Colos Short and Curlies

Depends. Do you throw £100m at the first team signing 4-5 top drawer 28-29 year olds and £10m at younger talent then have to repeat in 2-3 years time. Or Do you throw £10m at one or two good older players and the rest on younger players and continue to build the young core and add the occaisonal star. No right answer!

As I was saying. It also diesn't take into account the last 3 seasons Leeds have had outside the Premier league (effectively finishing 20+ each year).

Wise, Jimmy and Vetz. If he can transfer a bit of his infectious personality onto them I'll be happy

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. so who are the 7 clubs with a higher average ? You're comparing apples with bananas and you know you are! We may be the team with the fifth highest average finish, but in that time our average finish is 8th. For example, Ipswich finished (I believe) 4th and 18th, giving them an average of 11th position. Reading were 6th and 18th - 12th Average. Now off the top of my head... Man Utd Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Everton Man City Newcastle Aston Villa Tottenham Sunderland Boro Wimbledon etc Have all been in the Premier league for more than 2 seasons, meaning that the 11th and 12th avergae positions of Ipswich and Reading do not put them as the 11th and 12th most successful teams in Premier League history

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.

Football Manager 2008 thread is in another forum, mate. If we had a £4m buy back and 50% sell on clause would we actually only be paying £2m to buy him back???

Remind me when this was again. Kluivert being the best example. It was never a rule though, which is where people fall down in their arguments with NE5. He doesn't seem to mind using the opposite (we've bought Guthrie, so all signings will be cheap) as an argument tbf. Except Kluivert is the only example you can name, and pretty much everybody was happy with it too [except me, ironically] don't let this fact get in the way of anyone's opinion though. I wasn't happy with Kluivert either. In fact it was about 70/30 in favour, but plenty of people doubted the signing would be of any benefit. Strangely though, a Kluivert/Bellamy partnership was actually very good; it was only Robson's desire to keep Shearer in the team which made Kluivert a poor signing. Add Souness to that too.

Stagnation, relegation. It's not about paying massive wages or penny pinching- it's about VALUE. We absolutely must get that balance right. We've clearly got it wrong in the past, but there's a danger we could go too far the other way. Agreed, although value is dependent on the judgement of the manager when he assesse players, not a sodding stupid consortium who can't persuade players to join the club that the manager would like. err NE5 would you care to have a look at the squad robson inherited(1999-2000) and the squad he played for the next season(2000-2001) ? no massive signings etc we built in technique,tactics and teamwork then a full season later, added the,at the time of signing,derided,bellamy ,and robert. the ground work on the pitch had been done....ambition hadn't been ignored through your hero not spending on superstars or were you complaining like an old lady in a wet bus queue then aswell ? At the time, Bellamy and Robert cost quite big fees. Overall, they invested about 40m quid in players over about 3 years to get back into the top 4. The point being of course, that they decided to go for it. And some people were pleased with Bellamy, including me. But when it goes wrong it hamstrings you. Say Duff and Smith (and one signing from each regime so no bias!) are on £60k - not unreasonable? Thats £6m a year effectively thrown down the toilet, or to put it another way £6m unavailable for new signings and contract negotiations. You can only speculate to accumulate so much, without european football we have a limited budget. Add on this toilet money and you can see perhaps why we couldn't go that extra £10-£20k for Aimar if we are looking to bring in another 3 players (for example). If we could get rid fo the deadwood I'm sure we could offer higher wages for players to shoot us up the league - Bobby took a couple of years doing just this before the Bellamy/Robert summer

If Spurs lose Berbs and Keane they are much weaker than last season. Forget about the individuals they can bring in - that partnership was gold for them

Can't blame the lad for wanting to play football, especially after being injured last season. But as he is contracted until 2012 I can't see the logic in selling him now. A seaosn on loan may push his value up, maybe Harper will want to leave next summer, maybe Forster will turn out to be bilge in the reserves this year. Too many variables to make sense in selling him now.

Didn't know he was still playing, used to be good back in the day, remember him scoring a screamer for Fulham i think it was. On the bounce 40 yearder wasn't it?

Apparently he did very well at Falkirk. If this is the way our new youth system is going to work then we may aswell not bother. Fuck it. Shipped a lot of goals but made a lot of saves. Easy to impress as a keeper if the opposition get shot practice every game.

Don't forget Sodeberg or whatever he is called. Krul was a Roeder signing wasn't he? Ole a 3 Headed Beast signing. As they are the same age I guess one was always going to have to go at some point

I'm sure we would be open to offers for Carroll and Krul - to go out on loan. Edgar and Ameobi only have a year left on their contracts do they not? Agent leaks to the press maybe to either get their clients names mentioned to other clubs to tempt a move or to jog the club into offering contracts

Please please please please please sign Smith and Barton and Duff

But is still not entertaining the thought of signing for the Toon

He is there on promotional work first and foremost. Still don't rule out a shock transfer!

Exactly. Flamboyant hair = Flamboyant skills ...right? He can just never cut it short

Still cracking. Although it would have been nice if the PA stories were true, but used to the paper/agent rubbish to take the view that it was always Benfica and no one else in for him. Also of the view that once one of the Berbatov/Barry/Bent/Ronaldo/Keane stories grows legs the whole transfer window will burst into life. I do of course reserve the right to change my mind come 6pm on the 17th August

Don't we have a club ambassador who was supposed to be selling the image of the club? Where has Alan Shearer been when we have been negotiating these deals or non-deals? The public deserve to know!

I wonder if F365 will get any emails pointing out the link between Nixons positive article on Tuesday, the abuse he got yesterday and the negative article today?

Along with Quintin Fortune!

Oh come on lads - now he's at the top of page 228 as well. Should have a warning in the title or something

Daily Mirror.... 'apalled by our wage offer' F365..... 'Didn't even speak to Toon officials' They really know nothing and are going on various hearsay

Random post to try to get this thread to page 228. That image of the Hoff is disturbing when you open page 227