Shak

Yep, how many times have we had bids knocked back on the grounds of not being serious? All of them. With the exception of Douglas (though I can't quite remember) it's been done very publicly too. Didn't Shteve McshClaren pretty much take the piss out of our Douglas bid?

This would be vintage Ashley, just making a hash of things and pissing off the fans again as soon as there was some positivity around the club. Really hope the success in the transfer market hasn't gone to their head, if we try and get too cute in our transfer pursuits we could end up short come August and struggle this year as a result. Be a shame to undo all the great work of last season when three or four decent additions could see us really push on.

Sincerely doubt this is the end of it, we'll be back with an improved offer I'd imagine.

hes 27 6 million plus add ons should be more than enough. hes only a right back Go to bed. its a good offer why should they want more? Must try this in the supermarket. "Here's £4.30 for this bottle of wine." "It costs £5.99 sir." "It's a good offer, why should you want more?"

Can't fault Lille at all here. We're taking the piss with that offer and expecting Lille to cave beause the player wants to come here. If Tiote came out and said he wanted to join Man United and they offered 8m or so I'd expect Ashley to do the exact same.

Looks like a South Park character in the Juve one.

Baiser la Mags!

Aye. My worry is that it'll be Carroll or no striker.

methinks they're obligated to bid 17m if they stay up but could then do something like offer him a fiver a week or something if they don't want him Im sure all those details would have to be sorted and agreed already. What would be the point otherwise Aye. Being committed to paying a total of 19m for him would be madness. I think Carroll can be a quality player again in the right circumstances, but I'd rather spend the money on two or three others.

Hmmm, guess it's Carroll's call now. Are West Ham obligated to take him for 17m at the end of the year then or can they pull out if he's shit?

10m plus Ba.

Tough on him.

Dave with the photoshop for that one.

THIS IS GIGGS!!!!!!!!! http://i.imgur.com/agSiI.jpg

Probably a good thing they didn't, in fairness. Remember Tomasson and Shearer looking quality together before Shearer got injured.

They have McClean and Sess though, not sure where Neymar would fit in?

Kojak

It's a big part of the reason we struggle to link midfield to attack in a 4-4-2. Cabaye plays a little too deep and Jonas doesn't really offer much offensively, so often it ends in a hopeful ball towards one of the strikers.

Jonas is a valuable member of the squad who'll play a lot of football this year, but he shouldn't be an automatic starter the way the likes of Colo and Cabaye are IMO. Yeah he always works his socks off and is a great outlet when we're under pressure, but the sad fact is that he offers almost no end product whatsoever. In games where we're controlling possession and pinning teams back he offers very little, and I think from what we've seen of Marveaux in preseason there's potentially a better option there in certain games. To start the season of course we'll see Jonas get the nod to start, and rightfully so. Could see us using Marveaux as an impact sub in the last half hour or so if we're chasing games, and if he makes enough of his chances then he could see some starts. If he doesn't get injured again, of course.

You must contact our God, the entity known as Dave. *quietly sings the word 'Dave' repeatedly to himself to the tune of the Imperial March*

Skirby pls

I think it's more likely Marv will be fighting with Ben Arfa for a start rather than Jonas, still not convinced Pardew has fully committed with Ben Arfa yet. Can see him replaced most games and missing a fair few as well. I think that too. Jonas will be a starter and Marveaux and Ben Arfa will fight for the other spot. Should depend on opposition IMO. Home games against the weaker sides there's no good reason to start Jonas, Marveaux looks like he'd give you a lot more in the final third. Tougher fixtures you start Jonas though. Ben Arfa should always be one of the first names on the team sheet, regardless of opposition.

As talented as Marveaux is we can't count on him at the moment due to his injury problems. Ba had a handful of poor games but generally played well out wide and was very unlucky in front of goal a number of times. Agree with that, the problem though seems to be that Ba doesn't want to play out wide, Pardew has pretty much said as much. That's a concern for me like. Last night Ba played almost in the hole at times, wonder if that's the plan? Cabaye Tiote Ben Arfa. Ba. Marveaux Cisse With Jonas able to play out left or in CM.

Assumed Bentley just got carried away with the London lifestyle?

Wasn't entirely aimed at you Mole, there have been plenty of similar posts from people who seem to think Carroll isn't even in the same league as Ba, which is nonsense IMO. Carroll at his best was a player that teams (not just Liverpool btw, Spurs also bid over 20m) were willing to pay tremendous amounts of money for. He's decent technically and is one of the most physically dominant centre forwards I've ever seen play football. Having an outlet like that up top is nothing to be sneezed at. Chelsea won a lot of trophies with a gameplan that involved plenty of long balls towards Drogba, when you have a player that wins it that often why wouldn't you? If we had all three of them at the club my money would be on Carroll and Cisse emerging as the preferred partnership tbh.