tmonkey

That made me laugh out loud. Hall of fame material, this thread. The way Robert is painted is absolute genius.

One of the maddest posts ever in internet history It's mad now, sure, but at the time Lampard was in the final year of his contract with Chelsea stalling on a new deal, whilst we on the other hand had a billionaire owner in charge who was supposedly willing to pump money into landing a major star player or two. If we had done what Man City did regarding Robinho (or what we did with Owen from Real), and offered Lampard £200k per week or more, would he honestly have said "no"? Without doubt. Kaka was on the verge of a move to Man City. He's easily better than Lampard, recently the best player in the world, has a higher profile worldwide, and was considering a move to a mid table club with a sitting duck in Mark Hughes in charge. Money talks. Lampard is greedy. It was a possibility, even if a remote one, and hence I don't think Keegan including the player on a wishlist is a sign of madness. you will have to find one reason why keegan,with the club having hocked everything,having about 65% of turnover going on wages would find the money ? also remembering that the only placed it was mentioned was in a news of the world piece purporting to be from inside the club lambasting keegan for even thinking of the likes of lampsrd and henry and intimating that he knew the financial constraints ? There are two sides to this "madness of King Kev" coin, and I'm not saying for certain that the NOTW article and the scenario it refers to is false in it's entirety just because it tries to slander Keegan. What you refer to is one possibility, that Keegan put those players on his list despite knowing that the club did not have the funds to sign them. Bear in mind that the NOTW article did not use a named source, so it could just as easily be creative journalism as it could be Ashley/Llambias releasing information through the back door. At the same time, earlier on in the year we had articles released where Ashley was supposedly looking to sign one or two world class, big money players to raise the profile of NUFC. I can't find any of them, mainly because I can't be bothered to search, but I remember those artciles as I'm sure do others. If (that word you hate ) Keegan was brought in under the circumstance that such signings were feasible if the options were there, i.e. if Ashley was willing to fund or stretch the budget for a world class big name or two, then going back to the Keegan madness jibe, it'd be quite clear that having Lampard, Henry and Ronaldinho on a wishlist is far from ridiculous. If (again) he did hand such a list to Llambias, and those three were on that list, I hardly consider it to be Keegan being absolutely bonkers. Strange things often happen in football, and they tend to happen because someone takes advantage of a situation and forces an issue. We did it for example with Owen and Madrid/Liverpool. So Keegan merely wanting his chairman to look into the situation is hardly a sign of madness for me. As stated earlier, maybe this isn't what happened? I'm only referring to possibilities here based on what we do know (for example, Kamil Zayatte), and at this point in time I'm siding with Keegan on this issue.

One of the maddest posts ever in internet history It's mad now, sure, but at the time Lampard was in the final year of his contract with Chelsea stalling on a new deal, whilst we on the other hand had a billionaire owner in charge who was supposedly willing to pump money into landing a major star player or two. If we had done what Man City did regarding Robinho (or what we did with Owen from Real), and offered Lampard £200k per week or more, would he honestly have said "no"? Without doubt. Kaka was on the verge of a move to Man City. He's easily better than Lampard, recently the best player in the world, has a higher profile worldwide, and was considering a move to a mid table club with a sitting duck in Mark Hughes in charge. Money talks. Lampard is greedy. It was a possibility, even if a remote one, and hence I don't think Keegan including the player on a wishlist is a sign of madness. what an absolute load of nonsense Not really, but without meaning to be disrespectful (it's your opinion after all) then you've stated you believe Lampard to be better than Xavi, despite Xavi outclassing him in every single meaningful encounter so far, so I'd expect this from you. Kaka has put in high quality performances in the CL and at international level in big games. Not consistently enough given his talent and he can go missing at times, but he's at least shown his class at that level. Lampard on the other hand has done nothing other than look like a plodder at those same levels in similar big games.

He was being linked with Mourinho at Inter but what are facts when the sudject is soo flawed to start with? He was linked with both, and several more. I could have posted the Inter link because I remember it in the papers, but it's irrelevant. The point is, Juve weren't in a great position at the time. That had finished 3rd in Serie A but had a team far from capable of doing anything in the CL, nor a squad capable of getting close to a Serie A title challenge. Why would Lampard go to what is universally viewed as a weaker league and a weaker team, if not for money? Hence, if we could offer considerably more money, Premiership football, no foreign acclimiatisation issues, Keegan was manager and a billionaire owner, etc etc, there might have been a small chance that Lampard would think "why not, the money's good". No matter how small, it's a possibility. Therefore, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "may have been a possibility". Haha thats brilliant, you could have posted the Inter link? As opposed to not posting it as he turned them down and that would be a killer blow to an already punchdrunk arguement What I'm saying (and thought was clear) is that at the time of posting "linked with Juve", I was well aware that he was linked with Inter in the same papers too. For some reason, you think that because I've mentioned one and not the other, my entire arguement has somehow been debunked. That's entirely your faulty logic where you've spotted what you think to be a mistake and then jumped on it. As for turning them down, he signed a new contract after Chelsea increased their offer. Quite clearly he was using interest from other clubs to force Chelsea to up their offer. Before anyone goes off on one pointing out how this means Lampard would never have left, I'll say that noone can really know 100% what will happen in situations like this.

One of the maddest posts ever in internet history It's mad now, sure, but at the time Lampard was in the final year of his contract with Chelsea stalling on a new deal, whilst we on the other hand had a billionaire owner in charge who was supposedly willing to pump money into landing a major star player or two. If we had done what Man City did regarding Robinho (or what we did with Owen from Real), and offered Lampard £200k per week or more, would he honestly have said "no"? Without doubt. Kaka was on the verge of a move to Man City. He's easily better than Lampard, recently the best player in the world, has a higher profile worldwide, and was considering a move to a mid table club with a sitting duck in Mark Hughes in charge. Money talks. Lampard is greedy. It was a possibility, even if a remote one, and hence I don't think Keegan including the player on a wishlist is a sign of madness.

He was being linked with Mourinho at Inter but what are facts when the sudject is soo flawed to start with? He was linked with both, and several more. I could have mentioned the Inter link because I remember it in the papers, but it's irrelevant. The point is, Juve weren't in a great position at the time. That had finished 3rd in Serie A but had a team far from capable of doing anything in the CL, nor a squad capable of getting close to a Serie A title challenge. Why would Lampard go to what is universally viewed as a weaker league and a weaker team, for any reason other than money? In fact, that's the only reason why he was even rumoured to have been looking elsewhere for a better deal. He wanted big bucks. Hence, if we could offer considerably more money, Premiership football, no foreign acclimiatisation issues, Keegan was manager and a billionaire owner, etc etc, there might have been a small chance that Lampard would think "why not, the money's good". No matter how small, it's a possibility. Therefore, I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "may have been a possibility".

One of the maddest posts ever in internet history It's mad now, sure, but at the time Lampard was in the final year of his contract with Chelsea stalling on a new deal, whilst we on the other hand had a supposed billionaire owner in charge who was willing to pump money into landing a major star player or two. If we had done what Man City did regarding Robinho (or what we did with Owen from Real), and offered Lampard £200k per week or more, would he honestly have said "no"? if rochdale offered him 1mill per week he probably wouldn't turn it down. however that wasn't the case. I agree, but in the context of the discussion, if Keegan was misled regarding the budget available and Ashley's intentions to make a star signing or two...

I stand by that post. Lampard was being linked with a move to Juve at the time.

One of the maddest posts ever in internet history It's mad now, sure, but at the time Lampard was in the final year of his contract with Chelsea stalling on a new deal, whilst we on the other hand had a billionaire owner in charge who was supposedly willing to pump money into landing a major star player or two. If we had done what Man City did regarding Robinho (or what we did with Owen from Real), and offered Lampard £200k per week or more, would he honestly have said "no"?

oh, yeah.... i heard about him being banned for a while. But still don't know what actually happend....?

Yeah it's Witsel. Made the mistake of working in zoomed, then when zooming out everything was too small.

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/9481/witseljpg.jpg

Lennon is tearing them apart without having to actually do much. Shows what the fear of pace can do, whether or not the player uses it as effectively as he should.

£17m well spent Rafa.

What a smile by Rooney. http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:oK4U03Ih6gYtWM:http://bp3.blogger.com/_KtH8Q6gIGVA/R9ju1ihzUrI/AAAAAAAAAJo/Nr_V7cn7j8s/s400/shrek_smile.jpg

Agree with Village Idiot - none of those players were impossible for us. Even Lampard, who was approaching the final year of his contract and was apparently looking to leave to get the bumper pay deal he wanted, may have been a possbility. After all, Keegan supposedly had a good amount of money to spend, in fact he probably returned with the promise of a good budget because that's what he's best at, i.e. spending money and building a good side - what happened to the Modric money for example? But even if it's agreed that those players were exceptionally unrealistic, I severely doubt they were the only players on Keegan's list. I bet you they were his top choices IF the possibility to sign them was there, hence why Keegan would have wanted his chairman to look into the respective situations. Beyond that, there were probably a bunch of realistic targets he wanted, and prior to leaving he stated that we had four/five irons in the fire. I'm betting none of those targets were signed, and we ended up with several Wise players who Keegan had probably never heard of. Kamil Zayatte was one of those Keegan wanted and not signed, the defender/midfielder we were interested in and had on trial prior to him signing for Hull. Zayatte has all but stated that he wasn't signed because the chairman didn't want him. Digging up a few direct quotes, we have: Keegan on Zayatte before move to Hull: http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/article.html?Keegan_closing_in_on_targets&in_article_id=286390&in_page_id=43 Zayatte talking about our interest after he signs for Hull http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_4422699,00.html Absolutely clear as day what happened here.

Never a penalty in a million years, but meh, expect decisions like that.

Because he's garbage? Ryan Taylor would do a better job defensively. 4th time the winger gets in behind with Johnson looking clueless, this time Terry saves his arse.

What is Glen Johnson doing? That's like the third time the left winger has got in behind him with acres of space. Luckily for Johnson the winger is pretty shit.

Rooney kicks the goalkeeper's legs knowing he's about the catch the ball = entitled to compete.

Should be 1-0 Slovenia.

http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/design05/DJ/20070502/shepherd_meg.jpg

He'd rip the Championship to shreds if he was fit enough and played to last season's standards. Agree with Interpolic's concerns about attitude though. A pay-as-you-play contract on a moderately low wage (compared to before) might not be enough to motivate him to keep the weight off/stay fit/play well/etc.

No.