Unbelievable

Van Marwijk please.

Have you seen much of him QBG? What kind of player is he, i.e. solid defensively, or better going forward?

This bloke any good?

I'd go along with this. What strikes me is he started off by handing Fat Sam a relatively massive transfer kitty when he had just arrived, promised to plough 20 million of his own money into the club on a yearly basis and was living the dream in terms of being a sociable club owner trying to mingle with the fans. After the whole Wise/Keegan fiasco and the flack he copped, he has obviously lost his enthousiasm for the club. Even last season's excellent results and the end of the mass public critcism of his running of the club has not changed his stance in this regard; I think he considers buying the club as a mistake and would sell as soon as het got his money back. Unfortunately for us, he bought us at the height of economic prosperity and no realistic buyer has presented himself due to the economic crises that followed, so we are being run as a going concern on a shoestring budget until somebody comes forward to take us off his hands. Massive shame.

Transfers

Just because the press have not linked us doesn't mean we can't sign him. Well it is the rumours in the press thread. Fair point Probs end up in The Chron by the weekend

Nah, I'm with AlanSkarare on this one, don't think De Jong is what we need at all. I wouldn't exactly call him creative either.

Comes across as a bit of a big time Charlie. Unfortunately for that reason I fear he thinks he is better than us and would only consider a so-called big club.

Same, now on the brink of breaking the N-O top 100 finally.. I climbed back up to 97 Ha! Only 6 points needed to catch up with you. The chance to avenge our lost WC final is on!

12-16m i reckon. So £8m we were gona spend on Remy + say another £6-8m HAS to be worth the spend surely? worth it even if we weren't desperate. Well most french journos seem to think Mbiwa's release clause is around 8m and Bony i heard was about the same but considering the club he plays for and potential theres probably a bit of lee way for negotiation so the Bony part is a bit of guess work on my part. I'll be gob smacked if we spend over 5m on a defender and a forward, whats more likely is a budget priced CB and 6m+ on a forward. Vitesse is Holland's Man City since they have been taken over by Georgian business man Zjordania, so don't expect them to sell cheap as they don't have to. Also, his wages will be huge compared to other players in the Dutch league.

Same, now on the brink of breaking the N-O top 100 finally..

12-16m i reckon. who is Bony? Wilfried Bony from Vitesse I believe.

Excellent shout! A player in the Walcott mould who has publicly stated this is his last season at PSV. Could do much worse.

Racist!

Why the self-enforced "2 windows on the trot" rule? You can't be p*ssed off at 1 transfer window and expect them to correct it sharpish? As it stands, we're a player up and a player down in this window. We need at least 2 top players in before February 1st. Last summer we lost players from the squad and the wage bill but as usual decided to take the risk and test the bare minimum we could get away with. And why have they ignored the centre back position since Sol Campbell left? This is the FOURTH window since then and we've basically chanced our luck with 3 centre halves (1 top class, 1 ropey if you're being charitable, and 1 with a proven track record of spending half of most seasons recovering from injury) and also a jack-of-all-trades in James Perch who has filled in at times. Since we got promoted Mike Williamson has played in the league 29 times, 22 times and 17 times so far this season. That's not good enough. You seem to be blinded by the fact that we've managed to bring a few good players in, while conveniently forgetting that a lot of the other players are some of the worst s**** we've ever had in the top division. Why did we go 1 window without replacing Sol Campbell, never mind get on to the 4th window with the manager saying he doubted we could afford both a striker and a centre half? The irony is that most or all of the good signings that you're clinging on to for the sake of your argument will leave out of frustration at the lack of even moderate ambition shown, the fact they're playing with s**** players every week, battling relegation. And that's without the manager issues. There's a chronic lack of investment, even a net spend of around £10m a season would have plugged the gaps and kept us ticking over, but we always seem to find excuses for not spending any money whatsoever and leaving ourselves criminally short. I'm f***ing sick of turning up to matches and watching Shola, Williamson et al, the fact that you're not can only be down to you being such an all-seeing, all-knowing, NUFC fan-hating bore of a person.

I especially love the attempted cover up..

neesy

Exactly, the argument about 'supporting a balance sheet' is a waste of time, we're discussing transfer policy which is inherently about money. Not really. If our only hope for some much needed investment in our squad (if we want to challenge for Europe, which should be our level of ambition) is Ashley may fear his investment will suffer from relegation at the midway point of the season I think we're going about this the wrong way. Again, this is a football club, not a sportswear store. it's a football club that is also, like it or not, a company that has to survive financially. How many football clubs you know have little or no debts and regularly post a profit?

Exactly, the argument about 'supporting a balance sheet' is a waste of time, we're discussing transfer policy which is inherently about money. Not really. If our only hope for some much needed investment in our squad (if we want to challenge for Europe, which should be our level of ambition) is Ashley may fear his investment will suffer from relegation at the midway point of the season I think we're going about this the wrong way. Again, this is a football club, not a sportswear store.

Shame we don't support a balance sheet. Aye, but at the end of the day we haven't got a couple hundred million invested in the club. He's coming from a totally different angle to us lot, understandably (and sadly). Which, indeed, goes back to the question I asked (myself) when I just bumped this thread: why did he buy us in the first place?

Shame we don't support a balance sheet.

Way to ignore a post too. It was quite obvious that by gravy train in the context of my post I meant Premiership (TV money etc). Yeah but you're still arguing that the owners are leeching the money out, or that someone is feeding on this giant treasure trove of cash we have, or will have. Someone still has to be on that gravy train or there's no problem. If the club are on the gravy train then great, but you seem to think it's the owners, personally, who are benefiting I'm not arguing that at all. My argument is this club currently seem happy just to be a side show in the Premiership and run a small profit.

Way to ignore a post too. It was quite obvious that by gravy train in the context of my post I meant Premiership (TV money etc). Fair enough, but where is the money going? Honestly wasn't having a go, I just don't understand who is on what gravy train. Oh, do you mean us just trying to stay up? If so I totally missed that. Yep.

Because any player who does well is going to be tempted away by clubs with more ambitious salary scales, and it's only the bargains that turn out not to be bargains that will stay? Until that starts to happen regularly then that's conjecture. Ba is the only person who has shown any real desire to leave and he was apparently offered terms that would've almost gave him parity with our highest earner. I don't quite understand why the board are coping flack for adopting a sensible wage structure. We've been down the road of paying grossly over inflated salaries to players whose performances and/or ability haven't justified them. It got us into trouble and was clearly unsustainable. Why do it again? Our position in that wages table is being obsessed over but whether 1st, 13th or 20th, it's completely moot. The figure that does count for something is wages to turnover. 70% is hypothesised to be the tipping point between a club that can cope and one that is in danger and we're not a million miles off that. The only way we can really begin to pay more is to increase turnover. I think there are some very justified criticisms of the board, for example the extremely ponderous way we approach transfer windows which seems to be borne out of a belief we can come out on top in the sagas that pass for negotiations nowadays when all evidence points to the fact that clubs are getting wise and preferring to play hard ball with us, but our wage structure? Christ, it's one of the things the current owners have got very, very right. It's flexible enough to allow us to reward players who perform well (as we did with Tiote in his first season and Krul last year) but won't see us get taken for mugs. What prize do we win for having the lowest wages to turnover ratio? Well done, you've missed my point. No I haven't. Wage total in absolute numbers is a pretty good predictor for league position as tollemache correctly argues, wages to turnover ratio isn't. Wages to turnover matters because it's the only figure that gives you a real indication of whether the club's policy is conservative, reasonable or reckless. Agreed on that count, I didn't say it doesn't matter at all. I challenged your statement that wages in itself in absolute terms is a moot point, and that wages to turnover is what really matters. In actual effect, a football club should in my mind try to maximize its revenue whilst trying to spend as sensibly as it can (note: not as low as it can) in order to offer its fans (customers) the best experience possible (note: not hang on to the gravy train as long as they can). In the context of the discussion that is being had about our wage structure I think it's the most relevant figure. If you care not about what happens on the pitch you are 100% correct..