Unbelievable

Given to Arsenal anyone?

Wow...

Joe Cole sent off..

Seems this youngster likes his zapping..!

The OM players who are washing powders..

Guthrie in the open spot, for me. Where do our captain and vice captain fit in all of that?

As the two "holding" midfielders on a 4-2-3-1? We'd get slaughtered as there is a distinct lack of physical strength there IYAM.

I think you've just lost your forum legend status Lucas..

Zapped man, not ignored..

Aye, we can take some heart from that first day of Premier League football. Some teams look like they could be in a lot of trouble. On the other hand, Blackpool may not be the certainty to go down we thought it would be; they played a very bad Wigan side, but they still stuffed them comfortably and I'm not sure we would have done the same.

(official) link please? No official link, but why would every news source in England and France say we had a deal agreed on Monday? What are they gaining from saying that? Smoke without fire? Not to mention the OM president himself. Aye, because we know from past experience that everything club officials come out with is to be trusted.. Why would hesay that a deal had been agreed with us and was expected to sign earlier this week? Link to an article on the official OM site where he has said a deal was agreed..? AFAIK all he has supposedly said was he expected a deal to be completed this Tuesday or Wednesday..?

(official) link please? No official link, but why would every news source in England and France say we had a deal agreed on Monday? What are they gaining from saying that? Smoke without fire? Not to mention the OM president himself. Aye, because we know from past experience that everything club officials come out with is to be trusted..

(official) link please?

Thats what I asked if it could be a possibility. This seems to be the way we conduct our transfer business nowadays. First Jonas, then Gosling in similar conditions, now HBA. We're being creative, but it will not endear us to many other clubs..

That doesn't necessarily make the reverse statement through for last season though, does it. I'd agree with Shearergoal that the MAIN reason we did well last season was because of the poor opposition, unless you wish to believe we would have comfortably reached European qualification last season despite what happened the season before had we managed to take a point from AV..? I still think what he's trying to say is correct though. If we had the same team from last season, with the same spirit and harmony, playing in 08-09, we would not have went down. It was a combination of piss-poor management, bad timing and overpaid underperforming pre-madonas as to why we went down. Very debatable, but we may find out soon enough I'm afraid.. Also, the good spirit and harmony are in large parts attributable to winning most of our matches. Let's see how we fare when we lose more than we win..

That doesn't necessarily make the reverse statement through for last season though, does it. I'd agree with Shearergoal that the MAIN reason we did well last season was because of the poor opposition, unless you wish to believe we would have comfortably reached European qualification last season despite what happened the season before had we managed to take a point from AV..?

We haven't done anything wrong other than not be flush with cash, there's just a bit of an all or nothing attitude on here. We're either fantastic or s***. "At least we tried" cuts it nowadays, does it..? How the mighty have fallen.. Well yeh! If it's a genuine attempt. What else can you do other than try? You think we will move onto another target now? Or just not bother which is the general theme regarding our transfer policy since Ashley took over. I for one would never defend our pathetic transfer success over the past seasons and it's one of the many reasons I hate the current board. But a genuine attempt at buying someone can't be bettered. It's just not possible. This tbh. I've spent the vast majority of my time on this board slagging off Ashley something rotten and getting stick for unknowingly holding up banners calling him a rapist but this deal is towards the back of The Big Book of Mike Ashley f*** Ups. We negotiated a (very, very good) deal which was satisfactory to all parties until Dassier changed his mind and went mental. I'd love us to swoop in with a bid and rescue the situation but if the money isn't there then it isn't there. We don’t know a deal was agreed. All we have to go on are some vague comments from the OM president and a denial that anything is happening at all from Hughton. What can’t be denied though is that the club have been shopping in the bargain basement for some time now and players like Arfa generally can’t be picked up on the cheap. The odds have always been against us securing Arfa’s services. We might yet get lucky or we might end up getting Marlon King instead. He more or less said a deal was agreed, the press said a deal was agreed. Vague comments or not it's the firmest indication we have of what was going on and considering the sheer amount of guesswork in this thread I think it's the safest avenue to go down. You think the safest avenue to go down is to presume a deal was agreed, when it's become evident since then that no such thing was the case? Aye, makes sense..

Lol, there's another slight flaw in your argument...

We haven't done anything wrong other than not be flush with cash, there's just a bit of an all or nothing attitude on here. We're either fantastic or s***. "At least we tried" cuts it nowadays, does it..? How the mighty have fallen.. Congratulations, there is literally no response I can give you which wont involve me getting yet another banning for unnecessary abuse Wahey! I win!!!!11111

We haven't done anything wrong other than not be flush with cash, there's just a bit of an all or nothing attitude on here. We're either fantastic or s***. "At least we tried" cuts it nowadays, does it..? How the mighty have fallen.. Well yeh! If it's a genuine attempt. What else can you do other than try? You think we will move onto another target now? Or just not bother which is the general theme regarding our transfer policy since Ashley took over. I for one would never defend our pathetic transfer success over the past seasons and it's one of the many reasons I hate the current board. But a genuine attempt at buying someone can't be bettered. It's just not possible. There's your problem right there. We are trying to "buy" someone by offering a 'ridiculous' loan deal.. Strange way to conduct your business..

Ben Arfa was told to find a new club, a couple came in which he didn't want to join but one came in that interested him but which didn't want to buy him, instead wanting a loan deal. I can see why OM wouldn't want to play ball. If we screw this up we have no-one to blame but ourselves: the player is keen, the selling club was keen to make a deal (until very recently at least) and we were dicking around offering them a type of deal they clearly weren't interested in.

We haven't done anything wrong other than not be flush with cash, there's just a bit of an all or nothing attitude on here. We're either fantastic or s***. "At least we tried" cuts it nowadays, does it..? How the mighty have fallen..

There's no perfect way to conduct yourself in the transfer market. This is preferable to Kinnear/Roeder/Redknapp/Levy school of transfers. I'd much prefer the Levy school of transfers thank you very much... I don't think the club could cope with the cost of the investigations into tapping up and fines. Seems to me the Champions League entry money will take care of that quite comfortably...

Of course he is, he is an agent. Errrrr.... I've been purposefully avoiding getting to involved in this thread so thats an error obvs but he sure goes on like one. No worries... Don't know why exactly, but I feel like I'm already in "last day of the transfer window" mode..