Unbelievable

Wouldn't surprise me if you do better than expected. Still a very though task to qualify from this group..

You seriously think he's that bad?

Douglas has said in an interview with nu.nl in Holland that he will be leaving FC Twente his summer. 5 clubs have declared an interest, amongst which NUFC and Ajax. The latter is not an option for him, as he wants to move to a bigger competition. One of the clubs is "bigger than Newcastle United" apparently.. Edit: source: http://www.nu.nl/sport/2827139/douglas-heeft-geen-interesse-in-ajax.html

Such a diving cunt..

Lovely play by the Mexicans..

Disappointed in him. Considered moving back to Feyenoord, but said it was "too early in his career". Would have understood if he had gone to a good club in one of the top competitions, but Turkey!? Similar level of club and competition, so must be financially motivated..

4-0

We're ready.. Bring it on!

Seems legit.

Very good in the Eredivisie. He's proven here to be a limited footballer who is fairly good at chipping in with goals. All other aspects of his game are limited; Chelsea are dumping him for a reason. He's not crap but he's not worth what he'd cost in wages. How do you know what his wages would be? He was contemplating moving back to Feyenoord last month, so I don't think he would be outside of our wage structure per se. Chelsea are dumping him because they can afford to splash 70 million (!) on two new wide players without even blinking. No "normal" club would have let a player like him (decent squad player at that level, on manageable wages for a club like them) go for free.

Kalou's a much better player than he's given credit for. He was often shunted out wide at Chelsea and used as a substitute, yet still managed a decent goal tally. At Feyenoord he was spectacular as a striker in a 4-4-2. Whoever gets him will have a very good player on a free. This year's Demba Ba.

He's not.

So he's staying at Sunlun then, presuming they might have otherwise wanted to end his contract on the grounds that he was found guilty of criminal activities..?

I'm not surprised about Ba's answer to that question (I'd be the same), there's just no relevance to it being brought up now by Luke Edwards other than to stir some excrements..

Shit stirring cunt. Why bring this up one year onwards..?

Face the reality. not easily replaceable If 16m is not enough to replace a back up striker, I have nothing to say anymore. Stop here Unbelievable. Clueless..

Face the reality. The simple reality is that we have to hope no other club triggers his release clause or if they do, Ba is happy and settled here and decides to stay, be it on slightly improved terms that we as a club are happy with or not, because he is not easily replaceable. Luckily, the club seem to realise this and are apparently in talks with the player's representatives.

Stick to tennis

Eh? Although we don't know the details, if a key reason for him going is Rodgers, and the vision Rodgers has sold him, then if I was in Sigurdsson's boots I'd be fairly p*ssed off if the person who has persuaded you to come to the club permanently (could include relocating, moving family / away from friends, and the other things associated with moving clubs like this) has decided to f*** off. Sigurdsson's well within the realms of decency to change his mind here. Of course he is, the very least he should wait to see who comes in before signing or he could end up stuck with Steve Bruce or someone. Wasn't Rodgers the reason he came to Swansea on loan in the first place, what with him having been his manager at Reading and all? With Rodgers gone I can't see why Gylfi would commit himself to Swansea FC when there will no doubt be bigger clubs after him this summer.

I see you've cooked your figures even further. How do you get to 16 million for keeping Ba for crying out loud..?

It's a good thing then that a replacement will be available for free, won't want to be rewarded a decent wage and is guaranteed to never be injured.

Alright. 1. My original thought is to put Jonas there instead of Marveaux. We have 2 players who can/should play on the left and because we have to start Ba, Jonas was moved to the centre and was quite impressive. Thus what you said is correct, I actually didn't rely on him as a starter, but going forward I do expect him to be a starter. I rate Marveaux and he is more than a bench sub. Why do we have to start Ba? FWIW I do rate Marveaux highly, but we cannot rely on him to be a starter every match; we need a squad, and he is a valuable part of that, as will Ba hopefully be. 2. True. But back in Germany, he wasn't instructed to take so many defensive responsibilities. He is allowed to use most of his energy to attack. You may argue that it is due to tiredness after the whole season and the African Cup, but it is obvious that his game has dropped a lot during the last 10 matches. It is subjective but I don't think he really perform well on the left during attack. I appreciate his effort on defense though. In conclusion, I "accept" Ba to play on the left, but that is not something I am very impressed. That is just personal opinion. You can say you are very happy for his performance there. I can't. I don't think it is arguable whether he was tired after the ACON, it was clear for all and sundry he was knackered. I wasn't happy with his performance in those last 10 matches, whether it was on the left or through the middle, and that is my point exactly. There is more evidence to suggest he is capable of playing on the left side of a front three and doing it well than there is of the contrary. 10 matches for f***'s sake! After the phenomenal first half of the season he's had. Cut the guy some slack. 3. That's why I said he should be our striker. He scored none after moving to the left, and didn't create much. Normally when you have 2 good strikers you should go with a 4-4-2. We actually tried, but it didn't work. They form a poor partnership, and by having only 2 central midfielders we revert back to hoof hoof hoof. I think no one here would want to try 4-4-2 again at this moment, and so the only position for Ba is on the left. You probably have to blame Pardew for not able to work out a 4-4-2, but the reality is we couldn't utilize Ba's ability as a striker now. I really rate Ba as a striker, but he has to play inside the penalty area instead of rushing back and forth on the left. That's actually Jonas work. Again, how many matches have Cisse and Ba played together, and more specifically in a 4-4-2? Far, far too early to say they are incapable of forging a great partnership or not, especially after we've seen what they're capable off individually as strikers. 4. Yea, strongly agree. 5. So you are saying de Jong as too good to be a back up and Best is too bad to be? So who are you looking for? Anyway, you really have to discount the quality of strikers produced from Holland. Too many flops there. All the strikers there score for fun. Kuyt was top scorer before he moved to England, and you could see how "good" he is at scoring in EPL. Would you feel comfort to start de Jong now, even if he cost as much as 10m? No I don't. You're completely missing the point. I'm not even going to debate the quality of Dutch strikers with you because I am naturally biased but I would argue that at least 4 of them wouldn't look out of place in a Premiership strikers top 20 list (Van Persie, Van Nistelrooij, Bergkamp, Hasselbaink). However, nothing of what you're saying will have any bearing on a) how much Twente will be looking to get for him - to them he is worth at least 10 million and they will get it too, so arguing about the possibility of him becoming a flop because the league is not up to Premiership standard will hardly impress them and b) De Jong's own ambition. Why would he entertain the idea of becoming a backup player here when he will be a starter for bigger clubs than us? So as far as your question goes: if you're not comfortable paying what he's worth and playing him as a starter, then you might as well forget about the whole idea of signing him altogether and leave one of the other clubs that are after him (Spurs are reportedly in talks) sign him 6. Everybody starts doing it after we capture Cisse, Cabaye and Ben Arfa. Well, the latter two probably should not use the word "unearth". Anyway, historically the transfer fees in Bundesliga and Lique 1 are not high. That's why Bayern can always buy players cheaply from other local competitors, and why Arsenal can sign Sagna and Nasri with transfer fees under 5m. The trend is uprising though after Bayern spend so much on Gomez and Neuer, but still with better scouting we should be able to find a few more. Actually I rate Roux, the one we linked last summer. Ultimately we signed Cisse, which is better, but if we have chance we should try to snap him up. Our recruitment policy has been absolutely amazing lately, but to suggest it will be easy to replace a proven Premiership striker with a budget of 5 million is madness. 7 & 8 & 9. Am I saying I want him to leave asap? We could only prepare for his departure, man. Certainly the best for us is he reject all those offers and stay here. But say if you are Ba would you stay? You are probably asking for the last contract in your career. You rely on this for your remaining life. The current club does not want to take the risk, and you could earn an extra 10m if you choose to leave (2.5m from transfer fee, 7.5m for extra salaries assuming he got 80k 4 years contract). Would you? No I wouldn't, and that's fair enough. I think Ba wants to stay as he likes it here and we're on the up, but the financial side of things needs to be sorted, and as you rightly suggest that may be the reason he ultimately leaves us this summer. Again however, this has absolutely no bearing on your ludicrous claim that he will be easy to replace as he is just our backup striker. I know he will leave. I am just explaining it is not a disaster in terms of our performance on the pitch, assuming that we are playing with our starting eleven. I am not saying we are better without him. It's hardly set in stone that he will leave. I hope the club don't take your blasse approach to his contract position though, and fight tooth and nail to keep him. It may not be a disaster if he leaves, but neither would it necessarily be if any of our other important first team players like Colo, Cabaye or Tiote did. This doesn't take away from the fact that I'd much rather they'd stay and we didn't have to try and replace them.

The Moneyball obsessed Liverpool owners will love him. Shame they forgot to take a look at his actual management credentials. How does a win percentage of 41% throughout his management career relate to that made up piece of crap statistic about possession correlating with winning games?

Much better appointment than Rodgers for the bin dippers if it comes off.

Point by point please. Really interested in your thoughts on the subject.