Dr Venkman

Agreed 100% When the hell is Andy Carroll going to be worth more than £35m? Even if he realises his potential I assume by then there would be some kind of financial regulations in place within football to stop enormous fees in the future. So long as the money is invested in the TEAM in the summer, Ashley did a very good bit of business with the Carroll sale. agree. especially when caroll asked nufc to match the wages liverpool was offering him! atm i like the wage-structure we have....its the only way to progress and it will more or less only attract players who really want to play for us! Yep. Said the same thing myself yesterday. Would be gutted if we broke our wage structure to accomodate a money-hungry player. That's what big successful clubs do though. Unfortunately, that's the way football is. I'd rather compete with the best than watch Andy Carroll scoring for Liverpool from my moral high ground. exactly. all this bollocks about carroll's contract upsetting all the other players, bullshit. i'm sure sucessful teams dont have any players earning substantially more than some others, oh hang on....... i dont care who they are, if they dont want to be in a team with exceptional players who rightly get paid exceptional wages they can fuck off

nolan in telling it like it is shocker. stop being such crying babies.

these things should be irrelevant to transfer plans because shola's not good enough and always injured and best's not good enough.

wasnt he paying attention when keegan tried the same trick?

And what's he supposed to do exactly? Nick the money from Ashley's wallet? He faces the same problems that Hughton did in the transfer market, except Pardew is blamed while Hughton's 'hands were tied'. well he's either part of the problem i.e. he's always known for a fact ashley will only give him pennies to spend and sell whoever he (ashley) wants. or he expected ashley to give him a bit of leeway with spending and trust his judgement. so he's either a lying cunt or a stupid cunt. fuck it, he's both.

nothing, why is it relevant?

Probably slightly, and rightly, pissed that Dagleish pointed out that Shearer was one who suggesting Carroll was a player he should go for. 'go for him, kenny, they'll sell the fucking furniture if you offer the right price'

nothing, he's alan pardew

easy, turn him down when he asks for the wage he's worth

I'm not that gullible, even without Ashley being proven in court to lie to us as a default setting (and the stench of Pardew's odds tumbling while he insists he knew nothing), but... even if we do take it that Pardew's an honourable man and Carroll was determined to bugger off, then Pardew's been incompetently naive in giving all those assurances and I still can't believe a word he says. What was he supposed to say like? "Well we don't know, Andy might be sold if a massive offer comes along or if he decides he wants to piss off but hey ho, that's life!" He was trying to give assurances to the squad and to the fans that they were doing everything to try and keep him. How was he supposed to know that Liverpool would turn his head and come in with a £35m offer. could've just asked his boss how much he'd be offering him around for

funny him being all defensive, i wonder why he feels the need to do that.

not easier to manipulate - told what to do and what not to do from day one, even before day one hughton came from modest background, by all accounts took the job on without asking for the MONEY for re-investment that shearer was but developed into someone with quite a lot of power in the club because of his achievements. power that would manifest itself in, i dont know, having a say in how the club is run? something its been proven in court ashley and llambias dont like putting in the hands of the manager. i dont see hughton as an iron man, i see him as not alan pardew. and i see alan pardew as a man put in a job for a very specific reason, and that is so ashley can do what he wants, when he wants without getting landed with another court case. unless you think he was appointed because of his experience and achievements? or would care to explain why pardew was being lined up for months while hughton was still here? I find the first line of your post to be contradictory. Surely you are defining manipulation? The circumstances as to how Pardew got the job are not relevant to me. This is football, it's a sh1tty industry and can be brutal at times. We aren't the only club to have shafted a manager and Ashley's regime isn't the only one to have done it at Newcastle. I've said before on here why I think Pardew was appointed. It was because Ashley thinks Pardew will do a better job at this level than Hughton. Many said it was a crap decision at the time (me included) but I would say that Pardew's support is growing. You clearly believe that Carroll was sold against his will and well - I don't. nah mate, i'm not defining manipulation. you said 'the theory that Pardew was appointed because he is an easier man for Ashley to manipulate than Hughton'. i'm saying that defining what the manager can and cant do before the contract starts isnt anything to do with manipulation, infact its almost the exact opposite. if he's aware of what he is or isnt in control of, ashley doesnt need to manipulate him does he? it all comes back to why you think pardew was appointed, you've stated your view, i disagree. the circumstances are too suspect for me. the talk of them being buddies beforehand, the fact that golfmag was talking about him being lined up for months, and most telling, the fact that its alan pardew, a man with nowhere near enough experience or achievement to warrant displacing a well performing manager in our league. you can say that the circumstances involving him getting the job aren't relevant, but imo it's intrinsic to the atmosphere and set up of the club now, thats why i mentioned it. i dont believe carroll was sold against his will and to be honest i dont care. my point is an all encompassing one about the direction of the club, not about andy carroll. my belief that ashley has brought pardew in so he remains un-obstructed in doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants is based on all of the things i've been talking about since pardew came in, and the fact that we got bids for carroll publicised and then denied by spurs and media, AND redknapp saying it's 30-40 mill for carroll weeks ago only enforce what i think. ashley saw the cash in opportunity and couldnt resist. whether the fee is worth it, we'll stay up or not, if hughton's got a bigger cock than pardew, i'm not debating any of this. all i'm saying is that ashley's finally got his club running the way he wants.

Thought they used a helicopter to get him to Liverpool. nolan was flying it

i know. shame, if only that bid for n'zogbia had been accepted.

not easier to manipulate - told what to do and what not to do from day one, even before day one hughton came from modest background, by all accounts took the job on without asking for the MONEY for re-investment that shearer was but developed into someone with quite a lot of power in the club because of his achievements. power that would manifest itself in, i dont know, having a say in how the club is run? something its been proven in court ashley and llambias dont like putting in the hands of the manager. i dont see hughton as an iron man, i see him as not alan pardew. and i see alan pardew as a man put in a job for a very specific reason, and that is so ashley can do what he wants, when he wants without getting landed with another court case. unless you think he was appointed because of his experience and achievements? or would care to explain why pardew was being lined up for months while hughton was still here?

meh, really mate? Like I said, it all depends on it happening. If it does, of course we could. Carroll is not the be all and end all, and as emotionally difficult this transfer is it could be to the benefit if spent right. Clubs do this all the time, selling their prize asset and rebuilding a team. For £35 million we could get 2 strikers, a winger, a CB and a RB. We could buy a load of young players to supplement the squad. The options are endless really aslong as our scouting is as sound as it was in the summer. It's not totally idealistic to think this could be huge for the club, £35 million is more money than I've ever remembered us have to spend. I'm not going to get too optimistic yet because I'll need to see it happen before I buy into any of it, I'm just saying that if theoretically it does happen we could do very well out of this. i admire your optimism, but i've been following the club recently. Hawer man, you can't say that we didn't do brilliantly over the summer with our signings. Ben Arfa and Tioté are 2 of the best signings we've made in years, Gosling is a bargain for nowt. Perch is a blemish but hey ho. I'm not optimistic, because I'm saying I'm not conviced it will happen, but if it did we could do very well out of it. thought we needed more signings and still do. thought we needed strengthening in january before carroll left. ben arfa and tiote were fantastic signings indeed. if we invest the carroll money we could do well out of it, i'm not arguing with you on that, i just dont think it'll happen. imo it'll take 50m at least of investment to make it worthwhile.

You know, it's easy to believe everyone is against you and get credit on forums like this for being cynical and clever. and wtf does it do with believing everyone is against you? ashley's been a disaster for the club and cares less for it than most sunderland fans, there's plenty of evidence for that. I know that, you missed off the rest of my post where I made it clear I was only talking about this incident (and I admitted Ashley has a lot of faults). thought that part set the tone tbh mate. its about context imo, fair enough you dont see any evidence of anyone lying in THIS situation but its not as simple as that.

meh, really mate? Like I said, it all depends on it happening. If it does, of course we could. Carroll is not the be all and end all, and as emotionally difficult this transfer is it could be to the benefit if spent right. Clubs do this all the time, selling their prize asset and rebuilding a team. For £35 million we could get 2 strikers, a winger, a CB and a RB. We could buy a load of young players to supplement the squad. The options are endless really aslong as our scouting is as sound as it was in the summer. It's not totally idealistic to think this could be huge for the club, £35 million is more money than I've ever remembered us have to spend. I'm not going to get too optimistic yet because I'll need to see it happen before I buy into any of it, I'm just saying that if theoretically it does happen we could do very well out of this. i admire your optimism, but i've been following the club recently.

You know, it's easy to believe everyone is against you and get credit on forums like this for being cynical and clever. and wtf does it do with believing everyone is against you? ashley's been a disaster for the club and cares less for it than most sunderland fans, there's plenty of evidence for that.

and there's also no evidence that Pardew had anything to do with Hughton's sacking. Maybe they asked him if he would be interested in the job, but that must happen all the time. semantics. if someone's in a job and you're asked to take over from them for a very specific reason (we can discount experience and achievements here i think, thats something we DO have evidence of, or lack of actually) and you say yes, you're partly responsible for their sacking at least. say what you like but pardew being lined up for the job was talked about for months on here before it happened.

just to back up wullie's post Backing it up with even more deluded nonsense? yes, exactly.

just to back up wullie's post

I think he's the only one coming out of this with any credit. haha, for WHAT!? knowing for months he was coming in to replace hughton on the premise that the board could buy and sell anyone they like? and then sitting in his first press conference lying about it? jesus christ man.

meh, really mate?

i dont expect carroll leaving will have any effect on this game whatsoever, the character in the team simply isnt in question anymore.