Chris_R

If Sunderland get this windfall from selling Henderson, maybe they'll want spend some of that money to replace him with a midfielder with 19 caps for England.

If Johnson and Gardner are worth £30m, Birmingham wouldn't have been anywhere near the relegation zone. The world's gone f***ing mad. Birmingham should be told to get lost if they're asking those sort of prices. See how they like forking out their wages in the Championship. Give them a year and they'll be desperate to offload anyone for whatever money they can get.

Just quoting the newspaper article, and I did qualify it with "if" we can get those 3 in.

Just think he found his level in the Championship. He wasn't great, I'm not suggesting that, just that he wasn't massively out of his depth like he was in the PL. I agree that even in the Championship we were a better, more productive team without him in the side but I didn't cringe anywhere near as badly when I saw his name on the teamsheet. He did a (mediocre) job.

Stopped reading after that. When I said "last season" I meant in the Championship. The season gone I still count as "This season". Should have made that clearer.

And I'll be fucking delighted with the outcome. Tremendous value for money if we can get those 3 in for the cost of 1 Andy Carroll. Though personally I'd prefer Gervinho to N'Zogbia.

Smith played OK last season, can't deny that. But he's on something stupid like £55k/week, has been here for 4 years and has been utterly shite for 3 of those seasons. I realise I'm probably biting to someone on a windup, but he's right up there with Luque, Boumsong and Owen for being a spectacular waste of money. Seems a good bloke though, never caused any bother and always kept out the press, got his head down and worked hard. No bad feeling towards him, but really will be glad to see the back of him. He may have been good for morale, but we could hire whole circus of clowns to do entertainment in the dressing room for a fraction of Smith's wages.

Yep. Offer them 12 mil and Perch. If they want £12m cash, they'll probably want £13m + Perch.

Yeah, but fantastic spirit only got us 12th in the league. Not knocking 12th, I'm happy with that, but if we want to push on maybe spirit needs replacing with skill?

Look, if it's about paying up his contract then I'm sure we can have a whip round to help?

And then he came back with this: http://www.buzzingolf.co.uk/files/2010/04/TaylorMade-R9-golf-club.jpg

Yet to kick in? The market is yet to open, never mind kick in. Opens July 1st. Of course clubs can reach agreements before then, but the actual transfers can't be completed until July.

This Liverpool fan probably knows nothing about Henderson save that he's young, plays in midfield and has a cap for England. There's no way on earth he's worth anything even approaching £18m.

Probably all they've got left after spunking £18m on Henderson. Sorry, got to say that again: £18m on Henderson. Bahahahahahahahahahaha.

Rather than leave for another club he might be happy to rot in the reserves for 5 years, doing the bare minimum training whilst pissing about in his private life with the money we pay him.

I was partly being deliberately contrary, and think you're almost certainly right, but after all my years of supporting this club I don't think anything would surprise me anymore.

He said that? Or just a hunch? We wouldn't be going for Zoggy if he didn't want to come here IMO. We're in for Gameiro and he doesn't want to come here. Owen came here and didn't want to be here. Wouldn't be without precedent really.

For me, Hughton was sacked when we were 12th and Pardew took over, sold our best player for £35m, got no replacements, and lead us to 12th by the end of the season. I think that's how it was anyway with regards to league positions, might be wrong, sure someone will correct me. But Pardew seems to me to have done about as well as Hughton but minus Carroll, which to me indicates he's been at least as good a manager as Hughton. I also like Hughton's approach to things, how he wants us to play good attacking football and how he's keen to get players in with pace and skill. I was as angry as anyone when Hughton went, still don't think he deserved to be sacked, but I do think Hughton is a better manager. Maybe not massively better, but better all the same.

I just assumed the "scoring" being referred to had something to do with recent tabloid accusations. But then I didn't really think or care enough about it to look into it at all because however you look at it it's not really funny at all.

No shit, Shrelock. Sarcasm not really your strong point, is it?

Long played 54 games in the Championship last year? Bloody hell, he'll be knackered. But touché with regards to "points taken". Yes Shola played less, but I really can't see Long improving us to the level we want to be at.

Let's not get carried away about Long's scoring record. He's just had his best season, getting as you say one in 2, but even Shola managed that in the Championship. Not slating Long, but scoring one in 2 at that level isn't necessarily going to improve our squad.

Why? Because it's like saying "If I can't get a PS3 then I'll just buy a Nintendo Entertainment System". It's ridiculous. There's hundreds of thousands of professional footballers out there, surely we can find someone better that Shane bloody Long. Where's the XBox 360s or even the Nintendo Wiis? Plan B can't really be Shane Long, and if it is we really need to have a word with ourselves.

I'd genuinely rather stack £10m in £5 notes up in a big pile, stick a Newcastle shirt on it and play the resulting creation up front than pay that kind of money for Keane or Carlton fucking Cole. It would cause more problems for the opposition in the penalty area, create more goal threat, and as a bonus we wouldn't have to pay it any wages either.

And even then we'd probably pass them if they were still warm.