AyeDubbleYoo

The picture just looks like maintenance to me, I won't freak out about the letters going until it happens. Would be horrible like.

Very interesting. I think what people forget is that sport isn't an "efficient market" in any way. The amount of spending does have a correlation to success, but the link is much stronger at the top of the market (i.e. the top 4 or 5 clubs in the Prem) than in the middle. In the middle, it's better to be smart than to overspend. I'm not entirely convinced we are smart, but some of the deals we've done suggest we might be. It is a hard tactic for football fans to get behind though, especially ours, because we're so used to solving our problems with big-money signings. On the face of it some of our signings do seem smart, but any goodwill goes out of the window withn a lack of a striker which was obvious to all that we were desperate for. Surely Ashley is smart enough to see this? Which makes me think he's taking the piss. Yeah, but I think it's more that he sticks ruthlessly to his idea of not being overcharged by a club or a player, and that overrides everything else. The club probably knew how much we needed another striker, but Ashley wouldn't change his policy because of that.

Aye, I apologise about mine. What can I say, I thought the OP was a massive overreaction and I allowed myself to be brought down to the level of the facepalm. Hey, nobody's perfect.

Yawn.

How can you rate the transfer window a 6,5 when our squad is arguably weaker than it was a year ago and we have made a huge profit on transfers in that period? Because I think we've replaced Enrique with quality, replaced Nolan & Barton with quality, signed a striker but could have done with another, and signed people like Obertan to beafen up the numbers. Nowhere near the doom and gloom you'd think people would make out. Ah honestly fuck this shit. Don't enjoy this forum anymore. Bunch of depressing bastards. Fuck off. I don't really understand why not? If you believe in what we are doing then you should have no problem explaining why. I never believed in signing Kevin Nolan even when he was a hero here but I believed in what I said and so had no problem with arguing my case. I believe we do some things right, and I try to argue my point as well as possible. But it does seem totally pointless sometimes, and I'm being made to feel like some sort of imbecile or not a proper fan for putting my point of view. I can understand what Nut is saying, I'm close to not bothering coming on here anymore. No offence to anyone personally, there's just enough reasonable chat to keep me going, but I know the feeling.

Very interesting. I think what people forget is that sport isn't an "efficient market" in any way. The amount of spending does have a correlation to success, but the link is much stronger at the top of the market (i.e. the top 4 or 5 clubs in the Prem) than in the middle. In the middle, it's better to be smart than to overspend. I'm not entirely convinced we are smart, but some of the deals we've done suggest we might be. It is a hard tactic for football fans to get behind though, especially ours, because we're so used to solving our problems with big-money signings. At the very least, we'll fail with signings now because we're too tight to be taken for a ride, where before we failed in the opposite way. Both ways can be harmful if taken to extremes, but I tend to prefer not being taken for a mug by every player that fancies a big pay day.

Maybe we are getting fancy LED bright lights signage instead, I just can\'t see it. Though am I correct is hearing that they were renewing the sounds system and the fog lights around the ground, maybe thats the reason why those cables are dangling. Yesterday\'s signing all were photographed in front of that sign indicating that NUFC know that it\'s an iconic part of the stadium, surely they aren\'t moronic enough to take it down less than a day after they were in pictures showing our new signings. Surely? Yeah, almost any explanation is more likely than the lettering being replaced with Sports Direct. Although obviously with Ashley you never know when the next catastrophic decision is going to be. We'll see!

Very good post. The main thing Ashley needs to learn is that he can't have it both ways, he either needs to tie up his business early in the window or he will have to pay top money to get the players we need. FWIW the early signings we made might suggest he is realising the importance of getting deals done early, but for whatever reason it didn't happen with the striker situation.

nobody is justifying anything, some are saying it isn't the disaster being painted by others. This basically. Not justifying it. We obviously should have got a top quality striker in, but it's not the end of the world, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn't make Pardew a "lying cockney bastard". To be honest, I'm just glad the transfer window is closed now. I can stop checking my phone every half an hour for updates. Thank Christ for these two posts.

nobody is justifying anything, some are saying it isn't the disaster being painted by others. This basically. Not justifying it. We obviously should have got a top quality striker in, but it's not the end of the world, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn't make Pardew a "lying cockney bastard". To be honest, I'm just glad the transfer window is closed now. I can stop checking my phone every half an hour for updates. Same, will be glad when the international break is over so we can actually talk about football again.

Would be an awful decision, couldn't see any benefit that Ashley would get from putting Sports Direct up there. Hopefully not true.

When we sign a bunch of crocks who were free because they were a bunch of crocks, Im inclined to disagree. Aye, well that's debatable, I was thinking more about people talking about our historic tendency to have a lot of injuries.

Better lock the thread then mate.

Hard to say, I've never argued that things are all rosy or that we haven't made any mistakes. I just don't think it's the apocalypse either. I said it would be inexcusable not to sign a LB, but we ended up getting a pretty good one. Maybe not as good as Enrique, but there aren't many of them around anyway. We are short of one quality striker, totally agree with that. The problem was always that we needed to get one that was far above our current ones, and that is hard to get if you can't/won't loosen the purse strings enough. Ashley has done a lot of things wrong during his tenure, but also some right. I agree with his general plan to make us more financially sustainable, the only question is how much he should be cutting from the spending. I don't really know what the answer to that is, I just don't see the point in raging against it because I think it's at least partly correct.

Milking what ffs? i'm not allowed to say that i'm dissapointed in my teams transfer activity in a "transfer deadline day thread" because you're in a worse situation and no one else can feel bad because it's not as bad as how you feel? From an outsider you signed: a very promising left winger that was wanted by Liverpool a dm/cm that looks the business and just won the French league a physical striker that managed 7 in 13 in his opening half season in the league and looked a beast a left back that was only recently billed as one of the best young players in his position in Europe and all i've heard is how bad you did because you didn't buy another striker. You're right mate, for some reason everyone seems to be unable to see past the fact we haven't "replaced Carroll". We did need another striker, but our other signings are pretty good IMO.

Pardew didn't have the bottle to start Sammy or Vuckic against Fulham despite Lovenkrands playing 120mins a few days before. Can't see many chances for them this season unless Pardew changes his opinion. That was worrying like, hopefully he's just unsure at the moment rather than totally against the idea.

You planning to do him over?

Wish people would actually just make points instead of stereotyping whole groups of posters under one non-existent category.

He could easily end up as the third choice behind Ba and Best, and for one position when Ben Arfa is back.

We've acquired a good striker, we just needed another. Exactly, and the second striker only became our biggest priority after we secured a good fullback as well. Don't get me wrong, I wanted another striker, but it had to be one whose quality was way above the ones we've got. That always made it harder to achieve, especially under the frugal spending limits we've set ourselves. Completely disagree with that mind. The only reason Santon was the biggest priority was that we'd left it until the last few days without a single left back in the entire squad. Unless you count right-sided utility player Ryan Taylor or youngster coming back from an injury (who's arguably a winger) Shane Ferguson. A forward besides Ba has been a huge priority for months and months, to suggest that our negligence of the left back position (when we knew for months what would have happened with Enrique) is a crazy piece of logic, I find it incredible that you're actually saying that. Also what you're saying about Europe is depressing tbh Ian. Birmingham and Stoke are in the Europa League this season, as a result of the cups. We'll most likely find ourselves having to play shite teams in the cups and will get knocked out fairly early again as usual, which wouldn't necessarily be the case if we'd make 1 or 2 more additions, and/or indeed kept the likes of Nolan and Barton as members of the squad. Will be a case of staying in the league and fucking off the cups yet again. In other words, simply existing. Simply existing is the reality for most clubs in the league, it now takes insane investment to compete at the top. I don't think what I said about Europe is depressing, I'm saying we can reach it but just not yet. You're right that we kind of got ourselves into the situation with the LB position by not sorting out Enrique earlier, but who knows what was going on. I can't really blame the club for trying to sign him if they thought there was a chance he might stay, or maybe no decent bids came in until Liverpool's. However it came about, there was a problem and we addressed it with Santon (hopefully). If your argument is that Birmingham can win the cup but we can't, I don't agree with that. We were much better than Birmingham last season, if they can win it then so can we. Not sure I'd want to trade it for another relegation, but that's impossible to measure anyway.

Yep - some people on here are hellbent on defending the regime at all costs. Nothing wrong with the OP. Surprised a pardewism thread hasn't appeared with a summary of his lies. Is not possible for people to have slightly different opinions like? FWIW, I'm really disappointed about not getting a striker, but I'm pretty happy about getting Santon. So it's a mixed picture, I'm not hellbent on defending anything.

Same, very surprised we haven't brought in anyone at all. Guess it's possible that a lot of the cheap players could have ended up being no better than Shola and Best anyway. And if we're playing one up front with HBA behind then we need someone who's a massive cut above the players we have. Not like you to find an excuse for it Ian. Come off it, we've had 7 months to sort out the striker situation. Jesus man, I wasn't making any excuse. FFS, can I not post anything without someone finding things that aren't there. Obviously if we were prepared to spend more the chances of getting that much better striker would be increased. But we don't seem prepared to do so, so it's a bit pointless raging against it. I think Ba will find his feet and be a decent signing FWIW.

The accounts say that anyway though, no? We know we've made big losses over a long period, and we know that Ashley isn't prepared to subsidise us any more. Anything the club says has to be understood in that context.

Same, very surprised we haven't brought in anyone at all. Guess it's possible that a lot of the cheap players could have ended up being no better than Shola and Best anyway. And if we're playing one up front with HBA behind then we need someone who's a massive cut above the players we have.

We've acquired a good striker, we just needed another. Exactly, and the second striker only became our biggest priority after we secured a good fullback as well. Don't get me wrong, I wanted another striker, but it had to be one whose quality was way above the ones we've got. That always made it harder to achieve, especially under the frugal spending limits we've set ourselves. You said yourself a couple of weeks ago it would be an absolute shambles if we didn't get in another striker now... Do you want me to refresh your memory? Not sure exactly what I said, but I totally agree it's a major blow that we didn't get another striker. I've never tried to argue we didn't need signings, just another example of anything remotely pro-Ashley being totally overblown, especially in my posts it seems.