Wullie

Nolan maybe. Struggling to think of any others.

I think we're a bit better off than Leeds, not that you'd know it.

He wouldn't be cheap though - and likely to be slated for it. Maybe they think he he has something left in him and that experience counts for sommat. Trouble is he has very little experience other than how to pick spelks out of his arse.

At least Taylor might improve, Bridge is only going one way and he's been on the downward spiral for the last five years at least.

He's been very poor for years imo. Stagnated terribly sat on Chelsea's bench and the big reputation he maintains is bizarre, God knows why City brought him in.

Swear to God, if we bring in Wayne Bridge...

Saw him on Northumberland St earlier on today.

It'll be £900,000.00

Weaker without Campbell? Don't think anyone will rue his departure but I wouldn't feel comfortable going into the season without another centre half, even if it was a promising kid. Maybe that's Kadar but he'll have to prove he can go more than five minutes without getting injured first. Dread to think what would happen if Coloccini got injured, thankfully that's as rare as an Alan Smith winner.

Why bite?

Great post Unbelievable.

what is capital gains tax then ? Has this really becoming a discussion on tax in football? Player trading does not trigger any capital gain, it is a revenue transaction. The selling club would pay corporation tax on any profit on a sale (based on the players accounting/ammortised value). A loss could also be made, reducing the tax liability. Not sure on whether player sales are outside of VAT scope or not, but if not then the ultimate purchaser would pay the VAT. Clubs will be VAT registered so would claim back any VAT paid so it is only a cashflow implication, ultimately any VAT flowing from football tansactions is picked up by the fans on ticket sales etc. VAT is charged on UK sales ie Carroll to Liverpool. Its different with sales and purchases outside the Uk. So where you could claim the VAT you paid on the profit/sale of Carroll against purchases of other players they have to come from the UK. Otherwise you can`t claim it against. Ever filed a VAT return? Yes why, I have a business turning over 500k plus a year ? Why not follow up your question with some information if your an accountant and I have worded my post incorrectly ? Well if we have sold Carroll for £35m, we will have also charged Liverpool 20% VAT which we hand over to HMRC and Liverpool claim back (assuming VAT registered etc etc) There's no question of 'charging' this against purchases etc, we would be a vessel for getting the VAT to HMRC in this transaction and nothing else What ? Your now assuming the 35mill is an ex vat figure ? I was assuming the 35mill was Vat inclusive. Therefore after we give HMRC his 20% we would actually be left with 28mill. Yes its a very basic analysis of everything because we would need to know the whole accounts for that financial quarter. What I was trying to stress is just because you receive 35mill for someone doesnt mean you can go out and spend 35mill ? I don`t know quite what your going on about ? Liverpool would be VAT registered because its obvious to anyone there above the threshold for opting out ? Reading what you have written does not make any sense ? Our competitors won't stop spending money over tax concerns though, so the point is moot.

Freddie Shepherd was ahead of his time when he only sanctioned Bowyer's free transfer in the summer of 2003 and blew our forthcoming Champions League campaign out of the water, a decision with such disastrous consequences that we are still suffering from it to this day. "Keeping the powder dry" is the new "winning stuff". In all seriousness, the day when my ambition for NUFC is simply to still exist, I'm packing it in. How fucking depressing.

If the single biggest expense at most other clubs is wages (and it is, generally speaking), why aren't they all embracing this brilliant revolutionary idea of paying nothing for players? How have the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs all managed to get it so wrong?

New Boro away: http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3392/01976434900.jpg

Furthermore, it's not even that Wenger needs to bite the bullet and spend money to compete as has been said, I think he just doesn't really care about goalkeepers or centre halves, it's more of an annoyance to him that takes away from what he loves concentrating on. When he does buy them now, he tries to buy them for their ability with their feet ahead of what he should be buying them for first and foremost.

Of course it should, and usually does. Do you reckon we'll get Enrique's true worth with him wanting to leave and only having one year left? I never said it wouldn't affect what the selling club might get for him, I said it shouldn't affect what the buying club are willing to pay for him. There's a very crucial difference. If your Man City or Chelsea maybe. But any club that's actually trying to get value for money will see a pretty big connection between what the selling club should be able to get for a player and what they're prepared to pay. I understand what your saying, if we need the player we should just pay whatever and get him in, and that sounds great, but at the risk of starting a nasty discussion, this isn't Freddy Shepherd land anymore. No I'm not saying that, I'm saying that if we value the player at a certain amount but we're not going to pay that amount in this situation because of his contract, then that's ridiculous. If we value CN'Z at, let's say, £10m but we're not willing to pay £10m simply because we think his contract situation demands that we should pay less, running the risk of Wigan keeping him or somebody else taking him and us ending up with nobody/a lesser player then the situation is a no-brainer. If we simply don't value him at what Wigan say his price tag is, then that's a different issue and completely unrelated to his contract position. If it's a choice between doing the deal for £10m tomorrow and having him line up against sunderland or trying to save £2m by getting him on August 31st and run the risk of him lining up against us for them then sign the fucking cheque and hand it over tbh. We lost millions of pounds on the last day of the season due to one goal, the points that a player like N'Zogbia could get you in August alone could ultimately get you the money back. FWIW, if N'Zogbia was English, you'd be looking at £20m minimum.

Of course it should, and usually does. Do you reckon we'll get Enrique's true worth with him wanting to leave and only having one year left? I never said it wouldn't affect what the selling club might get for him, I said it shouldn't affect what the buying club are willing to pay for him. There's a very crucial difference.

Your first sentence is an oft-repeated false dichotomy. If we improve the squad with no money spent to the point where we're coming second in the table, the question to then ask is, why didn't we invest and we might have come first?

A players worth shouldn't be decided by his length of contract. It should be judged on his value to the team that's buying him. True, but you'd effectively be paying a fortune for one year's service, when you could sign him for nowt a year later. This is why we didn't sign Beckford (who turned out to be turboshite) because it would be uneccessary spending. That's nonsense tbh. And that point is only valid if: a) you don't need him for the coming season and b) there is absolutely zero chance of him going elsewhere at any point in the next twelve months. Neither of those things are true.

I really don't understand the "last year of his contract" argument. Why should that affect what we're willing to pay for him in the slightest?

The wages for players already at the club, we don't stop paying them unfortunately. Every club has players to pay, that doesn't stop them spending money. Were the wages of Carroll, Nolan and Campbell less than those of Ba, Marveaux, Cabaye? Not by much I wouldn't have thought. I mean look at Steve Stone's comments today:""I think it's great that we've made some moves in the transfer market," he told nufc.co.uk. "I think it's important that you do it quite early and that's what we've done. "We had the money from the sale of Andy Carroll in January so we knew we had that money and we've had our targets for some time now." I mean is he on the wind up or something? I'm well aware that it's still only June (pre-season starts on Monday and I think we should have our big business done already for the reasons Stone gives about settling in, fitness etc but that's another issue) but there's absolutely no doubt that the noises coming out of the club and the local press are that this money is not going to be properly invested in the squad. I have no problems with the squad being strengthened with bargain deals but the good thing about that is supposed to be that you can use the money to strengthen further, not that you can stick it at the back of the wardrobe. Exactly, David. Funny that. Back then it was all about "great deal, this money will make us so much stronger" and now suddenly that's off the agenda and we're idiots and "anti-Ashley" for wanting them to spend it.

If this £35m is being used to pay players wages for the next few years, what are the television income and gate receipts of 30-40,000 season tickets being spent on? The only thing more staggering than the brass neck of them using this ridiculous excuse as a way of getting out of investing in the team is that people are buying into it.

And vice-versa. wink wink. Not vice versa at all.

Why does it look that way? Have I missed some form of "We're not signing any more strikers" announcement? If Pardew believes our main striker is an as yet unsigned addition to the 'out-and-out goalscorer' he's expecting 15-25 goals from then I can only assume he also expects us to be going for the top four. So you've managed to turn Pardew's efforts to instill confidence in Ba, into a negative by claiming it means we're not interested in signing another striker as our "main" striker. Eh, where was this? I think it looks like Ba will be our main striker. So fucking what? It's a fucking joke that anyone on here expressing an opinion let alone a concern is automatically accused of panicking, doom-mongering or being overly negative for the sake of it. Not only that but it's seemingly impossible to be optimistic about some things and less so about others. Midds and I just renewed our season ticket, why the hell would I do that if all I wanted to do was criticise the club and be down about everything? I can think of lots of other things I could spend £250 a year on. Well said. I haven't seen everyone who expresses a concern labelled a doom-monger, any more than everyone expressing positivity is labelled an Ashley apologist. Pointless having that meta-debate, just get on with discussing the point. Didn't you just post a suicide smilie in response to somebody's post? Yes, I'm not saying every post on the site is reasonable. I hope you don't think I automatically slate every negative post... certainly don't intend to do that. Seemed reasonable enough to me. Depends on your definition of reasonable - some people on here will defend every single thing that Ashley and his henchmen do, even when it blatantly contradicts what they defended them for last week - the latest example being the Carroll money. The difference is that you'll have scorn poured on you like stupid smilies if you raise the issue. It's not too long ago the same people were posting the same "you doom-mongers just want the team to lose" rubbish before we got relegated, at people who said we were going to get relegated. It's incredibly tedious.