Teasy

Not really no, more likely it would be Modric coming here because we made the better offer (we offered a higher fee and better wages). Obviously we weren't prepared to take part in the dodgy deal and had Spurs not been prepared to do it either I'm sure his agent would have accepted the best financial package. Having said that, who cares?.. At the time I was excited by the possibility of the transfer, now I'm not that bothered, lets move on to other players. I'm just glad we weren't desperate enough to bend over and take it up the arse from the Mamic brothers.. unlike a certain other club.

I can see what you're getting at. Though its a bit over the top to compare us to Wolves and Sheff Wed My view on Portsmouth is that they're over extending themselves, they've already hit the limit of how far they can go (over 90% of revenue going on wages ) and now they're passing it which is very unwise. If they don't get Champions League Football next year they've got nowhere to go but down IMO.

I agree with Dave, when I saw the thread title I eagerly clicked the link, when I saw £5 million I was ecstatic, then I saw "NOTW" and came right back down to earth. Its a comic, pretty similar to the Beano but for a younger audience.. almost nothing they print is true unfortunately.

Whatcha talkin bout willis?

Yes its very astute to bow to a players agent/owner and let them keep control of the player while he's merely parked at your club before being moved on whenever they feel like it... just so you can beat your rivals to the signing..

Smith and Duff would be prime examples of 'why bother' players.

But obviously in secret Bilic was telling Modric the opposite...... What reason would Bilic have to praise us in public and say the opposite in private.. none what so ever. This is the typical "I came here because this is a massive club" bollocks you get from every player once they know for sure which club there joining.

I'm a bit confused here, you mention 3.5 million per year vs £2 million per year.. what do you mean?, wages?

Not really. Viduka is a luxury we can't afford, Emre isn't a luxury and never has been, we can afford him but he's pointless so why bother..

I don't think anyone's exactly starting a Emre hate campaign. People just have a problem with a certain person here making it sound like Newcastle United have held poor Emre back. He's spent 3 years here and had every opportunity to do well, he's even had the support of the fans despite his constant inconsistency and pathetic injury record (which frankly I don't even believe were all geniune). Its Newcastle United who should feel cheated and be looking for better, not Emre!

We're deluded because we don't agree with you that Newcastle United have been holding Emre back? Is that really what your saying here?

MaetihS, you arent a fan, by definition. You have absolutely nothing good to say about the club. Emre has done nothing for this club but waste his time and ours, well waste his ability anyway, I suppose getting paid £9 million for nothing isn't really a waste of time for him.. He leaves and what do you do, take the side of Emre and put this club down again. Kindly fuck off!

He needs a better club to show his skill?.. you really are a piss taker, have to be. Honestly the very idea that we've held the little c*** back is mind boggling and certainly not something any Newcastle fan would be stupid enough to believe. He doesn't need a better club, we need a better player, preferably someone who can play Football for more then 10 minutes a season.

They're paying him £52,000 per week?

He's a 70 minute man. When was the last time he was effective from the start? Going to make a loss? What on earth are you talking about? The Price being quoted in the Turkish Press is 5.5 M Euro's. That's £4.3 million, basically what we paid for him, I'd be extremely happy with that for the little waster. Especially considering we'll save another £3 million pounds a year on his exorbitant wages.

Slight exaggeration there

If we transfer listed him for 5 million Euro's and sold him for only 3.5 million Euro's I'd be quite disapointed. Of course getting rid of him even for free already saves nearly £3 million a year in wages which we're currently paying out to him for nothing. So overall I'd be ok with it, I just don't see why we should have sold him for so much less then our valuation.

Emre sign for Fenerbahce? Surely pigs flying is more likely, isn't he a Galatasaray hero and Fenerbahce there hated rivals..

Can get them much cheaper than that I'd imagine if you're willing to go with a used one. Unfortunately I'm not. You'd probably find one a bit cheaper if you kept checking ebay/kept track of auctions instead of just Buy it Now. That was the cheapest Buy it Now I could find yesterday.: Edit: Just found one for £130 that was just listed today. But I get the idea somehow that you won't accept a used box

Yes.

The payment from the FA won't deduct from the wage bill surely, if its included in the 2006-2007 accounts at all then it'll be part of the turnover. The total wage bill including all of Owen's wages was £62.5 million so the wage to turnover ratio was indeed 72%. The reason IMO for the difference in those figures is probably because Deloitte listed revenue figures in dollars at the 2007 exchange rate. So people using todays exchange rates to convert them to pounds are getting slightly higher revenue numbers (in which case just add a few percent to every club in the list getcarter posted).

there was a thread where someone brought up spurs spending in recent seasons but i could never find it again, i was going to ask the spurs resident ITK's how the club can continue spending at such a sustained rate? they balance out to some degree i'm aware but very recently the balancing out part seems to have been forgotten? genuine question like, not a piss take Look at the difference in the wage bill between Tottenham and Newcastle. There's your answer. (It's even worse than it looks because the figure quoted for Newcastle doesn't include £6.7m of Owen's salary, as the club received compensation from the FA for that amount.) yeah i get the wage bill part but what about the actual spend? 16m or so in january on 2 players, 20m on modric or whatever and the indications are they've not finished yet...last summer didn't they spend about 40m on bent, kaboul, zokora etc...? just wondering like...the cash can't come from nowhere can it? They've taken on about £32 million of debt in recent seasons.

Wigan? £3.5 million? mackems.gif The Mirror really are insane.

I don't think they'd get much less, but IMO his value could drop. Right now he's scored two goals on his debut for France and booked a ticket for Euro 2008, with a lot of people already hyping him up and predicting that he'll do very well in the tournament. Put him up for auction now and they could very easily get a few clubs willing to bid silly amounts in order to get him now in case he's out of reach after Euro 2008. If he falls on his arse in the competition those same clubs won't be panicking anymore. Other clubs may lose interest all together or move on to players who played much better in Euro 2008 that they hadn't seen much of before. Though obviously its unlikely he'll have a really poor competition, he'll probably play well in which case they'll end up getting at least what they could now or maybe a bit more.

Same box for only £166, no control though but can't imagine the remote being expensive. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Thomson-DSI8215-Sky-HD-Box-Satellite-Receiver-300gb_W0QQitemZ150252013062QQihZ005QQcategoryZ96971QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I've been thinking of getting a HD box as well. That way I can watch the free HD channels like the BBC/ITV HD ect while I wait for Sky One/Sky Sports and Movies HD to become free (no way am I paying the £10 subscription for them..).