Wullie

Spot on.

Do they? I've seen plenty examples of "Never heard of him therefore he must be shit". The other people who admit to not knowing a player we're linked to tend to say something along the lines of "Never heard of him. Is he any good?". Usual drill whenever we're linked to some striker from Europe is to say "So-and-so!? " even though knowledge of the player starts and ends on a computer game.

Even though Guthrie was excellent (i.e. better than Pratley) in the Championship and has done well enough since the West Brom game when required? I should of qualified what I said. I meant more so Tiote than Nolan, given a midfield pairing of the latter and Guthrie is an accident waiting to happen. He has a much better engine than Guthrie although Guthrie probably has a much better passing range, different types of players really. If Tiote was suspended I'd definetly pair Nolan with Pratley though. Fair enough, though I think Guthrie's done ok partnering Nolan of late - against sunderland, Wolves, Spurs, you couldn't pick fault with him. If he'd stayed on against West Brom and Smith hadn't been introduced we'd probably have won the game because he was keeping the ball really well. Gets a lot of unfair stick imo. As we are at the moment, he is a good player to have in reserve.

Even though Guthrie was excellent (i.e. better than Pratley) in the Championship and has done well enough since the West Brom game when required?

Pig sick of this window already and the fucker hasn't even opened yet.

Valencia a squad player?

I assume his young top class replacement will be playing for free of course, not to mention that low, low transfer and signing on fee.

They're liars and crooks with nothing but contempt for players and supporters.

A paycut is akin to 'ridiculous wages'? Absolutely clueless.

Regardless of who is 'to blame' for individual cases, the club consistently seeing good players leave/wanting to leave means that something is not right somewhere. Some people seem to be quite content for our best to go as long as they can say 'well we don't know every little detail so you can't say for definite that the club's at fault, get in there you beauty ' Sorry but how does that help the football team exactly? And sorry if we're letting one of our key players go over a contractual issue, even though he is prepared to take a pay cut, then the club is quite clearly at fault imo. Have they done everything they can to keep him? How much will replacing somebody of his influence and ability cost in transfer fees alone?

Cunts. Plain and simple.

Er apart from Milner, N'Zogbia, Given, Bassong et al. If you really think progress can be had by selling your better players and having a team dismantled every two years then you're free to believe that but you're wrong.

Such as Ronaldo, Beckham, Stam, Keane, van Nistelrooy? How long were Beckham and Keane at Man Utd for ffs? I never said he's supposed to still have Bryan Robson on the books for Christ's sake. Man Utd keep their players longer than any other team in England, that is unarguable fact, and it includes the likes of Brown, O'Shea, Fletcher. It's about keeping a team together. Too many people now think management is like a computer game - "Barton's leaving, ah he's only a 8, we'll just buy a 9". It's not that simple.

The simple fact of the matter is that we can't keep letting good first team players leave. How many is this that this mob have overseen leaving now, assuming he goes? Carroll goes, "he's not irreplaceable", Enrique might be away, "he's not irreplaceable", now Barton and people are saying the same, wake up ffs. You can't have success or even progress with such a high turnover of players and it's not easy to find players as good as these... that's why they cost so much money. Sounds simple but plenty of people don't seem to get it judging by the posts on here. I've said this before but Ferguson's success at Man Utd has never been based on simply buying good players, it is on keeping good players, occasionally adding to them and then keeping those good players too. The turnover of players there is incredibly low and that's not just because players don't want to leave, it's that he sees the value of keeping a team together even when some of those players are inferior to ones he could easily go and shell out a fortune on. There's not a good player has left recently that hasn't been called a cunt upon leaving. When will the penny drop that maybe the club and those running it is the common factor? We should be doing everything we can to keep these players that make up the core of our team. Even if Barton was going to be replaced, then he becomes a quality squad player over time. Right now, we buy a top class wide player and it's still Ryan Taylor or Guthrie waiting in reserve when he gets injured/suspended/is shit Progress under this lot? Keep dreaming. Pig sick of it, it's fucking ridiculous.

Like we'd ever use the phrase "Top Dogs" ffs. They're the sad cunts who released a DVD with that title, not us.

In all seriousness, I'd definitely miss his spot kicks. Makes Matthew Le Tissier look like Gareth Southgate.

I agree but we must be careful not to get any knacker in on the "can't be any worse" basis because if you buy players based on that, they usually are worse.

Don't forget the England superstar, Darren Huckerby. He is a legend.

Your solution is to bring in somebody with an inferior record to the pair of them?

Luque looked fucking astonishing on that video, dear me. Don't think I've ever looked up a player on Youtube since.

The trouble is that Ronaldo thinks that just about anybody is better than Shola and Lovenkrands and seems to have completely blanked from his mind the entire season that the three of them spent in the same division where Lovenkrands got 13 in 19 starts (+10 sub), Shola got 10 in 11 starts (+7 sub) and Bothroyd managed 11 in a massive 43 starts (+0 sub). Fair enough if he's young but he'll be 30 by the end of next season and those are typical stats for him in the second tier. Bothroyd reverting to his typical career form and being unable to hit a barn door since Christmas has been one of the main reasons that they've failed to be promoted. That he's "far better" than those two, for all their faults in the Premier League, is a complete distortion of the facts. FWIW I very much doubt we're interested anyway. I agree with you on that like, just the Boyd point I thought was a bit off. Fair enough. Did think it was quite funny that he knocked a few in after Boro couldn't wait to see the back of him.

It's actually not, we have a pretty large squad. The problem lies in the quality but I actually agree with you. Talk of getting rid of players like Guthrie and Ryan Taylor, as it stands, is a non-starter.

The trouble is that Ronaldo thinks that just about anybody is better than Shola and Lovenkrands and seems to have completely blanked from his mind the entire season that the three of them spent in the same division where Lovenkrands got 13 in 19 starts (+10 sub), Shola got 10 in 11 starts (+7 sub) and Bothroyd managed 11 in a massive 43 starts (+0 sub). Fair enough if he's young but he'll be 30 by the end of next season and those are typical stats for him in the second tier. Bothroyd reverting to his typical career form and being unable to hit a barn door since Christmas has been one of the main reasons that they've failed to be promoted. To say that he's "far better" than those two, for all their faults in the Premier League, is a complete distortion of the facts. FWIW I very much doubt we're interested anyway.

You said the same about Boyd who turned out to be fucking dismal even in that division. Wind your neck in.

I wouldn't. Don't think he's much better than either of them and he's not going to get any better.