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All this wages:turnover ratio means fuck all if a club has a rich benefactor. Like Chelsea. Or even Portsmouth.

I wouldn't mind Crouch. Scores goals whenever he plays, good with the ball at his feet and can offer us a route out with his head when we're under the cosh. £8m is a reasonable price, as well.

Isn't that biased towards the bigger clubs? Just checking from soccerbase but Man Utd had only 21 players who play a 'significant' (my definition) amount of games last season. Generally, your method is sound. There are a few unavoidable flaws, but the rankings do make intuitive sense. It'd be better if you could give each player in the national squad points to a 'degree' i.e. if they started 80%+ of games in the past 2 years, you give them the full points total, 60-80%, you downgrade the points a bit etc. In this way you'll be able to incorporate how 'important' each player is for their national team and that should be a good way of measuring their 'quality'. If you know what I mean.

How much of each team's squad did you include in your calculations? 16 players? 25?

Chill the fuck out. We've got 3 months to go. We'll definitely sign someone in this area (evidenced from our bid for Modric and rumoured interest for Turan).

Pretty interesting. Could you post up how many 'points' we have? And who are the teams ahead of us?

A cynical person might say that his cousin has taken the fall for him... The fingerprints will disagree, though.

Torrenting a game to scout a player. Holy shit

He's not creative, never has been. Never has been. Have you seen what he did at Galatasary (sp?) and for Turkey He is like a god over there for a reason! Just damn injuries. To say he was not creative is teh same as saying Rui Costa or Del Piero was neither They are all worshipped in their respective countries! You're comparing Emre with Rui Costa and Del Piero? If you've seen him playing for Turkey - with the whole team set up to play football on the ground and having speedy frontmen (Nihat in particularly) - you will see that Emre is an immensely gifted footballer. Shame that he came after SBR had gone and was stuck with the three idiots for the majority of his time here. I'll always rate him as a footballer so it's a real shame that he was so prone to injury.

Quoting this post because it's the one with the most sense in the thread

Whoa, we already have one active thread on the board. Let's not turn this one into another one. Any more Emre news from Turkey?

They love Fergie. They love the trophies. No doubt. But they sure as hell don't love the prices that they're paying for the tickets and the fact that they [the fans] are being made to pay £50m in interest payments each year.

you've only got to look at what sven did at citeh to see how we should be operating imo. citeh were worse off than we are now this time last year, but look at the buys they made, and i'd swap this squad for that in a flash. we shouldn't settle for mediocrity or use the fact that we are a mid table club as an excuse. we can sign quality if we know where to look, and if we start lowering our expectations that much then it will be dangerous for our long term ambitions. We should expect to sign players better than Diane, but if he signs we should support him, something we haven't done in the past. Genuine question.. Have you seen Diane play?

what a load of rubbish. Lad do you associate with any non-NUFC fans ? they think we are a self important joke of a club who stumble from crisis to crisis and play it all out in full glare of the media. that's the reality sunshine. I associate with lots of non-NUFC fans sunshine. In fact, only 1 NUFC fan is in my particular workplace. Nobody actually gives a toss about people going to brothels, in fact they were all very envious of us when we played in the Champions League, europe, and 2 FA Cup Finals. Supporters of the successful clubs ie like manu, will tell you such things don't matter too much to them, as in they weren't bothered when Edwards was caught kerb crawling. Of course, they just love the Glaziers. Thats the reality sunshine. They actually don't. This will be funny, but the reason they don't love the Glazers is because of the debt Classic stuff, I know.

When we were in the red and in the CL, no one complained because the money was spent wisely (obvious, because we were relatively successful), but then that all turned to shit and we ended up pissing a lot of money on wages and transfers down the drain. That is why Shepherd gets criticism. He also gets criticism for leaving the club in financial trouble (which Mort has alluded to). At the end of last year, we spent the 5th most on wages, had a debt of £80m and ended up in 14th position. You tell me how rosy that picture looks.

When Shepherd left us, we were knee-deep in the red and we were fucking shit. That is why he continues to receive criticism. Being in the red alone does not make any director/chairman/executive shit. I hope this clears it up.

Tbf, for £4m, not much was expected of him. I think he showed more class than I initially thought he had, but then again he's had far more injuries than anyone anticipated.

You're cherry-picking the best bits from the old board. How about the last three years of their reign in which we were managed by two absolute retards, was pretty much consistently shit on the pitch except for Roeder's honeymoon period and ended up in financial trouble (borne out by the money we were spending to refinance a loan or whatever it was we paid £2m for)?

Replacement? He hardly plays, man. He doesn't need replacing.

Did Liverpool not exercise prudency when they didn't spend £12m on Simao and bought Pennant instead? Did Chelsea not exercise prudency when they didn't spend £25m on Dani Alves and bought Belletti instead? (and now they've apparently found someone better) One case does not make a rule. Who is the 'expensive signing' that we have lost out? Diane is a striker. Which expensive striker have we actually gone for? Gomis?

No, look, I'm just looking at the quote pyramid that I posted in. It goes like this.. Person a: Buying for potential is good. Look at Arsenal. You: Arsenal are a one off. Person a: No, actually Ajax, Milan, PSV etc. have employed the same policy and made it work. You: Well, we've tried this before. We tried it with Jenas, Dyer, Bellamy, Bernard etc. Person a: Yes, and we got in the Champions League with them. Up until here, the logic is straightforward. But then you go off on a tangent about people having an agenda against the old board. So, I'm just moving the discussion back to the issue that was at hand. Following the logic in the quote pyramid, did we not get into the CL utilising the policy of signing youngsters? You yourself said that we've tried this before, and the result of it was given to you in the next quote. You haven't directly responded to that, yet.

What about our bid for Luca Modric, NE5? What are your feelings about that?

I don't care about Arsenal. Wenger is a one off. Like I said, manu and chelsea don't do it, you show me Wenger, and I will show you Ferguson and Mourhinho and tell you they buy the best players. Before them, Liverpool bought the best players. Clough broke transfer records. Revie broke transfer records. Keegan the first time bought the best players. Its a signing that is hoped to be a "bargain" buy. Like it or not, this is the truth. Coming on the back of losing top targets to the likes of Spurs, if you think this sort of standard is good enough for NUFC, its your problem. They won't succeed if they throw all their eggs into this ridiculous "bargain" idea. And they won't succeed if they operate tight financial restraints when trying to sign the best players. Money talks in any walk of life. I understand why people are rejecting this, but at the end of the day, they are paranoid, clueless and should apply common sense and look at these other clubs and accordingly observe how they get success. Why don't you think we can't buy World Cup winners ? We have signed a few of those over the last 16 years or so, so why not now ? Wengers a one off, explain Ajax, Psv, now Juventus, Milan, all teams that at one stage often their most productive used home grown lads. Wenger is not a one off, he's just smart, and adopting his techniques is very good. Look at Charlie 120k now worth £10m. The fact your willing to dismiss a team thats won more leagues and cups than us makes me question why were bothering this discussion. For as good as "Buying the best players" is we are not at their level yet, and constant spending is not a maintainable structure. Stop thinking because Ashley is a billionaire he will throw money at the club. I'm not saying throw it all in the bargain basket ,but don't be so naive as to dismiss the concept of buying young and cheap like Krul, Soderberg and Zamblera. The reason we can't attract WCW is because we haven't finished in the top half for 3seasons and aren't in Europe either. I'm not thinking because Ashley is a billionaire he will throw money at the club. I'm pointing at how Liverpool, Chelsea and Manu have operated over many years, decades in the case of 2 of them. I'm also pointing out how successful clubs in England have always operated. Nobody is dismissing finding the odd top player on their way up in the game, I'm pointing out the simple FACT that the big boys buy the best players, not the pompeys etc. Ignore this if you like. But you won't have consistent success in the game through over emphasis on "bargains". For further proof, we operated like this ourselves all the way through the 1970's and 80's - if you don't have first hand experience of this, or are too naive to even try to understand, you'll have to take my word for it. Quite amazing that you pick out one or two clubs temporarily above their place to emphasise a point, and ignoring the rest. For the young, and "bargain", players like the ones you mention, why not mention Chopra, Bramble, Jenas, Ambrose, Viana, Dyer, Griffin, Gavilan, Ameobi, Bernard, Hughes.........and going back further, Bogie, Dyson, Brayson, Wharton, Lormor, Conrwell, Stephenson, Tinnon.........there are plenty more. So don't make out the club has never been down these particular roads either, because they have, and here are some of the names to show it. Oh, and one more thing, pompey are 20m quid in the red. What shit directors eh and that is before they start building a new stadium. Still, I'm sure you and others will call that "positive thinking". What a joke. You mean the Dyer, Bernard and Jenas who were instrumental in achieving Champions League football? (Along with notable contributions from Griffin, Hughes, Ameobi) Champions League football ? You don't say. Here's me hearing everybody saying what a shit recent history we've had. Thanks for pointing out that it hasn't been so bad after all, and indeed confirming that what the current lot are doing isn't so new either. So what you're saying is the route of signing youngsters can actually be successful, then? And that this phenomenon is not only restricted to Arsenal. Yes?

Whoa, this is mega-fast. I'd be sad to see him go. I liked him quite a bit. He played like he genuinely cared and had a real touch of class about him. Shame about the injuries.

Wait, so Blatter has now gone from someone trying to take down the Premiership to someone who's only pretending to care about the 'weak' because he knows nothing will change? Hilarious.