline due to bad performance on the pitch, but even after years of under-performing and numerous scandals, a good audience still turns up at SJP every other week, and I'd be surprised if the average attendance would fall below, say, 45,000 in the near future. In short, NUFC has a rather loyal fan base which produces a hefty income that can be taken for granted. Third, commercial revenue may also be affected, but it's a rather small chunk of the pie overall. So, with the TV money flowing in and people still turning up at SJP, revenues will continue to be relatively healthy. From the expense side, the club is operating with a small squad on comparatively mediocre wages and turns in a profit on the transfer market, so it's on a rather shoestring budget. But it has a decent scouting network, and this allows it to be a selling club while not being in constant threat of relegation, so the TV money is not in danger. Whether this is sustainable on the longer term is debatable, but it seems to be working for now, and Ashely seems to believe in it. Of course, better performance on the pitch may lead to higher revenues, but it would also mean higher costs and risks. And it's not only the one-time costs of buying a number of better players and assembling a bigger squad, but also the constant costs of maintaining that squad and its quality. Realistically, a solid top four spot is 100m+ of one-time investment away, and with the rising constant costs, the rising revenues may not even result in higher profits (we could probably get +40-50m/year provided we get into the CL every year). So, the expected return on investment for this scenario is pretty low (if it's positive at all), and going for it would involve huge risks (i.e. not getting into the CL). Not something you'd like to do if you're after your money. There's still huge competition for 5-7th place, TV money is not substantially higher, and the EL doesn't bring decent money anyway, so it's just not worth it. In our current position, investing more heavily in the playing squad just doesn't seem to have the potential to improve the profitability of the club substantially. Moreover, focusing on cups would not generate substantially higher revenues, yet it would involve risks as to our league performance, where the TV money is. Now, I'm not saying that this is right this way, but given Ashely's (presumed) motivation, it suits him perfectly. Of course, the performance of the team could be improved by bringing in a half-decent manager and having a more though-out transfer strategy (i.e. buying players to fit the system/team instead of buying every French bargain we can get our hands on -- of course having a system in the first place would help a lot) without spending more, but it has been proven from time to time that Mike Ashely is not very wise when it comes to either footballing or personnel decisions. And playing good football just quite simply isn’t the point for him. So, sadly, I do expect us to stay where we are as long as Ashely is in charge, and that's possibly one of the more positive takes on the near future given his well demonstrated capacity to fuck things up horribly.

I don't think its about the ref, the speculation seems to be that Rosicky was an 'inside man' and fucked up on purpose (that's how eastern european match fixing mafias work, they pay off certain players to make mistakes or score own goals or concede penalties etc.), although i think its pretty far fetched, he was shite, but he wasn't that shite. It surely is bullshit, but if the interpols really involved that must mean that huge bets were put on a draw towards the end of the game, that doesnt necessarily mean it was fixed.

I don't understand why you have to be angry at anyone. Ashley did what you would expect any club owner to do. Carroll did what you would expect any footballer to do. If anything, my anger lies with Torres/Liverpool/Chelsea for distorting the situation to a ridiculous degree. Even then, I can't be angry with the success of others. Mostly, just disappointed with the situation and how quickly this chapter of NUFC's history has unfolded. As always, I am looking forward. This

the worst thing about this is that i kinda expected us to fuck up today - i'm just not used to long winning streaks somehow. the second worst thing is that i've installed a bunch of chinese spy softwares to watch this shit... but on a positive note, regardless of where we'll end up come may, this season has already produced some memorable matches (villa, scum, arsenal), and despite the home fuckups i still love this group of lads, so i hope that we can regroup till the weekend and trash fulham 7-1. btw we're still 5th!

wat? i don't see what would've been so difficult in (at least) keeping up Newcastle last season with the squad we've had (btw i'm not disputing that Hughton has done well this season).

both of them are clueless idiots, what's the point of comparing them?

I've never really understood how the hell are they calculating these fines, but I find it ridiculous that football governing bodies are fining people and teams for a couple of quids given the amount of money in football. Either fine them properly, or just admit that the rules are unclear and they don't give a crap.

jesus christ i had a fucking heart attack

I think he would have a brighter career in wrestling. I used to think that his movement (or the lack of it) is his weakest point, but today it just struck me that the main thing is that he is dumb as fuck, he just wrestles with his marker all the time instead of going for the ball.

apparently the price of an ak-47 in africa starts at 30$, and goes as high as four cows (this is not a joke).

that whole case was handled in a pretty disgusting way by the authorities, i mean the doctor himself went on the record and admitted that he worked with several spanish football teams and tennis players, yet they've never even investigated those matters (the cycling part was pretty ridiculous as well, when you find a shitload of plastic bags full of blood and a list of names just how difficult can it be to verify whether its their blood or not?). probably has something to do with political ties. doping controls in football (and most other team sports) are generally a joke in comparison with the controls in athletics/cycling/other endurance sports, and for instance dozens of cyclists have never tested positive but admitted to doping or got caught in other ways. i'm pretty sure clubs consider every possible method to maximize the performance and physical capabilities of their players and doping is surely one of the best of those, especially with the loose nature of controls. Puerto was just too big a case, I agree that Spain lacked the stomach to make public quite how deep the scandal went. The problem was that it wasn't illegal under criminal law at the time, though obviously it broke the various sporting authorities' rules. That meant it was easy to force the Guardia Civil had to drop its investigation. I particularly like the fact that everyone tried to claim they just paid him all those 1000's of Euro for 'advice', despite the fact that Dr. Fuentes is a gynaecologist. ( http://velonews.competitor.com/2009/10/news/ullrich-fuentes-ties-documented_99309 ). imo the uci/wada could've/should've asked the implicated riders to produce dna samples to clear their names although in legal terms that might've been an intrusion of privacy (i'm not really familiar with the legal aspects of the case). but yeah, the excuses were pretty lame, especially in the case of basso and ullrich. as for the physical development of young players, afaik they aren't subject to doping controls at all, so the empirical aspects you mentioned might suggest that there are doping programs in place at certain clubs. i remember reading about a canadian mountainbiker who admitted to using epo since the age of 16, so it's not like doping at younger ages is unheard of. all in all, the general opinion, which seems to be that there's no widespread doping in football bc it's a technique based sport, sounds quite short sighted.

that whole case was handled in a pretty disgusting way by the authorities, i mean the doctor himself went on the record and admitted that he worked with several spanish football teams and tennis players, yet they've never even investigated those matters (the cycling part was pretty ridiculous as well, when you find a shitload of plastic bags full of blood and a list of names just how difficult can it be to verify whether its their blood or not?). probably has something to do with political ties. doping controls in football (and most other team sports) are generally a joke in comparison with the controls in athletics/cycling/other endurance sports, and for instance dozens of cyclists have never tested positive but admitted to doping or got caught in other ways. i'm pretty sure clubs consider every possible method to maximize the performance and physical capabilities of their players and doping is surely one of the best of those, especially with the loose nature of controls.

When did he last get voted MOTM? i don't have the numbers sir but iirc he was voted motm a dozen times by various sources when he was absolutely crap in the last 1-2 years it pisses me off ass well when commentators praise him to no end while he doesn't seem to be able to pass the ball to someone in black and white 8 out of 10 times

i bet he'll still be voted motm every goddamn week even after he retires