merlin

Yes, I agree with all of that - I only meant that they showed ambition by at least coming up with a decent fee instead of trying to screw his club to the wall and making our name mud in the process. It will take much more than this for me to say they are demonstrating REAL ambition....like getting rid of Pardew for a start, and attempting to give our fans a few trips to Wembley with silverware at the end of it.

Now that the club has signed what look to be 2 decent players in de Jong and Cabella, with, according to latest reports, Janmaat on his way, the fear is that as with other decent players we have had in the past, Pardew will either ruin their play by not using them properly or they will become demotivated by his ultra-cautious and negative strategies. All the players mentioned are basically attacking players, or at least, are good going forward - can anyone imagine how KK would have used them and probably made them into better players compared to how our managerial genius will handle them....? As someone has already said, with his on the nose comment 'giving good players to Pardew is like putting perfume on a pig and expecting it to smell nice..' I loved that one..!

Several clubs now interested in this guy, including maybe, Liverpool. IF the club really want this player they are going to have to act quickly and get the deal done. Using Youtube vids to judge a player is far from the best method, but seeing him in action for Feyenoord, he looks a very impressive attacking FB ; I would like to see how he handles a good winger before I judge, although he clearly has plenty of pace.

At least the club have showed some ambition - for once - with this signing. Cabella looks to have all the attributes needed to be a success, with the possible exception of physique as the PL is a tough physical league. He cannot do it all by himself and he will take time to adjust to English football's demands ; with de Jong also being new to the PL, we are relying on them settling in quickly and we need a really proven striker to make the best use of these guys. If Cabella proves to be a success, he won't be at SJP for long and that is what is dampening everyone's enthusiasm for the signing...we all know he will probably use the club to better himself and the club will be delighted to take what could be a considerable profit on him when bigger(or more ambitious) fish come sniffing around. If he proves a winner, he could be leaving within 2 seasons.

To me there's no question about him being up there with those names (without never really seeing them play). Regardless of his WC showings so far and in the future. If you had seen them play, you would know what I mean....I stick by my view.

Reasonable so far, but unfinished - we need a proven striker and a decent RB, from what I've seen Janmaat is worth buying at his age. We also need a proven CB to replace Colo OR Williamson(he's never going to be a top performer in the PL). We will probably get the RB, but not convinced about the others.....

Messi is a great club player for Barca - he's in a top side - but for me he is just a turbo version of Peter Beardsley, who he slightly resembles. Scores more goals than Beardsley did, but no way is he in the class of Pele, Maradona, Cruyff etc. Very good player at international level but not a genuine great for me....just to balance the books, I don't believe Neymar is either.

For the money that has been quoted around, Janmaat looks well worth a punt - he is nearly 4 years younger than Debuchy and looks able to support the attack well - lovely cross for the 3rd Dutch goal. If NUFC think they will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of clubs like Feyenoord by bidding silly money, they are, as usual, living in cloud cuckoo land - Janmaart's club will know only to well that NUFC have made a decent profit on Debuchy.

Said all along that this was the worst Brazilian side in many years - they proved it big time last night although all credit to the Germans for an excellent performance. This defeat will haunt Brazilian football for many years and will have the same effect as the 7-1 hammering England took from the Hungarians at Wembley in the 1950s....we never again believed we were the world's best footballers and apart from a brief Indian summer between 1966 and 1970, the decline has been constant and irrefutable. In some ways, Brazil's humbling was worse because it is one thing to lose 7-1 in a friendly at home, but quite another to do it in a WC Semi-final with the whole world watching on live TV..... Many reasons why Brazil is not the power it once was, but basically, they haven't got the raw talent anymore. Germany have developed youngsters and have a well-run league, unlike the over-priced and over-rated Circus that is the PL and their disciplined performance shows what is necessary to win at the top level now.

It doesn't matter if the thread about Pardew IS scrapped because another one will start as soon as he commences his crap management style again in a few weeks' time. Nobody will be able to resist complaining about this walking plane-crash of a manager and the truly sickening and sycophantic diarrhoea that he spouts as the weeks go by - thus it was by fans of his previous clubs and so it will be here until he gets fired, probably when new owners take over. We shall have had WC 2018 before that.....

Whilst we need Pardew out of the door yesterday, nothing major is going to change until Ashley sells - and unfortunately it looks as if that is going to be a long time off...

Far too many fans WANT to believe the club is 'trying' to sign good players because to acknowledge that it won't pay the market rate for such players means that they look fools for parting with their money on STs - which they are.

Ashley must be rubbing his hands with glee - Krul has probably just ensured that another 10m will be winging its way into the Ashley coffers after Krul is sold to a more ambitious club... Spurs anyone..??

She must be hard up, sexually and financially - and he must be desperate.

If the fee mentioned is correct, the club is being trashed - a RB of Debuchy's International pedigree should be worth 10m plus... Yet another awful piece of business by the know-nowt-about-its running what used to be NUFC...

Pardew just opens his trap and spouts utter rubbish - I wouldn't even bother to read his idiotic quotes.. As for being a 'mid-table club' in the NE, he should remember that he has been given the bullet - quite rightly - by clubs who are much lower down the pecking order of English football than this one. If we had another owner, the prat wouldn't last 5 minutes...he must be the most detested manager NUFC has had in living memory, even worse than Souness now in my estimation.

Debuchy is very good, but in my opinion, Irving Nattrass was a better defender and could certainly play in more positions. Going even further back, David Craig was a really excellent RB and also better in defence than Debuchy.

This thread is the only one worth reading on the site now... Far more exciting than anything about the current set-up at NUFC and gets the blood racing more too..!

African football will always be held back by weak domestic leagues and non-existent development programs. How many of these countries actually develop their own players? Far too much reliance on dual nationals and foreign-born players. Almost entirely the result of structural inequalities and history, mind. And entirely unreasonable to expect these otherwise impoverished countries to pour resources into developing domestic football programs too. Please don't patronise. Africa is held back by sheer incompetence at all levels, in both football, politics, and economics. It isn't that difficult to put a football team together. We don't even work to refine or grow our players, yet they carve careers out for themselves all over Europe. The players are there by birthright. All that is needed is to provide the team with adequate care , technical advice, and payment. Even this is too difficult. Of course colonial mentality reigns supreme as well. Notice Cameroon had some German on a retirement tour stealing their money, because everything white is automatically better. I wasn't trying to be patronizing, and I think we're making roughly the same arguments. I'm not trying to paint a picture of African dependency, "blame the colonizers for everything and ignore African agency," but I don't think it's incorrect to suggest that deficiencies in African domestic leagues and development programs have a lot to do with structural inequalities, the same disadvantages that plague African states as a whole. That's not the singular cause of the problem but I think it contributes. I'm not saying African footballers aren't talented. They quite clearly are, or else they wouldn't be carving out careers for themselves in Europe. There's just little in the way of harnessing that talent into a coherent national playing structure. It's not hard to put together a team of highly-talented players, but it is difficult to get them to play as a collective unit. That's not an African-exclusive problem either. Look at any of the top international sides. Almost all of their players have passed through their countries' respective domestic development programs and had a national footballing ethos instilled in them from a very young age. It's why Spain won 3 major tournaments in a row, Germany is a perennial powerhouse, the Dutch have an endless supply of players, and the Brazilians are the best ever. Everyone else, African or otherwise, is playing catch-up. African countries a bit like England, then...!

Of course but with our stratgy we're stuck in a rut. We have promising youngsters who we are too scared to play in first team and the only games they get is as a patch side in the early surrender rounds of cups. They should be out on loan developing as our academy and coaching is awful but we won't add to the squad so they get kept a hold of to make up the numbers. Then when the inevitable injuries hit and said youngsters short of game time and confidence are thrown in and don't perform, we're told they will be out on loan to develop and we'll have a better squad next year etc. Other than Cabaye, which was down to his own self determination, I can't think of one player who's truly improved under pardiola. And Beardsley never made the grade here when he was young. Neither Shearer nor Carrick etc. We're awful with young players and the ones like Waddle and Gazza who we produce we sold way too early. True, but both Waddle and Gazza wanted to leave - they knew there was no future under the board at that time(with a Yes-man manager in McFaul)....now where have we heard THAT scenario since..!!?? Beardsley made his name at Carlisle before going to Vancouver - it was Arthur Cox who brought him back in 1983 when he was 23. Don't forget that NUFC had an AWFUL reputation with young players, even playing the one and only Alan Shearer in GOAL when he went for a trial before joining Southampton...I believe McFool was in charge at the time....

My summer wish list comprises a bid for Pardew from Palace, offering to buy out the remainder of his contract, and the Sultan of Brunei to buy out Ashley..... Then again, we have more chance of signing Neymar and Messi than these 2 clowns going...

We don't need PEA we need a new manager and a new owner, anybody who thinks signing decent players is a good idea really doesn't get it. This - but we've more chance of getting PEA - or even Messi - than either manager or owner at this time..

Decent play in most of the matches so far - Brazil the biggest disappointment on their all-round play, Holland's huge win the biggest surprise because it was against Spain. Aussies are a team in transition, most of the 2006 side gone and although some good young players, the team has lack of experience with no genuine top quality forwards like Kewell and Viduka(back in the day). Will be interesting to see how England fare against the Italians and what the Germans can offer....

There's no doubt that the WC is rigged, at least in part and esp for the host nation. That was never a pen in a million years and I've seen far worse go unpunished, Gerrard's vicious attempt at 'tackling' Solano in the Liverpool area some years back was one... However, whilst Brazil will get some 'help' up to the semis, FIFA will be happy enough with the cash take by then to let fate take its course. This is one of the poorest Brazilian sides I've ever seen and is light years away from the likes of the 1970 side and even the 82 and 86 teams who blew good chances with far better players. Early days, yes, but they don't look like winners yet.

Season Ticket deadline extended..? 'Don't buy it, don't buy it, it stinks when you try it'....... Couldn't be more obvious that they are starting to panic - they'll have something to panic about too if they haven't made a decent signing - or 4 - by mid July......