alpal78

How many games woudl you gove him? 6? 12? another season??? If he was to be played, i'd want to see regular GOOD performances within 5 games. But he won't do that, we know he won't. Because he's not fit for the EPL. I'd put him on the bench most certainly ahead of Rossi who is gonna **** off after 4 months and put him on in games when Ameobi goes back to comeplete crap standards. As for wanting to see good performances, once our players stop playing aimless long balls, he'd stand a good chance of playing well. Its not just Luque, even Martins is suffering with the long ball game that we currently employ and his first goal was a result of a defence mix up. I'm more than happy to see him off if he plays poorly but only after he is given a fair chance with the team playing the ball on the deck

Yeah, well done Roeder. It's your fault that Luque's wages and the fact that he is completely shit have made him a non-viable purchase for pretty much any club not willing to take a massive risk on a player. The fact is, there were clubs who did came in for him and we presumably turned them down because the offer wasn't big enough. Well guess what, those clubs are gonna come in with an even lower offer in January and this time we will sell less we want to let him go for free at the end of his contract, which all makes a mockery of Roeder's (or Freddy's) decision not to sell him on in the last window. We can debate endlessly bout Luque and whether he was given a fair chance, but what is not debatable is that if Roeder wanted rid of him so bad, then he should have sold him by now instead of keeping him and loose him for even more money in January. So you know for a fact that certain clubs came in, and if so, why we knocked them back? You must have friends in high places. Or you believe rumours, one of the two. To answer your question, I have friends in high places blueyes.gif If no club came in, then we should have transfer listed him, because that's what Roeder is affectively doing now anyway. Transfer-listing him would further devalue him in terms of the fee we could get for him imo. Roeder has affectively transfer listed now that he has been frozen out. The difference is had we done that in the last window, presumably we could have got a decent price after his decent performances in the pre season. In January, he would go for much less seeing as he would have hardly played any game for us. Decent performances in pre-season?? A goal against Lillestrom you mean? I don't see anyone breaking the bank because of that. Yes and he was arguably also the MOM for that game and had a reasonably good game against PSV. But I'm sure you missed all that and prefer to focus on the last 5-10 minutes he played last season to rationalize your conclusion. Whereas you can safely base your conclusion on one good game (arguably not MOM), and one half-decent one?? Yes because playing full games or at least a substantial part of a game is a much better indicator than playing 5-10 minutes at the end of a game that has either been won or lost, thought that would have been obvious.

Exactly Ameobi was so God fucking awful for the last 4-5 seasons and yet there are those who are willing to stick with him based on his recent purple patch. Luque plays poorly in bits and parts of matches and he is already being called rubbish despite proving his worth for Depor scoring against top teams. The difference is the former is a Geordie boy and the latter is deemed a 'Spanish mercenary'. Bullshit. The difference is that one has shown that he CAN perform in a black and white shirt, the other has shown that he most definitely can't. The only people using the Spanish mercenary line are the idiots trying to accuse the people that can't see any reason to persevere with the feckless idiot of xenophobia. I'm not xenophobic, I just don't like watching shit players not try. Yes he CAN perform in the last 10-15 games after being bullshit for over 100 games ++. Nuff said

For the record I agree that Shola should keep his place based on his recent performances, but what his case proves is that you should not write off a player so soon, something that some fans are so happy in doing. Martins would have suffered the same treatment had he not scored against West Ham despite only playing 2-3 games.

Yeah, well done Roeder. It's your fault that Luque's wages and the fact that he is completely shit have made him a non-viable purchase for pretty much any club not willing to take a massive risk on a player. The fact is, there were clubs who did came in for him and we presumably turned them down because the offer wasn't big enough. Well guess what, those clubs are gonna come in with an even lower offer in January and this time we will sell less we want to let him go for free at the end of his contract, which all makes a mockery of Roeder's (or Freddy's) decision not to sell him on in the last window. We can debate endlessly bout Luque and whether he was given a fair chance, but what is not debatable is that if Roeder wanted rid of him so bad, then he should have sold him by now instead of keeping him and loose him for even more money in January. So you know for a fact that certain clubs came in, and if so, why we knocked them back? You must have friends in high places. Or you believe rumours, one of the two. To answer your question, I have friends in high places blueyes.gif If no club came in, then we should have transfer listed him, because that's what Roeder is affectively doing now anyway. Transfer-listing him would further devalue him in terms of the fee we could get for him imo. Roeder has affectively transfer listed now that he has been frozen out. The difference is had we done that in the last window, presumably we could have got a decent price after his decent performances in the pre season. In January, he would go for much less seeing as he would have hardly played any game for us. Decent performances in pre-season?? A goal against Lillestrom you mean? I don't see anyone breaking the bank because of that. Yes and he was arguably also the MOM for that game and had a reasonably good game against PSV. But I'm sure you missed all that and prefer to focus on the last 5-10 minutes he played last season to rationalize your conclusion.

Exactly Ameobi was so God fucking awful for the last 4-5 seasons and yet there are those who are willing to stick with him based on his recent purple patch. Luque plays poorly in bits and parts of matches and he is already being called rubbish despite proving his worth for Depor scoring against top teams. The difference is the former is a Geordie boy and the latter is deemed a 'Spanish mercenary'.

Yeah, well done Roeder. It's your fault that Luque's wages and the fact that he is completely shit have made him a non-viable purchase for pretty much any club not willing to take a massive risk on a player. The fact is, there were clubs who did came in for him and we presumably turned them down because the offer wasn't big enough. Well guess what, those clubs are gonna come in with an even lower offer in January and this time we will sell less we want to let him go for free at the end of his contract, which all makes a mockery of Roeder's (or Freddy's) decision not to sell him on in the last window. We can debate endlessly bout Luque and whether he was given a fair chance, but what is not debatable is that if Roeder wanted rid of him so bad, then he should have sold him by now instead of keeping him and loose him for even more money in January. So you know for a fact that certain clubs came in, and if so, why we knocked them back? You must have friends in high places. Or you believe rumours, one of the two. To answer your question, I have friends in high places blueyes.gif If no club came in, then we should have transfer listed him, because that's what Roeder is affectively doing now anyway. Transfer-listing him would further devalue him in terms of the fee we could get for him imo. Roeder has affectively transfer listed now that he has been frozen out. The difference is had we done that in the last window, presumably we could have got a decent price after his decent performances in the pre season. In January, he would go for much less seeing as he would have hardly played any game for us.

Its not ROeders fault that Luque is shit. And Luque is NOT a £9.5m asset, any more than Boumwrong was an £8m asset. If i went out and paid £10,000 for a K Reg Escort, it wouldn't make it actually worth £10,000. It'd mean i paid way too much, liek we did for Luque. Alas, we have also given him wages above his station, and now we are lumbered. Roeder is culpable for a number of errors. Luque being rubbish isn't one of them. Seriously if you were reading, I hardly said that Roeder is to be blamed for Luque being 'rubbish' (according to you). My gripe is that we are gonna yet again lose a player on the cheap and we've done so many times, its unreal. I agree that we over paid when we got him, he is worth more around the 5-6M bracket (based on his form in Depor which by the way was not just invented on the internet reel had you watched La Liga), but we are gonna lose a hell lot of money when we sell him for 2-3M (if we are lucky) in January. If we get £3m for him, based on the ability he has shown since he came here, that'd be fair. Given Roeder's reluctance to play him, I'd take 3M as well, but I doubt we'll get that high of an offer because the buying clubs know that we want to get rid.

Yeah, well done Roeder. It's your fault that Luque's wages and the fact that he is completely shit have made him a non-viable purchase for pretty much any club not willing to take a massive risk on a player. The fact is, there were clubs who did came in for him and we presumably turned them down because the offer wasn't big enough. Well guess what, those clubs are gonna come in with an even lower offer in January and this time we will sell less we want to let him go for free at the end of his contract, which all makes a mockery of Roeder's (or Freddy's) decision not to sell him on in the last window. We can debate endlessly bout Luque and whether he was given a fair chance, but what is not debatable is that if Roeder wanted rid of him so bad, then he should have sold him by now instead of keeping him and loose him for even more money in January. So you know for a fact that certain clubs came in, and if so, why we knocked them back? You must have friends in high places. Or you believe rumours, one of the two. To answer your question, I have friends in high places blueyes.gif If no club came in, then we should have transfer listed him, because that's what Roeder is affectively doing now anyway.

Its not ROeders fault that Luque is shit. And Luque is NOT a £9.5m asset, any more than Boumwrong was an £8m asset. If i went out and paid £10,000 for a K Reg Escort, it wouldn't make it actually worth £10,000. It'd mean i paid way too much, liek we did for Luque. Alas, we have also given him wages above his station, and now we are lumbered. Roeder is culpable for a number of errors. Luque being rubbish isn't one of them. Seriously if you were reading, I hardly said that Roeder is to be blamed for Luque being 'rubbish' (according to you). My gripe is that we are gonna yet again lose a player on the cheap and we've done so many times, its unreal. I agree that we over paid when we got him, he is worth more around the 5-6M bracket (based on his form in Depor which by the way was not just invented on the internet reel had you watched La Liga), but we are gonna lose a hell lot of money when we sell him for 2-3M (if we are lucky) in January.

Yeah, well done Roeder. It's your fault that Luque's wages and the fact that he is completely shit have made him a non-viable purchase for pretty much any club not willing to take a massive risk on a player. The fact is, there were clubs who did came in for him and we presumably turned them down because the offer wasn't big enough. Well guess what, those clubs are gonna come in with an even lower offer in January and this time we will sell less we want to let him go for free at the end of his contract, which all makes a mockery of Roeder's (or Freddy's) decision not to sell him on in the last window. We can debate endlessly bout Luque and whether he was given a fair chance, but what is not debatable is that if Roeder wanted rid of him so bad, then he should have sold him by now instead of keeping him and loose him for even more money in January.

There is no doubt in my mind that we've seen the last of Luque, esp when the likes of Sibierski and Rossi ahead of him on the bench. Well done Roeder for throwing a 9.5M asset down the drain. If Roeder thought he was that bad, he should have been sold even on the cheap in the last window because guess he is gonna be sold even cheaper and we are gonna lose even more money in January. Would't surprise me if he is sold under 1M at all.

Think he can shoot well with both though perhaps slightly better with his left

Basically you just multiply all the odds up so the final odds would very much depend on what odds you get for the individual bets

The current system I use is 1) to pick games where there is a reasonably clear favourite (i.e one of the big 4 playing at home against a mid table team). Then hopefully the score is still 0-0 after 20++ minutes which brings the lay on win odds down in Betfair. 2) Smack a 40/50quid on lay a win with a potential liability of 150 pounds (coz usually the odds on lay by that time will be between 3.9-4.5) 3) Cut my liability by 60-70% with some betting on 0-0 and 1-1 (highly unlikely the game would end on a 2-2 or 3-3...etc). 4) Follow the game and bet to cover my positions accordingly (if it is still 0-0 by half time, I might increase my 0-0 bet to 80%...etc) 5) The favourites in all probability will score at some point, and you collect the winning. Even if the match ends on a 0-0 or 1-1, then u're covered because you've covered your liability. The rare loss is usually not more than 10-20%, the amount of wins depend on the amount of liability you're willing to stomach. With a liability of 150 quid (before covering them with 0-0 and 1-1 bets), I make 10-15 quid per game, multiply that with a few games on the weekend and you could easily get 50-60 quid. So far so good

Betfair is mint. I like the way you can bet for and lay. Done the right way especially inplay, you can reduce your risk of loosing to very minimum. My record so far has been only 3 losses out of more than 40 bets and gain of more than 300 quid The only draw back is you need a big capital to lay bets.

I apologize to everyone in advance ROEDER, WE ******* NEED DEFENDERS!!! :wullie: :wullie: :wullie: :wullie: :wullie: :wullie: :wullie: :wullie: :wullie:

I blame both but if I have to pin it on somebody its definitely Roeder. Given our poor financial state, 15M is a lot and I don't think we could have asked for more from Freddy. Its Roeder who has to decide how best to spend that 15M given the weaknesses in our squad and he has failed miserably. If we are not getting any defenders because we have no money, then either Roeder should have some of those freebies or get some on loan (I know they are not that great and Trabelsi and Campbell comes with some baggage....but they are miles better than our lot). Failing that he should not have agreed to the Duff deal, Duff is great but not at the expense of neglecting our defence. If Freddy forced it upon him (which is off course just speculation), then he should have stood his ground. We needed a manager who is strong, unfortunately Roeder is anything but strong. I've always said appointing him was a big mistake, I've not reached the point of wanting him sacked, but his transfer dealings has pushed him one giant step towards that in my estimation.

Not everyone :winking: I stand by my view that given the right service (ball to feet) and provided he is not played as the lone front man, he can still be a decent 3rd striker. If we can get 4-5M, then yes sell him, otherwise we're better off keeping him instead of selling another player on the cheap.

Rest assured he won't and it would be the first time this season that Roeder would be right in doing so.

No I would say his best position (or at least the position he played for Depor to such great effect) is a left forward in a 4-3-3, but since I can't ever see us ever playing that, the only position he can play for us is as the 2nd striker. That way he wont have to win the long punts from our defenders and just get the knockdowns instead. Granted he is not fast but he can dribble and has good enough footwork to trick defenders (all which were not evident in the last game) and because he can thump the ball from distance, he does not need to get into the box either.

Because Luque's goals & assists record isn't anywhere near Robert's. If Luque was scoring or making goals regularly despite playing poorly there'd be a valid argument for him to play. Maybe because Luque has only played a fraction of the games that Robert played. The difference is Robert started his career with us with a bang whereas Luque had a different type of bang to his hamstrings. You can only conclude that Luque is no Robert once he has played a decent amount of games, not on the basis of the few games last season and certainly not on the basis of the last game. Robert had some awful games that was as bad as Luque's previous game, the only difference is that those awful games for Robert came after he won over the fans. There is a possibility that if Luque is given a chance even as a 3rd striker or 2nd in the case that Ameobi flops, he will achieve what Robert did. Its only the sequence of the games that differ. If you are judging his potential on the basis of the last game, then you would similarly conclude that Robert can't achieve such brilliance judging on some of his lazy performaces for us, which we now know is wrong as Robert was for the most part brilliant for us. At least I don't have double standards, I supported Robert right to the end and I will support Luque until he conclusively proves that he can't achieve the heights that Robert achieved for us.

In "one of the most ridiculous things I've read" (:wink:) you later argued with something that wasn't there - after someone else took the responsibility of explaining to you what they thought my post meant and you took that as Gospel because you couldn't be arsed to wait for my explanation. What are you on about, ducking questions? You said that Souness let a player ( Robert ) go for near nowt and then brought in quite probably the nearest thing to him ( Luque ). I think that's bollocks. If you think it's bollocks too then why are you making out that the two players are similar. " The nearest thing to him for the same price " means what exactly? Already explained this, like... I was talking about style of play, in that Luque is supposedly a left-winger, who doesn't fancy defending much and who has crossing and shooting as his two major strengths, sound familiar? Robert wasn't that great at dribbling and his first touch wasn't that great, which is also very similar to Luque. Despite what they have/haven't offered you're telling me that Robert and Luque aren't similar players when they're on the football pitch in how they play/try to play the game, respectively? I thought you'd be able to tell from the tone of my post and what I said about Souness that I didn't think it was a good move, but obviously not. Other similarities I could offer are that they both joined in August in the region of £10M, are foreign, are left-footed, both set-piece takers, play the same role on the pitch, joined from the leagues their country of origin and have become outcasts of their national teams. All that bollocks as well? My point was that Souness was daft enough to sell Robert for nothing and replace him with Luque for a bomb (which is exactly what happened), which has turned out to be like selling a Gibson and replacing him with an Epiphone copy of a Gibson: a poor version of what we already had, but nontheless an attempted replica, because the Scotsman knew how much Robert's style of play added to the team - but he'd be fucked if he was going to put up with Wor Laurent off the pitch... For whatever reason, Luque hasn't had anywhere near the same impact, some people will blame the injury he got, or him being played out of position and others will just say it's because he can't be arsed/doesn't have the bottle - or maybe he's just not that good (which history would apparently deny.) At the end of the day, though, he still plays the game like Robert did and it would be far more noticeable if we saw him on the left-flank (like he played against Man Utd that one time), but this isn't going to happen with Duff and N'Zogbia here - and I'd pick them ahead of him every time anyway. Despite his brilliance there were days when Robert was just as bad as Luque has been for us so far - surely that is undeniable, which does lend credence to the theory that Luque "might" improve if he's played in his correct position, Robert might have struggled just as much being played up-front, but probably not. But aye, still don't know how you read into that what you did after the rest of my post had explained my point. one of the few balanced post on Robert & Luque, not easy given the Luque bashing bandwagon that's currently in overdrive and the sheer number who could not stand Robert.

If I am blind, then you must be too since we both agree that Luque was poor yesterday. The difference is I acknowledge that he has never played as an out and out striker and take that as a mitigating circumstance instead of joining the Luque bashing bandwagon. I disagreed with Slugsy because he claims that Luque never had a decent game ever. Having attended the Lillestrom, PSV and Wigan games, I feel more than qualified to say that he had a decent game if not MOM against Lillestrom, did reasonably well against PSV and was no worse than anyone else against Wigan despite playing for only 15 minutes. You should learn to respect differences of opinion instead of calling names to those who disagree with you tbh.

Of all your posts on this thread, I can agree with that one. No point defending Luque's performance yesterday but those bashing him should also at least have the decency to acknowledge that he isn't an out and out striker especially not one who leads the line, the way he was forced to play yesterday. Luque plays in a 4-3-3 left forward position and since I can't ever see us playing that under Roeder, the only position he can play for us is a forward behind the main striker. Both Milner and Luque were supposed to stay in the box yesterday, its such an irony that the one who did anything but stay in the box is getting rave reviews whereas the one who did stay in the box despite that not being close to his game is getting all the stick. I bet if Luque was to drift out wide and interchange positions with Zoggy the way Milner changed positions with Duff he would have looked great too. Instead he is beeing butchered for following Roeder's instructions. Milner isn't an out and out striker but his work rate, movement and general game was excellent, he put himself about, tried really hard and quite frankly deserves credit - Luque on the other hand doesn't. Oh and I don't think Luque has had any decent games and your defence of him and excuses is beginning to sound like someone clutching at straws. As for Luque not having ant decent games you must have missed out on his performances against Lillestron and PSV, not brilliant but as decent as any of our other players in fact better than most, or maybe you just have selective memory. Nope, was there and he was pretty mediocre - as were most mind, but mediocre he was. So you are holding Luque up to standards that even most of his teamates has not achieved? As for the snails comment, no reply could be better than a :roll: