midds

If anything we should have been fucking the first two off to keep the latter. No, though, just get rid of all 4! I'd go along with that. It's pretty reckless.

Must admit I've got less of a problem seeing Barton and Nolan leave than I have of seeing Enrique and Carroll leave. Mostly due to their respective ages and wages. Barton and Nolan are getting on a bit, have the best years of their careers behind them and are were on pretty big money. Giving them extensions (on their current terms or better) would have been mad. I'll admit that we could have been a bit more flexible when trying to keep them on but if they had dug their heels in and not been willing to take a cut in wages then fair enough - it's lunacy to pay older players massive money. Carroll and Enrique are different. They're much younger, they've got the best years of their career ahead of them. Giving them a big money contract would have been more appropriate. We should have been building the team around these 2.

He'll be a Championship player in 9 months time I reckon. He's walked into a relegation battle but he's got his big contract. Time will tell I suppose.

If they have offered him £4m a year in a deal that takes him up to about 33/34 then it's fair enough imo. I'm glad we didn't offer him that tbh.

You'd have thought we'd have checked that bit out first. Who says we didnt like? Seems pretty reasonable to assume we were told that while we werent those players first choice they would sign for us if certain other clubs didnt come in. But those clubs did come in (Arsenal and PSG). I mean are you saying that we should only have made bids for players that we're absolutely sure we could get? Why throw big money bids at players you know you've got no hope of signing?? Who would do a thing like that? But that's the point your repeatedly missing, theres nothing to say we didnt have a chance of signing them. Nothing to say we did either. We could do this all night tbh. I think we only bid for them after finding out that the chances of signing them was pretty low. I think we did it as a faux show of 'ambition' to appease fans and players. If you disagree with that then that's absolutely fine with me.

You'd have thought we'd have checked that bit out first. Overly negative for me mate, sorry. I can't buy into this "smokescreen" shite, it gets aired every year and it's always the same. If those players (or one of them, at least) had not received better offers they'd have been here. Fair enough if it's someone remotely questionable in terms of opposition/stature, but oil-rich PSG (who Gameiro supported) and Arsenal are both out of our league. We've been reported to the authorities for contacting players this summer and I'll stick my neck out and say there's a fair chance we've been in contact with both Gameiro and Gervinho prior to making these bids. It doesn't tally with the way we've operated with other players. I am very cynical of these cunts though. Small fees I can understand but when it comes to any significant transfers, Mike Ashley's got deep pockets and short arms. I think the pre-contact goes without saying, happens at every level. Sound out the agent first and foremost, gauge the interest. I can see where you're coming from but I can't allow myself to start thinking that negatively, just can't happen. I do think we'll spend a fair bit by August 31st, although still not as much as we "should" have. I used to be one of the most optimistic people on here a few years back. but I got my eyes well and truly opened when we went down. I'll happily admit I'm cynical of the cunts who run the gaff to a ridiculous extent. I neither trust them nor believe a word they come out with and their motives are purely financial and for the benefit of deceiving the fans. I wouldn't put anything past them and think this window has been planned to cut the wage bi, raise as much in transfer fees as possible whilst spending as little as possible to replace them. Let's see where we are on 1st Sept.

You'd have thought we'd have checked that bit out first. Who says we didnt like? Seems pretty reasonable to assume we were told that while we werent those players first choice they would sign for us if certain other clubs didnt come in. But those clubs did come in (Arsenal and PSG). I mean are you saying that we should only have made bids for players that we're absolutely sure we could get? Why throw big money bids at players you know you've got no hope of signing?? Who would do a thing like that?

You'd have thought we'd have checked that bit out first. Overly negative for me mate, sorry. I can't buy into this "smokescreen" shite, it gets aired every year and it's always the same. If those players (or one of them, at least) had not received better offers they'd have been here. Fair enough if it's someone remotely questionable in terms of opposition/stature, but oil-rich PSG (who Gameiro supported) and Arsenal are both out of our league. We've been reported to the authorities for contacting players this summer and I'll stick my neck out and say there's a fair chance we've been in contact with both Gameiro and Gervinho prior to making these bids. It doesn't tally with the way we've operated with other players. I am very cynical of these cunts though. Small fees I can understand but when it comes to any significant transfers, Mike Ashley's got deep pockets and short arms.

You'd have thought we'd have checked that bit out first.

We've just lopped (another) £3m off the wage bill ffs. What's not to like about the deal?? You crazy, man...

The thing that gets me is this fucking vacuum that appears to have hoovered up the money that was on the table for Gameiro, Gervinho and Neil Taylor. Even if you take the Gameiro/Gervinho thing as a "one or the other" scenario, that's still something like £11m we had going spare BEFORE the Enrique sale (plus all the wages that those players would have taken up, agents fees, signing on fees, insurances, blah blah blah...) and weren't we keeping a huge chunk of money aside for Jose's new contract anyway? Add that money to the combined Enrique money and we could have had Cissokho and Maiga here over a week ago. We obviously have the money to spend but are desperate to get bargains on every single deal we make. It's excruciating for us lot, but as others have said it's the kind of stuff Ashley and Derek will love. I honestly think we'd shit our kegs if any of those offers were actually accepted.

Any other club's owners you think this is just us testing the water and will eventually pay up as the deadline approaches. Won't with us. Got no problem with going in fairly low to see how they react then going back in with a more realistic bid. We're just going in deliberately low and leaving it at that. Someone else said you can only afford to play hardball when you're in a position of strength. Our lack of flexibility and compromise is canny vexing. Or possibly €7m or whatever is what we've got arranged with PSV for Pieters, so we tried our luck at Cissokho for around the same, weren't successful, so will settle on Pieters? To be honest it's getting to the stage where I don't mind which on we go for. We need a LB in asap and if the cash is there then let's get one of them in. My frustration is how laborious the whole process is over a relatively small sum of money.

It's almost like that bloke with the curly hair that used to play for Hamburg, Liverpool and some team or other wasn't telling porkies when he accused Ashley and Llambias of deliberately bidding low for players safe in the knowledge that the bids won't be entertained. Bingo.

Any other club's owners you think this is just us testing the water and will eventually pay up as the deadline approaches. Won't with us. Got no problem with going in fairly low to see how they react then going back in with a more realistic bid. We're just going in deliberately low and leaving it at that. Someone else said you can only afford to play hardball when you're in a position of strength. Our lack of flexibility and compromise is canny vexing.

Once again our offer is just below what you could realistically do a deal at. "Well, at least we tried..." Sometimes you've got to pay the price.

In this instance I'm annoyed about the lack of compromise in the deal. We've got a good player on a good wage (willing to take a pay cut by all accounts) who wants to stay and the club still can't thrash a deal out which suits both parties. I'm not expecting the club to offer him £55k a week for 5 years because that would be lunacy but the contract petulantly being withdrawn and throwing him on the transfer list for nothing has meant the club has lost out again.

So that's a LB, a strikers, a CH and now another midfielder we need. A week to get them. Farce. At least the wagebill's gone done by another £3m though. That's the main thing. Sick of this shit.

QPR, man. Wonder what they've offered him.

BOOM: Since the end of August last year, we have played 40 competitive games in league and cup. We have failed to win 29 of them. We have had 3 cup exits, to Brighton, Notts Co and a West Ham side that went on to be relegated. We have played our much hated neighbours 3 times, resulting in 2 shocking home performances and probably the most humiliating defeat in the clubs history. Our once good home form has been exchanged for 7 defeats in the last 8. The best goalscorer we have had in years has been sold and not replaced. We have a manager who having said the side just needs a couple of tweaks, then goes out and brings in 10 new players, yet fails to address the well documented weaknesses on the left hand side. 8 of the new signings fail to make the starting line up for our 2 league games so far. And yet some people still think this fat bastard is the man to take us forward. Read more: http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=620909#ixzz1VtUzPqLJ

Fat chance. You've spelled 'cunt' wrong.

3 wins in 16 now. The wolf is at the door.

Adebayor's a good signing for them as they seem fairly desperate up front. Not so sure about Diarra because they've got Sandro who, I think, does a good enough job in the same area anyway. It wouldn't be an immediate upgrade whereas Adebayor is.

Win, lose or draw tonight I can guarantee that they'll say that Brighton are better than us. Nailed on.

Murdered us 0-0? Fucking idiot.