SEMTEX

but none of this is really correct though, maybe the experience bit but certainly not the goals True for Tottenham, but good record for England 3 in 10 games, I'll take that for a left winger. You not think his record playing in the Premier League for a Premier League club is a little more representative of his ability to play for Newcastle, a Premier League club in the Premier League? Or are we lobbing that out of the window and just going with his 3 goals against San Marino, Montenegro and Italy (friendly) as a better sample? How many goals have we gotten from Thauvin, Aarons, Obertan, etc, etc who we've played in that spot, the best has been Perez, who's a bloody striker playing out of position. He's been underused in the extreme at Spuds (why I don't know), he's played only 50 games for them ffs, he's 24 and been there since he was 8! Despite that gets a call up to play for England and impresses and scores goals. I more inclined to believe in him right now the current incumbents, considering who are manager is he's got a better chance of succeeding than Thauvin, Aarons etc will. All fairly irrelevant to what you posted before. I didn't say anything about other players and his ability in comparison. Your post was "I know he's been s*** in the premier league, but he scored 3 for England so I'll take that!!!" My post was "We play in the premier league, so perhaps we pay attention to his PL performances rather than his performances vs San Marino" Love the way you try to spin it so that it makes him sound crap because he scored against San Marino. He came on in that game as a 66th minute sub, and scored 10 mins or so later. His other games were against Montenegro and Poland in World cup Qualifiers. Solvenia, Estonia and Lithuania, the rest of his games were friendlies against Germany, Chile, Italy and Denmark. Considering he's only made 4 starts, the rest have been 60- 70 mins sub appearance the goal scoring record for England is even better. Going back to your original point, there is such a limited sample size to accurately gauge his PL record, but if you are getting picked for England and playing pretty well when you play, you are doing something right, surely ?? FFS this is why I don't post on here very often anymore, people just seem to wait for others to make a point and try to rip it apart, to get a few laughs. Well hope I made your day, I don't have time in my life to fully research every post I make, just thought I would pop on here and say I liked the signing, shouldn't have bothered. Will know better in future. he might be fucking class, I doubt it, but who knows. You're most welcome to like the signing. I was simply pointing out, he has played 50 games in the PL, which is the league we play in, but you've chosen to discount them and only pay attention to his 10 games playing International football. But aye, you've got it right, just doing it for cheap laughs. Nowt to do with your massively flawed logic. And no, I do not believe him getting called up to the prestigious England squad is a sign that he's actually a good player. See: 90% of the shit that gets called up nowadays.

but none of this is really correct though, maybe the experience bit but certainly not the goals True for Tottenham, but good record for England 3 in 10 games, I'll take that for a left winger. You not think his record playing in the Premier League for a Premier League club is a little more representative of his ability to play for Newcastle, a Premier League club in the Premier League? Or are we lobbing that out of the window and just going with his 3 goals against San Marino, Montenegro and Italy (friendly) as a better sample? How many goals have we gotten from Thauvin, Aarons, Obertan, etc, etc who we've played in that spot, the best has been Perez, who's a bloody striker playing out of position. He's been underused in the extreme at Spuds (why I don't know), he's played only 50 games for them ffs, he's 24 and been there since he was 8! Despite that gets a call up to play for England and impresses and scores goals. I more inclined to believe in him right now the current incumbents, considering who are manager is he's got a better chance of succeeding than Thauvin, Aarons etc will. All fairly irrelevant to what you posted before. I didn't say anything about other players and his ability in comparison. Your post was "I know he's been shit in the premier league, but he scored 3 for England so I'll take that!!!" My post was "We play in the premier league, so perhaps we pay attention to his PL performances rather than his performances vs San Marino"

but none of this is really correct though, maybe the experience bit but certainly not the goals True for Tottenham, but good record for England 3 in 10 games, I'll take that for a left winger. You not think his record playing in the Premier League for a Premier League club is a little more representative of his ability to play for Newcastle, a Premier League club in the Premier League? Or are we lobbing that out of the window and just going with his 3 goals against San Marino, Montenegro and Italy (friendly) as a better sample? Baffling stuff really, he's 24 and done precisely nothing in the PL. That's the bare fact of the matter really. I don't really give a shit either way about this one personally. I'd prefer lots of other players, but he's definitely better than gouffran/obertan, and we do need depth. I'm just not going to pretend that he's going to be this impact player banging in goals for fun, on the basis of him having scored two competitive goals against pony nations.

but none of this is really correct though, maybe the experience bit but certainly not the goals True for Tottenham, but good record for England 3 in 10 games, I'll take that for a left winger. You not think his record playing in the Premier League for a Premier League club is a little more representative of his ability to play for Newcastle, a Premier League club in the Premier League? Or are we lobbing that out of the window and just going with his 3 goals against San Marino, Montenegro and Italy (friendly) as a better sample?

I really wish these fellas were still on Sky tbh. The whole debacle of them getting fired has lead to a world in which we have to hear Richard Keys' opinions. That's just not a world I want to live in. When he worked for Sky, he was the neutral, say-nothing-of-worth presenter that I never gave a second thought to. Now he's all over the shop giving his manly bloke opinions, and consequently adding to my hatred for the human race.

has a stupid mouth 3/7 wsb

yup. Absolutely nowt new. Doing the bare minimum and hoping to avoid relegation, pretending we're trying to sign strikers/making woeful bids, and if one of them happens to make it through, offer them a pittance, with the caveat that we'll absolutely sell them to anyone who bids in 6 months time. Hope we go down. Maybe then someone will break into Ashley's house and do us all a favour. Ideally in a way that makes it look like a stranglewank gone wrong.

Spurs 3-1 chaddaz

Alli. Fucking heck.

Don't need a plan b. Plan A is going swimmingly. Stretch out vague interest in a couple of players, make derisory bid, bid rejected, window closes, say we tried.

With good reason. The league has been shit for a decade man. Even when we've had exciting finishes, the whole thing has still been run by the same old fuckers, or the new wealth of a team backed by some repulsive middle eastern prince. BURN IT ALL DOWN. All the clubs, the competitions, the owners, the players, the fans. Kill them all and start again fresh.

You'd prefer your champ to be a team that can batter watford but can't beat Liverpool? I'd prefer my champ to be the team that gets the most points over the course of a season, against all teams i.e. the way it currently is, rather than a team who can't break down the smaller teams consistently but can frustrate and defend well against better teams and hope to bring it to penalties or nick a goal from a set piece in a one off game Yeah okay but we've already established that the "frustrate and nick a goal" tactic has worked about twice in the last 1000 years in the cup competitions.

You'd prefer your champ to be a team that can batter watford but can't beat Liverpool?

How so? Those managers don't do well in the cups as it is right now. They'd only have to play against the big teams in the playoffs, there wouldn't be any need to attack or try to create something such as there would be if they played a smaller team What about in the CL or any competition for that matter? When Barca, Bayern or Real play a lesser team who defends and plays that style, they usually win. The best team always wins no matter what. That's just how it is. They are so much better than the other teams that it doesn't matter. It isn't fair that a team like Liverpool who rely on hard running and counter attacking with not much quality or flair beat Arsenal in a one-off game, having finished 20 points behind them and then they win the league See, I don't know what you mean by fair. The team that wins the playoffs is the best team. Now I can't go with that. They're the best team on that day. The one that matches up the best / is in the best form etc. They're not necessarily the best team over the year.

There is a distinct possibility that certain sides would attempt to use those tactics, but there is no evidence to say that it's by any means a flawless tactic, and thus I believe your concerns to be unfounded.

It's one of many tactics that has been used with success in football, but it in no way dominates the landscape of cup competitions, and thus, the point put forward by mr triggs, is shite.

We beat Liverpool and Tottenham and drew with Man Utd. Perhaps we'd win.

I don't know what to argue against there like. If that's such an issue, it seems like a better idea to fix the game, rather than allow it to affect how we structure tournaments. As it stands today, if a team has found a way to beat another team, I don't have any problem with how they do it.

Which is why we have separate cup competitions. The best team in the country should be decided over the course of a league campaign, as it has been since 1888. Change is it good. So as I said, it just depends what you want. You want the categorical best team over 10 months to be the champion, so you go league. Others would prefer the team that can perform in high pressure situations, against the best teams in the league. Both are reasonable enough IMO. Personally, I'm bored as fuck with football, so would take playoffs just for the lols.

Explain. Barcelona have done pretty well in cup competitions like. I don't find them to be negative.

Depends what you want innit. Playoffs are fun, a great spectacle etc. They don't give you the best team in the league, but they give you the team that performs the best against top opposition, with a heavy sprinkling of random chance. It's not like it's that hard to comprehend why it's fun. People enjoy the FA cup and the Champions League finals...

Been awhile since I've seen the old, "I can't be racist, I have a black mam" excuse.

We've got Sterry man. He's knocking on the door.

Not a lot admittedly I do think though that Bellamy's track record with things off the pitch was quite a bit better than Berahino's at the same point of their careers, and hadn't fallen out with any of his managers to nearly the same extent as Berahino has thus far. This should be factored into the fee, which I don't believe it is if we are planning on a bid for £18 million. Bellamy didn't cost £18 million. Bellamy cost £6.5m in 2001. I don't have 'average fee' data over the years, so I thought I'd reference the British transfer record instead. At that time Rio Ferdinand was the most expensive British transfer at £29,100,000. Nowadays that record goes to Gareth Bale, at £85,300,000. That is 2.93 times how much Rio cost. Bellamy's £6.5m * 2.93 = £19,053,265. So you're right. We shouldn't be paying £18m, we should be paying £19m. I don't agree with using Bale as the most expensive British transfer - it's Real Madrid doing the buying in that instance and their spending power is far greater than any of the British clubs. Bale is also the most expensive player in the world, not just Britain, and an anomaly in the sense that he is the only British player to my knowledge to hold that particular accolade. Zidane, his equivalent in 2001, went for £45 million - 50% more than Ferdinand, the most expensive British player. If you instead use the most expensive player bought by a British club as the benchmark - Angel di Maria at £59.7 million (ignoring Martial and his weird add-ons until they kick into play further down the line) - di Maria works out at 2.051 times the price of Rio, which would lower Bellamy's modern day fee to £13,335,052. Jesus Christ. This coming from the man who just dug out the biggest transfer fee we received in 2001? Appreciate I was splitting hairs a bit in the previous post but at least let me get things back to Berahino: - If we're using the sum we paid Coventry for Bellamy in 2001 as a yardstick for Berahino's relative worth, I don't think £19 million is a good deal. - Regardless of what it would cost to sign Berahino, I simply don't like the guy. Pulis is probably the last guy I'd want to bring a talented youngster through the ranks but there's a real arrogance about Berahino that grates (as odd as it sounds, that FA Cup game against a lower league side where he scored 4 goals and couldn't even crack a smile springs to mind - as if the game was completely beneath him. He also got into a fight with James Morrison, who's hardly Roy bloody Keane). I know he's young, but his attitude seems a million miles away from those in his peer group - the likes of Kane, Barkley, Dier, Stones who all come across as consummate professionals despite their age. We have quite a likable squad at the moment who are beginning to turn it around on the pitch; I'm not sure I'd want to risk disrupting that by bringing in a bad egg. I rate McClaren as a coach but less so as a man-manager and I'd question his ability to get a talented but rebellious youngster on the straight and narrow. So you like Kane, Barkley, Dier and Stones, but you hate Berahino. I wonder what those 4 players have in common, that Berahino does not. I wonder if there's something different about him. Hmmm. http://i.imgur.com/SapANEE.jpg

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