BottledDog

Is there a reasonable number that fit into this cycle you've hit upon? Erik Pieters is about the only one I can recollect, and so far I'm not unhappy in the slightest we ummed and erred over him.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii318/mickransommich/skegness.jpg

There isn't a yawn big enough.

£4 million more than Arsenal to be fair. Reckon £18m would do it.

Don't think Cardiff will want to sell. And Joe can't speak Welsh. I think you'll find Joe can speak Welsh. And Amharic, and Urdu, and Buginese, and Tagalog, and Cornish, and...

You're probably right about the replacement being worse, but TBF that is the same capacity for transfers that saw us buy Cabaye in the first place. Sometimes it's like the signings we do make don't exist on here. Meant more than given we limited ourselves to a very narrow market and Cabaye is at the peak of that market (starting for France) the only way would be down given that the other French, Dutch, Belgian national team starting midfielders would not entertain a move here. Maybe temporarily down, but we always seem to aim to replace players with better (or potentially better) and are generally quite successful at doing it. Under Pardew, you could argue the only player who has been replaced with worse is Santon for Jose (though the gamble was fair, going for a young Italian international, and Jose has hardly got a look in at Liverpool recently). Carroll to Ba to Remy is debatable, but are all good in their own right imho.

No chance, he's far too devious to not know what he and Mike are achieving together. Just because the bloke wears glasses occasionally, you're not going to fool me into thinking he's clever enough to be knowingly devious like that. The guy's is a good manager in the greater scheme of things, but strikes me as a decent unsubtle reactionary, and not someone with the nous of a Mourinho or a Ferguson to be playing mind games (even on the supporters).

"but Newcastle offered Basel a good first offer and now him coming to us in the summer was in doubt if Basel & Newcastle agree a fee" Hot damn. What are we doing going around offering good first offers.

Do you know where in Kent? Sandwich probably, the fat cunt. Deal.

So long De Jong.

Get used to him making excuses as you put it. Doesn't mean he's not as desperate to win something as the rest of us.

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Whey, I can agree with the first but not the last bit of that. Cups sadly seem to come second to the Premiership. Personally I don't like or understand that. But we nearly overcame Man City in the LC, we looked set up to win the FA cup tie against Cardiff but buggered it up. I don't think we aimed to go out of either competition. It was only in October he contradicted the club’s money minded bods – who had said in the fans forum that cups were not a priority – by saying he wanted to win some silverware. Regarding Europe. If you remove any context from the quotes and repeat the idea often enough, it tends to stick. But while he clearly (like most clubs tbf) hates the format of the competition, it's not to the extent of not wanting to be part of it again. "We have the same points total as we did when we finished fifth after the same amount of games, so we have got to take that belief into the second half of the season and try to improve on it. "If we can, then we have a chance of Europe, and that must be a realistic goal for us in the position we are in at the moment." Asked if Europe is still a target given last season's difficulties, Pardew said: "Yes".

Except the players that make up one of the better teams we've had in recent decades.

Can't see it, but to be fair to you Arsenal were on less points than us at the same time last season. They managed it.

Ince gone.

Makes no sense to wait until all the other Premiership clubs also have that 60m cheque burning in their back pocket. Guess we'll have a ready made excuse for not investing in a hugely inflated transfer market. Makes no sense to us yeah, but it seems like classic Ashley though. Sense to us was spending some of what we were guaranteed to be receiving in the summer. How do you come to that conclusion? Most evidence points to a pretty canny policy to try and get deals in place well in advance. Caballa apparently for this summer, and a whole raft of players last summer which presumably because we had put the groundwork in were able to be brought forward.

“Monaco didn’t sign off the paperwork when we asked, and at the 11th hour it looks like they had a change of heart. To have worked so hard, gone out there to meet him and do a medical and then not complete the deal is a real kick in the nuts. I got mugged good and proper.” Allardyce has turned all cockerney.

Oh for fucks sake.

What, when, last summer? Far from chuffed now obviously, but I for one would have been less happy seeing him go to Arsenal for £10m than overseas in this rumoured deal tbh.

Did we magic up a top 5 quality side (according to at least one person on here) out of thin air? Ashley's not some evil lunatic ffs. If we can get better players for a realistic price, of course we'll invest. Where's your evidence that we'll ever spend more than we bring in on transfers? Eh, none. Not sure where you got that from, I'd be absolutely staggered if that happened as I can't see us spending more that the club can finance itself any more. I do believe the quality of the team has got progressively better over recent seasons. If that's the case, I'd say that's evidence we're not adverse to investing an in players and improving. You're correct but i think clubs see us coming now, we need to tweak our approach a bit. Yeah, I know what you mean. Thankfully I think there will always be good young players who want to test themselves in the Premier League, and I'm not sure how smaller clubs can protect themselves from that, just as we are struggling to retain Cabaye. The effect of losing Cabaye scares the shit out of me tbh. He seems so integral to our team both on and of the pitch since his arrival that you can see levels dropping no matter how decent Caballa might turn out to be if he comes. Hopefully someone can step up into his role.

Did we magic up a top 5 quality side (according to at least one person on here) out of thin air? Ashley's not some evil lunatic ffs. If we can get better players for a realistic price, of course we'll invest. Where's your evidence that we'll ever spend more than we bring in on transfers? Eh, none. Not sure where you got that from, I'd be absolutely staggered if that happened as I can't see us spending more that the club can finance itself any more. I do believe the quality of the team has got progressively better over recent seasons. If that's the case, then I'd say that's evidence enough that we're not adverse to investing in players and improving.

Did we magic up a top 5 quality side (according to some) out of thin air? Ashley's not some evil lunatic ffs. If we can get better players for a realistic price, of course we'll invest. I think we hit a perfect storm of conditions that season. Best way I can put it. He's not some mad scientist, but it's pretty widely accepted that he doesn't accept 5th place, and since he won't commit to pushing us above that, we have to settle for 6th-mid-table. And a half-assed attempts in the cups, which amount to nothing. The 5th thing's tongue in cheek. Chopey believes the current first team to be top 5 quality as it stands.