Rich

Cisse will rape Coloccini while Bassong gets bashed around by Jones, unfortunately. Welcome back to pessimism!

These two for me as well. Have to admit Smith had been one prior to that as well.

Not necessarily.

Good attitude, seems intelligent enough, looks genuinely delighted to be here. Seems a bit overawed by the prospect of making his debut in one of the biggest league matches in our history but I actually like to see that. Impressed with all of that for starters, just hope he proves me wrong and impresses me where it matters as well. In the bedr... I mean on the pitch.

Always nice to have players who actually want to play for the club, an' all.

Will hopefully be a good signing. Think he's fairly average but like others have said it's an option from dead ball situations and when Beye is back and playing regularly he possibly won't be in the side anyway but he's definitely good enough as "back-up" to Prince Habib. Suppose despite my reservations about him and Nolan as far as pushing us on goes, they are better than what we have (i.e. no cover at right-back and the likes of Butt/Geremi in the centre of midfield.)

Rings a bell - see Joey Barton. Hope he will be a great signing but past experience tell me that playing for Newcastle usually means you become shit! How has Barton became shit? He's still a good player, he just never plays because he's either injured or in jail. He's been a fucking disaster. Hardly pulled up trees when on the pitch as well, although to be fair to the psychopath he's probably never been 100% fit.

Interesting I suppose. Can't help but feel these lads were well down our hitlist like. Pray to Jesus they do the business.

at the same time theyre not THAT much better are they? If we're talking purely league positions then no, they're not that much better off. But with all of the other stuff to take into account I think it's safe to say they are. Another £60k per week player who'll be a major waste of resources I'm guessing. Whos said he will get £60k a week? Read. Better. (That's if he agrees to join/the offer is accepted in the first place.)

Think the OP was asking if he's got the wealth available at the moment due to the financial climate. Surely fair enough?

at the same time theyre not THAT much better are they? If we're talking purely league positions then no, they're not that much better off. But with all of the other stuff to take into account I think it's safe to say they are. Another £60k per week player who'll be a major waste of resources I'm guessing.

He'll want a fucking bucket of cash to come here man. Bolton captain, Lancashire lad, offer from a team in a worse position than his current one... Dear me. Suppose all the other options will have been exhausted.

The bloke's a fucking cretin, but he's surely in charge of this club at it's worst point in recent history in terms of everything else. Obviously he knew what he was getting into and all that and some of our problems are probably of his own doing, but I can't see many excelling in the situation he's in. Dunno about worst in the Premiership, like, but there's not many that run him close if he isn't.

Fucking hell man, imagine if Jonas was out... Geremi - Butt - Coloccini - Duff as our midfield quartet I know I've used this one before, but that lot would be outrun by Father Ted's 5-a-side team.

He's not travelled. He's a cunt.

Yes. Aye. Just pointing that out for those worrying we'll play 5 at the back...

Coloccini midfield, Geremi right?

Suppose it'll be: Harper, Taylor, Coloccini, Bassong, Enrique, Jonas, Geremi, Barton, Duff, Owen, Carroll. With Lovenkrands and N'Zogbia popping on from the bench when we're about 3 down and Owen/Jonas get crocked... or to win us the game!! Krul, Cacapa, Xisco, Edgar and Lua Lua will probably be the others.

Would be delighted with a point here like!

big deal The old board did it all the time, and still retained their ambition for other players, high league positions, and didn't make profits in the transfer market while undermining the manager, causing him to walk, just like the manager before him complained and just like the current one may do yet, because they certainly aren't giving him much of a chance either. One day, like the others, you might wake up. I could go down the line of blaming Shepherd and Co. here for the nature of how Ashley is having to do business at this football club, but I fear it'd be pointless. Whatever is the cause of it (be it he's a nasty man with no ambition or he's been shafted by events out of his control, etc.) it's a fucking crying shame that it's come to this. I'm gutted that he hasn't "splashed the cash" as well, to be perfectly honest, as it's what I had expected to an extent when I heard we'd been taken over by a billionaire... but when you see the books and absorb the current nature of global finances (as well as Ashley's personal finances) it becomes a little bit easier to understand, although not much easier to accept. You know I'm without an agenda here (bar disliking when people are being odious/tedious), this is just how I see it as it is.

It's more selling the dead wood than anything. While it appears Given and Owen are lost causes, the former should be replaced by staff we already have on the books and the latter will obviously need to be replaced externally. The squad is small but is still infested with fairly useless and massively overpaid players, who are also getting on in years. Viduka and Cacapa can easily be cut out by not renewing their deals, but Geremi and Smith will be another matter entirely. It's fair enough paying top wedge to first-team players, but not people who spend their lives on treatment tables/benches.

I'm also at a loss to see how breaking our transfer record for a defender is "replacing players on the cheap", but there you go...

you can think what you like. The phrase is meeting some of you lot halfway and conceding that the club needed to be careful, but I said this at the time in response to those among you who wet their knickers after every defeat urging the greedy fat bastard to splash the cash. Not surprise you have also forgotten all those absurd posts though. Not sure that was a camp I was ever part of, along with a lot more of the regular posters on here. A minority, probably, much like the minority you appear to be in now. I haven't "forgotten" them though, I don't ever pretend that Shepherd deserved the stick he took (which you well know) and I've always wanted the criticism of him to be based on sound logic/reason and with facts and figures to back it up. I wish I could know how Fred/Sam would have turned out as initially the signs seemed good. However, if Allardyce was going to go down the line he did anyway (as in the style of football he employed) then it would have all ended in tears again - people would have had even LESS patience with him simply because it was Fred at the helm above him - and I'd be struggling to see a way out for Shepherd. Apart from better/more experienced backing in his very early days as manager I'm not sure what else would be different. He still brought in all the staff he wanted and got some of his original targets (Viduka, Smith and Barton) but he also still played horrendous football at times and quickly lost the fans as people began to suss him out. A crystal ball would be handy but we have what we have, unfortunately. Whether it's better or worse than what it would have been had FS stayed is impossible to say, especially in the current climate.

Ideally you'd want Viduka, Geremi, Smith and Cacapa all off the wage bill too as I'd imagine they're all on a pretty penny (some more than others) while barely offering anything to the club at the present time. As a partially-educated guess I'd imagine these four alone are eating up around £200k per week, so over £10M a season... nowt we can blame Shepherd for there like, directly at least. Given and Owen are two more high-earners (the highest?) who look set to go as well, which is obviously a different kettle of fish as these are both automatic choices when fit. If they go they'll need replacing by players of similar quality (hopefully Harper and Krul will both step up as far as Given goes and you'd like to think we'll find someone quality to come in to partner Martins up top, if he wants to stay)... £8m a season here or so for these two sound fair enough as a guess? Then there's Butt, who you'd hope would be getting a reduction in his latest deal due to his age - amongst other things... Obviously it's all well and good from a purely fiscal perspective but replacements will be needed - however, being incredibly optimistic, if they were in the same vein as Bassong, Coloccini and Jonas then I'd be happy enough. The whole thing has an aura of grim inevitability about it, but as long as we stay up it doesn't need to be entirely doom and gloom - this season may end up being looked back upon as a necessary evil more than anything... I hope.

The demands for "instant success" coupled with lots of money being spent is also a joke, for what it's worth. Especially when the bloke seemingly pushing that line goes and says Allardyce was a good appointment because he'd proven he was capable of building a "pretty good side with little money". To me it looks like toys out of the pram because things aren't being done the way someone wants them to be done (from a purely personal perspective), but then I suppose we're all guilty of that now and again.