Colos Short and Curlies

Basically, yep. well, the story with that one was, ashley was in a casino down london and he heard the west ham directors say they could of paid more for dyer, so then ashley cancelled the transfer I thought it was because they found out West Ham had spoken to him before we accepted the bid. No the casino thing is correct, the West Ham directors didn't recognise wor Mike and were bragging in front of him at the blackjack table about how they were ripping the Toon off over Dyer

I heard a whisper that ManU have given Spurs until Friday and then they will walk away. I'd heard much the same, up to the end of July then walk away. Gone by the weekend is what I've heard today. There's no way Levy will accept £20m for him which is all Utd have offered so far. what's the inside track on berbatov then Jol? lets assume the deal falls through and he has to stay you reckon that's his dummy out for next season? are things at that point with him and spurs? Another Rooney - desperate to get away to the point where he will move anywhere. Cue Ashley to the rescue!

I heard a whisper that ManU have given Spurs until Friday and then they will walk away.

You realize he sees us as offering "the contract of his life"? I'm still unsure about how much he wants to join Newcastle United... That's all we have to offer him anyway. And its the way forward. Or is it the way back? Or is the way back to the future? I'm lost

The hairstyles of players we may or may not be interested in were much better under the old board. Actually that is a FACT. Killer, Venison, (late on) Beresford, Ginola. What we got now? Owens schoolboy cut?

Keegan didnt say he'd not be able to get us into the top 4. He said we could, but it'd take 4-5 years. I.e. thats how long its going to take to undo the damage the previous board did in overseeing us going from CL qualifiers to a dogshit, relegation threatened club with plenty of s*** players on massive wages and unsustainable huge debts. Which is pretty accurate imo. Hopefully it'll take 2-3 years to undo the damage, but certainly there'll be no quick fix due to our current state and unattractiveness. completely spot on the damage the old board did to the club was massive, the souness appointment cos this club 5-10 years 4-5 years 5-10 years Give over man. High earners like Shola Dyer, Parker, Luque, Emre, and to a lesser extent Babayaro, Carr and Solano have all gone from the top end of the wage bill since Ashley came in. The only high earners left over from the bad old days of European football are Owen, Duff & probably Martins & Given. Has your boss had any more insights on that £100m that's available if Keegan can spend it btw? Shola will be on £25k, thats £1.3m a year. You think that sort of figure couldn't be put to better use? I never quoted that figure as fact, merely passing on what I had been told. FWIW he's said no different since (prefering to bang on about Man U at the mo) but the Modric bid would suggest that serious money is available for what the board/mgt team deem to be the right player. And I'll answer NE5 in this post too. Find a post where I have blindly slagged off FS etc and praised the new board to the hilt. Shepherd did a good job for a time, but cocked up big style towards the end of his regime. Yes he made money available for transfers and his heart was in the right place, but chasing his dream for the club could have bankrupt us (note not saying we were going bust when MA bought us but we could not continue to live of loans and advance sponsorship payments like we were). And yes Ashley has also made some good moves, and made some mistakes. But I agree with the approach of buying younger hungry players over those on their way down. But I agree also that quality is quality and if a Berbatov was available and willing to come to us we should make an exception to the 'policy'. And finally, yes unless Ashley can deliver European football he will have failed. I'm willing to give this new direction 3 years to see where it is taking us, but he didn't become a billionaire by blinding following duff ideas.

I'm going to predict that Keane and Torres will not click as a partnership

Look at Robsons first couple of seasons and tell me you can't see similarities with having to get rid of deadwood high earners whilst wheeling and dealing in the market. Once the likes of Duff, Smith, Shola are off the wage bill (like Fegurson, Macelino, Maric before them) we'll see greater flexibility in what we can afford to offer players in terms of wages

Wise couldn't quite manage that one

I loved that Mackem - 'If someone like Wise rolled up at Sunderland I would not be happy.' Now who's that Angelic sort they have managing them now? No body would have a problem with Wise being the DoF (they may be unhappy about having a Dof but thats another story...) if he had delivered Modric and Woodgate. And if he delivers Turan and Collocini by Aug 31st I'm sure most people will pipe down until January

It seems some want and expect instant results on and off the pitch even though we've only done that once and even then we couldn't sustain it. The daft thing is that our past limited success (we won nothing) has been paid for by Ashley yet others are given the credit. Ashley paid for the stadium expansion plus £30-40 million which was spent on players. He'll probably now get blamed for buying Luque as he's paid for him. Aye, well obviously the correct thing for Ashley to do is buy loads of players the business can't afford (it doesn't matter if they're crap or not because the spend alone will say "ambition") and then eventually sell off to someone richer who will pay for his profligacy. There aren't many of those, of course. Maybe Bill Gates or the Sultan of Brunei will develop an interest in football If he is to buy us i'll be over the moon and probably eat my left nut. Maybe as a welcome gift he will give to every player one Ferrari each from his collection of cars which i know is around 300-400 or something His brother owns the cars.

that a serious opinion or am i missing the sarcasm? either way i'd tend to agree, especially if you consider benfica might have an outside chance of a title challenge too... It is an opinion, but it only applies if we have missed out. If so, it is the fault of the previous chairman for playing in a market that was unsustainable in the long term. james, i'm gonna resist the urge to respond to this with "what the f*** are you on about" and instead say: unless this is an attempt to be witty i'm gonna assume you mean that we could only offer aimar 40k a week (for example) due to the extravagent wages FS and his board laid out on players, if that hadn't been the case we might have offered more wages to aimar and he'd have perhaps come? if i'm right with this interpretation that is so far beyond common sense & logical reasoning there isn't even a word or measurement for it if that's not what you meant or you were being funny then what did you really mean? My point is that the club can't afford to be paying the type of wages Shepherd was handing out, and thus when we offer players a fraction of Owen's wage, they are likely to be offended. in the style of kyle from south park: "reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally?" so shepherd was handing out wages & that was bad, yet if he hadn't done that ashley would be able to offer aimar high wages to tempt him to the club? i was right in the first place, are you kidding me man? you can see that makes no sense right? you've invented your own version of catch 22 Shepherd created a market where any proven player would expect to get at least £50k. Had he not done so, expectations abroad would be lower, and therefore we could compete with Monaco and Benfica. Fact is that he was throwing cash away with only the short term in mind. that takes some believing.........if we offer more than benfica or monaco then if the player is after money alone he'd come regardless of wether he expected more or would have gor more a couple of years ago Like I explained in the post that started the argument, say Benfica offered to make you the highest paid player at the club, but Newcastle offerred a higher wage which is less than what gets paid to the likes of Duff, who would you choose for footballing reasons? That's a ludicrous argument. If it were purely for footballing reasons, the money wouldn't come into it at all. What you are saying is that he would be more attracted by the status of being a high wage earner at one club than being a mid-range earner (albeit on a higher wage) at another club. You seem to be implying that the player not being motivated by the larger wage would be a good thing, but IMO it would be a far worse attitude if he was motivated by being the star player in a team. Being motivated by money is not necessarily a bad thing - the player will be striving to prove that he is worth more than he is currently getting. Being motivated by status gives no incentive for the player to do anything other than to glory in his own self-importance and go off in a huff when he's not playing. Or you go to a club for talks and get told that you will earn less than Duff and Smith. You don't have to be motivated by money to be offended at that

That was my first thought as well. He looks a little incredulous. I think Keegan has just been informed that it may be Smith and Shola up fron against Man U

My sentiments exactly. Our Premier League record: 3,6,2,2,13,13,11,4,3,5,14,7,13,12 - Avg 8th So slightly below our punching weight, but not massively. As I said in the Present Tense thread. Our Champions League forays saw us punch above our weight, we are typically a top half pushing for Europe club. Any club in that category can hit the jackpot in any given season and challenge the top 4, the problem as ourselves, Everton, Ipswich, Leeds etc have found is sustaining that. Poor decisions have cost us each time (with hindsight in appointing Kenny granted). Don't be fooled with the '5th top club' spin, our average POSITION is 8th since we got promoted

If Real are interested it's pointless. lol great attitude, they value the player at 7million. They were denied permission to speak to him. Thus at this moment he is not going to Real Madrid. If we bid 10 million, bid hopefully accepted and ACTUALLY speak to the player. We are in a better position than Real Madrid, would you agree? ? I think he means HSV are more likely to agree to sell to us than Real. They're not though are they? I'm sure they'd just sell to the highest bidder. But they probably see themselves up there with the rest (Europe, CL etc.), so by selling to Real, they're helping to strenghen their rivals. Who would Chelsea be more likely to want to sell a player to, Barcelona or us? I meant if we get to actually speak to RVD we would be better position than the clubs who have not been allowed to speak to him. Don't know if an ex-WWE wrestler is going to improve us mind. His recreational smoking habits might see him banned all season anyway

Black End of thread

I bet he didn't I bet that interview makes the Chronical tonight though!

Paper invents transfer target. Player moves elsewhere Paper invents 'personal demands' as reason for transfer not going ahead. And repeat

Exactly. Shay has been fantastic for us over the past 10 years or so, but if there are indicators that his injury will not fully heal or he is on the way down its time to sell. The coaching/medical staff will know this, they will also know if he appears back to his best in training and can make the judgement accordingly.

If Krul was a fledgling keeper at Arsenal or Man U he'd be going for at least 5 or 6 million himself. Look at the price bandied about for Carson when he first broke onto the scene. He ended up going for about £750k didn't he form Leeds? Take your point though and re Carson, didn't Villa pay a £2m loan fee for him (backing up your point)?

£4-5m for Given or £2m for Krul? I'd take the money for Shay to be honest

So what's the fee for Chimbonda on his own then? No idea, I don't honestly believe £23m for all 4 either tbh. Keane is saying that 3 out of 4 have agreed personal terms so I'm hoping they've all got inflated fees! What do you mean "no idea"? Weren't you involved with the talks? No. All I did was make the tea and supply the chocolate digestives.................... And thats where Spurs go wrong you see. Plain digestives cost less. Extravengant display by the Spurs tearoom

Well he did take a time out on a holiday to provide the rags with an attack on O'Neill

I wonder if the players have a daily sweepstake over who is rumoured to be coming and going each day. Book run by Michael Owen of course

Can see him and Forster going on loan next season. Possibly split the season in loans with one in the reserves and one on loan till Christmas then change over