TRon

Why do you think we pulled out then? Enlighten me.

Do you have a point?

If the £1m clause wasn't a possibility why did Taylor's agent apply to the tribunal? Why did the Swansea chairman hurriedly up the lads wages to a massive 13k or so in order to avoid the tribunal? The chairman was quoted as saying it would be sorted without resorting to the tribunal and they did that by blowing us out of the water with their mega bucks 13k deal which saw us running scared of mighty Swansea and their bumper transfer budget...which of course includes Taylor's new wages.

We couldn't match their wages

Ray Wilkins on Talksport reckon that Mikel will step up and they have a young lad Josh McEachran who is more than capable of being a decent back up. Add to that they are likely to bring in Modric and I think they may well not bother with Tiote. That made me feel a bit better I have to confess.

He's 6 months away from leaving for nowt. Are you just going to pretend that isn't a factor?

If we're playing with only one up front I can't see where a second striker would fit in As a genuine alternative to Ba if/when he's unavailable. I'm sure you'd rather have a better one than Best or Shola. Erdinc and Long could play off the striker in a front 3 as well in a wide role, not to mention we might want to play 4-2-2 in some games.

It's not even about Ashley or Pardew licking their lips at the prospect of selling Tiote, I'm sure Pardew at any rate would prefer to keep him. Once Chelsea make it public they want a player there's not much that can prevent it happening as we saw with Torres and will see again with Modric. Let's just hope they really don't want Tiote.

I'll say it again but the striker is really the key for me. I hope that we are really going all out to get a quality forward on board - and I'm not going to be precious about it, Erdinc or Shane Long would do me fine. They might not be top drawer but by our standards they are quality signings with very good potential. If we fail to get someone in by the time the window shuts that will speak volumes as far as I'm concerned as Pardew has gone on record as saying it's a priority. Zog coming here was never going to be anything more than an unlikely bonus so I will discount that, even if he ends up at Villa who I see as direct rivals.

I wouldn't worry about it as there is as much chance of him going there as there is of Sunderland being declared European City of Culture 2011.

Why bid? Who are you going to steal the march on by bidding now? Clubs know he's available, they know what value Newcastle have for him, and what value they have internally with their own club. Why worry about that player you know is available, and has a set price now? Go look at other targets, that guy is going to be there in the mean time. If a club bids for him, match their bid, no need to worry. The player wants to move, the club he's at are aware of that, so why spend your time worrying about that club? As soon as 1 club enters talks, or bids, other clubs will probably come in and match it. In the meantime, they'll be looking at 'less available' players, and spending their resources/time trying to work a deal. Enrique is a deal on the table, that just needs your stamp. Potentially interested clubs will know that time is in their favour too, if he doesn't sign he'll walk next summer for owt and are aware NUFC will probably have to settle for a knockdown price the closer we get to the window's closure. This is on the money. I think we will lower our valuation to around £4-5m in order to get a sale and maybe the money which was set aside for Taylor will be added to that and we'll make a serious bid for M'bengue.

I am putting my hope in Chelsea not wanting a replacement for Essien as they claim, rather than us refusing to sell him as I know we would if Chelsea really wanted him.

Long will definitely be sold this summer if he's only got a year left on his contract. Doesn't look like we'll be after him though, the price tag has probably scared us off.

Hypothetically speaking... Marveaux Agent fee + Signing-on fee: £2 million Three years wages at £35,000 a week: £5.5 million = £7.5 million (for NUFC) N'Zogbia Transfer fee + sign-on and agent fees: £9 million Just out of interest, who would you rather have, honestly? Was N'Zogbia offering to play for free, save his signing on fee? fuck me and he complains about Pardew's spin.

I've missed this card. It's finally back Do you think you can have the same affinity for the club as somebody born in the area? Does it count if he washes the noodles down with a bottle of broon?

and Minhosa delivers the dragon punch that knocks the thread spark out.

If you call running down his contract staying then yes, he is.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ES1Airkw5Ck/TOBcFzKySvI/AAAAAAAAAAs/5zHtDEa9J6w/s1600/worried_girl_130006006.jpg The chase for a striker is a sham....doomed!

He'll have to fill out a fair bit to be considered anything other than emergency cover at left back for me.

Stop being so positive annoyance disapproval disdain It should be expected that once the season gets going there will be on average 3-6 injured players out for each game, and on top of that you will have suspensions for those who play regularly. It's not negative to factor this into your expectations, and it's not bad luck or poor medical staff when it happens, it's part of modern football where players are pushed to their limits in training and in games week in week out. On average the injuries & suspensions will be scattered around the positions, and around how important the players are. You can only count yourself "unlucky" if you have more injuries than normal for a significant period, or if the injuries are more concentrated in one area of your squad or on your best players. Basing your targets for the season on having a largely first choice XI every week is completely unrealistic and doomed to disappointment. We haven't had squad depth since Keegan was manager. Even when Shepherd was chairman the team was built on a few big stars with the back up being fairly mediocre.

I was under the assumption it was Zoggy's £65k a week demands... Do you not think Marveux will be on big wages though? If we managed to nab him from the scouse kings of wasting money, then I would guess he's on £50-£60k a week? Once we signed him I'm sure a few said they guessed it would be the end of our supposed chase for Zog. the fee for Zog was too high, doesn't make business sense for Ashley. Sell him for £6m and a donkey, buy him back for £9m-£12m a few years later for an over inflated price, when he's available for free in a year. Like he was ever going to do that. I was still hopeful we would sign him though, fuck knows why mind. Let's be generous and say the Marveaux deal means we will have more funds to put towards the new striker and whichever other position it is we are looking to fill.

True. If we sign a good striker as we have been told we will, then we can at least feel we've done the crucial business. And we can tell ourselves thatt Abeid Mehdi will be the undiscovered gem that will make Zoggy look like the headless chicken many felt he was in any case. A headless chicken with a cracking shot, tough tackling and fantastic crossing mind. Sometimes you're trying to make this great, witty, sarcastic post. Then you over do it and the whole thing just doesn't make any sense at all. It does to me

This guy isn't winger though is he? He is. I'm pretty sure he plays right wing.

True. If we sign a good striker as we have been told we will, then we can at least feel we've done the crucial business. And we can tell ourselves thatt Abeid Mehdi will be the undiscovered gem that will make Zoggy look like the headless chicken many felt he was in any case. A headless chicken with a cracking shot, tough tackling and fantastic crossing mind.

Yeah. It's not like we bid £10m for him in the Jan transfer window to give people the idea we were interested in him like. Beats me where people get these ideas from. So what's your criticism there, that we bid for him? I thought you were annoyed because we didn't? I'm annoyed at the bullshit. I could accept we don't want him because we don't want him or we believe we've bought better, but bidding £10-12m on the last day of the transfer window when you know it's too late to sign anyone is bullshit. Just as bidding for Bent and Richardson was bullshit the year before. Now when we could actually sign Zog we are running a mile. That is what is mildly annoying. I don't really get this. Do you think we should succeed with every bid we make? And if not, why do you assume that every unsuccessful bid is bullshit? I've answered those in the post you quoted. Have you? I can't find the answer in a form I can understand. Sorry. The unsuccessful bid is bullshit because it was made when it was too late to get it done. And no I don't believe we should succeed with every bid but I think we could definitely have succeeded with this one if we really wanted it to happen. Righto, but that's not an answer to the question I asked. I agree we could have signed N'Zogbia in as much as it's theoretically possible we could have met Wigan's valuation and his wage demands, but that doesn't mean we were going to or are wrong not to. Well my point is the outrageous bid last January which actually prompted this thread suggests that we were either very interested in signing Zog or wanted to make it look like we were. If that has changed this summer I'm surprised the club allowed all the speculation that we still wanted him to drag on until Villa moved decisively.