Zero

Seriously how can you enjoy Spain match? It is fucking boring. It is a fucking negative tactics that the aim is to eliminating opponent's chance by having as much possession as possible. That is not Barca FFS.

Nah, Nasri should be dropped, not Ribery. Cabaye would fit in a lot better into the hole than Nasri, alongside with Benzema and Menez/HBA.

I am fucking sure if a player which cost 15m didnt play as a starter his value would drop significantly. 15m FFS.

One point the article got it right is we should not be done a Jose again. Luckily the clause is exercisable before the end of July instead of august.

If there is no Owen, Smith would be our worst signing for the last decade.

Bye. Thanks.

He was a mackem. That's enough.

We should make a cheeky bid for Sturridge.

Just sign them BOTH. We need covers anyway.

Nah, this, Hulk plays best on the right. Torres Hazard Mata Hulk Could play as striker if required, but his primary position is on the right. Thus the one who was affected most is Sturridge.

To be fair, at least Henderson deserved a call up more than Carrick, who even refused to be the back up player.

Quite match with your avator.

Face the reality. not easily replaceable If 16m is not enough to replace a back up striker, I have nothing to say anymore. Stop here Unbelievable.

It depends on who "we" is, "we" as a club should keep him and "we" as fans should support him. Nothing to disagree on the latter. So you think the club should keep Ba by matching the offer from other clubs? Fine, that is your stand. Just that I don't think Ashley would do so. I hope he stay too, just very unlikely.

Face the reality.

OK Mick, so what should we do?

Right, spend 12m on Ba. Ashley won't do it. Tell me why would he agree with this. Of course Ashley would be very happy if Ba is willing to stay under the current terms. Would Ba do so then?

I see you've cooked your figures even further. How do you get to 16 million for keeping Ba for crying out loud..?

I see you've cooked your figures even further. How do you get to 16 million for keeping Ba for crying out loud..? 1. "We don't have to persuade him to stay, he's under contract first and foremost" "I hope the club don't take your blasse approach to his contract position though, and fight tooth and nail to keep him." Sorry, I can't understand your words. And in addition, if football is simply playing the 11 best players in a team, I would stop watching it immediately. 2. So you are saying no club have come in and trigger the clause yet, and so at this moment we have nth to do, and do not need to evaluate the decision now? Man. Do you ever make any plan in your life? Obviously once an offer comes in, we have to make the decision. You can pray to God that nth happens and so no decision have to be made. 5. "Why do we have to start Ba?" If you don't mean Ba should play as subs, I apologize. But seems like you really forget what you have said. 6. Option a is we matched the offer that was expected to be offered by other clubs. If you don't know maths, I teach you, 16-4=12. Again you assume that nothing will happen this summer and Ba and his agent would just do nothing. I appreciate your optimism. In this case no discussion here is needed anymore, since nothing will happen. Great. Option b, well, still need proven top class Premiership striker nowadays? Isn't we proved that it is better to sign players elsewhere? Why would we actively sell Ba? I don't understand why you keep on accusing this on me. Of course we won't. The problem is now everyone is expecting a club to come in and trigger the release clause. What else can we do, except to match the contract offered by other clubs? My point is it doesn't worth to do. Get it? No, you don't know. My point is we need to spend an extra 12m in order to match the other clubs' offer to persuade Ba to stay, I don't recommend it, and I don't think Ashley would do it. The EXTRA cost for retaining Ba is 12m, and if you include the 4m salaries saved and the 5m transfer fees received, then totally we would have 21m to spend on another player. This is the true cost of option A. Cisse's transfer fees and wages totally cost us about 14-15m. I show this because I wanna let you know the money saved can really spend on a adequate replacement because the amount is really huge.

Continue here. 1. We don't have to start Ba? So you mean he would stay even if we don't give him a new contract and do not guarantee him a starting place? He is willing to give up the clause, give up the money, and stay here as a substitute. Serious? A guaranteed starting place is the minimum requirement to persuade him to stay. 2&3. True, too soon to tell. But sadly we can't let everything getting 100% clear before we made any decision. The decision of retaining Ba has to be done now. 5. OK I would give you that, but just curious if you say de Jong would not settle for starting from bench, why would you think Ba would accept that? And in addition, even if Spurs signed him I don't think Spurs would start him immediately. Every foreign players should have a few months for adapting the EPL, just like what we did to Santon. 6. If you have to include everything, then the ultimate question is either: a. Spend 16m on Ba with no resale value (either he got injured or just getting old) b. Spend as much as 21m (5m+cost saved above) on a replacement that have resale value after a few years (be realistic, Ashley won't invest all the money back, I personally take it as 15m, salaries included) No brainer for Ashley. I never said sth like "It's a good thing then that a replacement will be available for free, won't want to be rewarded a decent wage and is guaranteed to never be injured.". But then what I said is, if you regard Ba as a left winger, then he is really easy to be replaced. On the other hand, he couldn't be our first choice striker and has to sit on the bench until Cisse got injured. He also has Africa Cup to play and would be out for more than 1 month next season. If we have to spend so much on him just for a "backup", why not go to plan b and find a better replacement. Back to point 6, the money we saved is not only the 5m received from his disposal, but also his retaining cost and the resale value afterwards. Cisse's whole package (transfer fee + salaries) almost cost the same, you know?

Just for everyone's reference, simple maths. Assuming he is on 40k per week now as reported, currently he costs the club 40k * 52 weeks= 2m per annum With his current contract ending on 2014, the remaining costs is 4m. Now, if he could get a 4 year contract elsewhere with 80k per week (he could ask for this since the transfer fee is too low) then he would cost 80k * 52 weeks = 4m per annum, which is 16m totally. That's why the club would not offer Ba a new contract to take away the clause. The club have to spend 10m to retain his services, and this investment would become zero value if his knee get an injury.

Alright. 1. My original thought is to put Jonas there instead of Marveaux. We have 2 players who can/should play on the left and because we have to start Ba, Jonas was moved to the centre and was quite impressive. Thus what you said is correct, I actually didn't rely on him as a starter, but going forward I do expect him to be a starter. I rate Marveaux and he is more than a bench sub. 2. True. But back in Germany, he wasn't instructed to take so many defensive responsibilities. He is allowed to use most of his energy to attack. You may argue that it is due to tiredness after the whole season and the African Cup, but it is obvious that his game has dropped a lot during the last 10 matches. It is subjective but I don't think he really perform well on the left during attack. I appreciate his effort on defense though. In conclusion, I "accept" Ba to play on the left, but that is not something I am very impressed. That is just personal opinion. You can say you are very happy for his performance there. I can't. 3. That's why I said he should be our striker. He scored none after moving to the left, and didn't create much. Normally when you have 2 good strikers you should go with a 4-4-2. We actually tried, but it didn't work. They form a poor partnership, and by having only 2 central midfielders we revert back to hoof hoof hoof. I think no one here would want to try 4-4-2 again at this moment, and so the only position for Ba is on the left. You probably have to blame Pardew for not able to work out a 4-4-2, but the reality is we couldn't utilize Ba's ability as a striker now. I really rate Ba as a striker, but he has to play inside the penalty area instead of rushing back and forth on the left. That's actually Jonas work. 4. Yea, strongly agree. 5. So you are saying de Jong as too good to be a back up and Best is too bad to be? So who are you looking for? Anyway, you really have to discount the quality of strikers produced from Holland. Too many flops there. All the strikers there score for fun. Kuyt was top scorer before he moved to England, and you could see how "good" he is at scoring in EPL. Would you feel comfort to start de Jong now, even if he cost as much as 10m? No I don't. 6. Everybody starts doing it after we capture Cisse, Cabaye and Ben Arfa. Well, the latter two probably should not use the word "unearth". Anyway, historically the transfer fees in Bundesliga and Lique 1 are not high. That's why Bayern can always buy players cheaply from other local competitors, and why Arsenal can sign Sagna and Nasri with transfer fees under 5m. The trend is uprising though after Bayern spend so much on Gomez and Neuer, but still with better scouting we should be able to find a few more. Actually I rate Roux, the one we linked last summer. Ultimately we signed Cisse, which is better, but if we have chance we should try to snap him up. 7 & 8 & 9. Am I saying I want him to leave asap? We could only prepare for his departure, man. Certainly the best for us is he reject all those offers and stay here. But say if you are Ba would you stay? You are probably asking for the last contract in your career. You rely on this for your remaining life. The current club does not want to take the risk, and you could earn an extra 10m if you choose to leave (2.5m from transfer fee, 7.5m for extra salaries assuming he got 80k 4 years contract). Would you? I know he will leave. I am just explaining it is not a disaster in terms of our performance on the pitch, assuming that we are playing with our starting eleven. I am not saying we are better without him.

Should I reply point by point or just ignore them all?

I didn't worry much about replacement. The truth is even if there is no replacement, Marveaux could fill in the hole nicely, arguably better than Ba. Ba's real value to us is he could also play as striker when Cisse's injured, which means Ba is actually a backup player rather than starting eleven. It is a lot easier for to find a backup striker. de Jong is a good investment, Best could do a job as well, or unearthing some gems in Bundesliga or Lique 1 would just cost a few millions. What I worry is the negative effect on Cisse. The departure of his best buddy, the only mate from Senegal....and also, the money offered by the other club, etc.

We aren't willing to take that gamble. Someone else would, and give him a contract he wants. I don't blame anyone involved, it is just life. I genuinely think Ba loves his time here but he has to protect his life earning above everything now since one injury could end his career and that's it. I don't blame the club too because the thought of having another Smith in our squad for 3-4 more years with over 50k wages is too painful to imagine. Give him a great reception when he's back to St James. It's an inevitable divorce but there is still love between us.