TRon

If we'd made a genuine bid of £10m for N'Zogbia i.e., before today, Whelan would have snapped our hands off. Think this is a piss take on our part and theirs.

On the plus side at least it will unsettle the Zog. Not that it takes much doing in any case.

Is this for real?

Is he arriving in a tardis for his medical then?

I'm sure at the time this went out no one in their right mind believed anyone would bid £35million for Carroll.

Leon Best anyone ?

Exactly. Like they expect to sign Bendtner from Arsenal with an hour to go to the deadline ffs.

I can understand this viewpoint but when Sunderland sold Bent I can remember saying that a cold hard look at it would suggest that Sunderland had sold him at his optimum value and personally I felt he was on a downward spiral at Sunderland anyway. While Carroll is a different case there was always a part of me that wondered if he didn't continue in this vein next season we would never get this sort of money for him again. Unfortunately to keep players when the big clubs come calling will mean smashing our wage structure which we obviously aren't prepared to do yet.

Its not the order of events I'm arguing with, its the events themselves. Anyone who reckons Carroll was made to put in a transfer request is a lunatic in my book (and that includes that horrible saggy faced contemptuous twat on SSN). But to answer your questions. Obviously yes we've sold our best striker, no I'm not happy but I'm not as suicidal as some on here. All Newcastle fans deserve much better, from Andy Carroll. But as good a player as he is and as much as I supported him because he was a Newcastle player I've never been under the illusion that he's anything but a horrible big headed twat in reality, so it doesn't surprise me that much. Where it puts Ashley's plan is actually totally in Ashley's hands, he can do alot with that money if its spent on the right players. £35m spent on 4 quality players would put us in a much better position then we were with Carroll in the side and no new players. I actually do believe we can progress, but the key will be the summer. The club should no longer be losing big money and we've received £35m for Carroll, so I expect major moves in the summer. Without them I'll lose any belief in Ashley. My position also. But I am pretty sure Ashley will only spend about £20m of that money in the summer and take the rest back as repayment of his loan.

are we ambitious tho? do you prefer to support an ambitious club, or one that just wants to survive? I don't think we're ambitious, or a club that just wants to survive. That's why I rated us as a 5.

5. I don't think we're selling players unless we get stupidly high fees for them. I think most clubs bar a select few are in the same boat.

Just trying to mask his disappointment at missing out tbh.

Peter Crouch is only a big striker by default. In reality he'd probably lose an arm-wrestling contest with Abbey Clancy.

Elmander for a small fee would be worth a go.

Because the overwhelming desire is to abuse Ashley in some form for this turn of events.

Divide that by 10 and you might have a realistic valuation.

There's some sound logic there. Liverpool don't play a style which will make the most of Carroll's strengths. Not sure Dalglish is a manager who really knows what he wants to do either; play football or defensive crap with the long ball as an outlet.

The only chance of keeping our best players is if we use the Carroll money to buy in quality players and damn quickly. Otherwise the other blue chip players are going to find the lure of an ambitious club paying big money too big a temptation. If a geordie lad can have his head turned by £££ signs what makes anyone think Enrique or Tiote will turn down the inevitable big money offer when it comes/

Nail on the head. I'm disappointed but at least we got a good fee.

If we'd accepted a £15m bid I would understand people claiming Ashley was desperate to sell. But we turned down £30 million ffs. Obviously every player has his price, especially if he decides to hand in a transfer request.

Not so confident of us keeping the likes of Enrique or Tiote after today.

We've accepted a bid, man. Of course it's partially Ashley's fault. Accepted the bid after he submitted the transfer request. The way the situation has been presented leads me to believe that we had every intention of selling him if the right bid came in. I would have been amazed if anyone turned down that sort of money. Just hope we don't spunk it away on wannabe replacements who don't cut the mustard.

We're not going to match Liverpools ridiculous bid. Good. I'd rather have the cash than Jack the Beanstalk Crouch.

That's probably because Talkshite announced the deal was done and dusted just a few hrs earlier.

Or the knee might be more serious than we were led to believe.