AyeDubbleYoo

I've thought this too, but TBF Ashley hasn't been shy of plastering the SD logo over everything else.

Has anything happened like? Are you for real man??? Yes, as far as I know they've taken down some of the letters but nothing new has gone up. Sorry if Imissed something, I haven't been reading every page of this thread. You do know that Sports Direct one is made up, right?

Has anything happened like?

Why does anyone think that a list of player names from a newspaper represents our real targets? It's mental. Surely if we had wanted all those shit players the club are getting criticised for targeting, we would have signed them. The fake bids and PR exercise shit is also bordering on insanity. As if the club is bothered about who we're linked to in the press. There are plenty of real things the club has done wrong, don't see why we need to invent new ones.

Maximising his profits? He hasn't made any money from owning us as far as I know.

Smith was made availbale for free transfer to anyone that wanted him this summer but nobody did take us up on that. Wonder why that was. I know he's shit, I just mean if he was on the books of a lot of clubs like he is on ours, he would be in the squad.

If SWP plays it will also mean Barton is playing centrally. Another bonus for us, Cabaye and Tiote wil dominate him.

Lovekrands and Smith would get into a lot of Premier League 25 man squads, probably at least half at a guess. It doesn't mean they're any good, but I think that's a fair guess.

Ashley didn't borrow any money to buy us, did he?

Also better to give a young player his debut in an away match.

I think you've hit on the basic problem, just getting a player who's far enough above the ones we already have, while not spending much money on his transfer fee. It's a tough one to be sure.

Hopefully we won't need any excuses. But at the same time, I can't see us deciding to suddenly spend a lot more. We just have to hope the right player becomes available at a cheap enough price. At the end of the day we were only one player away from a very good transfer window IMO.

Santon might have time to start, since we've had an international break. No idea when the players start all training together like.

Fair point, buying a quality striker is going to be difficult unless we loosen the purse strings a bit. The problem is that we have a number of average striker already, so to get a new one he has to be much much better. And you're right, those players cost more money.

I basically agree with this, Ashley just doesn't want to be ripped off and will always push for a good deal. This will have pros and cons for us. One of the cons is that if we have a need for very specific type of player, and he has to be a lot better than the players we already have on the books, it might stop us releasing enough money to get him. In a less likely but possible scenario, we would identify a Tiote/Cabaye/Santon type signing - a quality player who is underpriced. For whatever reason we didn't manage to do that for a second striker this time. Still wonder if we'd be having the striker discussion in the same way if Ba had banged in two or three goals already.

LOL, we had 8 months to get a striker ffs But we're mental I guess. I know that, I meant that the tension and expectation is concentrated into a very short space of time. It's fair enough saying we had months, but the transfer window never seems to work like that for any club. Otherwise they'd all have their deals in place and everything would be sorted the day the window opened. I know you know this though.

You're right they can't win, people are so pissed off now (rightly in some cases, wrongly in others) that every event relating to NUFC is an excuse to be negative. Even our great start to the season has been glossed over far too much. Guess it's understandable, the transfer window is designed to concentrate everyone's hopes into a few hours and drive them mental.

Hopefully he'll be satisfied with identifying the bargain players the club wants and seeing them do well on the pitch.

...and you wonder why people call you an apologist/sympathiser. The whole striker thing is just bollocks. They didn't try hard enough, end of. I don't wonder at all, it's because they're idiots. I admitted that we wouldn't pay enough, but I believe we enquired and bid for a number of strikers. Obviously we didn't get one, that's a blow, but it doesn't mean that a decent transfer window has suddenly become the worst ever. Was just fishing for a reaction tbh mate. You're right like, but I'm just sick of being lied to and seeing my club being made a mockery of. Fair play, we do look like idiots at times, but then so does almost every football club owner and manager. Look at Wenger, transformed Arsenal from top to bottom and now people are saying he's a joke. I guess I just don't expect to find out the truth from inside the club, it's just not a problem for me because I accept it's the norm for transfer dealings and all that to be shrouded in spin and half-truths. I just don't think we're all that much worse than other clubs in that respect. The stuff about the renaming and Sports Direct adverts and stuff like that annoys me much more than this stuff, IMO it's par for the course in football.

...and you wonder why people call you an apologist/sympathiser. The whole striker thing is just bollocks. They didn't try hard enough, end of. I don't wonder at all, it's because they're idiots. I admitted that we wouldn't pay enough, but I believe we enquired and bid for a number of strikers. Obviously we didn't get one, that's a blow, but it doesn't mean that a decent transfer window has suddenly become the worst ever.

Ill-advised statement really, there's nothing they could do to appease fans who were only interested in whether or not we signed a striker. Better just keep quiet, although they would be slaughtered for that as well. FWIW what he said is probably accurate except the bit about Obertan being brought in early. It always seemed like we were trying to sign a striker, that wasn't the problem. If there was a problem it was that they wouldn't pay enough.

I doubt that the benefits to Sports Direct are that massive, and the effect on their profits will be smaller still. It's good advertising for them of course, but it's just a small part of their promotional campaigns. It's certainly not worth paying £200m for.

No, I didn't say that. Expecting the manager to speak to the press is fine, expecting what he says to be true and taking some kind of masochistic pleasure in encouraging journalists to pile pressure on him is just stupid.

It's the Championship that Joey has to worry about.

What a fucking pointless argument and fatuous point. Encouraging journalists to make our manager look a dick in public is the stupidest thing I've heard for ages. Wish people could stop their crusade and just support the club for a while. Football management is full of bullshit, spin and half-truths, nobody tells the public what we seem to think Pardew has a duty to tell us. This whole argument really annoys me, it's based on a premise of truthfulness that nobody in football lives upto.