TRon

Owen, Anelka and Souness were all monumental fuck ups.

He left because he was being offered a lot more money at a club who will be challenging for CL football next season. With us he'd have had to wait another five years to be in that position...assuming we didn't sell our best players during that time. Hmmm.

He's changed his tune. A couple of months ago he was banging on about only wanting to bring in young players with lots of pace and energy. He's probably found out that the good ones cost a lot of money.

I agree, but 90% of professional football managers seem to think the opposite. I'm sure SBR mentioned how on the continent players were more adaptable to fit systems for certain games. In fact he used Aaron Hughes as a man-marking midfielder a few times. I think some players use the fact they are being played out of position as an excuse sometimes. Shane Ferguson has shown a great attitude when he's been asked to play either in defence or midfield.

Nothing wrong with scouring the market for players coming to the end of their contract as long as they are quality additions and not just players who will come here for low wages.

Was wondering what his latest excuse for not playing would be. This one seems like a prime candidate.

I don't think Kelly was offered a bumper contract extension once our ambitions moved to a higher level. Pretty poor comparison in that regard.

The team had lost away to West Brom, you seem to forget that we'd also won away to Arsenal and Everton and hammered the team that relegated us and we thrashed the mackems. You also seem to overlook Pardew being allegedly lined up as least a month before he was appointed so the West Brom game was an excuse, not a reason. How do you know the club had no money? We signed Ben Arfa when we didn't have to, we could have spent that money on somebody who could have made a difference this season, instead of next season. As for Hughton's win percentage, this season his record is better than Pardew's when Cup games are taken into account. Hughton's win percentage here is better than anything Pardew has ever done at any club in any division. I don't remember you defending Hughton so much when he was actually boss mick Pointless discussion at this stage for me. I'm also going to wait to see what Pardew does with the money he'll have to spend. Hughton did well in retrospect. He got slated for buying Best but he has turned out to be good value.

I think the results we've got under Pardew have been pretty good considering the team has been decimated and we lost our one quality striker. There's no guarantee Hughton would have done better. How do you know he might not have done worse?

He won't join unless he's going to be first choice. Don't think that will be a problem somehow.

Pardew had a bit of a reputation at previous clubs for making strange selections. Sometimes I think he's a bit too clever for his own good. But on the whole I like the fact he's brave enough to experiment with formations. Hopefully they'll start coming off though, as at the moment they've pretty much backfired.

Yeah he gave the ball away a lot against Villa, which wasn't the best way to go considering he'd been slagging off England players picked ahead of him for the national squad.

Hopefully Ireland will be pumped up to prove the doubters wrong. As someone who was quite happy with the deal I find myself now not really giving a toss. Honestly thought he'd be busting a gut to relight his career. Turns out he's just been busting a gut eating pizzas in front of the telly. Disappointing.

Agree with this really. Let's get it straight, it's Liverpool who don't want him not the other way round. He's not good enough for a big club with ambition and I guarantee you 100% that Liverpool will never come in for him. Ever. But I do think he realises this is a great club which he is fortunate to play for because the likes of SBR and KK aren't around any more. At the moment he is crucial for such a low grade squad.

Definitely. Fuck that. I couldn't give a toss where he goes as long as we get the most money, I'm interested in seeing us do well...I can't believe people would rather lose out on 4m just because it's harder for them to sleep at night thinking about Enrique in a pretty red Liverpool shirt ... er? More to do with the fact we'd have strengthened (what should be next season) an immediate rival with our two best footballers. And I suppose we shouldn't be strenghening Tottenham either as they're an immediate rival aren't they? Liverpool will be there next season. Well, duh. We want to be in a fight for the Europa League spots next season, Liverpool and Spurs will be in the same fight. Why should we strenghten them and weaken ourselves? Pretty straightforward that if we sell we should sell to teams "better" than them or outside the PL. because we know our place in the pecking order....success is another year in the premier league for us.

And his own desire for a fat new contract. He'd just signed a fat new contract. Obviously Liverpool turned his head with their big money but we could have made him honour his new contract and Nolan could have done more to keep him here. No one came out of it very well.

Nothing much I didn't already know, his attitude is absolutely first class. I believe him 100% when he says Carroll didn't want to go but I also still believe he didn't do enough to persuade him to stay because it was Liverpool, Nolan's home town club. Carroll could easily have been here if Nolan had encouraged him to ignore Ashley's desire for the money.

Doesn't matter where the news comes from, it's obvious Enrique is going there. Managers always go back to their former clubs for players and Jose is the type of player Dalglish would love. The game against Villa just confirmed what a master class defender he is, no winger got past him all day. If it doesn't happen feel free to quote this post and make me look a mug. I meant the £8.5 million tag - I can see Jose going to Liverpool though and for more than the £8.5 that they've reported. That was a general comment not aimed at you although with the quote it comes out that way. No way will we get more than £8.5m either with only a year left on his contract. It will probably be more like £5-6m IMO...and we'll take it.

Yeah thats the one i was thinking about, doesnt come close to suggesting that is over the length of a contract though as people keep saying. Just likely means we spend for example £25m on fees and £10m goes towards all wages/signing on fees etc. Trouble is £25m won't even buy a replacement for AC, never mind anything else. Peter Odemwingie 11 goals £1million Clint Dempsey 10 goals £2.5million Hugo Rodallega 10 goals (last season) £4.5million Just from the last couple of season, but going back through the years there are plenty of examples of players who didn't cost a fortune but performed in the Premiership. Yes, there are players who didn't perform, but it's far more obvious when they've got a large transfer fee attached to their name (see: Torres, F) And how much do they do for the rest of the team? He had six assists by December, that's without even considering the amount of play that went through him. Just signing a goalscorer isn't enough having lost a player like Carroll - that's why he's worth far more money than someone like Bent. Do you think those three players are as good as Andy Carroll? Funnily enough I still think Carroll was more suited for our team than Liverpool's as we play more long ball football, and there's a chance that Liverpool might end up messing their own game up by trying to do that with him. Agree though that while it's all well and good to talk about £35m being massive money, unless you can buy someone as good it means fuck all.

Routledge isn't good enough, the only reason we are discussing him is we let him go without buying a replacement. Pardew put his faith in a couple of crocks in Gosling and Ireland and got caught short.

Doesn't matter where the news comes from, it's obvious Enrique is going there. Managers always go back to their former clubs for players and Jose is the type of player Dalglish would love. The game against Villa just confirmed what a master class defender he is, no winger got past him all day. If it doesn't happen feel free to quote this post and make me look a mug.

envisage us getting 5-6 new players in the summer, if only because we need the bodies. Hopefully there will be a couple of half-decent players amongst them, even if it takes a few months for them to settle it, so maintaining the squad morale/team spirit is pretty important. Quite similar to Yorkie in the sense that finishing mid-table next year isn't anything to be sniffed at, particularly if there are some encouraging signs on the pitch and with the younger players getting more of a chance. Would bite your hand off for finishing 12th and a decent cup run (i.e. a trip to Wembley). Why 12th? While I can accept that this season was about survival, there's still a realistic chance we could finish 12th this season. With £35m in the spending kitty shouldn't we be aiming a little higher?

It is if it's spent on good players. If....

It is naivety like. Tiote, Ben Arfa and Simpson are perfect examples of the Ashley way. Buy a player with potential for relatively low figure. See how the player performs. If well, protect the asset. Await big bid, reply by stating the asset is on a long term contract and only silly money will be accepted. Accept larger offer. There's no point in anybody getting particularly fond of a star player because they'll be off within a couple of years for more than they were bought for. The policy is a very good model - just not without it's risks - the key one being morale imho. Hence the talks with Nolan. Pardew will be arguing for a core of players to be here for the long term to ensure morale is ok and Nolan is key to this. Nolan is the perfect Ashley player. Will score enough goals to help secure safety in the premier but still relatively cheap because no big club will want him. Not sure I agree with that tbh. He'll be at the top of the salary range and have little resale value. His value comes in keeping a squad together, morale ok etc. Compare his captaincy to say Owens. His captaincy is great but Ashley isn't going to pay over the odds for that. Nolan will be paid what it takes to keep him, and with no big clubs interested it shouldn't be huge wages. Although Ashley might consider his goals worth paying a bit more for as we can form a cheap but effective style round players like Nolan.

Not even going to bother speculating on what we should do for the same reason I can't be arsed with the transfer threads. Let's see what we do with the Carroll money in the summer....that should pretty much spell out our priorities. It will be a key to good players already here staying or as is more likely, leaving.