Teasy

£2.7 million at the current exchange rate, I've got no problem with that price for a good player with a lot of experience who can sort out the left side of our defence for the next couple of years. I think the Marca article mentioned another 1 million Euro's to be paid based on apearances/success, but still that's only another £670,000 and if its paid it would mean he's been a big success for us, which is fine with me

How have you come to that conclusion exactly? He is just as injury prone but we also have the games hhe will miss after his red cards! In the last 8 seasons, since signing for Newcastle, Dyer has played 222 games. Smith has played 291 in the same time.. Smith is a bit injury prone maybe, but not in the same league as Dyer.

Instantly discredits anything else there.. Do you get-recognize-understand sarcasm at all? The Guardian is merely recounting the rumours that are being reported elsewhere-- and pointing out that some of them are nuts. I know where they picked up the rubbish about selling Martins, I would like to know who originally reported the link with Thuram. I don't understand sarcasm because I won't take a rumour seriously which is written in an article that routinely post rumours they know aren't true as a joke?

He already showed what he can do against Juve..

Instantly discredits anything else there..

Heskey is a much better striker than Smith when hes on form. When hes off form, Smith just about shades it, but theres not much in it - and this is when Heskey is in his shell and everything he does looks poor. Emile Heskey hasn't been on form since 2002 though Last season he almost single handedly kept Wigan up. Even think he out-scored Martins in the league as well. AFAIK Heskey scored 8 goals in all competitions for Wigan last season, all of which were in the league. Martins got 11 in the league and 17 total.

Smith wouldn't be my first choice but he will give us something different, sometimes you can play brilliant football and for some reason it just doesn't happen for you, at least Smith will give us a bit of a battering ram to unsettle the opposition defence, I quite liked him when he was at Leeds but don't think he's really developed that much at Man U. If we get him then I'll reserve judgement on him and see how we play him and how he does. I think Heskey is a better striker than Smith, I reckon Abdoulaye Faye is a better midfielder than Smith, for an extra £1m or whatever, you could have two better squad players than the single one doubling up. Heskey and Smiths goal scoring records are pretty much the same. Also Smith does have the age advantage (26 instead of 29 like both Hesky and Faye). Also two players would likely cost more in wages. But appart from that you've got a point, just replace Heskey with anyone but Heskey and I'd probably agree

Rozehnal and Taylor are both capable defenders. Even though I loath him, you have to count Carr as established as well. Carr looked good against Juve, but he's got some way to go to convince me he's actually a capable defender. Difference between capable and established. Well yeah, but considering you replied to my post about capable defenders saying that "Carr is established as well" I assumed you meant established to mean capable in this case..

Rozehnal and Taylor are both capable defenders. Even though I loath him, you have to count Carr as established as well. Carr looked good against Juve, but he's got some way to go to convince me he's actually a capable defender.

Rozehnal and Taylor are both capable defenders.

According to someone on another board Allardyce also said: "by the end of today I think a deal will be done for Dyer and that'll solve both our and his problems - Dyer will be closer to his family and I will have that money to spend in the market tomorrow on defenders" Any truth in this or has it been twisted to wind people up? It would be quite an odd contradiction to say that "there's been no problem with money being made available", and then say "now we've sold Dyer I've finally got some money!!" Especially in the same interview

How's Smith injury prone, he had a horrific injury that wasn't down to his body unlike Dyer who pulls every muscle going, i won't go into detail. Well I don't know, what is his injury history. My first thought on him was "a bit injury prone", but I could be wrong. Of course either way he's not as injury prone as Dyer as I said. I just had him down as the type of player who will play around 30 games a season rather then 50.

I have to say I won't be too impressed if Dyer's replacement is Smith. To compare them, both seem injury prone (though Dyer more so then Smith) and both have excellent stamina. On the positive side for Smith you have more hunger, more tenacious, better finisher (?), two years younger and will likely cost less in wages. But on the minus side he's nowhere near as quick as Dyer and has less flair. Seems like a bit of a sideways step to me personally. But if Sam wants Smith and he gets him I suppose I'll be happy that he's gotten one of his transfer targets. After all its no good us wishing our manager doesn't sign the players he wants because we don't rate them, trust in Sam!

So what you're saying is that as long as Man City fans don't mind a few thousand murders and the local papers don't mind being supressed under threat of death then everything will be fine? well no-one's complaining about Ashley's Indonesian sweat shops Nobody complained about Freddy's either Freddy owned Adidas? why weren't we told? sounds like macbeth dropped the ball again No but Freddy did have a deal for shirts to be made in those kind of conditions, as do most Football clubs.. Also he used to go down there and whip the workers into action himself Oh and Ashley only had a 3% stake in Adidas. So he only had 3% blame in those sweat shops

No he isn't that good right now (though it could be argued that he is in the current market, look at Bent), but he still has at least 5 years until he hits his peak age. He's easily worth a bit more then we paid for him right now, who knows what he'll be worth in a couple of years.

So what you're saying is that as long as Man City fans don't mind a few thousand murders and the local papers don't mind being supressed under threat of death then everything will be fine? well no-one's complaining about Ashley's Indonesian sweat shops Nobody complained about Freddy's either

Whenever I change a Wiki entry its changed back again within a day... obviously there's some obsessive people around

No way do Sevilla want £5.4 to £8 million for him. They'd have to be insane to ask for that. He's nearly 32 now and has only one year left on his contract. He could be Ronaldinho and he wouldn't cost close to that in those circumstances. Basically, I don't believe that Wiki comment in the slightest...

So what you're saying is that as long as Man City fans don't mind a few thousand murders and the local papers don't mind being supressed under threat of death then everything will be fine?

They're counting goals he's scored when he was 9 years old... what an absolute load of toss mackems.gif

Since when does "would consider a move" actually mean "would welcome a move"...

Surely this bloke hasn't actually chosen Sochaux over us?? If its confirmed that we were in for him and he went there instead I'll begin to have some serious worries about this summer. Could this be an example of what Allardyce was referring to when he talked about the people upstairs not acting fast enough in transfers? Thinking we've got all the time in the world to sign a player while other clubs move in quickly and seal the deal..

If Everton really is his preferred destination over us then I hope he fucks off there to be honest. Little shit bag that he is..

Is this a wind-up btw? I suspect not. This is the line that the Luque fanboys are now taking. "Ok so you were right, he actually IS crap. But he scores goals!" The only people changing there story are the Luque haters with there new line being "Ok so you were right, he actually can score goals, but they weren't great goals so they don't count..."

He played ok in the first 15-20 minutes, challenged well in the air, won a few decent flick on headers and generally looked more confident. After that he seemed to do less and less as the minutes went by before being taken off. Seems that he must have gotten the injury earlier but tried to play on for a bit before deciding that he couldn't continue.