Parky

They've been piss poor so far, I really hope they pull something out of the bag.

Has he done alright anywhere? Genuine question?

It's the way the market is.

Couldn't find the toon on the poll??!

Going to play on Friday according to Anal If you read it, it says they are still waiting for the registration. Hope this goes through soon.

Why are these deals so convoluted? Spiderman still has no registration and this deal has developed fast into a three way chinese whisper/tug of war.

If Gutierrez is any good (I have no idea), then he will probably be a good value signing (we have no idea how much of a signing on bonus we're giving him, or the wages he's on so how can we really judge). Ditto Guthrie. Two swallows though... We aren't the only club looking for good deals, and wont be the only club to pick up a couple of cheap players who turn out to be bargains (whisper it, but we've done it in the past too!). Other clubs will be doing that AS WELL AS spending transfer fees and wages on players with established and proven ability. Honest question to you or anyone else - do you think Gutierrez and/or Guthrie were signed instead of Modric? I ask because we've gone from being willing to spend £18m on an attacking midfielder (so obviously we thought the position needed filling) to our most important positions now being 2 fullbacks (I would assume cover for Beye but maybe more experienced competition for Enrique). UV i've asked that question a hundred different ways on here and there'll be answer - if the modric bid was real then as you say the position had to be a priority and one we were willing to pay top dollar for what happened? Maybe they saw him as a winger and Gutieriez was his back up. mackems.gif

FYP.

Who says he hasn't given him the money to spend? Have we not had a 7 million bid for Aimar recently?, £16 million for Modric, £9 million for Woodgate and of course whatever its cost us to sign Guthrie and Jonas as well as numerous other unconfirmed bids for players. This may be a case of we will offer 9mill even though the club asked for 15mill, we can look like we are making bids when we know fine well our offer will not be accepted. Making bids is not spending money, signing players thats spending the dosh. Yeah okay we should not be held to ransom by other clubs over players just because we have lots of cash, but on the other hand we need players and if you want a player a club wats to keep then they have the final say. Oh common lets not get silly with this pretendy bid conspiracy theory.. Our bids for Woodgate, Modric and Aimar were accepted and while others weren't they were all genuine bids, there's no point in making them otherwise. BTW my point is spending money and making money available are too very different things. Money being made available does not equal all that money being spent unless you go out and blow it for no reason other then to prove its there.. which is completely pointless. The fact is we are desperate for players and we are DESPERATE can be called nothing else, if we go into the season with the squad we have now we are in big trouble and the January transfer window will come to late. I am not saying its easy to sign players, even with an offer being accepted I know its tough but it does not change the fact that there is a definite lack of players coming in. Players like Arshevin and Turan are two players we should have had deals done for before the Euro's but we pissed about and now we have no hope of getting them, its that kind of lack luster action thats fks me off the most. Pretty sure we'll get some players in, it's the quality that is more the worry.

Yes. This has been dragging on too long.

It seems some want and expect instant results on and off the pitch even though we've only done that once and even then we couldn't sustain it. The daft thing is that our past limited success (we won nothing) has been paid for by Ashley yet others are given the credit. Ashley paid for the stadium expansion plus £30-40 million which was spent on players. He'll probably now get blamed for buying Luque as he's paid for him. Aye, well obviously the correct thing for Ashley to do is buy loads of players the business can't afford (it doesn't matter if they're crap or not because the spend alone will say "ambition") and then eventually sell off to someone richer who will pay for his profligacy. There aren't many of those, of course. Maybe Bill Gates or the Sultan of Brunei will develop an interest in football. What 1.8 billion? There's at least 30 billionaires with more money than Ashley in Moscow alone. Many dozens in London as well. Aye, Abramovich had put £580 million into Chelsea before the summer spending began. He could spend around ten times that much and still have more wealth than Ashley. My point was simply that there are no more orders of magnitude to step upwards, simply gradations among the super-rich. I take your point. Roman is in a whole other league tbf. £12.8 billion. If you start to look closer at assets you can probably double that. His ability to spend and desire to do so are probably unmatched. There are a handful of other people in the world who are comparably rich, but there's no upgrade from there. He represents the peak of money flowing recklessly into the game, as far as I can see, although he could yet step up his own spending. But in general, football won't get any more inflated that this. Madness to expect anyone to match his expenditure. Starting from a base at least as strong as ours was at Bobby's peak -- the very best we've been in the last decade was where he began -- and looking at the club as a plaything rather than a business, he's thrown well over half a billion quid at the problem and still hasn't won the Champions League. Someone said upthread that he was now in a position to start earning on that investment. Bollocks, frankly. As for Thaksin, he's throwing money at Man City in the hope of quick success because he's trying to buy popularity and respect in Thailand. His spend is a fraction of Abramovich's, but he's already impatient at the lack of results. Not a situation anyone here should be envying, as it all completely depends on his caprice. I don't imagine Thaksin is in for the long haul, so it might not be a good idea for the health of the club to get in too many players on silly wages - I agree totally he's aiming for immediate impact and hoping to bathe in some kind of spin/pr light. Roman is a very interesting study for me as I know a fair bit about him and first and foremost he is a genuine football lover who delights in the re-emergence of Russia as a football force. Owning Chelsea and getting a U.K passport has been his version of path building as many oligarchs are now doing in the Cote d' Azur, London and the French and Swiss Alps (another emerging fav location for property and citizenship grabs). I agree he is the high watermark of vast capital chunks flowing into the PL and I can't see anyone outspending him, especially not with the force and impact of those first seasons. The question now however is whether he is in for the long haul and imo he isn't. If he's spent say 500m on Chelsea he is already starting to spend more than that on leisure property around the world (they closed him out of Courchavel for some time till he stumped up Euro 300m for a mount-side location at almost 3 times the going rate). Now he has firmly turned his attention to the art market and building a new fleet of yachts and another private jet. Gallery opening in St Petersburg and voracious buying of art around the world - looks like his new love to me. MA is by no stretch of the imagination in this league, as is our way we've managed to attract a poor billionaire!

I don't know because I don't know what the market rate currently is for things such as this, or how far each party is inevitably off with regards to the current negotiations, I'm probably just looking at it from a moral standpoint as well, when it shows everything that is wrong with the game when say someone can demand such a figure for playing for a team I'm sure we'd all given the opportunity play for for free. Agreed. He's a greedy monster.

It seems some want and expect instant results on and off the pitch even though we've only done that once and even then we couldn't sustain it. The daft thing is that our past limited success (we won nothing) has been paid for by Ashley yet others are given the credit. Ashley paid for the stadium expansion plus £30-40 million which was spent on players. He'll probably now get blamed for buying Luque as he's paid for him. Aye, well obviously the correct thing for Ashley to do is buy loads of players the business can't afford (it doesn't matter if they're crap or not because the spend alone will say "ambition") and then eventually sell off to someone richer who will pay for his profligacy. There aren't many of those, of course. Maybe Bill Gates or the Sultan of Brunei will develop an interest in football. What 1.8 billion? There's at least 30 billionaires with more money than Ashley in Moscow alone. Many dozens in London as well. Aye, Abramovich had put £580 million into Chelsea before the summer spending began. He could spend around ten times that much and still have more wealth than Ashley. My point was simply that there are no more orders of magnitude to step upwards, simply gradations among the super-rich. I take your point. Roman is in a whole other league tbf. £12.8 billion. If you start to look closer at assets you can probably double that.

It seems some want and expect instant results on and off the pitch even though we've only done that once and even then we couldn't sustain it. The daft thing is that our past limited success (we won nothing) has been paid for by Ashley yet others are given the credit. Ashley paid for the stadium expansion plus £30-40 million which was spent on players. He'll probably now get blamed for buying Luque as he's paid for him. Aye, well obviously the correct thing for Ashley to do is buy loads of players the business can't afford (it doesn't matter if they're crap or not because the spend alone will say "ambition") and then eventually sell off to someone richer who will pay for his profligacy. There aren't many of those, of course. Maybe Bill Gates or the Sultan of Brunei will develop an interest in football. What 1.8 billion? There's at least 30 billionaires with more money than Ashley in Moscow alone. Many dozens in London as well.

It's not a statement it's a question. Look:?????

Why is reorganising the club doom and gloom?

...and will this window be the start of the comedown? Furthermore are people ready to accept that the club will now go through a 2/3 season rationalising process?

Funny old game.

You make it sound like something to do with submarines. I hear klaxons and see red lights flashing DANGER and lots of guys in polo neck sweaters running around. A loudspeaker barks: Warning, lack of depth! I repeat... Iceberg ahead! Something big, white, immobile... oh hold on, it's Marc Viduka. mackems.gif

Haven't read the thread but would take 4-5mill.

So there was no chance to get a good question in?

This must be the longest 'lack of depth' warning in the history of the club...Started at the end of last season...Yes?

Top 8.* No need for too much doom and gloom. *To be revised depending on transfers.