Lotus

Quite similar actually, our lot are nowhere near as intelligent as the Arsenal duo though. Mapou is. I've never seen a defender run away from a ball but I won't start that again. John Terry when we played them. It happens quite often actually even though coaches always say go to the man. You probs don't get to watch any games. I've been to over 100 football matches in the last 5 years. I've never seen a defender run away from a long ball straight down the middle. Yawn.

Do we ask our strikers to cover one of their central midfielders? Probably tbf

I actually think Ashley's involvement with NUFC has done very little to add anything to the Sports Direct brand. If anything it has a negative effect, most people you talk to about the club think he's a bit of dick and that what he has done to our stadium is brainless. It seems unlikely that its led to more punters going to his shops. Clearly the advertising space at SJP has some monetary value but its limited imo. Why do you think he bought us then? Or why hasn't he sold us? It can't be keeping the club because it's a gas and he's having loads of fun....

Quite similar actually, our lot are nowhere near as intelligent as the Arsenal duo though. Mapou is. I've never seen a defender run away from a ball but I won't start that again. John Terry when we played them. It happens quite often actually even though coaches always say go to the man. You probs don't get to watch any games.

Course not, no. Expenditure should be balanced between on-pitch success while safeguarding our financial future. I was responding to the idea that NUFC should be 'allowed to spend its own money'. As we're in profit, what's wrong with that?

You're surely not suggesting that the club have to pay back it's own price of purchase before he can consider spending money on transfers?

You're an odd one, Ian. Now we're making losses every year and are no longer an ongoing concern without Mashley keeping us afloat.......

Not good positionally imo. Has pace to make up for that. Anita will be much more useful in midfield against Norwich anyway along Sissoko and Cabaye. Either Santon or MYM at RB for this.

Me too.

Rather play a defender in the back 4. We've got 2 weeks to sort this out.

Hopefully he's been displaying teamwork tendencies in training and will get a start against Norwich. If he's still trying to do it all on his own i'd rather he watch us win from the bench so he can have a think he could get in the team.

Are we really that close? This summer Spurs spent £100m. Granted they sold Bale, but still. I think this highlights the problem with this whole debate TBH... footballl doesn't provide a defined return on investment. You could spend £20m and end up loads higher, or you could spend £50m and finish in the same position. In business terms, it's very hard to make the case in a concrete way IMO. Just so i'm clear here, across world football, there is no correlation between teams spending more money, buying better players and then achieving more points? That's not what I said, no. What I'm saying is that the exact correlation is vague, the returns are uncertain and therefore hard to justify simply on a business level. That's assuming we're not talking about spending enough to fill every position with a world class player. Why do other teams do it then? Even the ones with relatively small budgets, why do they spend money on players? Why are you trying to simplify the argument to such a degree? I'm not saying spending never leads to improvement, or that it's not likely to lead to improvement. I'm saying (in response to Kevo's post) that it's far from as easy as saying 'we're £20m away from being really good'. Sorry, when you said you could spend £50M at not improve at all i thought you suggested just that. Wasn't being a pedant, just think that, unless you spend it all one massive duffer, it's quite clear that spending money on players isn't so much a correlation but a causation of a better sports team and that's clearly demonstrated around the sports world where teams are, by and large, owned by businessmen who obviously see it as a causation.

Aye. All depends if Blackpool are daft. They could hold out for more in compensation than they are likely to get in Jan How is compensation defined? As in how much, i know that the word means....

Are we really that close? This summer Spurs spent £100m. Granted they sold Bale, but still. I think this highlights the problem with this whole debate TBH... footballl doesn't provide a defined return on investment. You could spend £20m and end up loads higher, or you could spend £50m and finish in the same position. In business terms, it's very hard to make the case in a concrete way IMO. Just so i'm clear here, across world football, there is no correlation between teams spending more money, buying better players and then achieving more points? That's not what I said, no. What I'm saying is that the exact correlation is vague, the returns are uncertain and therefore hard to justify simply on a business level. That's assuming we're not talking about spending enough to fill every position with a world class player. Why do other teams do it then? Even the ones with relatively small budgets, why do they spend money on players?

I'm not suggesting an alternative that is, I'm saying that hanging on for dear life isn't. I'm suggesting that there's one sure fire way to do it, I'm suggesting that there's a better way of doing it than we are now. First half against Spurs was a very good way to do it, and a way that I thought would be a good idea after seeing them recently. Second half we hung on for dear life and defended our lead. Why? What happens at half time? We can only play well for 45 minutes as a rule.

Won't Tom Ince have 6 months left on his contract?

Well, at least we've got someone who's good for those battling type of games!

http://gifsforum.com/images/gif/bertstare/grand/bertstare-eccbc87e4b5ce2fe28308fd9f2a7baf3-2177.gif Love a Bimpy gif I laughed too much at that.

Are we really that close? This summer Spurs spent £100m. Granted they sold Bale, but still. I think this highlights the problem with this whole debate TBH... footballl doesn't provide a defined return on investment. You could spend £20m and end up loads higher, or you could spend £50m and finish in the same position. In business terms, it's very hard to make the case in a concrete way IMO. Just so i'm clear here, across world football, there is no correlation between teams spending more money, buying better players and then achieving more points?

Actually agree with this. Not really sure where people get this notion of us 'building' on these type of performances though. 7 points of Pool, Chelsea and Spurs is fantastic and Pardew will see noe reason to stylistically change our approach on the back of that. We will struggle against sides who play it tight but that's what you get with Pardew. If things are going well, we'll out battle the better sides and hopefully get a goal and a result as space opens up as they try to play around us but we won't be the type of team who can break down teams with clever movement and passing.

True, unlikely to be away at Spurs though. They were always going to step it up. We did step back from them though, we were really hungry to close them down 1st half, gave them too much space 2nd half but that was also down to their good playt. I meant just in general though. It's like the spirit of Gilliepie has permeated the whole squad

He's not half the defender Enrique was. Probs better on the ball though.

It would be nice if just once we could put in a consistent performance over 2 halfs. Whenever we play well, we only manage it for 45 minutes.

We were at them in the 1st half and arguably the better side. 2nd half they really came at us but didn't really give Soldado much service. We've got plenty of glaring weaknesses but tbf, they've spent £100m and so have they. Credit to the players, Pardew and of course, Mike Ashley Thoroughly happy with the 3 points.

You'd think we'd need better than a striker who just manages an average of 1 every 3 games in the French league...