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http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/jun12o.html doesnt seem to be so unconfirmed to me

italian side sampdoria friendly agreed home tie in august

you mean harper wont be made number one when shay goes after all his years of waiting??? on a serious note the lad showed true promise obviously could still turn out to be a flop but while he is here for the long term and is under little to no presure then its a very good thing for the club.

arsenal is arsen wenger and I really expect them to be fucked when he goes, his contacts, his ability to spot top quality for little to no outlay and get a mixture of young and old. A very unique situation but I bet every club would wish to be in there situation Porto had 2 seasons in the elite of European football, similarly Sevilla, but I doubt they'll be top 4 season in, season out for too long without spending to keep up with Barcelona & Real Madrid. Arsenal is a unique situation.

depends on what your impression of "heavy" is. also depends on who is the squad you think is good enough to stay and what calibre of player you wish to replace the squad with. While it is difficult to see at the moment where SA wants to go with his money he gets. He obviously originally stated that he didnt want "trophy" players and no big spends on players not wanting to play. Also setting up a structure doesnt cost pennies either as talked about alot when we found about him comming in we need an overhaul its obvious for any to see. Yes a good manager can penny pinch and work to a small budget and still get success but these days good players dont come cheap. An with the culture here to really expect instant success (poor martins) so I really dont see how we can expect to do an arsenal and get an unknown young kid and chuck him im there for a good few games to see how he gets on not reacting after a game or two with more than two mistakes in. Liverpool have been up there or there abouts season upon season, you don't get far in the champs league and be a bad side so I really dont see why they need a massive investment to push on further.

its a massive piece of pie for any investor to buy one of the "giant clubs" it too manu a while to start spending again as the big outlay was involved to get them. Yes I agree that in some respects new owners don't represent heavy investment, although in our situation Ashley is no idiot it will take money to get this club going places. While as it pains me to say this Liverpool are not that far behind, while we can pick up frailties all over the park anyone can see quality is all over the place at pool, good manager etc. Heavy investment may not be needed to get them going places.

sounds like a good idea while he was playing regularly for the national team he was captain wasnt't he? Has to be well respected over there and over the years (minus the old heave hoe by sir bob) I would say he could only say good things about the club.

A dream can soon turn into a nightmare if the side start struggling does he really want to be in a relegation fight when he is pushing back for an england place? Really think he could live to regret resigning, least it shows loyalty to the side which should be applauded

i suppose if you arent going to buy one another bmw's or helicopters you may as well get a pressie to take the piss out of them.

that city could end up with no take over and no new money or manager does "up shit creak" come to mind for anyone?

I would probably say that his bad and good qualities are 50/50 at the moment while his age works well for him and although we could probably get our money back why bother to sign a more expensive player with prem experience or a player getting on in age.

I don't think £1.5m would be too much of a gamble. baring in mind we played 1.8m for baba I would think we could afford to take a gamble on him

Last chance to get money for him, plus he's on a very high wage. Sure he had a good season last season, but i'd be surprised if that was repeated, and with the correct signings we shouldn't be relying on Butt. Why sell someone who is going to be a key player for us next season, one of the most mature voices in the dressing room, and one of the most experienced players on the team? Aswell as in general being a really decent player and the only genuine nomination for captain. Last chance to get money for him, plus he's on a very high wage. Sure he had a good season last season, but i'd be surprised if that was repeated, and with the correct signings we shouldn't be relying on Butt. still falls under the type of player SA likes the older very experienced player that with a little TLC can have a prolonged carear. Saying that I agree that we should try and aim for something better but if we rely on him in a back up sort of player I would be more than happy He'd be great back-up, but he's on 1st team wages. I'd rather SA strip the team of big earners like this who are not going to last and put that saved money into youth and development for the future. Got nowt against Butt personally, i think last season he rectified his past with us, but overall i'd be happy to let him go, i'd be even happier if we'd never signed him as we've just about broke about even on him and his worth if we sell him now for about a million. I wonder how much his wages are, certainly a mature head to help "bring on players" as well as someone reliable to bring on for a difficult period or for a period of injury it is probably money well spent certainly as I have said before when it comes a list of players I want to see ship out Butt has to be low down. Out of interest did we buy Butt as a replacement for speed? He's be in the top ten earners at NUFC, so as back-up the maths doesn't work out for me. Butt would be low down on my list too, Babayaro, Carr, Dyer, Owen, Emre & Duff all coming ahead of him, the latter three mainly again due to their wages, nothing else, but if there was a realistic option to get rid, i'd take it. probably the wrong thread to get into this but it is hard to break the culture up here, while we cant say "we won this we won that" we can however say about the fantastic fans massive world class stadium and obviously a descent wage packet. Players getting paid over the odds need to be shipped off or need to be the backbone awe inspring elements of the squad deserveing of the wage packet. I really think Butt while was a lil shit his first season didnt do too well while out on loan did play an excellent last season and seen as we arent talking about a massive transfer fee we may as well swallow the wages and utilise him as a player and mentor.

baring in mind bramble and boumsong both came with heft price tags and picked up a decent wage offering a free signing that knows SA so well and seems to be better than anything we have offering him 60-65pw seems fair, but we have to be careful not to clear out players and then wack the wage bill back up on little to no signings we cant buy players all on 60.000+ pw as the wage bill would be extreme

Last chance to get money for him, plus he's on a very high wage. Sure he had a good season last season, but i'd be surprised if that was repeated, and with the correct signings we shouldn't be relying on Butt. Why sell someone who is going to be a key player for us next season, one of the most mature voices in the dressing room, and one of the most experienced players on the team? Aswell as in general being a really decent player and the only genuine nomination for captain. Last chance to get money for him, plus he's on a very high wage. Sure he had a good season last season, but i'd be surprised if that was repeated, and with the correct signings we shouldn't be relying on Butt. still falls under the type of player SA likes the older very experienced player that with a little TLC can have a prolonged carear. Saying that I agree that we should try and aim for something better but if we rely on him in a back up sort of player I would be more than happy He'd be great back-up, but he's on 1st team wages. I'd rather SA strip the team of big earners like this who are not going to last and put that saved money into youth and development for the future. Got nowt against Butt personally, i think last season he rectified his past with us, but overall i'd be happy to let him go, i'd be even happier if we'd never signed him as we've just about broke about even on him and his worth if we sell him now for about a million. I wonder how much his wages are, certainly a mature head to help "bring on players" as well as someone reliable to bring on for a difficult period or for a period of injury it is probably money well spent certainly as I have said before when it comes a list of players I want to see ship out Butt has to be low down. Out of interest did we buy Butt as a replacement for speed?

Rather sell him and bring in a potential to sit on the bench, Carr has the potential to cost us goals and games, and does it more often than not. I'd rather have a young player from the lower leagues come in and sit on the bench, and when he does makes mistakes you can blame it on age, experience and the jump in quality rather than no brains & no talent. the guy is a big blobby waste of the space most of the time he has had 20-30 mins of good play but has always been lacking in so many areas (mainly general skill) as many have said in an ideal world we would have an experienced player for every position and a up and comming to fight for position but if we arent going to buy a load of players then stick with carr as back up. Obviously I feel buying someone decent and having nobby as back up would be better.

Last chance to get money for him, plus he's on a very high wage. Sure he had a good season last season, but i'd be surprised if that was repeated, and with the correct signings we shouldn't be relying on Butt. Why sell someone who is going to be a key player for us next season, one of the most mature voices in the dressing room, and one of the most experienced players on the team? Aswell as in general being a really decent player and the only genuine nomination for captain. Last chance to get money for him, plus he's on a very high wage. Sure he had a good season last season, but i'd be surprised if that was repeated, and with the correct signings we shouldn't be relying on Butt. still falls under the type of player SA likes the older very experienced player that with a little TLC can have a prolonged carear. Saying that I agree that we should try and aim for something better but if we rely on him in a back up sort of player I would be more than happy

every club will pull in connections with the recent history of the club not being that great if you can use the irish and manu connections to get players in for the short term I dont think anyone would hold it against them, no doubt some fans would be worried if keane could scout outside "his bubble" saying that if SA only brought in the cream of bolton I dont think i would hold it against him

both carr and baba have let the club down badly in one way or another, if carr is to stay i hope SA has the common sense to use him as a bench warmer for a season or two as thats all he is good for I remember we all getting annoyed at roedents tactic of putting carr back in the side as soon as he was fit those days have to be over.

on the thinking if reports are true and he is willing to buy an unproven player for 3 million he can have butt for 5 millions can't he

As Milner took freekicks & corners & played more games I am guessing he would of created more. As Dyer played striker for part of the season I reckon Dyer would of scored more. As we were a crap team attacking wise as a TEAM both could improve a hell of lot. we all need to think not just at last season and ask ourselves this is the player crap cause of the management -i.e how they were treated, where they were played, how fit they were when they were played, did the training help them work as a team etc etc. If this is the case then the player deserves to be in SA team and when the back room staff is up and running then we judge is the player crap cause they were never good enough for the club- tbh this is most of the players that SA released maybe sibbers could be exception but this may be down to the fact that it was a fluke more then good head hunting by roedent, I really only see baba and carr as the two players in question that fall into this catagory and if they are the only two players that are due to leave then I wont be mad.

You cant knock Milners effort. People chanting his name when he was a sub showed that his effort was not going unnoticed. He had the highest percentage of tackles completed, but his attacking play shooting or crossing was poor. Hopefully his quality will improve. totally agree he really has been a real pro, when i saw him on talksport going through his contract he just seemed like a nice down to earth guy, cant believe how young he is plenty of time to improve and while he aint been flashing in a perfect ball all season we have seen his talents on more than one occasion, i think at present the best two aspects of his game is running at defenders and work rate I really want to keep playing him, obviously it is nice to have competition for places to keep players on their toes but maybe leave him and nobby fighting it out for the comming season anyway.

do ya recon he practiced how to look like a tit on camera or just him being natural

part of a show to get players in the prem to give up a days wages, the lass hosting it knows nowt about football of course.

may sound harsh but I would rather see us sign a new rb and phase poor nobby out he is moving on after next season and really dont think we can expect him to play week in week out anymore. As for Milner we saw under a poor manager and a very poor side in general he was a shineing star really hopeing that with a little more encouragement (he really did get over the villa thing well) and maybe some better trainers than terry mac and clarkie we may see him come on leaps and bounds.