hutch

It was supposed to be a veiled reference to Mayuka in Billy's blog.

Who's Billy Sharp? Is he the little Yorkshire bloke?

No, I remember it was very very light grey with some darker grey bits. So was his skin.

http://uk.match.com/

Who is Bill, and when is he getting married?

Yeah I did take a bit of a flyer there, I actually have no idea what he does when he isn't guiding missiles. My point was that Cortese has upset a lot of people with his style of management, including you, Hypo, I think, but everything he has done, whether you like it or not, has been to achieve his ambitions for the club in my opinion. It is the suggestion that he has become corrupted by the power and that it can only end in tears that I took issue with. Rather than corrupted, I suspect that Cortese feels a bit lonely sometimes, he is carrying a huge amount on his own shoulders on our behalf.

West Ham bought instant success. Remember they had around £16m advantage last season to keep their largely PL squad intact, then topped it up. We bought future success. We'll see who got it right over the next few years.

Camden you say, "Brett". Now there's a coincidence.

Which might explain why Cortese is CEO of a £100m business, and you're ..... erm ..... not.

I suspect we'll be saying that next season

The bear is presently less popular than Nicola Cortese. The real question is, on that basis, will he want to return?

Is that actually a verified fact, or just more innuendo?

.... or alternatively you could pop down to the ticket office and ask if it's OK to pay with a Debit Card.

We're arguing over the wrong issue. The real question is why don't England have a van Persie, or a Suarez, or a Michu?

Spoken like a fan who has had his fingers burned previously.

I am tomorrow, down to the Cape and back. I'll try to contain myself.

None

What a daft thread. If they didn't change things just for the sake of it people would start to wonder if we really need so many career politicians and civil servants.

Still one less than this year

As long as it spends loads of it on good executives

Interesting that we don't seem to know what to do at the end of a season where we haven't won promotion.

If we all have an Agenda, can't we just go straight to Any Other Business?

I don't think so. Try this one.

For a rocket scientist you sure do a damned good Stan Ogden impression when it suits you. Read facts - Total debt at 30 June 2012 was £41.8m less £2.5m in cash =£39.4m That included Liebherr money and other debt, from BVI or wherever. £33m was subsequently converted to equity, leaving net debt at the start of this season of somewhere around £6m You know that transfer fees are amortised over the length of the contract. I'm no accountant but even I have a grasp of the difference between a P&L account and a Balance Sheet. From the latest available figures the Liebherrs have stumped up £33m. They might have put more in since the last published figures, but you don't know that and neither do I. But the fact remains that your figure of £70m is a number you just made up.

A lot of people making up a lot of random numbers on here tonight. If you spend a few minutes and do a bit of homework, you'll find that Swiss Ramble, who's opinion on football finance I respect, told us last month that at 30 June last year (before we had received a single penny from the PL or Sky), our net debt was £39.4m. He went on to say, and I quote "Figures will be better in PL, even without any big player sales in 12/13. Almost all debt converted to share capital now". Anybody who is trying to convince you otherwise with dodgy maths and made up numbers just has an agenda. "The Liebherrs" total investment is about £33m, and Cortese has tripled that investment over the last 4 years. But the growth has probably peaked, and if I was only in it for the money I would get out now. There are much more lucrative opportunities in the market today for £100m in cash than investing it in a football club.