STM

There has got to be someone more proven than Benzema fro Man Utd. Don't get me wrong, he's a highly talented youngster but surely there's a more proven goalscorer out there, now money is not a limit (not that it ever has been with them). EDIT: In fact Eto'o to Man Utd would be a better shout and as i mentioned earlier it wouldn't surprise if they re-signed Rossi this summer.

They have its Leeds did you miss that massive "you'll be amazed" announcement Fucking hell, only just realised that Leeds is a home game. Is that the best they could do?

Fulham is a good shout, simply because Al Fayed is stupid enough to try and bring him in and Hodgson is one of the few who could get something out of him. Still it wouldn't surprise me if Benitez signed him on a smaller wage (surely he'd take the cut for Liverpool) in a Robbie Fowler esq signing. As for Dave Whelan.... knobhead (and yes i would have him as chairman).

So who's that then? Leeds Darlo Huddersfield Dundee Surely the club could arrange one big game at home?

Not saying we would have sold him am just saying he would have wnated to go, no way Al would have agree'd to selling him but the lure of joining Wenger at Arsenal would have turned his head. Sometimes i think there are certain players who always just "want to leave", N'Zogbia, Martins and Bassong fall into that catagory. Why can't they just keep there mouth shut and just leave? When they do leave, a little thanks to the fans wouldn't go a miss too. Zoggy, Milner and Faye yes but Oba has never said anything like wanting away, all he has ever done is declared his love for the club, city and fans. OK,OK i can see i may have had a misjudgment with Oba. Might have known that one would bite me in the arse.

Although i do think the papers stir shit, i think there has been one too many "false stories" when it comes to Martins. Some people give him the benefit of the doubt but i'm inclined to believe that he has been guilty of "engineering" in the past. Either way, the type of player i'm talking about does exist.

we only have speculation to defend him with aswell. exactly. So let's give him the benfit of the doubt then instead of having these daft arguments everytime no i wont give him the benefit of the doubt. i'll await evidence before i decide which side of the fence to be on. I dont even know why you ever consider even parking your arse along side ashley tbh, given what we have seen the last few years. "i dont know who to blame because i havent seen any concrete evidence" "omfg ashley arselicker facepalm pwnd" as usual. My big gimps minge. What evidence do you want, we got relegated because of the decisions coming from the owner and his cronies. i'd like to know why keegan quit, not (with the benefit of hindsight) what happened after. time will hopefully tell. Allerdyce, KK and Kinnear all said we needed players, all 3 of them were ignored. Allerdyce was sacked and KK quit what does that tell you. that we have very little money? thats actually a fact. allardyce practically wasted about £20+ million btw. Only actually spent about £10m iirc (Parker, Dyer gaining money). Wasted all but about £4m of it mind and racked up a staggering wage bill in the process. indeed. but buying barton, smith, rozenhal and enrique (until recently) was a complete waste. i see that as a small scale model of the "souness summer". The problem with both Souness and Allardyce is that they signed some good players but had no coaching ability whatsoever to anything constructive with them.

Not saying we would have sold him am just saying he would have wnated to go, no way Al would have agree'd to selling him but the lure of joining Wenger at Arsenal would have turned his head. Sometimes i think there are certain players who always just "want to leave", N'Zogbia, Martins and Bassong fall into that catagory. Why can't they just keep there mouth shut and just leave? When they do leave, a little thanks to the fans wouldn't go a miss too.

Although i do think KK has weak mind in tough situations, he is not to blame for what happened earlier on in the season.

I agree with the sentiment that clubs should be tougher on players/contracts. Surely Shearer (when appointed) could sit down with him and say that the club expects him to honour his contract and be proffesional. If we fail to get promoted then we could agree to sell him after that.

Personally, i thought Shearer handled it well. There's no point saying "one last chance" and then letting him off. Obviously there was a bit of politics involved, as it sent a message to the squad about proffesional behaviour but on the whole it was the correct thing to do.

Totally agree. Although i can see why people question whether he's going to be a good manager or not, he does have the ability to galvanise a club which is on it's knees. I also think he will attract the best players possible for us too.

I'd go along with that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Shearer has been making plans, even if it's just in his head. The more planning that has been done by Shearer, the less we will get hurt by the lack of time. I'm also hoping he has an idea of some experianced staff which he wants along side him because he might not have alot of time to concentrate on the coaching side of things.

Not sure i'd go that far but i think he does have a better attacking instinct than Richards. Johnsons improved alot since he's filled out physically.

I thought that Profitable Group had confirmed, or were you not counting that as "serious"? I'm fairly sure Freddy Sheppard wants his hands back on the levers of power too, although noone knows the money behind him. If there wasn't one more interested party added amongst those two i would be suprised, probably a foreign investor of some sort. are they in the corridors of power? right next to the coffee machine of power? Yes

Right now he's already the best English RB in the country, but that's not praising his quality so much more the lack of rivals. What happened to Micah Richards? They are both very similar TBH, i reckon Richards will eventually become a centre half again.

Has there been any links between Man Utd and Rossi this summer yet? Might have missed them but that one wouldn't suprise me if Tevez leaves. They still have a buy-out clause right?

Players like Glen Johnson are made or broken by the managers that sign them. Because of his raw attributes he has plenty of potential to be a very good right back. If Benitez is signing him for 17m then that is a touch on the steep side but considering the market for Brits these days it's not surprising ... look at Milner. IMO Benitez might iron out the defensive mistakes and turn him into one of the best in the country.

I thought that Profitable Group had confirmed, or were you not counting that as "serious"? I'm fairly sure Freddy Sheppard wants his hands back on the levers of power too, although noone knows the money behind him. If there wasn't one more interested party added amongst those two i would be suprised, probably a foreign investor of some sort.

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. We have a group of players who are clearly not good enough for the top flight, correct? In that case, most of them, must leave for players who are good enough to get us back into the top flight i.e the best the championship has to offer. If there are players of premiership quality who want to play us then fine, but i suspect there are not many. There's nothing wrong with speculating as to which of our squad could cut it in the premierleague but i'm saying that it's a more worthwhile topic when we are promoted. So you would prefer us to be like West Brom of last season and not the West Ham, Manchester City or NUFC teams that last got promoted? Forgive me if I find that impossible to understand. None of them sides consisted of good premiership players, some of them simply had good first seasons in the premier league and invested heavily. West Ham for example nearly got relegated the season after, with the same players. Who ever mentioned being like West Brom? They never invested, when the got promoted. I'm saying that we should invest in premiership players when/if we get promoted in order to stay in the league. Not spending money we don't have, on premiership players who won't come to us. How many Chamionship clubs do you see signing "a pile" of premiership players? Players do improve you know? The clearly obvious point that you are missing is that some players may not be ready for the PL yet, but with a good run and experience, they could be excellent in two seasons time. Take Glen Johnson or Gareth Barry as an example of how a player can develop. PS West Ham stayed up, so you kinda shot yourself in the foot with that one. I just think we should concentrate on building a side too get us out of the championship before we start to think about building a premiership side. I'm not for one second ruling out the signings of solid premiership players such as how Birmingham signed Carsley on a free from Everton (very astute IMO). However, we have to be realistic and although we might get one or two players of premiership quality, we can't refuse proven chamionship players to get us out of the league in the first place. By all means if Darren Bent wants to take a step down into the championship then fine but we all know that's unlikely. Therefore the option of a Beckford is appealing logically and financially.

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. We have a group of players who are clearly not good enough for the top flight, correct? In that case, most of them, must leave for players who are good enough to get us back into the top flight i.e the best the championship has to offer. If there are players of premiership quality who want to play us then fine, but i suspect there are not many. There's nothing wrong with speculating as to which of our squad could cut it in the premierleague but i'm saying that it's a more worthwhile topic when we are promoted. So you would prefer us to be like West Brom of last season and not the West Ham, Manchester City or NUFC teams that last got promoted? Forgive me if I find that impossible to understand. None of them sides consisted of good premiership players, some of them simply had good first seasons in the premier league and invested heavily. West Ham for example nearly got relegated the season after, with the same players. Who ever mentioned being like West Brom? They never invested, when the got promoted. I'm saying that we should invest in premiership players when/if we get promoted in order to stay in the league. Not spending money we don't have, on premiership players who won't come to us. How many Chamionship clubs do you see signing "a pile" of premiership players?

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. Agree. We could go buy a pile of championship players, but what do you do when you get promoted? It's not a when though, it's an IF. Noones saying to go out and buy "a pile" of championship players but realistically most of the players in promoted sides are not good enough for the premiership anyway.

You are wrong. You can't just buy a team to get promoted and then buy a whole new team to stay up because the current lot aren't good enough. You have to assess players on whether they have a long term future in the top division. We have a group of players who are clearly not good enough for the top flight, correct? In that case, most of them, must leave for players who are good enough to get us back into the top flight i.e the best the championship has to offer. If there are players of premiership quality who want to play us then fine, but i suspect there are not many. There's nothing wrong with speculating as to which of our squad could cut it in the premierleague but i'm saying that it's a more worthwhile topic when we are promoted.

Irrelevant anyway really, we are a championship club and need to start thinking like one. If we start to think we are better than the rest of the teams in this league, i think we will get a nasty shock. IF we sign Beckford and he scores 25 goals in the chamionship and we get promoted.... then we can start thinking about how they would perform in the premierleague. Before that point i think we should remind ourselves of where we are.

Is "data room" some sort of technical jargon for a computer room? Seems a strange phrase, why can't he just say, "they are allowed to look at the books"? I know, i know because he's a cretin.