BottledDog

It's not even about whether Shepherd can be responsible this time, or that he increasingly brought in and backed dreadful managers, or his regular idiotic verbals in the press, or the enourmous amounts of money he and his family syphoned from the coffers. Simply put, he has relatively fuck all money to be a premiership owner, so more than likely he'd need a loan to get the club and then run to the banks again any time we need a cash injection or another random marquee signing, something the banks are unlikely to want to accomodate any time soon. Shepherd. Fuck that.

IMO he won't sell at the first available chance because the price will keep going up. Why? Because we'll be getting better every year? Get in, if thats the case I'll be pissed if he does sell.

There was another good one. Obertan- The Next Ronaldo (or something). Really does have some extreme pace and dribbling, quite a few skills too. Just decision making that's poor. Should type Xisco - future star as well then Can't believe you've given up on Xisco already.

Fuuuuuck, you're not kidding.

Certainly a possibility. That said, if a significantly better striker (such as Sturridge) suddenly becomes available for reasonable money, I'm almost certain we'd still be in for them.

Good news.

I sense a few are saying that because you had your hopes set on N'Zogbia, and Obertan doesn't appear to be as good as him. He's another body in and for all anyone knows, he could flourish a bit more if he's given more of a chance than he was at Man Utd, which he surely would be. People are free to air their opinions about him as a player but you'd think you were buying an inanimate object if you look at some of the comments on here. Come off it man Neil - it's the fact that we seemed to have money to spend this summer which we could have used to progress, and we've signed cheapies and non-entities. Even Everton shelled out on a few fees after getting the Rooney money. It's not what I was getting at, though. My opinion is that negatives have been overblown and positives swept under the carpet. I can see that this will have been an incredibly frustrating summer. Would I be raging about where this Carroll money has gone? Yes, of course I would. Would I be pissed off about what's going on with Barton, Enrique, Nolan etc? Of course. Has it been a Summer From Hell? Well, I'm not fully qualified to say but from what I've seen, no. I really think people have swept the signings of Marveaux, Ba, Ben Arfa and Cabaye under the carpet somewhat. You have Gosling coming back who barely played last year (if at all?) and it looks like he's beefed the fuck up, so he could really develop this year. Now you look like signing someone who yes, hasn't hit it off at Man Utd, but also hasn't been given that much of a chance. After a troublesome few days, news comes that you're signing someone who could bolster your midfield and offer some pace on the wing and who knows, with some faith placed in him, could start to really establish himself in this league. Instead, it's "he's shit". That is what I find bamboozling. Before someone says this, no, I'm not sticking up for Ashley. I am however sticking up for some of the very good business you've done so far this summer which has escaped the limelight due to the Enrique/Barton etc shenanigans. Potentially disruptive? I would certainly imagine so. Fucking shit? I don't agree. As it stands we have a worse squad than this time last year imo, and I've no idea where the goals are going to come from. With all due respect to you Neil, I don't think you'd be this casual if Everton had just came up the season before last and had made similar boardroom decisions after a season of relative success. I know you're on our side but it's easy from where you're standing to be perfectly honest. Right at the moment, I'd say you have a better squad. Tiote, Ben Arfa, Cabaye, Marveaux, Jonas... see how Gosling and Obertan develop... dare I say Barton as well? That's a good midfield. Your strikeforce isn't great but Ba will help a lot providing he stays fit. Yes, perhaps I can see the positives more easily but that doesn't make them any less tangible. You have a collection of good players and, understandably, the potential on the pitch is being dominated by off-the-field histrionics. From the outside (well, semi-outside), you have a good squad. The question, of course, is can Pardew retain a sense of team spirit and resilience about the squad, come a) the start of the season and b) September 1st? Nice to get another perspective.

It was the third question man And the 4th and a few more after that ffs. Jesus Colocho.

But he didn't wan't to stay unless he was settled with a long term contract, primarily due to his kids schooling. I think we'd have been more than happy for him to stick around for another season. Should have offered a player/coaching role or something imo. Which he rightly wouldn't have accepted. He's still in his 20's.

But he didn't wan't to stay unless he was settled with a long term contract, primarily due to his kids schooling. I think we'd have been more than happy for him to stick around for another season.

Visa problems.

They can have him. He's not the one for me, or fatty.

Well, based on no other Premiership club offering him a haven, I would suspect not.

Think it is to be fair.

Also, what on earth is Williamson about to do here?

It's like QPR. Richest owners you could possibly hope for, and Warnock is bleating on today that Routledge wanted to go to them but the couldn't afford a deal. Seriously? Why did they buy the club? To make a profit clearly. I know the only reason people get that rich is because all they care about is the profit etc. But fuck me, if I was in my dotage and 2 other multi billionaire lads said fuck it, lets buy QPR, I like to think I'd have a bit of fun. Christ, we can reasonably complain about Ashley, yet they could buy Ashley a few hundred times over and not even wince, but they can't even buy their manager a Championship winger?

Would be lovely but he seems to be getting a lot of time on the pitch, and seems to be playing wide right a lot so maybe they are thinking of using him differently to Lukaku. Would be the perfect signing for us though and would happily pay through the nose for the lad. Great player.

It's like QPR. Richest owners you could possibly hope for, and Warnock is bleating on today that Routledge wanted to go to them but the couldn't afford a deal. Seriously? Why did they buy the club?

Not going to get into an arguement over it. /was just pointing out that 'why is it only us' is more than likely not to be the case.

And they have. All that was then required was for the player to present himself to the embassy and the Ivorians to do their shit that end. /No doubt Mike was adverse to paying the inevitable bribes mind. //I still have nightmares about getting out of a country by wrangling a dodgy tourist Visa, fucked if I'm going back there. So why does this only happen to us? What are other clubs doing that we aren't to avoid this? No idea about other clubs, but then I certainly doubt many, if any, suporters of other clubs know about Tiotes case. It's not in the national press is it? I bet Wenger knows. And Bruce for that matter. Meh, whatever, let's just hope he's back as soon as possible.

And they have. All that was then required was for the player to present himself to the embassy and the Ivorians to do their shit that end. /No doubt Mike was adverse to paying the inevitable bribes mind. //I still have nightmares about getting out of a country by wrangling a dodgy tourist Visa, fucked if I'm going back there. So why does this only happen to us? What are other clubs doing that we aren't to avoid this? No idea about other clubs, but then I certainly doubt many, if any, suporters of other clubs know about Tiotes case. It's not in the national press is it?

Stil don't see how you can say this when we have no idea when an application went in, or even if it could go in before Tiote presented himself at the embassy. You think this was planned like this by the club? To have our best midfielder training by himself, missing pre-season games while this is getting sorted? It's an admin fuck up. The club should have realised months ago that they had to renew his visa but did nothing about it until he tried to fly back into the country from the US. Its a shambles. He didn't try to fly back into the country though. The plan from the start was for him to fly direct to Ghana post the preseason tour. Why not do it over the summer then? Why fuck up his pre-season preparations to deal with this shit? Doesn't add up. That's the only thing really, and I agree. I presume they had been advised that it would have been a pretty straightforward and quick procedure. And to be fair, it probably should have been. /Once you're there at the mercy of bureaucrats though... *shudder*

And they have. All that was then required was for the player to present himself to the embassy and the Ivorians to do their shit that end. /No doubt Mike was adverse to paying the inevitable bribes mind. //I still have nightmares about getting out of a country by wrangling a dodgy tourist Visa, fucked if I'm going back there.

Stil don't see how you can say this when we have no idea when an application went in, or even if it could go in before Tiote presented himself at the embassy. You think this was planned like this by the club? To have our best midfielder training by himself, missing pre-season games while this is getting sorted? It's an admin fuck up. The club should have realised months ago that they had to renew his visa but did nothing about it until he tried to fly back into the country from the US. Its a shambles. He didn't try to fly back into the country though. The plan from the start was for him to fly direct to Ghana post the preseason tour.