Kanj

Sunderland

100%

3 flat CMs behind the front 3 should be more than enough cover for Ben Arfa (on his respective side). If that means Anita b/c of his intelligence and discipline over Sissoko, so be it. Cabaye should always be the main-stay of the 3 with a combination of Tiote, Anita, Sissoko if we never use Marveaux in that #10 role

Milan home top looks terrible - ruining the classic stripes. Our away kit(s) are going to have that fucking star on it - at least our home kit will probably be based off the home kit design of Italy and Kawaski with the lush collar.

Aye. Umbro never made a bad England keeper kit. Was referring to recent ones man,

Could you imagine?

To do what? Nobody moves or makes runs. To find the 1 or 2 runs that actually happen in a match? I'm of the thought process that he or HBA need be in the team; if that means more graft from Cabaye/Tiote/Anita/Sissoko - so be it.

The Italian Keeper kit has a nice spot for the number to be placed. Tragic that ours will have an off-centered wonga logo on top of it. Keeper kits are generally always shocking, right? I guess the England Umbro keeper kits were always clean and class.

It strengthens us if De Jong can regain his Dutch league form though...

Marv made the bench on Sunday when we played City.

Player amortization is f***ing idiotic imo. "Market value" should dictate that for players - just like in real estate the usage of cap-rates or multiples assist in valuing properties.

This is why I think we will sign some players this window.....the fact that we will need to replace a lot during the summer, so it makes sense to do some now and then some in the summer. This give better continuity and less disruption than trying to bed in 6 new players in the summer. Our board does not do a single thing that make sense fellas. They simply don't. They only sanction deals that makes sense. *Makes sense = on the rock bottom cheap for out of contract players or soon-to-be out of contract players. Reactionary transfers are the norm for the board -- sell, then buy (or loan).

UV may be backing up what I said yesterday then. I still maintain that Mike Ashley would have access to fantastic debt terms and could have easily leveraged the club with a favorable loan or credit facility and his maximum exposure would have been minimized greatly.

Rumor posted. Rumor denied. Matter of minutes too.

Wish we could bring both Cortese + Poch here

Documented note payable to Mike Ashley so he has maximum equity stake and can prove to any potential buyer the value of the club includes the payment of interest free debt to MASH?

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ? Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity. The main two things that due diligence would have revealed were that the debt was repayable on a change of ownership (that's a pretty common condition but its not always the case) and the club was in the process of losing about £30 million for the year. Without being entirely sure why he bought us (and no one is) it's not easy to call whether he would have cracked on with the takeover if he was aware of those two issues. The club is actually in a far better state and worth a lot more now than when he bought it that's for sure. Whether its worth more than he paid for it is another matter. Not knowing the terms of the loans exactly, he could have refinanced the debt OR put debt on the club at more favorable times and taken advantage of low interest rates and crawled back some of his cash. Would make it easier for him to sell as well if he was to get favorable financing due to his padded balance sheet. There's no reason for us to be "debt-free" by the way - we could easily have a favorable debt encumbrance and it would lower some of Mike's exposure.

Red Bull Villains

dear god, the man is business savvy but by christ that was one mad decision. Is the problem the Business Man in Ashley, or the Fan in us? Paying whatever it takes to get a signing is Shepardesque or Sunderlandesque. Getting held to ransom by other clubs simply raises the amount we pay, and decreases our ability to buy players with the ability we need. Of course, there are exceptions to be made, but not every player is that exception. Theres a 20 mile gap between those two scenarios, surely you can see it? I do see it......but I also see it as a gray area (not black or white) and the question about where black turns to white is somewhere in the gray area. What I hope is that the club do make some exceptions where they see true value.......and then hold firm on some of the others which are a bit more "Meh" such as perhaps Gomis. I think this is happening (but we just don't see the wheels churning). I do believe that we are more on the side of "opportunistic" and "value driven" than the "just pay a bit more to get the player signed". We've been holding firm for a bit too long now. All of our transfers are "good deals" in terms of money spent to bring them in but we've no doubt missed on better talent b/c we've not wanted to pay the going-rate. Many transfer fees these days are relative to what you want to achieve IMO and then there are of course the ones that people will say are over priced....

Pretty sure he's right footed as well

Thought we had the perfect left sided winger in a 4-3-3 when we signed him. But we had Owen & Shearer in addition to signing an out-and-out winger in Solano so we were never suited to him. Had much simpler opinions those days man

Thought we had the perfect left sided winger in a 4-3-3 when we signed him.

Didn't Hatem forgive De Jong pretty quickly as well? Saying its football, etc? Don't recall the details exactly - like it actually matters. Hopefully France will benefit from having a more hard working less cunt of a player make the squad in his place.

Everyone making this sound like Mapou broke the fuckers leg.

MYM has attempted to apologize but Samir hasn't returned or answered the calls. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/newcastle-united/10570787/Newcastle-United-defender-Mapou-Yanga-Mbiwa-accused-of-setting-out-to-injure-Samir-Nasri.html