Mowen

Isn't Norman Wisdom a toon fan?

He played on the right hand side predominantly against Spurs in the 4-1 and was superb. Tore O'Hara to pieces that day.

It wasn't that long ago Germany wouldn't have any Black players in their squad they seem to have adopted a much more multi-ethnic attitude in recent years in regards to the picking of their squad good to see though not sure race and nationality has ever been so healthy in football. That reminds me - what's Odonkor up to? He looked as fast as anything, decent right winger in the few times I saw him for Germany. (Just signed him in PES too....)

To be fair, bringing in youngsters is the easy bit. Well we've never managed to do much of it before. we have,we've always had academy teams,youth teams etc, some have even included foreign talent, pinas,kiedel but either we were identifying kids who werent good enough or we were crap at improving them (my opinion is a bit of both) Well fine, maybe I should have said we never did it very well before... or it never produced any decent players. Obviously we'll have to wait and see what happens with the current lot, but I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far. In fairness we've had a couple come through (N'Zog, Bernard, looks like Krul will do), but I do like the look of the youth setup we're putting together at the moment. Goes without saying that the first team transfers seem to be streets behind.

I've actually got a decent example to back up the lower leagues thing. My missus was teaching at a school in Southampton the year after they'd got relegated. They all went to St Mary's every home game with their dads, but they also called themselves 'Chelsea/ManU/Arsenal and Southampton supporters'. I don't reckon they'd have been spending so much time at St Mays if they had the option of watching a 'big' premiership game instead every week. I've got rid of Sky as well Gol, had it at uni (bill split between 6 didn't seem so much...) but now I'm living with the missus I'll go to the pub if there's a game I want to see. Means I enjoy the games I watch a lot more, and don't find myself watching rubbish I'm not interested in. I'll miss the cricket coverage more.

What you say makes sense, I still think the wages we are currently paying are far less sustainable than they were under SBR, and the club isn't on such a sound financial footing. If we had a manager with the ability of a Robson I would be far more in favour of spending to get us up the table rather than just survive in the immediate short term. We need to invest to guarantee survival this season. We've thrown money at a terrible manager before (ears burning, Graeme?) and it didn't do us too much good.

Which I don't get - are they really saying that an appreciable number of people would watch a 3pm KO on TV that they would otherwise have gone to? - if thats the case why are the crowds for televised games not that badly affected. Even worse is the notion that someone would stop in and watch a team other than their own rather than go to a game. I think it's more to do with the fact that people would stop going to support their local teams in the lower leagues if they could watch the premiership instead for less money. It's the grassroots it would hurt more than the top level.

Harry spent a lot of money at Portsmouth (although most has now been recouped with the sale of their three best players). Muntari, Nugent, Utaka, Benjani, Defoe, Crouch, Diarra, Johnson and Diop cost a fair old wedge between then, James, Campbell and Distin are on monster contracts. Why do you think Pompey are struggling financially now? edit: and that's £30m at Spurs already.

Terrible piece.

Don't think the comparison is quite fair tbh. I'm certain our wages were less than 50% of turnover until near the end of SBRs reign, would have been down around 45% then, rather than the 65%ish that seems to have been mentioned in this thread. I think our financial situation is worse than it was back then, and whilst the need for investment in the first team is abundently clear, I think it will be slightly harder to turn around than it was last time (and it took a couple of years then, too). Another huge dissimilarity is that then we had a world class manager, who knew the game inside out, had contacts in most major football playing nations in the world and was someone you could trust with money, even if he did get the odd one wrong. He was also afforded a fair amount of time before he did get it right.

Simon Bird's written an article saying we owe Ashley £238m. Fucking shameful.

We know you don't like black people, no point banging on about it.

No. But then I don't think Leeds was either. Its not just the squad, its a number of things like morale, the fans booing the team (or being silent), and the Manager (who is merely a reflection of the ownership ATM). Pretty much every set of home fans will boo a poor performance at home now. We're far from the worst offenders.

Ditto. Fucking brilliant.

Had a stint in jail for nicking a car whilst at the mighty Gills too.

Has that deal been done? Decent player, scores a fair few from midfield.

Pretty sure Modric was actually £16.5m, thought Bentley was £17m too but less sure on that one. How much did Huddlestone cost?

Would not any money spent/received on player transfers be included in the operating expenses (whether it be for transfers in the current year or for delayed payments for transfers in previous years) ? No - money spent on players isn't charged against profit in operating expenses in the year it is incurred. That money physically (okay, electronically) moves from one place to another in a particular year though doesn't it. Surely it must be accounted for somehow in that financial year? It gets shown as an asset in the balance sheet. It is then, as discussed, amortised through the annual results over the life of the contract. Eg If a player cost £10 million we record a £10 million asset in our balance sheet. Say its a 4 year contract so £2.5 million gets written off every year against the overall profit/loss for the year. If he's sold in year 4 his value has been written down to £2.5 million by then, if we get £8.5 million the profit is recorded as £6 million in the result for the year. FWIW Given will be on the books at zero so if he's sold its all profit. What happens if a contract is extended? I assume Owen will have gone from £16m to £4m, if he signed tomorrow (I know....) for another three years how would that affect things?

aye nixon, who would want a 1st 3rd 6th 2nd, or 2nd, league finish these days, its s*** isnt it. How long ago was that? why , does it preceed you jumping on the toon bandwagon? Mate the reason I say that is because by his own admission he'd not seen a game for 3 years, you think its wise to give someone like that millions of pounds? Come on man, be sensible. No, he hadn't been to a game of football for three years, not having seen one for three years. As a wannabe journalist I wouldn't expect you to post incorrect facts now.

aye nixon, who would want a 1st 3rd 6th 2nd, or 2nd, league finish these days, its s*** isnt it. How long ago was that? why , does it preceed you jumping on the toon bandwagon? Mate the reason I say that is because by his own admission he'd not seen a game for 3 years, you think its wise to give someone like that millions of pounds? Come on man, be sensible. he had been out of the game 8 years in 1992, the bloke was european footballer of the year twice, his record of buys was excellent, England capatain, liverpool captain,newcastle captain, league champion, european champion,,... you dont forget in three years man, be sensible. my point is, he has an eye for a player, he dosent lose this in 3 years, open your eyes, see what is happening without him. Has an eye for a player? Not recently (if ever unless spending big on obvious names). His record for buying players at Man City was absolutely toss. Anelka was his main signing there iirc, and he scored a large number of goals for them. Also, he did progress with them, as he got them up and stabilised in the prem.

what incident mate? couldnt make the game/face motd Had a lovely through ball played in behind their defence on the left, instead of doing his job and getting onto the end of it to make something happen he just stopped running. He tried to con the fans into thinking he couldn't get there but he was right in front of the away end. Perfectly summed up his situation here. He does not want to be here and soon it will start effecting us badly. It was pathetic, everyone was raging in the away end. Couldn't believe my eyes.

Exactly what I was getting at.

I thought he wanted to go to Spurs? What a t*** btw. Good player, but what a t***. I am sure the guy on SSN said that Spurs had also made another bid but permission had only been given to speak to Man City. It's been reported that Spammers would rather he go to city then us (even though we've made identical bids). Shame really as i wanted him at the Lane. Hughes also confirmed that city haven't made a bid for palacios. Seems like annoying other clubs by repeatedly talking about their players in the press maybe isn't the best way to go. Who would have thought it.

That was utterly grim after the goal, luckily my beer intake for the day has since rendered most of the specifics of the match deleted from my memory. When they stuck Allardyce's big, stupid, horrible face on the screen at 3-0 I was almost sick.

With a right winger in the middle? Put Cahill in for Osman, surely.