Parky

1 years wages. 250k

I wish people would stop saying this. I take it you have a crystal ball?

He had no intention of ever pushing for the second goal. Sickeningly defensive substitutions and cowardly descision making. He must go now or we're down.

Now what? You've taken your most creative player off you stupid cunt!

Pardew is so dopey.

They're gonna score cause we're sitting off them so much.

Defensive substitution.

Come on you hammers!!!

Same here. Need to keep the momentum up and go for the 2nd goal.

Quality finish.

Get Guti off and get Obertans on. These are for the taking.

This is the big one.

You can tell by Pards desperation that there isn't that much going on that looks promising....Simple. Think we started with about 5 enquiries and am not sure how much more we have on the serious list.

That article is a puff piece. Same old 'mystery' talk about Remy and saying we're aggressive and so on..Think it's pretty clear (to me anyway) that the club have been ill prepeared for the Jan window. The truth about the Jan window is that it really is conducted in Nov and Dec...The fact that it seems we're flailing around with offers here and there shows that nothing was set in stone as it should have been reg primary targets and concluding deals as quickly as possible.

The nuclear option.

The new nightmare.

truth is though, we haven't got a clue what is going on and how things are conducted by us or others. What we know doesn't matter, the fact that the competion seem to is the worry. How serious in all reality was the Remy bid anayway? He took a week to think about it for starters and his club started telling everyone about our bid from day one. Shouldn't we have got a stronger indication from the club and player in a more confidential manner before the window even opened?? I mean he was our main target or so it appeared. when we signed ba that had been in the press for best part of a week, we outbid everton according to the media. only the cabaye deal really came out the blue. Don't think Ba is the ideal test case. His knee frightened off just about every club that had considiered him and then the catastrophic medical at Stoke, "His knee could give in at any time"..Pulis. I think we got Ba cause as is evident now he wrote his own contract.

I don't mind losing deals when it's piddling amounts of money for back up/young players as is the case with this left back...What I find surreal is that we let our main target drift and wander away to the competition. The backstory is absurd.

truth is though, we haven't got a clue what is going on and how things are conducted by us or others. You could apply that argument to almost every single thing about the football club. Actually, you do apply that argument. Gets a bit tedious after a while, you're not saying anything. This forum would be dead if there was no speculation or discussion about things we can't possibly know for good. We're putting down our opinions and thoughts on what is going on. don't mind speculation, my problem is when people treat their speculation as fact. Something is wrong in the state of Denmark.

truth is though, we haven't got a clue what is going on and how things are conducted by us or others. What we know doesn't matter, the fact that the competion seem to is the worry. How serious in all reality was the Remy bid anayway? He took a week to think about it for starters and his club started telling everyone about our bid from day one. Shouldn't we have got a stronger indication from the club and player in a more confidential manner before the window even opened?? I mean he was our main target or so it appeared.

There was a problem with his medical iirc and Liv weren't so keen to really test anyones resolve. yes i understand but liverpool and us both knew that and liverpool still made a offer and thought they still had him i'm sure we still offered less than liverpool would have offered if there was no medical problems I'd say he wasn't so sure of getting first team football at Liv, having been virtually out of the game for nearly a year.

It might not have been as good an idea as it first appeared meeting 20/30 agents over a week in a posh Parisian hotel. Ultimately it creates just the kind of atmosphere that shows our hand to all and sundry. All those agents are going to shoot their mouths off immediately they have a bargaining chip (a bid or interest from Newcastle). With hindsight it would have been better swooping on individual deals one at a time and giving short time limits to the selling clubs ie. "We're looking at 3 left backs and the first to conclude will be signed, you have 24hrs only"...I can't see any other way around it if as we now see other clubs are aware that we're not flexible with reg to valuation or wages. The Cisse case is a good example of us being ultra serious to wrap a deal up quick. What's changed?

There was a problem with his medical iirc and Liv weren't so keen to really test anyones resolve.

Right on. We need to add a no shop provision to our bids. Yep. Exclusivity would be helpful to us. I think it's nonsense that our bids are getting highjacked or shopped to other clubs after we get them accepted. Really poor on seller if that's true. Our policy of backing down in "auctions" doesn't help either. We don't even low ball bid and increase to our "ceiling" it seems. We just offer what we can pay max, say to the seller take it or leave it, f*** off if the deal requires any brain work. Obviously these deals aren't going to be clear, cut and dry anymore. We aren't even adapting to these changing conditions either ffs. Would it be better to stealth with multiple offers for different players? Obviously not versed in footbal transactions, but I'd think that would be a way around it. Having a better relationship with the selling club would be helpful too. A pissed off seller isn't going to help us out at all. We've been on the fortunate end of getting quiet deals done during the Ba/Cabaye/Marv summer, but now the selling clubs and player reps have caught on to us. We've GOT to adapt our policy or we will see more and more of this. Everyone knows we are cheap and won't move our bids up much (ie like Madras said, De Jong, Ba etc) so if they get wind we won't up our bid, then your West Ham's of the world will up their bid by 500k and if the player isn't totally in love with joining us, then we'll lose out. Again, I'm only trying to apply what I've done in my own career in transactions for my company and take some of those elements and apply them to football. I know we've not a clue what is going on with the deals, but we have quite a strict wage policy and valuation policy that has gotten us this far, but it sure could use some tinkering. Thanks for the considered reply. Don't worry too much Ashley and lambyarse are clueless about football anyway. They've got lucky with a couple of deals and thought it would just continue like that (low-tight bidding). The competition have adapted and have our deals on their radar what with our recent scouting prowess. Either we go for exclusivity in the first phase (no leaking or some kind of penalty clause) or we tie up deals in 24hrs (give selling club a short deadline).