Rich

Dear me.

Aw, shucks.

Very plausible we'd be in for him. He's an out and out right winger. The last one Keegan signed wasn't bad.

More good stuff, it's been cracking on here today. Far better than writing 5,000 words about fitness training. Less productive, granted, but much more fun. Owen is worth his wages if he stays fit like, I've no problem with that. It's a fucking bugger when he's crocked though and we all know he's still raking in £100k a week, give or take some. Club captain now as well = more responsibility. He's hardly in a weak bargaining position, is he?

Liverpool today may be a more solid team, but they lack that spark sometimes in the final third, they certainly did before Torres came, something which was never a problem for us. Except when it mattered most.

Ferguson didn't always get it right either, it must be said, it's not just us who have made bad signings over the years. It's an exciting time, I think, certainly moreso than it has been for a number of years.

Fucking hell. That's a great post! From AS9!

I suppose we've got there in the end then. I agree that I would like to see Keegan backed with some serious cash in the market, and after that bid for Modric I think it's safe to say that we should see a lot of money being spent. My major concern is the wage budget, though, and I can see why the owner wouldn't want that to go any higher than it already is. However, it is possible to reduce the wage budget AND bring better players in (for big money) as long as you get rid of the players who aren't doing the business for us at the current time and who are on the fat contracts. The thing is, with Ashley here, we are now in a position where we have an owner who can use his own money to finance the sort of spending you talk about. Putting everything else about Freddy aside, the fact was that he wasn't rich enough to do that off his own back, he had to get the money from elsewhere - be it getting the Northern Rock money together or taking out loans. I daresay that had Freddy Shepherd been sitting on a £1.7b fortune or whatever Ashley is worth, we'd have seen more than £16M as our record purchase, I understand that, but it's not always the answer. Of course the club should always be looking to better itself, but not to the point of liquidation or desperation, there were times under Shepherd when there didn't appear to be a pot to piss in, unfortunately. The thing that always gives me hope is that Mike Ashley is supposed to be in this thing to be a fan, he attends loads of games... what I think is that a man like that does not want to sit and watch "Johnny Averages" for 90 minutes a week. He'll want to score goals, win games, and win trophies. If he does that, he knows he'll be an absolute hero in these parts until the day that he dies. In fairness, the club has just bid £20M for a 22-year-old. Which does show some ambition if they were really after him. That's what I hope Keegan is drumming into him, I really do, playing to his ego. But again, fair play to Ashley if he puts that to the side and says "no, I want this football club to be run properly and safely, like Spurs/Arsenal/whoever". It might take longer to get there, but we'll still be getting there. Spurs haven't done too badly by spending fairly sensible amounts in recent seasons and they're spending more and more all the time because of it.

Apisith, about Spurs: last season they got to the quarters of the UEFA, quarters of the FA, semis of the League Cup and finished 5th in the Premiership. They also had that massive deal with Mansion in place as well. We, on the other hand, didn't make the quarters of the UEFA (and got a hell of a lot less TV money for each game than Spurs did, if I remember rightly), went out in the 3rd round of the FA, the quarters of the League Cup and finished 13th in the Premiership. Ticket prices at Spurs also far exceed our own, considerably narrowing that gap of 15,000 seats.

Was he? Apparently so, to Fulham.

N'Zogbia was going for £4M last summer. I know he's signed a new deal since then, but people shouldn't be getting too excited about the money we'll get for him if he goes.

Case in point.

A good take on things, and how I look at stuff as well. Sometimes you have to look a bit deeper than just saying "we should have bought him then for that much money" and take everything else into account, the circumstances, too many people don't do that on here and are shown up because of it.

NE5: The question was a joke, you miserable old bugger. I thought that would be fairly obvious after you had asked me the same thing earlier. Rooney was going to cost a fair bit more than £17M though, wasn't he (the sum of Duff, Barton and Smith)? It's more apt to say would you rather have Rooney at £27M or whatever it was, than all of the players we signed in the summer this time around. Despite the failures of some of them, I still think that would have been the right way to go if we only had £27M to spend. It's a wank argument as it is like, but I'm trying to work with what you're giving me here. Totally different timings and circumstances. As for you not criticising the club for signing "them" - has someone else been on your account since the summer, then? All we've heard from you is about "Johnny Averages" and "no ambition", which is the polar opposite stance of what others have taken in the past. The last board couldn't win with certain people on here and the current board can't win with certain people on here, I find the whole thing more amusing than anything else. At the end of the day all I want for the club is success and for it to keep existing, I don't care whether it comes one way or another, but I just hope it comes. That's why you don't tend to hear me moaning on too much these days, I've accepted that I've got no say in the grand scheme of things and I'm happy to ride the wave and see where it takes us. I'm happy Shepherd is gone simply because I thought the man was a cunt and that he'd had his time here, I have no qualms admitting that he had his good spells and he did a lot of good, but the club was sinking fast and he'd lost the fans. His position was untenable. He's just a man though, like Ashley is, like Mort is, it's the club that matters.

All the players who went out were replaced, in most cases by people who are probably on bigger wages. Barton will be getting shedloads, Viduka is the 2nd highest paid player at the club, Smith will be earning plenty. Some players got improved contracts, etc. More backroom staff was brought in...

I personally would go in heavy this summer and give us a strong chance of qualifying for Europe etc, so I agree with your 3rd para. Profit and income has to be increased and that isn't going to happen with treading water. Why the chuff didn't you say that originally then, you gonk! That way would undoubtedly be a lot more exciting, like, as I've said. I thought you knew I was a slash and burn merchant. Should have bolded the bit I meant in particular, I was gagging for someone to state the alternate route.

So you agree with Jonny, but can see that us buying Rooney at that time probably wouldn't have been ideal? That's probably the right answer. Thing is, like I said, it was Man Utd who were in the position to do that at that time, not us. As nice as it might have been, I'm not sure it was plausible to take a risk of that magnitude on even a player like Rooney. Indeed. and even had Rooney came, is there a guarantee we could have made him the consistent and level-headed performer he is today, or would he have gone off the rails? remember the season before he left Everton, they finished one place above the relegation zone so there is no guarantee he would've improved our league position. He would have been an idiot to come here ahead of Man Utd, undoubtedly, the proof is in the pudding there. One player doesn't make a team and that's even just discounting what it would have meant for Wor Craig, etc. It was a nice thought, if we were playing Football Manager.

I personally would go in heavy this summer and give us a strong chance of qualifying for Europe etc, so I agree with your 3rd para. Profit and income has to be increased and that isn't going to happen with treading water. Why the chuff didn't you say that originally then, you gonk! That way would undoubtedly be a lot more exciting, like, as I've said.

So you agree with Jonny, but can see that us buying Rooney at that time probably wouldn't have been ideal? That's probably the right answer. Thing is, like I said, it was Man Utd who were in the position to do that at that time, not us. As nice as it might have been, I'm not sure it was plausible to take a risk of that magnitude on even a player like Rooney.

Cheers Apisith, I was waiting for someone to come in with this argument, I didn't want to have a discussion with myself to be honest. The speculating to accumulate thing has to be mentioned, even though it's a more high-risk strategy. If what they do is trim the fat like Smith, Duff, Emre, etc. and replace them with players like Modric who command hefty fees but smaller wages, then they'll be starting out on the right track. It's a hell of a lot harder to find players like that, though, rather than to go after the likes of Riise, Crouch, etc. We've been speculating to accumulate for years now, like a gambler who just kept chucking it on and building up a tab. Thing is now, we have an owner who could, by rights, afford to do things that way - and fucking hell it would be a lot more exciting. This is what I hoped this thread would be about, though, to see whether people would back the high-risk strategy over the "Spurs" strategy.

We'd still have had a shite defence, mind, and I dread to think what it would have done to the club financially. Not to mention the Bellamy implosion waiting to happen, the fact we had Shearer, Kluivert and Ameobi as well... It's often not as simple as "someone is available, get them bought", I think that's the point, you can't do that at the expense of everything else, as exciting as it would be. A na man, that's why I said of the complications, but a player like Rooney can be the cornerstone of your team for years to come. Someone that talented who is within your grasp, you just have to go for them. Weren't Northern Rock going to be putting the money up for Rooney as well? Sure something like that rings a bell. I think Northern Rock "putting the money up" was simply them giving us the sponsorship money in one go, rather than in staggered payments, like they did for Owen. It's a bit different then, isn't it? I'd also say that it's incredibly unlikely to think that Rooney would have stayed here "for years". As soon as a bigger club came in for him, he'd have been away. Man Utd were in a position to buy Rooney and surround him with other top class players. We weren't, unfortunately. If we'd got him, that would have been that for I dunno how long. The money was drying up - most of it wasn't even ours, in fact.

what about Smith, Barton, Cacapa, Rozenhal, and as you have said yourself, Duff ? Then ask yourself why we have finshed 12th/13th. I thought you rated Smith?? Mort wasn't the chairman when we bought Duff, was he? I'll give you Cacapa and Rozehnal, but Barton looks like sorting himself out. If you'd known that those players were going to be poor though, why didn't you give the club a ring to let them know!? You don't want us to fail, do you? :-[

We'd still have had a shite defence, mind, and I dread to think what it would have done to the club financially. Not to mention the Bellamy implosion waiting to happen, the fact we had Shearer, Kluivert and Ameobi as well... It's often not as simple as "someone is available, get them bought", I think that's the point, you can't do that at the expense of everything else, as exciting as it would be.

So we were at 72% after the Owen compensation came in? Oh dear.

Fulham? (If they stay up.)