Wullie

David Beckham's one of the best wide players this country's ever produced, and he never had the first inkling of pace or dribbling ability. Looking at it in those terms is too simplistic. Barton gives the ball away too much centrally, takes too much time on the ball, getting caught in possession, and his short passing is too poor to play there consistently. He's been splendid wide, it's not all about getting to the by-line and judging by some of the goals he scored with his head at West Ham, Ba's a player who can thrive on quality delivery.

£60m+ on Carroll, Henderson & Adam, or £5m on Ba, Cabaye & Marveaux? There's not a cat in hell's chance the first three are £55m better than the latter, I think we can push them close as it stands tbh. Even more so with one or two more in. Wouldn't know tbh, I've only seen one of our lads play, and that fleetingly. As it stands, I think pushing them close is the stuff of fantasy, Carroll and Suarez will be dynamite and we simply don't have enough goals in the squad having lost our two top scorers.

All I hear on here is what a mess Liverpool are making of their transfer dealings so I'm a little unsure as to why we can't have a go at them. Last December, we were level pegging. My view is that we shouldn't be "aiming" to do anything other than win every game we play. The amount of beatable teams in the league means that I think the "can't compete with x, y and z" card is overplayed. They're not necessarily the teams you have to beat to finish high in the table.

I'm sure there were promises from somebody at the club, possibly that notorious insider, a year or two back saying we would no longer be getting stung for high agent fees btw. That promise soon went out the window when it suited them.

if you live way beyond your means for a few years then after a year of breaking even, do you then start building debt again ? We're not breaking even though. The wage bill has stayed the same and we've spent less than we've sold. how does that mean we aren't breaking even ? Breaking even, to me, means spending what you bring in. The wage bill hasn't changed much. The Carroll money should be there to spend but we've barely touched it. Nolan=Cabaye. Ba= £2m max. Marveaux = £2m max. Carroll's wage + Campbell's wage = Ba's wage + Marveaux's wage. Unsure about Tiote's new contract tbh. Where has the spare £31m (from the Carroll fee) gone? Where has the season ticket money gone? That's before you consider the 'investment' from the club for this season. It f***ing stinks man. 1/9/11 Are the nine points, including a derby, prior to that not that important?

A payrise is a payrise. Doubt the French league is where the money is and what will Tiote have been on at Twente? Peanuts. All those players will know that NUFC will let them go the second anybody willing to pay higher comes in for them anyway.

Won't have a problem stumping up 60/70k for N'Zogbia and Sturridge then in that case.

French press were talking £50-55k when he signed. Who are these journalists asking players who they're on and who are these players telling them? I think wages are one thing that journalists take a complete guess at. Like you've just done? Indeed but I'm not putting it as fact in a newspaper. We're always hearing that Ashley wants to get rid of players on 50k+ wages, hence Nolan, Barton being pushed out the door, hence not being willing to pay the going rate for Carroll, CN'Z and others... yet we're meant to believe he's just put another three, all gambles, on those wages that he'll probably be trying to nudge out in a few years time. Sorry, don't buy it. If they are on £60k, it'll be very heavily incentivised. I don't have a problem with that in itself, but I do if it prevents us from signing other top players.

French press were talking £50-55k when he signed. Who are these journalists asking players who they're on and who are these players telling them? I think wages are one thing that journalists take a complete guess at.

30k tops I would of thought. Yep.

Very much doubt Cabaye et all are on anything like the 60k a week some people seem to think they are.

Not necessarily. I'd rather go to £20m for Sturridge rather than buying another three or four moderately priced players. Bellamy and Robert's the classic example of how the right quality can improve the side drastically, rather than sheer weight of numbers.

Because we always want the team to be better. Money saved should, in my eyes, translate as more money to spend.

My thoughts exactly. Happens fairly often too that fees can seem over the odds at the time but eventually end up justified, particularly with younger players. This is the dilemma we face - Ashley wants to buy young but isn't willing to pay top whack for the potential because he's not seeing the benefit here and now. A major flaw in that policy is that nowadays I think players tend to peak a couple of years earlier than they did ten years ago due to the pace of the game in England and potential is now worth more than current ability. We probably all raised an eyebrow at fees paid for Ashley Young, Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott but now at worst they look like decent prices, at best like complete snips. The mackems have gone for this with Wickham, only time will tell whether it pays off, I hope not.

If he was as good as he thinks, I'm not sure there'd be a club good enough for him.

Why pay £4.5m for Cabaye when we could have got him for nothing in one/two/three years time? etc. Nonsense argument.

Happy to nail my colours to the mast and say I rate Bendtner quite highly, he's a bit of an arsehole though and I suspect he thinks he's too good for us seeing as he seems to think he's too good for Arsenal.

Before Dave Whelan arrived, Wigan's highest ever finish was 4th in what is now League One. They're a very similar sized club to Hartlepool, smaller in fact because they only joined the Football League for the first time in the late 70s. No point beating around the bush and pretending they're bigger than they are. Wigan and NUFC are chalk and cheese. The club and Whelan are very easy to slag off but if you take a step back, what he's done there is quite staggering tbh.

That last girl's been practising with Shola.

no one would be defending the current lot had they just brought in lee bowyer after securing a champs league play off spot. having all that extra revenue and not nearly so much debt meant we were perfectly placed to build, you knew that fine well though. All that extra revenue? Aye, not like anyone's just given us £35m is it? and little debt, deal with the lot instead of just cherry picking man. Of course we were in debt, we had a mortgage on a massive stadium, a mortgage we no longer have to pay and still can't spend anything.

no one would be defending the current lot had they just brought in lee bowyer after securing a champs league play off spot. having all that extra revenue and not nearly so much debt meant we were perfectly placed to build, you knew that fine well though. All that extra revenue? Aye, not like anyone's just given us £35m is it? Nice of you to admit you slagged Shepherd as a result of the success he helped get the club at that time but will happily defend this lot for not even trying to be successful.

They cost the same, in fact Sibierski and Bernard were probably on higher wages weren't they, seeing as Shepherd paid everyone vast sums?

I don't remember all this defence for Shepherd when we only brought in Bowyer, or when he waited until the last day and then got Sibierski, Rossi and Bernard, in fact I remember him getting the slagging of a lifetime for doing things on the cheap. Must have actually cost us a fucking fortune.

Whereabouts is that mate?

Signed for Eskişehirspor ffs.