Teasy

Then we'd have a backup player on low wages who we could move on to a Championship side if neccesary.

And yet we're not in for Aaron Maclean or George Boyd from Peterbrough who are apparently available for same price as Beckford... Aaron Maclean? You'd really want us to go for that kind of mediocrity? Think I'd rather take a chance on Beckford then either of those, but I'd have a fit if we signed Maclean.

To be fair, the snow in that - rather excellent, if I may say so ! - pic of the pitch, is a sprinkling. Its 8" deep in most pitches up and down the country at LEAST - lot more in others - and the same on roads and pathways outside. These days of litagation lunacy, clubs dare not take the risk. At least Reading did it early to stop a LOT travelling. That's because they took breaks every 15-20 mins in the first half to clear the pitch of snow. There were over a metre snow outside in Tromsø that day, and most of the winter iirc. This was supposed to be a proffesional game of Football yeah? Not jumpers for goals posts down the local park

Should be pretty soon, the last set of accounts were released early to mid January 2009.

£268m, not £300m.

So we pay him higher wages and a larger signing on fee in the summer for 28 less games?, and thats IF we can even sign him in the summer. The question here is do we really want the player?, if we do we should look at what we think the player is worth based on his ability and do what's neccesary to sign him. If we think he's worth £2m and also believe thats what we'll have to offer to get him then we shouldn't let the fact that he's out of contract in six months get in the way of the deal.

You seem to be forgetting that Beckford is a League 1 player. It's not like a top player running down their contract and then getting a huge signing on fee and a big fat weekly wage. Also, if Beckford is so good how come no other clubs are beating a path to his door? He's a gamble. One that may or may not pay off. I'm not happy for the club to pay that fee and those wages and you are. Neither of our opinions will affect what happens in reality. Its all relative, £15k isn't what you pay for a top player either. Fact is unless his form for Leeds nosedives we've got very little chance of being able to pick him up for free in the summer on the same wages we're offering now. If he ends the season with 30 plus goals we'll also have some real competition for his signature. I'm not trying to convince you to agree with my valuation of Beckford either. I'm not expert on the player. All I'm trying to say to you is that waiting until the summer isn't going to save us much money IMO. That's assuming £2m would get him now of course.

Begs the question, why did he hand a request in if he could have sat tight and signed a better contract in June? Something not right about this deal. Not sure what it is. Probably because he can already triple his wages here and play in a league above right away and almost certainly in the Premiership next season. I don't see what could be wrong with it to be honest.

As always as soon as the player becomes free his wage demands will increase and he'll want a massive signing on fee. So really the question is should we sign him at all, because we won't get him for much less then £2m and £15k a week IMO no matter when we go for him.

What if he doesnt want to leave his wages here to go back to the Championship if we tried to sell him? Thats assuming that the club would ever do that....we all know they wont sell him in the summer tbh. £15k isn't at all out of reach for Championship clubs, many players in this league already get more then that.

What if the loan signing will score a couple of goals while the permenant signing will get 15+? We should go for the best player we can get as long as his value can easily increase and his wages aren't high. The fact that his contract runs out in 6 months doesn't mean he won't easily be worth £2m+ to us. "IF" What if the loan signing scores 15+ and Beckford scored a couple? To me, paying more than £2m for the unproven Beckford is a massive gamble. Paying him £15K a week is also mad. Sign him up for a 3 year contract and find out he doesn't cut it in the Championship/Premiership. There's a chance Beckford could turn out to be a Bellamy but there's also a chance he could be a David Healy. How the hell would we be able to sell Beckford if we bought him for £2M+ and then put him on £15K a week and he flopped for us? The clubs who'd want him wouldn't be able to offer him wages he'd accept. He'd be to us like David Healy is for Sunderland. That was a hypothetical question meant for you to answer. As in if you believe Beckford will score more then a loan signing surely you would go for him regardless of his contract situation? If Hughton thinks Beckford will get us significantly more goals then any loan signing he should go for him and not some poor second or third choice simply because theres a chance we could get him free in the summer. Fair enough, if you really believe there's a chance Beckford would flop in the Championship then we shouldn't go for him full stop, nowt to do with his contract.

Are you saying if his contract wasn't up in the summer you'd happily see us pay millions for him? But because its up in the summer you'd rather we go after a poor second or more likely third choice loan signing? In the summer numerous clubs will come around for Beckford and we'll either miss out or end up paying him astronomical wages/signing on fee so we might not end up saving anything. We should go for the best player we can get as long as his value can easily increase and his wages aren't high IMO. The fact that his contract runs out in 6 months doesn't mean he won't easily be worth £2m+ to us.

I see no problem paying £2m+ for Beckford. IMO if he shows he can do it in the Championship in the remainder of this season we could sell him for more then that in the summer if needs be.

Agree with this. He's not the answer to our prayers although him coming here and banging in 10 between now and May would probably see us promoted. Problem is you've got a player on a longish contract for large(ish) money who is compltely untried in the PL. Haven't seen him too often but when i have seen him he's not looked like a PL player. There has to be a cut-off point and I think £1.5m for a player who will be worth nothing in 5 months time is a good offer. We need to stick to our guns and if that means losing out on him and getting someone else on a short-term loan to fill the gap then so be it. Don't like to see us held to ransom over the like of Beckford. According to most we're going to give him £15k a week, three times what he gets at Leeds but nowhere near big money to us.

Viana a fan's favourite?? No-one liked Viana. Which is a shame because he was actually quite good. There was definitely a time when Viana was a fan favourite. He wasn't liked by the end of his Newcastle career. Lua Lua was another fan favourite. The crowd have a history of liking players who take the headless chicken approach to the game. Probably because we like to see players run at the opposition (hence why everyone got excited about Pancrate when he first played). We like any player that's good or at least puts some effort in. But when most of your team has the do fuck all approach to the game the headless chicken can look great in comparison. By the way, you're not saying you think Viana took the headless chicken approach are you?

Was reading a thread on one of their forums earlier and one of the chumps said that we had no history and have only had a big stadium for the last 15 years Fucking clueless.

Did he just mention £1.8m was the players wage bill for the month or did I mis-hear that?

No confirmaton of this at the moment, don't say this is yet more bullshit?

I was just about to mention the possibility of handing in a transfer request. Hope its true, surely they have to start being realistic if he's officially asking to leave.

Assuming an owner who can actually run a club properly (as none will be profitable without that) us and the Spuds would have the best chance. Appart from Arsenal of course who are already profitable. With some luck Villa could do but they don't have the potential us and Spuds do. Portsmouth are a club who simply can't hope to ever make a profit in this league. So I agree nobody's going to come in and save them unless they find a rich Portsmouth fan desperate enough to throw tens of millions at the club to keep it alive.

At least we'll be back in the Premiership, when Portsmouth go down I doubt they'll ever come back.

I meant there's very little point in me arguing about it. Since not only is it pretty much impossible to know which club needs to move the player on more but its also of little to no importance if you accept that they both need to sell.

IMO he'll be released in the summer.

Well there's very little point in arguing which club needs something most when talking about two different situations like so whatever

My sole comment was 'Leeds do not need to sell as much' whatever their reasoning(again) is their business not mine Yeah and my opinion is they absolutely do need to sell but they're bluffing that they don't in order to get more money