TRon

Wish they'd fucking get on with it then, and I love Miggy but we need to be on the same playing field as the big (s)hitter clubs.

Agreed, but we are well aware of those already. But people are asking why players would consider ever going there beyond a year so it's useful to hear the other side.

Who knows? I just wouldn't get too sucked in until there's something concrete tbh, the loss would be unbearable if he ended up at Man U or Liverpool. Just keep your head down and walk past those headlines for now.

I think these posts of first hand experience are invaluable tbh, if only to balance the negative views of which we are all mostly aware. Not for me personally, but it's still interesting to see there's a lot more there than sand and public beheadings.

Would be another great signing if there's any truth in it. He showed glimpses of what he can do at Chelsea, think he could do well at a settled club with an idea what they are doing.

I doubt Howe would be pushing the club to sign either Gordon or Barnes with restricted funds unless they were players he thought would make a difference immediately. You said yourself there's a very small pool of players to choose from, and if you spend your restricted funds on 'maybes' then there's less chance of getting the elites. Will be interesting to see how Gordon does next year, and Barnes if he arrives. I'd be pretty pissed off at spending £80m of precious funds if they can't do better than what we've got. Personally I think they will both kick on and be key players (assuming Barnes actually arrives).

I think he'd have no problem going again with the same wide options, they aren't the worst in the division by a long shot, but I also think he'd prefer an upgrade, and would sell one of those two or ASM if it meant getting in one of the players he really fancies.

It's Moyes who is holding West Ham back IMO. His style is more suited to cup football, don't think he plays aggressive enough to win enough points over a season regularly.

He's in his second stint there I think. He left to go to the Telegraph and now he's back. Or maybe it was the Daily Mail, not 100% sure about it, but he's always been a wind up merchant first and foremost. He did do a really good article a couple of months back exposing how FFP was designed to keep the 'elite' clubs in power though.

Amazing they have turned things around so quickly given how the wheels were falling off within the space of a few months of him taking over. To think Martin Samuels actually published an article in the Times how we'd missed a trick by choosing Howe instead of Gerrard with his big name connections.

Yep, no doubt about his credentials as a fan, I just don't personally want to listen to his pre-pubescent opinions about football. I have no problem with others tuning in, knock yourselves out.

You should go over and introduce yourself and explain you saw his picture with the EDL stuff. Guaranteed he'd bluster " Oh nah mate I wasn't protesting against you, it was against Osama bin Laden. You're alreet."

Yeah, to Bruno he's just the fat guy with an NUFC tattoo on his belly, tbf that's all he was to me until 10 mins ago.

I'm sure that would be the dream scenario, but football isn't played on spreadsheets, so we do have to balance that with players who are actually available, and that would improve the team first and foremost. Especially given buying them isn't an exact science.

Oh dear. I think the cameras might not be zooming in on this guy in future televised games if word gets out.

Why do we need to turn a 40% profit on a signing? What's wrong with a 20% profit for example? Obviously we'd love to make 150% profit if we could on every player, but the bottom line should be we recoup our money if it doesn't work out surely?

Outside of the Hallowed Six, it's us and Villa who will be fighting to break their hold again this season. I do think we'll finish above them, but no guarantees, they have a squad and manager that rivals ours, that much is evident.

Never that simple though is it? Darwin Nunez was wanted by all leading clubs last season, I think he was eventually bought by Liverpool for something like £80m while no one valued Isak enough to take a punt on him for anywhere near that much. Which one would you rather have now? Of course this is all about opinions, but I value Howe's higher than most. If he wants Barnes so badly, I figure there's good reason for it.

Would like to have waited until we'd caught up to all the other teams who have resorted to that shit before FFP put the blocks on, not going to lie.

That's because he's been quite a low profile player with Leicester struggling, before our interest I don't think there'd been that much talk of him. But if he was to have a good season with us, with us being a CL club and constantly on TV, I could quite easily see his value go to £50m+.

I get what you're saying, I'm looking at these valuations of £20-25m for Murphy, and wondering what planet people are living on? £15m is a reasonable fee though, but I do still think there aren't that many clubs who'll actually pay it.

Sounds about right. Carragher does have that look of sneaky credit-pinching cunt about him.

Nothing will ever come close to 8mosphere, there were murmurings in Parliament of repealing independence following that abomination.

That's a weird take from Micah. As a pundit it's usually what you say which makes people take any notice, Jamie Redknapp being good looking doesn't make him sound any less thick. Mind I suppose it's not like Richards has a huge bank of football wisdom to call on either, so maybe understandable why he's focusing on appearances.