TRon

Look at the teams which are finishing top 6 every season and ask yourselves this: would they buy Nolan? If not why not? Isn't his leadership and captaincy just as vital for their dressing rooms? Why is it only us who are going to collapse without Kev's input?

If Best was cover next season and we had to play him, I'd still fancy him to get a goal. He gets in goal scoring positions and can score with the left, right or head. Not the worst qualities in a striker.

Yes. Don't know why, I doubt he's anywhere near as good.

I think that will be next summer if we're able to get into the top 8. I reckon the club will make a profit this year way in excess of £35m (the Carroll money will be bonus) and we should be profitable again next year if we end up in the top 10 because our wage bill will be lower than this year's + expected increase in attendance if we have a reasonably fun team to watch. And hopefully that profit will be used to invest in young players next summer to increase squad depth and push us on to Spurs/Liverpool/Everton level. basically i think this windfall is a one off opportunity under ashley. we won't see anything else like it unless we sell someone else for £35m, so we shouldn't fritter it away on mid-table players. I don't think there is going to be a "next summer" where we spend big again. this is it. get it right. i dont have a problem with opportunity signings like Ba on a free as long as it lets us use the money saved attracting better players. Attract how? Most of them will be chased by CL clubs and the only way o attract them is to pay more than they would get at those clubs. We've been down that route before.

I wouldn't say I rate Best so highly. Just don't rate him so lowly either.

Maybe Big Sam will put in an offer for Mcfadden. Because the championship is his level.

Money It's sales of players that don't make the grade that you would hope the club could sell to keep funding the academy. Would you offer him a new deal? Where do you see him fitting in with Ben Arfa, Jonas and Ferguson already capable of playing down the left? Isn't Lua Lua a right winger by choice? He's played left wing in his time at Brighton which is where he's hit his run of form for them, played there for us too in the final games of the season when he came on as sub. I know he started off on the right wiing. Maybe he's been shifted to the left to allow him to cut inside and shoot similar to how N'Zogbia's plying right side for Wigan these days despite being left footed.

Money It's sales of players that don't make the grade that you would hope the club could sell to keep funding the academy. Would you offer him a new deal? Where do you see him fitting in with Ben Arfa, Jonas and Ferguson already capable of playing down the left? Isn't Lua Lua a right winger by choice?

Well Pardew's remit is to cut costs so if you go by what some on here think it will probably be £120 a week with free canteen meals thrown in.

Don't think he was cut out for the top flight but it's a good deal for Brighton.

Surely there must be some latitude in the 'reducing costs' aspect of Pardew's remit though? Frankly, if 'reducing costs' means bringing in players like Ba, Cabeye for £4mil and selling Nolan when he's after 5 years at 55k, then Ashley is on the right track, surely? If people take this 'reducing costs' at face value, why is the club just not bringining in cheap shite to replace Carroll, Nolan, etc. 'Reducing costs' could mean a number of things and not all of them negative. Precisely. If we are reducing costs by bringing in players like Ba, Ben Arfa and Cabaye then please keep reducing them.

It works both ways if you want to look at it objectively. If we are looking to buy players on release clauses or contracts running down, we are losing them as well. Enrique will probably be sold for far less than he is worth because he can walk next season for free. Some other club will get the benefit of that in the same way we have got Cabaye and Taylor.

Venkman

I know what you mean, [b[i just don't see why everything positive has to have a massive caveat tagged onto the end.[/b] Ba is a good signing, he's better than all our other strikers. Let's judge the other business on its own merits. it doesn't, but it absolutely must be judged with reference to selling a player for 35m and then promising to invest that money into the squad publicly ian, i'm sorry like but it fucking does Fair enough. I just think Ba is a good signing and there's no reason to be down on it because he didn't cost £20m. aaaaaargh which part of "criticising the Ba deal is stupid 'cause it makes good sense on every level" is me being down on the ba signing? Sorry, I didn't see you say that and I wasn't really talking about you solely anyway. My personal view is that the Ba deal is a good deal. It won't become a bad deal even if we fail to make other signings. That's it really. i'm very surprised you don't see each individual incoming and outgoing deal as part of a bigger outlook the club has now. signings have to be looked at in this context now imo because we know that 1. the club are looking to take advantage of release clauses/free transfers rather than scouting a player and paying what he's worth (this is the reason i dont think we'll get n'zogbia) 2. we'll sell for big money even if it immediately hampers us on the pitch Each deal is part of the whole deal imo and it's the whole deal that I care about ultimately. With respect, you are talking shite TBF. I get the whole "big picture" thing but if you can't judge the signing of Demba Ba on whether we sign another striker or not. IF we sign Ba he will judged on his own merits out on the pitch. IF we sign another striker (which i think we will), he will be judged in the same way. If want to preserve collective judgement, save it for the management team on september 1st. Absolutely. It might well turn out that Ashley and Dekka are conning us by pretending to go for good players, but all that will be proven one way or the other soon enough.

Or have better options and won't come like Gervinho and Gameiro. we did have a pretty good looking striker here til january like and he cost nowt, a pay rise would have kept him here. For all we know Ba might score more than Carroll next season. Then we'll also have Cabaye on board, possibly Matuidi, Nzogbia and maybe a few more. Spurs have sold better players than Carroll and used the money to rebuild their side into a side that is now regularly in Europe. Selling on player for massive money isn't always a disaster.

Or have better options and won't come like Gervinho and Gameiro.

there's decent enough signs to lead me to think he might be the best striker we bring in At least he's a pretty good one. Said it yesterday but I'll repeat it: signing a top quality forward was always going to be the biggest challenge because the best ones are at or being chased by top clubs. People will moan about Erdinc just like they are moaning about Ba, but there's not many who are coming up with realistic alternatives.

Fair play to him I'm sure he does love it, but we have got rid of other players who loved it here as well because the football comes first. Joey should have signed the contract when he had the chance but now we've moved on. I'm sure he could still stay mind if his cunt of an agent was prepared to lower his demands.

--------------------Krul Simo------Tayls-----------Colo-------Jose ----------Tiote--------------Matuidi ------------------Cabaye ---Jonas---------------------------HBA --------------------BA Stick Erdinc in there instead of Jonas. Wanktastic.

No it isn't. UV has a library of posts which he's bookmarked and filed away for future reference. What is the point of the internet if you can't put such diligent cyber-plotting to good use? On the one hand Ian I'm honoured that you're so impressed by my internet skills, on the other it's a bit worrying that you think putting "Zogbia" into a search query is advanced stuff. Not surprised that its a bit like witchcraft for Tron like. My memory's shit, but it's easy enough to remember the repeated petulance and moodiness of N'Zogbia, and the almost universal reactions on here when N'Zogbia left as shame to lose a decent player on his (infrequent) day, but good riddance to a bad influence in the dressing room. Which is why it's so surprising to see so many of the same people frothing about possibly getting him back and completely blanking the issues we had with him throughout his time here before. Seeing you go on about how we now look into the character of players Ian (Ben Arfa is another example of solid down to earth type who never causes trouble I guess ) is laughable. Each to their own. I'm sure you'd be happy with a team of Smiths, Nolans, Butts, Ryan Taylors etc. No doubt they'd be a good set of lads. Personally I would prefer to move on from the Joe Kinnear era and would be delighted if Nolan is replaced by N'Zogbia.

I think he'll do well. Very pleased with the deal.

If we are genuinely in for Matuidi then I'd be concerned that Tiote is going, because it just seems pointless having two top players for one position. But then why leave Tiote out of the final two games of the season if we expected him to leave before next season began?

We were about three minutes away from doing just that a few weeks ago. We went 3-0 up without our scouse hero IIRC. How did that happen since we can't score goals without him? We didn't win that game because we brought on Smith and Tiote was left out of the squad.

If I was Pardew I would quite welcome the opportunity to shift out players who thought they knew better, especially those angling for contracts to set them up for a few cushy years. I don't think he's as much of a pawn as many here would like to think.