Teasy

You reckon they've decided to allow a player not to wear the clubs sponsor then? Because that seems about as likely as Messi parachuting in to St James's to announce he's signed a 10 year contract. I'm not sure what else would allow him to resolve this without backing down.

He can't get another contract like, its time to make a stand if that happens.

Obviously he's a long way from good enough for us, but lets not exaggerate too much. The lad raped the Championship while he was fit, so he's certainly above league one standard (or was in the past anyway).

38 days? EDIT: I see, start of the season, you think Kinnear cares about the start of the seasons, its Pardews problem no doubt. Well I would like us to get some players in before the season starts, you to kow, to get used to Pardews game plan and tactics. Fucking hell that's the last thing we want I wish players could just ignore him. But yeah getting players in before the first game should be one of the priorities.

38 days? EDIT: I see, start of the season, you think Kinnear cares about the start of the seasons, its Pardews problem no doubt.

I think everyone knows what I think of Bent. So needless to say I agree he's not a 50k per week player. But he does have time left on his Villa contract and another month or so of the window left for another club to come in. I can understand why he wouldnt agree to half his current wages at this stage. I suppose we could wait until later in the window to try to lower his demands. But if we want him now I dont thino we can expect much more than a 30k per week discount. Of course my own solution would be to just leave the fucker there full stop..

Apparently he's on £80k at Villa (?).

Id snap their hands off if we were offered £17m for Cisse, as long as we've already brought someone in or at least have a few weeks of the windows left. Good striker, but he's not worth near that and clearly either wants out or a new contract. Unfortunately we won't get an offer that good.

Why? I think the lowest we ever got last season was 6/1 and that was with us only a couple of points above relegation.

Worse player, one and a half years older, higher wages, ridiculous £8m fee.

Pathetic article that like.

He's so calm. "Shhh, don't fight it, it'll all be over soon"

To be fair it was reported almost from day one that we'd have a problem with the Muslim players over this. Cisse was consistently mentioned. Best I could find on google (from 1/9/2012 to 1/6/2013) was a few articles from the start by local clerics/imams about it, usual daily mail troublemaking although I think there was a telegraph article in there too. Nothing actually from the players themselves. And then radio silence. I reserve the right to be disappointed in him for leaving it to the 11th hour to start this. It was reported properly about Cisse having an issue with it on 11th June. It's now just about the 24th July and precisely nothing has been done about it. It could be described as the 11th hour in terms of the deal being announced last year, but there's much more to say it's just gross incompetence that this hasn't been What do we do to sort this within a guarenteed time scale then? Give him a huge pay rise to negate his beliefs? Cancel a multi million pound contract for one player? Transfer list him to ensure we recieve a pittance when he goes? We shouldn't have signed the contract in the first place, so aye, that one. Ah ok we'll just tell that to Wongas lawers and they'll understand I'm sure. Seriously what does anyone here realistically think Cisse is looking for as a solution. New contract morally makes no difference and he shouldnt get one anyway. We're legally contracted to to Wonga and if Cisse wants to get away so badky why doesnt he hand in a transfer request? Because he'll lose his loyalty bonus, which he's probably hoping to earn some heavy interest on, if he doesnt gamble is first. Come on this is ludicrous. We all know Ashley and thd rest are insidious as fuck. But Cisses actions here stink to high heaven. Its amazing that people cant see how wrong one side is simply because they hate the other side so much. Anyway I'm bored of this shit.. How do you know he wants to get away so badly? Or are you just assuming this? I didn't mean he's desperate to leave so he's using the situation to engineer a move (a bigger contract would probably sooth his morales..). What I meant was that if his mind is made up on refusing to wear the clubs sponsor then there's no other solution but to leave. Thats something he surely has to realise. So then why not just put in a transfer request?

Aye. The two obvious compromises as I see it are: 1. Allow the player to wear no logo etc, or 2. Sell the player and find a replacement in an appropriate timescale. Neither has been done. As for Cisse only raising a pittance if we accepted we had to sell him, I'm pretty sure the figure we would have received six weeks ago is roughly comparable to what we'd get now after all this anyway - neither scenario is conducive to getting the best price. The only difference is the club is suffering in the meantime. Funny, that. You make it sound so easy, we should have just pushed the sell Cisse button 6 weeks ago and had done with it. You have no idea what kind of fee we could have gotten had we effectively put Cisse on Gumtree. Nor do you know how likely a solution seemed from the talks they had with Cisse at the time. You could equally say Cisse is responsible for not simply putting in a transfer request if he's really genuine about all this. He knows theres no solution but to leave and he knew it months ago. No criticism for him there then? Saying we could allow him not to wear the logo is pie in the sky. As a club we'd effectively be advertising that Wonga are morally reprehensible every game he played, well worth the tens of millions I'm sure.

To be fair it was reported almost from day one that we'd have a problem with the Muslim players over this. Cisse was consistently mentioned. Best I could find on google (from 1/9/2012 to 1/6/2013) was a few articles from the start by local clerics/imams about it, usual daily mail troublemaking although I think there was a telegraph article in there too. Nothing actually from the players themselves. And then radio silence. I reserve the right to be disappointed in him for leaving it to the 11th hour to start this. It was reported properly about Cisse having an issue with it on 11th June. It's now just about the 24th July and precisely nothing has been done about it. It could be described as the 11th hour in terms of the deal being announced last year, but there's much more to say it's just gross incompetence that this hasn't been What do we do to sort this within a guarenteed time scale then? Give him a huge pay rise to negate his beliefs? Cancel a multi million pound contract for one player? Transfer list him to ensure we recieve a pittance when he goes? We shouldn't have signed the contract in the first place, so aye, that one. Ah ok we'll just tell that to Wongas lawers and they'll understand I'm sure. Seriously what does anyone here realistically think Cisse is looking for as a solution? New contract morally makes no difference and he shouldnt get one anyway. We're legally contracted to Wonga and if Cisse wants to get away so badly why doesnt he hand in a transfer request? Because he'll lose his loyalty bonus, which he's probably hoping to earn some heavy interest on, if he doesnt gamble it first. Come on this is ludicrous. We all know Ashley and thd rest are insidious as fuck. But Cisse's actions here stink to high heaven. Its amazing that people cant see how wrong one side is simply because they hate the other side so much. Anyway I'm bored of this shit..

Ok, how would you avoid it? Also it amazes me frankly that you think a guy thats being paid millions to play Football has no responsibility in sorting out a work issue. Both parties are responsible.

To be fair it was reported almost from day one that we'd have a problem with the Muslim players over this. Cisse was consistently mentioned. Best I could find on google (from 1/9/2012 to 1/6/2013) was a few articles from the start by local clerics/imams about it, usual daily mail troublemaking although I think there was a telegraph article in there too. Nothing actually from the players themselves. And then radio silence. I reserve the right to be disappointed in him for leaving it to the 11th hour to start this. It was reported properly about Cisse having an issue with it on 11th June. It's now just about the 24th July and precisely nothing has been done about it. It could be described as the 11th hour in terms of the deal being announced last year, but there's much more to say it's just gross incompetence that this hasn't been Ok, lets pretend they're competent for a moment. What should they have done to sort this within a guarenteed time scale? Give him a huge pay rise to negate his beliefs? Cancel a multi million pound contract for one player? Transfer list him to ensure we recieve a pittance when he goes?

What should we be blasting Wonga for? Just existing? Erm, yes? They exist and they're shit. They're also sponsoring us. Right, but that's kind of a given. You can't really 'blast' a company for existing. I don't like them, but they aren't breaking any laws and moral judgement on them is subjective at best. We're not likely to force out a sponsor by objecting to it, and I doubt strength of feeling would be strong enough anyway. Nobody should be blasting Cisse either mind. What do you mean you can't blast a company for existing? You sort of can when their entire existence is that they are a fucking modern day loan shark, but that's besides the point. Instead of directing the focus on Cisse's hypocrisy direct it on what a shit odious company Wonga are and how his moral or religious beliefs are perfectly reasonable. If anything is going to force some action from either Mike or Wonga it's the latter, a character assassination against Cisse just strengthens their position. You really believe this is definitely all to do with Cisse being so genuinely appalled by Wonga that he just cant bring himself to wear the shirt.

Obviously Cisse had no idea about the sponsorship until one day it appeared on his chest, or he believed it would never really happen despite the multi million pound deal being signed.. Club just sprung it on him a couple of weeks ago, its that evil Ashley I tell you, taking the pjss out of a geniune, loyal and devoutly religious man like Papiss Casino Cisse.

Did Ben Arfa play any part?

Still have some faith that if given a good run in the side and told to play to his strengths (destroy/play it simple) Tiote can still be a player for us.

Is Ben Arfa involved?

In your opinion, you're wrong though IMO. But just so we don't get hung up on what a "quality Footballer" actually is. Lets just say Owen could drop out of the box, control the ball well, keep it and link up with others. Something I'd be amazed to see Bent do. By the way I don't have any problem with Bent. He might be a lovely bloke, and to repeat myself for the millionth time he's a class finisher and for the right club he'd be a good buy. But he basically offers 0 outside the area, in fact he offers zero in the area appart from finishing chances others create for him. Do you disagree with that?

No mate, we're talking about Owen not Bent. If you reckon Owen couldn't play you mustn't have watched him very closely. He was primarily a poacher, and did spend most of his time in that role, but when he did venture out of the box he could certainly play and did so for us. I actually remember times when people here were surprised at his quality on the ball because they'd been under the impression he was nothing but a poacher. Bent on the other hand really doesn't have anything else to his game IMO.

Owen was nowt like Bent though, he was a quality Footballer for a start, despite how much most of us hate him.