[retired_mephage]

These stories about Ashley not knowing the extent of the debts of NUFC have to be completely fabricated. There is no way that Ashley would have completed this deal without extensive due diligence on the club and found out exactly what its debts were - indeed they should be available, as i think they are, in the accounts which are freely available. I mean - no-one, and i mean no-one, buys a company without conducting due diligence!!!

If these debts were more than was disclosed to Ashley, then Shepherd is liable for misrepresentation, and therefore would have to pay Ashley the difference in value between the 'real' price and the price paid...

therefore - these stories about debt can't be all there is to the lack of spending.

[retired_jsto]

At first when I heard we are trying to sell Martins for £10mil to generate funds I laughed at it cos I would have thought it would be madness to let one of the only players that performed decent enough last year go, but hearing we are in for Smith makes me think there is some truth behind it...

I for one really hope we dont let him go OR N'Zogbia...these two could be part of our brighter future and it was good to hear Big Sam say yesterday that he is sure he will get at least one or maybe two players in before the start...

I really do hope hes not thinking of signing Smith then closing the cheque book.

[retired_katie14]

We’re pretty much sorted for strikers anyway. With everyone fit we’ve got Owen, Viduka, Martins, Ameobi, Luque and Carroll. Even if we did sell Martins for £10m+ we wouldn’t necessarily have to replace him and could spend the cash on our defence.

All Allardyce has gone on about since he arrived was the need to strengthen defensively. If he then goes and spends what little money we have on strikers we’re no further forward than the previous regime.

[circlewalker]

let Martins go imo.

[retired_katie14]

Not sure whether we’ll get as much as we’d like for him now.

When we ‘didn’t want to sell’ but had the release fee it pretty much set his price, as we could dig our heels in and say we don’t want him to go but will have to if someone offers £13m.

Now it seems public knowledge that we need to sell to buy there’s less chance of getting the maximum amount, unless there are a few clubs interested but Arsenal’s interest seems to have cooled (if it was ever there) and the only club rumoured to be interested is Portsmouth and I doubt they’d pay the full fee.

[retired_katie14]

Martins has confirmed he’s in discussion with the club over a new contract.

Rumour is he’s going to waive the release clauses in return for higher wages.

[retired_jsto]

Mon him signing, then I finally have a name worth printing on my shirt :thup:

[retired_katie14]

Dyer

4

Eva

[retired_jsto]

Dyer

4'K

Off

[retired_fabricodalacosta]

Back posting after a few days off (got married and just been on honeymoon). Have saw that we picked up a couple of good wins v Celtic and Juventus. Injury curse seems to be back (did it ever leave?) and also that Dyer now seems to have a contract on him. From what I've read, it's been OTT (threats, etc) - hardly improves the image of the club to potential signings. Clearly though, the quicker Dyer leaves the better for all concerned.

Was asked by the fella who ran the B&B where me and the wife ':o ' stayed for our honeymoon as to how I thought Newcastle would do this new season. I replied with that I still genuinely believe that Fat Sam is a dead man walking because he's not Ashley's man. Otherwise how can you account for a net spend of £1.7million so far this window ? If Ashley doesn't see Fat Sam as being here for the distance then why back him with big money ?

The way this season looks at present is that it's gonna be a down to the bones of our arse job (again) where we'll again be looking to finish mid-table with a cup-run chucked in. The new air of optimism that the new regime brought in seems to be evaporating by the day.

Anyone care to argue differently ?