Newcastle United nearly back in the black

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/08/newcastle-united-losses-fall

Newcastle are nearly back in the black, after Mike Ashley's brilliant management.

When we got relegated, in 2008-09, the players' wage bill was 82%, it is now 60%.

Mike Ashley took over in 2007, kicking Freddie Shepherd out, and he has revolutionised the club, on the pitch and off it.

And for the record, I was as vocal of my dislike Freddie when he was running things, as I am vocal in my praise of Mike, now that he is in charge.

Wow, 53 million pounds a season on wages.

Where is your frugal Toon again?

But look at the progress - down 22 percentage points since the year that overpaid lumps like Owen, Beye, Bassong, Viduka, Martins and Duff got us relegated.

what is the overall aim? how low do you want it to go? spending £53m every year on player wages is a lot of money.

You get better value for money if you invest heavily in wages than if you invest heavily in transfer fees.
Arsenal have discovered that, and we are following suit. Ashley always said he wanted to follow the Arsenal model.

and you have the cheek to call out other members on not answering questions?

The overall aim is to finish one position higher in the Premier League table than we do in the Premier League spending-NET-on-fees-and-wages table.

i am talking about wages, seeing as that was the point of discussion. i'd have thought that was obvious. i'll be sure to spell it out more simply next time.

how low do you want your wage bill to be?

Low wages, even that is disputable.
Meanwhile, the Toons are in low PL position for years, even were relegated.
This year, it has gotten better, to my surprise.

steely hill I'm not an expert as to what is a sensible wage bill percentage, so therefore I'll decline to have an aim about that.

My general aim is to win lots of matches divided by money spent on fees and wages.

We are pleased to read that you declined to comment.
Just too complicated to discuss, I assume.

Our high wage bill actually yields money in saved fees.
For example, last week Krul and Coloccini signed half-decade contracts, probably to do with high wages. However, those players of course, are free aqcuisitions for us, since they already play for us.

And of course, if they change their minds and want to leave, we'll get loads of money for them.

Some of us remember 2009, when the whole of England was laughing at us
Mike Ashley should get the Nobel Economics Prize.
And let's not forget, the wage bill has actually gone DOWN by 22 %points since the season in which we were relegated.

And I repeat...
Some of us remember 2009, when the whole of England was laughing at us