Teasy

Financial Fair Play will make a difference as long as they really follow through with the plan, its only the extent of the difference that's up in the air. Clubs will always find a way to spend beyond their true revenues (inflating revenues with dodgy sponsorships ect) but this will at least impose some limits. For instance under the new rules there's no way something anywhere near the scale of Man City can happen again (a club with a revenue somewhere around £70m a year that managed to spend as if they're revenue was £500m a year). No idea if the Premier League will also impose their own rules, if they do they'd need to use severe points deductions as the deterrent. Because obviously fines are completely pointless.

Didnt a lot of people do it last season? Praising Raylor and Pardew and saying he was right in benching Ben Arfa after the Brighton game because he was a lazy cunt or to lesser extents obviously? Remember having plenty of discussions during the whole season about Ben Arfa with loads of people saying that he wasnt fit and so on and wouldnt be good enough and so on. I remember a few people happy to leave it to those working with him day in day out to make the call, and not fall into the camp that said Pardew didn't rate HBA, or that he actually rated Raylor more. Can't say I remember anyone, nevermind loads of people, saying that 'he wouldnt be good enough and so on'. I can't remember anyone saying he was shit, but I do remember a certain "fucking moron" in the original thread claiming that Ben Arfa was "possibly just slightly above average" and having a go at people for saying he's gifted

Big talk Rudi, big talk

Yeah but Shepherd paid a tenner for a dr robotnik figurine at the same car booty.

I really don't blame Lille. They were prepared to sell him. Our offer is fucking terrible if they've already lowered their asking price from €10m to €8m. So much for Ashley "being galvanised by last season and willing to push on". I don't blame Lille for not being happy about us not offering the money they want. But that doesn't make our offer terrible, certainly not from our own perspective if we've already managed to get them to come down from 10m Euro's to 8m. We may yet managed to get them to meet us in the middle at 7m Euro's, lets wait and see.

We have shown so many times that we will not pay a penny above what we value a player at. If Lille don't back down, we won't sign him. What do we value him at though? We offered 5m Euro's, but we mustn't have valued him at that because we then went to 6m Euro's, do we value him at 6m or will there be another bid in a week or so?, we'll have to wait and see.

Well they aren't actually moving in opposite directions, they're actually very slowly moving in the same direction. Its just weather one or both of them stop before they meet in the middle.

If we'd offered 7m Euro's first time around they'd probably be holding out for 10m right now. It seems like our low ball offers have brought the price down if the French press are to be believed, it is frustrating though.

Other than your comparison being way off I agree (come on £8m offer for Tiote is hardly comparable to offering nearly £5m for Debuchy). IF this is our final offer I won't be a very happy boy But we'll see.

I don't know if he's serious or not, not really bothered either way, but I appreciate your concern..

Or he might think if he isn't going to get the publicity of playing for France that he might need to go to a higher profile club to achieve this. I doubt he's a moron to be honest. You cant bite that easy Ya wah?

Or he might think if he isn't going to get the publicity of playing for France that he might need to go to a higher profile club to achieve this. I doubt he's a moron to be honest.

That ignores the rest of the money we're spending on him. We'll be lucky to get £3m for Simpson and 800K added to what we've already bid is £5.6m for Debuchy. Not that I disagree he's worth more than £4.8m (£5.6m would still be a steal IMO) just being pedantic really

If we'd offered £5.3m they may have accepted it or seen it as a sign of desperation on our part and held out for £6m or more, we don't know. I'll join you in your wild speculation by suggesting the possibility that if we weren't being such "tight bastards" Lille would have been asking for more than £6m for a player like Debuchy to begin with. Let alone potentially being willing to let him go for just over £5m. What we're doing is bartering and if we did end up getting him for £5.3m we'd have done a good job of it IMO. IF this bid is rejected and its our last bid I'll join you in moaning about the situation, but not until then.

Unless we're sticking a minimum-release clause in his contract like Ba but for a tidier sum. That would only benefit the player/his agent though wouldn't it? If the fee's set at something like £10m though, he has a class season and a bigger gun comes in and they stand to get an extra couple of million. Again though its of no advantage to us so there's no reason to do it. With Ba we allowed it because we started him off on lowish wages due to his knee problem. So it took that to convince him to sign. Debuchys desperate to be here so there's no reason to offer a release clause.

We pay the transfer fee all in one go, but that doesn't mean we never offer performance bonuses on top of the fee.

Has he become a worse player in the time we've spent trying to sign him like?..

Ben Arfa? Coloccini as well.

Yeah I hear she does alot of cycling. She's canny nice looking as well. EDIT: Fuck me I can't decide what she does, think I changed from cycling to swimming and back twice..

Of course, but it's not easy for a club like Lille to replace a France international and probably their best player. I have no problem with the way Lille are doing this. It's what we have said about our club earlier. The the replacement in before selling the player. The only way to do it. They're not a club that can attract great players and at the same time their best players want to leave. It sucks for them but it's reality. The last two seasons they have brought in Roux, Payet, Kalou, and Marvin Martin. Honestly, they've replaced their outgoings quite well. It is a very well-run club. Promising young players yes (except Kalou) but not great players (yet). That's about what they can expect as a club. Buy promising players and develop them. A bit like us then really. We certainly run the club in a similar way at the moment, though that's were the similarity ends.

Its not just a case of his worth in general though, its also what he's worth to us. As a first choice striker that fits the way you want your side to play I'd agree he's worth somewhere near £15m (that's what I thought he was worth when Liverpool bought him). But IMO he shouldn't be a starter for us and doesn't suit the way we should be looking to setup our side. So with that in mind he's not worth near £15m to us (even £10m would feel wrong to me unless it has no effect at all on other transfers).

Sky Sports News reckon West Ham are offering Liverpool £2m as a loan fee and £16m to take him permanently if they stay up

Ok that makes more sense.

Source?, first it was supposed to be 25%, than people claimed 25% of anything over 35M million (which seems pointless) and now its 12% of anything over 35 million.