TRon

Even if it saves us £2million by waiting? I would have thought the last day of the season gone showed up the false economy of playing with an inadequate squad.

The NF move just underlines the view that the Championship is his level.

There are enough bores in action posting 'jokes' like yours here It's known in the trade as (un)constructive witticism.

I would add that I can see some sense in holding some funds back for January even though it's not what we want to hear. The team is going through a drastic overhaul and there's no guarantees it will click from day one. It might be that we will identify a key area which needs strengthening or a player might become available who we would like then. Priorities change quickly in football.

Sits it out til Christmas, opens talks with Barca to toddle off on a freebie. I would accept that TBH. Except then we probably wouldn't sign M'Bengue as I think we'll only sign him if we get a fee for Enrique. Maybe, that would obviously be bad. We'd have to sign someone though. Neil Taylor.

Available on a free he'd have endless suitors, though. That's a point as well.

especially since we've signed Marveaux and Barton may well be staying as well. Whether Zog wants to wait another year is another matter and why we might miss out as a result.

Sits it out til Christmas, opens talks with Barca to toddle off on a freebie. I would accept that TBH. Except then we probably wouldn't sign M'Bengue as I think we'll only sign him if we get a fee for Enrique.

This is starting to get silly. These are things you will never find out. No. No we really don't. If we have a better team next season. If not. Simples! f*** me, finally. yes and no. if we were to marginally improve but have kept money back would you not ask why we didn't use it ? fwiw i don't think they'll take money out but if they are setting aside 5yrs worth of wages now for the new signings i'm not sure if that is the best use of the money. That's the caveat for me. I don't have any problem with the players we have brought in or the ones we have shipped out. I'm just disappointed we have been ultra cautious and not really gone for it when we have the funds to do so. Add Matuidi, N'Zogbia and a striker to this squad and you would feel we would take on most teams. Given the tv revenues and gate money we generate I don't think it was unreasonable to expect such an outlay, although I can't say I ever really believed we would do it.

Where have we said we weren't signing another striker? I thought that was still a priority?

It guarantees that the local press are always right anyway. A proud day for the north east

Long isn't a big name but neither were Carroll or Charlie Adam a year ago and now Liverpool have spent nearly £50m on the pair. Sometimes it's a case of good scouting and judgement early on getting the players before their value rockets. Long has pace and skill, the question mark would be his finishing at the top level. I haven't seen him enough to make a call on that but you would imagine others have.

The fact we've bid £7m for him and PSG haven't exactly told us to do one would suggest we will.

With all the talk about new strikers it's easy to overlook the idea of HBA playing behind Ba. I don't think the opposition would fancy it much.

Be even more interesting to see if it totally messes up Liverpool's passing game. For all the benefits of crosses landing on Carroll's head, it might be at the expense of their previous strengths (touch wood).

Shepherd also fucked off with a shitload of cash. All the money he spent came out of NUFC coffers not his bank account.

I would imagine the English lads stick together as well, Barton did give special mention to Smith, Nolan and Harper. No harm in it as long as the overall squad camaraderie is good.

The two clubs you mentioned have both sold players to finance their transfer spending. True, but they've also shown a willingness to spend money. I'm far from an Ashley hater, I do like a lot of the things he's done since taking over. But I don't think he's got much ambition, and that limits what I think we can achieve. If we go out and show real ambition this summer and make a couple of big splashes in the transfer market then I'll happily change my tune, but I personally don't expect it to happen. I've said more or less the same thing in another post somewhere today, probably in this thread. Ashley isn't enthusiastic about this club or at least isn't willing to invest more ambitiously. I would have liked Zog to go with the new striker but it could have been a lot worse.

The two clubs you mentioned have both sold players to finance their transfer spending.

How would we get back to being a CL team under a different owner? Find the best manager you can attract (rather than hire the most highly qualified of your mates) and actually back and empower him, for one thing. We'd probably need someone who was willing to speculate to accumulate too, given the state of the modern game. The CL clubs are out of our league right now. No one can match their spending power, and if they attempt to like Liverpool they're in danger of crashing to earth with an almighty bang if things go tits up.

Routledge has been replaced by Mehdi so of course he's surplus to requirements. Get shot.

Yes.

What I take from the very cautious financial approach is that Ashley would still sell the club given a decent offer. In the meantime he's not going to sink any more of his money into it and will run it as a profitable business rather than a source of enjoyment which is the initial reason he gave for buying the club. In that light this summer could have been worse, although it's all slightly underwhelming given the money that is coming in. It's his money though and until someone with a bit more vision comes in and buys the club we'll just have to bite the bullet.

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned on here that the Erdinc bid had been accepted long before that twat tweeted it.

Because the offer was amazing and it helps to improve our finances. I'm not saying we might not spend slightly more now we have extra money BTW, just that it's not such a direct link as people like to make out. ("Would we have spent nothing?", "We still have £30m in the bank" etc etc). I know Pards made the situation worse by saying it would all be reinvested, but you must know he was just reacting to a question and defending a shocking development. 'Slightly more'?! The entire reasoning behind taking that amazing offer was that it would be used to significantly improve the squad. The computer game experts on here assured us all that plenty of better strikers could be bought with the money we were getting for Carroll, for example. I'm reasonably happy with our transfers so far and as it stands I would say the squad is possibly a little better than it was last season, but that's making a number of assumptions about players fitting in straight away, hitting the ground running and offering at least the same production as those they have replaced. Not to mention the fact that there are supposedly a number of what I consider to be useful players up for sale. The sound of goalposts being moved grows louder every day. I don't really disagree with any of that Dave, except I don't agree that the reasoning for selling Carroll was to improve the squad. I think the reasoning behind selling Carroll was to improve our finances and because we got an offer that was too good to turn down. The improvement of the squad was something that was said to soften the blow for fans, and hopefully will actually happen in some way as a secondary effect. But it won't increase out spending to dramatic levels, it will just allow us to make a reasonable number of realistic signings. Which we're already doing. I guess my argument sometimes seems weird because the premise for it is that Carroll wasn't sold fundamentally to improve the squad and make more signings. You may or may not agree with that. I think the club are shooting themselves in the foot by not saying that then. Publicly saying that the Carroll fee is being used to pay wages gives totally the wrong message IMO. Maybe you should apply for the job of club PR spokesman because you are doing a better job than the current lot