BottledDog

You must be well into your dotage if you thing Hughton is particularly 'young'. Pardew's younger. although I look daft you know what I mean, Hoots was a 'learning his trade' would have been better like It was a really odd move by the club, but they might have made a really good call. Unlike WBA, we acted early, and Pardew, rather than lose the players spirit, has if anything made them even harder to beat. The thing about Hughton was it felt like we could start talking about the long term again, fingers crossed, now that they've settled upon an appointment they have faith in, we can finally start doing that. There's a long way to go yet mind, and Pardew always seems to start off brightly in most if not all his managerial stints.

You must be well into your dotage if you thing Hughton is particularly 'young'. Pardew's younger.

? Not at you, dude. It was just an indulgent and incredulous guffaw at how the newly promoted side, the side Ashley is, according to some, asset stripping, the post Carroll, post Hughton car crash of a team is now being talked about in terms possibly reaching a European spot. /can't see it myself, but great to see some positivity.

'kin hell.

It an odd one, he's signed some absolutely cracking players in his short time here.

Comes down to who are more likely to score, and that has to be Brum for me with Oba and the beast up front.

And your way of crossing your arms and stamping your feet at the state of the game, is not buying a season ticket? Strange that seems to be your entire plan regarding Sports Direct.

ManU put themselves into a corner when awarding Rooney those stupid wages, particularly given his performance this season. Can see people like Nani et al wanting some significant raises soon. Rooney's on £250,000 a week? Not sure I can believe the figure but, as you say, whatever he did get by pulling his 'if you don't offer me an amazing new offer or I'm off' trick, is bound to have a knock on effect on the demands from the rest of the squad. Shame that unlike the manc fecks, we couldn't afford to see that happen with Carroll.

So because something hasn't been reported then it didn't happen, OK. Are you seriously telling me that it wouldn't be reported? I can't think of a single attempted high profile transfer that hasn't been covered or leaked at some point, and yet you can't even find me one example of where we have turned down significant advances in the past. As I said, even Freddy Shepherd couldn't find one to illustrate his arguement other than that piss poor Shearer effort. Ultimately, we have never held onto a player in his prime courted by a 'bigger' club (in a players eyes at least), nor turned down any large bids. In the current scenario, if we do actually hold onto any of them (Tiote/Enrique etc), not only would that show impressive intent, but would also be almost certainly unprecedented.

We don't know what bids we've had in the past as they're usually kept out of the press. Oh come on, do you really think that if there were large bids in the past from bigger clubs tempting our players it wouldn't be leaked by the club wanting the player, the agent or even ourselves? Give over, the only example Shepherd could pull out his ass to show how he could hold onto players was a pitiful, couple of million offer from Liverpool for Shearer in his dotage. Fact is, we are no worse off in respect of losing our best players than we have ever been; and the high pitched whining going on at the moment is, I would argue, an annoying by-product of finally having some players worthy of turning heads.

This is just getting stupid, i doubt Tiote or Jose will be off in the summer, but we have always sold a player if a significantly bigger club comes in for them. If we are genuinely blessed with 3 such players attracting offers in two windows then we are in pretty remarkable times. Anyone care to list the players who have attracted significant bids in the past that we have managed to hold onto?

When people stop banging on about players leaving.

I wish someone had thought to post that earlier in the thread. I'm going to quote it too, just so that I might get a little of his cheery ITK farydust rub off on me.

Absolutely, the club have offered them an interview, any retarded questions Simon can't answer, he can try and find out for them, but with the 'We don't know what he's up to, but he must be up to something' attitude, and I'm astounded the club feels the need to even do that the way they go on. No answer will ever satisfy them, just make their little conspiracy detectors spin around even faster. Muppets.

Absolutely, I don't doubt that we may drop a few places yet, but would be great if we could make it through to the end of the season with a bit of breathing space ultimately. The fact though that at this stage of the season we are not only above the teams that came up with us, but also established teams like Blackburn, Villa, Everton, and Fulham etc is a credit to everyone from the top to the bottom of the club.

Well, true to a degree, but 80's arguement was that because of the tecnical term used, telling the press that Keegan had the final say was even more damning somehow. That arguement is invalid. No, it was just serving as a relevant example from memory. There's every likelihood such a tribunal would say 'intentionally misled' instead of lie, just because the second one is a strangely underused term in English public life. Just like how MPs can't be accused of lying in parliament by other MPs, only of 'misleading', 'conveniently forgetting' etc. The argument I was alluding to was the one I just posted above. Fair enough, but they didn't. Your post was perfectly clear, simply stating that in your eyes, using the term misled was 'potentially far more damning'. All I was doing was pointing out your mistake without wanting to get drawn into yet another debate on the tribunal particularly. For the record, the findings from my point of view show the club owner and representatives to be particularly disrespectful, somewhat underhand, and poor judges of character. They rightly got caught out, but I still don't think that not being explicitly clear to Keegan or the public on their policy regarding transfers, even if it proved to be willful deceit ultimately, is any way near as bad as the vitriol it attracted (and still attracts) would suggest.

Meh, any similar style replacement is more than likely going to feel horribly inferior. We need a small quick striker to stop constantly being reminded of what we're missing. /Ah jaysus, it's still so devastating that he's gone.

Well, true to a degree, but 80's arguement was that because of the tecnical term used, telling the press that Keegan had the final say was even more damning somehow. That arguement is invalid.

i thought more might have came out than that very vague point again and i wanted to press on an exact point rather than vagueries. jeez....do people actually think managers have the final say ? it's a naive old fucking world. You have to wonder why the club told Keegan in private and the fans in public that he did then. They lost an independant tribunal and couldn't even offer an excuse for the lies. Pitiful. In terms of the public statements, they did offer one. A 'profoundly unsatisfactory one', but one nonetheless.

Can either of you direct me to where the phrase 'intentionally misled' was used in the tribunal findings? /You may find it to be a touch difficult as that line actually came in a post tribunal statement from Keegan.

Told Steven Taylor he was too 'top heavy'.

We've probably missed our chance; think Houllier said something about being in for him in the summer.

Well said Rosstoon.

We agree the price, well on the way to agreeing personal terms, then just as we're packing Wayne off south, they go and fuck us over. Charming. I think the article states that we actually did agree terms. B'ham pulled out of it, not Larsson or us. Whey, agreed, he certainly doesn't suggest there were any problems with the terms, just didn't get a chance to sign on the dotted line.

We agree the price, well on the way to agreeing personal terms, then just as we're packing Wayne off south, they go and fuck us over. Charming.