Cronky

With Barry, Lampard and Milner, it's a slow midfield. We look too deliberate in the build-up and we're not pulling them out of position.

They are actually accusations dressed up as questions, and as such, if Llambias has any brains, he won't respond.

Well the lesson isn't specific to the last day of the transfer window. My point was that the example of Carroll wouldn't encourage Ashley or anyone else to pay over the odds or pay what is now being called 'a premium', for a player you've targeted.

Carroll's not the example you're looking for. If there's any lesson there, it's don't let a club screw you for huge amounts of money on the last day of the transfer window, and end up with a player who struggles to make your first team.

Barry's a decent player and makes a good fist of his alloted role. Cleverley has talent, but probably isn't ready yet and wouldn't be competing for Barry's particular place anyway.

Seriously? I really believe there's an element of frustration with everybody who just believe anybody would be an improvement on the forwards we have. I don't get the obsession with going for these winger forwards like Maiga, Ba, and Ruiz, I think they'd find it frustrating playing in our team in the Premier League where they don't have the space they do in their respective leagues. I've seen better forwards than Gameiro come to the Premier League and do shitter than expected. Maybe in our home games when we had players like Nolan getting forward they might have flourished. But good luck in this team. Sturridge is the only player we were linked with who would have really pushed us forward. A bold opinion,and I applaud your willingness to buck the trend. I didn't know enough about those players to make a firm judgement myself, but none of them particularly impressed on Y-T. I mean not like Ben Arfa, Lukaku or Legear impressed me. I've seen a bit more of Erdinc, and he looks distinctly ordinary. I agree that Sturridge would have been a good addition, but I think the new man at Chelsea likes what he's seen and doesn't want to part with him. Even if they were open to offers, it would have taken £20m+ and £10m+ in wages etc, which I can't see us stretching to.

Gosh, how do other clubs do it? This is so fucking hard, this premiership lark. Thanks for illuminating us, mate. I don't know what 'other clubs' you're referring to, but not everyone can win at the transfer game. Under Shepherd, our policy, if you can call it that, was to blow whatever funds we had on the best players that were available to us every window. There was no long-term strategy, it was reactive, a lot of money was wasted and financially we got deeper and deeper into trouble. Ashley, after a few months, obviously took stock of things and decided to play a different game. I actually think it's the right one, for a club in our position.

if the link is true he will go to Everton. He will only get a maximum 6 month deal here due to us courting new striker in January No better than what we've got, and that's the nicest thing you could say.

As Wenger has said, despite what many fans think, it's not a supermarket. The price you pay for a player doesn't just depend on his quality, it's what the competition is for his signature, how much his club wants to keep him, and the strength of the player's motivation to join your club. All that can be overcome if you're prepared to pay enough money, but then you may end up paying more than the player is worth, and blocking your options further down the line. We keep hearing, 'they've had six months to find a replacement' but it's not that simple. The player you really want is likely to have other options, and is likely to be wanted by other clubs, not least the one he's currently playing for. The player and his club might well want to keep their options open for a long time, to see if better offers come up, and in the final shake-up, you may lose out.

Massive claim...depends whether you include transfers in or not but id say that is a massive overexaggeration... I'm sure there are quite a few clubs who, by remaining within their means, are able to turn a small profit now and then. What distinguishes Man U is their huge income, based on their world-wide fan base, large stadium and regular success on the field. They haven't depended on sugardaddies or going into debt, like other major clubs. Unfortunately, that made them prey to the kind of takeover that the Glazers instigated. Hicks and Gillett thought that Liverpool, who have a similarly huge following and potential commercial income, could be taken over by the same method. However, although they've got the following, they don't have the stadium or the on-field success, and they came a cropper. The profitability of other clubs is so slight that a buyer would be mad to go into significant debt to make the purchase, and a lender would be made to lend the money.

People seem to be getting very hung up on the word 'debt'. The Glazers borrowed money from financial institutions to buy Man U, with the aim of funding that debt with the profits that they were going to make from the club. Ashley paid cash for NUFC and its existing stadium debt, but registered the purchase as a debt owed by the club to a company also owned by him. It's an accounting trick, made I think for tax purposes. It's possible that he thought he was on safe ground with this purchase because the club would increase in value, but I can't see that he would have thought it possible - then or now - to reduce his debt by making a profit out of the running of the club on a yearly basis. Man U are virtually the only football club that runs at a profit. The really important distinction is that whereas the Glazers have to rake off a profit in order to service the debt, Ashley doesn't because effectively he owes money to himself and doesn't charge any interest or have a deadline to clear the debt completely. People also seem worried that if a buyer comes along, they'll have to repay the debt to Ashley. Well of course if the purchase price is such that they don't fancy doing that, then they won't buy. What I can imagine happening is what happened at Liverpool - where the buyers simply buy the club for the amount of debt, with either no charge or a small charge for the club itself. We've all heard of debt-ridden clubs or businesses being bought for a £1. Having said that, I don't think Ashley wants to go down that route. I can't imagine that he enjoys owning the club, but he doesn't want to walk away as a failure.

I'd say Pardew has done a good job on the football side, in terms of players brought in, team selection, preparation of the players, tactics etc However, in his public comments on other matters, he seems to try and adopt a sort of middle ground, between the players and the owner, and between the fans and the owner. When Joey was in dispute and generally going off the rails, he seemed to be acting more like a go-between than a boss. Likewise these comments about how he's trying to persuade Ashley / Llambias to buy a player for this, that or the other role just make him look weak in the end. It's like he's trying to placate the player or the fans, or look like the people's champion. It just doesn't work. I'm sure Ferguson or Wenger have their differences of opinion and frustrations with their respective owners, but they never get into the Pardew game of 'hey, really I'm on your side you know'. At the same time, no-one could accuse them of being yes-men. They just realise that pleading for understanding or support actually makes them look weak. Whether anyone could have brought Joey round from the path that he took after January is unclear, but I do think Pardew made one unholy mess of his role. He tried to be publicly neutral and a sympathetic ear for Joey, and ended up being completely ineffective. He acted like he had a good relationship with Joey but from what I could see the player wasn't taking one blind bit of notice of him. And of course, there's the danger that you'll end up saying one thing to the owner, and another thing to the player or the fans, and end up looking two-faced.

He's not the worst person by a long way. He's just the most unpopular.

I'm afraid one of my final memories of Joey will be of him turning his back on the ball when in a good position to launch a counter attack, grappling with an opponent and then pretending to be hurt in order to get the opponent sent off. Yet again, he seems far more able to see faults in others than to put his own house in order.

It does feel like a lot of people are assessing Mike and Del rather than assessing the squad. They didn't achieve everything they set out to achieve or what we wanted them to achieve. That doesn't mean that the squad is crap, or hasn't been improved.

I think we've clearly ended up with a better squad. How much better we'll only know when we've got Ben Arfa and Marveaux fit, because they're the ones who can change the style of our attack. People seem to be hanging their hats on the second striker signing because it was something that the club was going for and failed to get. Obviously the new regime are unpopular, so inevitably that meant the whole window was going to be declared a failure. But we did sign Ba, we've got Ben Arfa and perhaps Sammy for a secondary striker role so I don't see the need for doom and gloom.

Correct decision.

Seems to fit the profile of a number of our signings - a promising young player whose career has stalled for one reason or another and who is therefore available at a reasonable price which reflects an element of risk. If they all fulfil their earlier promise, we'll have a good side.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Our main targets were Gameiro, Gervinho and Erdinc. We bid for them but the players opted to join / stay with clubs with better prospects of CL football than ourselves. So what do we do - go for players on the B list, with the risk that we may have to pay over the odds in wages and transfer fees and then find it difficult to shift the players on in two years time if things don't work out. We're not Man City, we're working to a budget and the wrong buy at the wrong cost can block progress further down the line. In that event, a loan signing to cover this season makes some sense. Arsenal are in a similar situation, albeit at a different end of the market. Everyone's shouting 'buy, buy' but you do have to find players who are better than the ones you've got, at a price you can manage. That's not simple.

No, I'd agree with you. He's got some ability. It looks like his early success went to his head and he's lost his way a bit. But if he's motivated to re-start his career with us, I'd definitely take him.

Interesting. It explains why he's going so cheap. This could be Ashley's love of a gamble again. The article makes the point that he hasn't dealt well with criticism and in Italy, the fans can get on players' backs very quickly. That's not exactly an unknown problem at our club, or indeed elsewhere in England. I've not seen the player so I can't say, but this kind of dip is often a feature of a young player's career. It could be a gamble worth taking.

Whatever his strengths, he's always been poor at defending set pieces. Previously, we've worked around that at free kicks, and not asked him to mark any of the better headers of the ball among the opposition. This season I don't think we've been protecting him so much and it cost us yesterday. It nearly cost us at Scunthorpe. Nolan and Barton were quite good at helping out at set pieces so maybe we've not got much choice. But if it's about Colo becoming captain and feeling he needs to set a good example then we need to think again.

He's slotted into the team without any transition period. Can shoot, can pass and really covers the ground. Not much of a tackler, but he's prepared to track back and get in the way. Great attitude on him and a fantastic buy.

Yeah, there's an air of confidence about him that wasn't there last season. That spreads to the rest of the defence.

The problem with trying to work out what Joey 'really' wanted is that he seemed to be pretty confused about that himself.