brummie

if O'Dreary told me it was 2008 Id get my solicitor to investigate his claims, the vile, duplicitous reptilian shyster. Shit house of a man.

I cant believe nobody has mentioned the loss of Carlos Queiroz in this thread. Whilst I don't think Man United are about to disintegrate, I think they will suffer considerably from losing Quieroz.

I asked this before, but isnt the 12m dependent on a number of add ons? In which case, I'm assuming that to have achieved those add ons, he'll have to have done well for us?

The writing on that .com site is of an excellent standard.

When Ronaldo wanted to leave Man United, most of their fans were like "fuck it, we'll just replace him". How come we're so desperate to hold on to a pretty average player who actually isn't a first teamer? Because Man United can go after any player in the world as a replacement, and a. afford him and b. have a good chance of getting him?

We desperately, desperately need a right midfielder, and we've got 72 hours to find one. That's why we're letting you financially bumrape us for him.

The last 72 hours of a transfer window are always when things happen. There are some big deals waiting to go through still, and there will be some which will happen which nobody saw coming. I'm actually going to book Tuesday off work so I can watch the coverage throughout Monday night with a few beers Final word of consolation - you, Villa (paper thin squad), Everton (more than anyone), Spurs (strikers), West Ham (anyone), Blackburn (sold their two best players and not replaced them properly), Portsmouth (spent all their money), City (spending money they dont have) - all in a very similar position going into the last few days of the window. All will become much clearer by Tuesday morning. brummie, great balanced and reasoned post...you can always be relied upon to play devils advocate on NO as a means to balance your thoughtfulness i'd just like to echo afar and say i don't give two fucks about the bit in bold really, nor should anyone else NUFC-related, it's worst argument i hear on this board; "well we desperately need an ACM (for example) but look at everton, they've found it difficult to get one too so it makes us not having one OK" i struggle to find a comparable argument people would deem acceptable in any other walk of life, i don't know; "i need to meet my mortgage repayments but they're a little higher than i'd like due to interest rates and seeing as other people aren't paying theirs for some reason i'll default on mine too 'cause it must be OK"? doesn't work does it? look that's a stupid, facetious argument but it makes my point quite well we have to look after ourselves, as you point out yourself other clubs are having trouble and have thin squads or other problems - i see that as an opportunity to exploit, not an excuse for mediocrity I take your point, but I'm not saying the fact that other clubs are struggling makes it acceptable not to be able to do anything. I'm just saying that the fact that they are perhaps provides a reason as to why they and Newcastle are struggling to get players in at the moment.

The last 72 hours of a transfer window are always when things happen. There are some big deals waiting to go through still, and there will be some which will happen which nobody saw coming. I'm actually going to book Tuesday off work so I can watch the coverage throughout Monday night with a few beers Final word of consolation - you, Villa (paper thin squad), Everton (more than anyone), Spurs (strikers), West Ham (anyone), Blackburn (sold their two best players and not replaced them properly), Portsmouth (spent all their money), City (spending money they dont have) - all in a very similar position going into the last few days of the window. All will become much clearer by Tuesday morning.

Incidentally, re my point about it being hard to sign players, surely the fact Villa are even rumoured to be considering paying 12m for James Milner is the proof of that particular pudding.

I guarantee you that if you stopped 10 Villa fans in the street and asked them what they thought about our transfer activity, 8 of them would say that MON needs to stop fucking about and start spending. Last year we hardly pushed the boat out. Our net spend was pretty small, certainly lower than most. This year we've spent a little more but the fact is we are still at the very least 4 players short of what we need to get by. The fact is it is very, very hard to sign players these days. If you're not in the CL, you're competing against a lot of other clubs. Having the money is no guarantee that you're going to get what you want. Much as people talk about crowds or tradition or potential or anything, for the majority of players there's not a whole lot between clubs like Villa, Newcastle, Everton, Spurs, even Portsmouth, Blackburn and West Ham. They're all competing for the same players. If you think Ashley isn't prepared to spend money, then why did you offer what you did for Modric? Why would he have spent so much on the club and sorting out the debts only to watch it stagnate? Having a lot of money behind you these days is not enough. You can't go out and buy success of the shelf. Everyone has money these days, things are an awful lot harder.

That sounds really profound (genuinely, not taking the piss), but I've no idea what you're on about.

We're owned by the Lerner family trust, which is run by Randy Lerner, his sister and his mother. When daddy Lerner karked it, the three of them got 2bn dollars each, and Randy also got the Browns, valued at not much short of a billion dollars. Money isn't an issue. Its all very well going on about "buying players the way Villa are" but in the last year we've bought Marlon Harewood and Zat Knight. In the January window the only player we signed was Wayne Routledge. We've been heavily linked with Kevin Doyle. How would you have reacted to any of that at Newcastle? Too easy to say the grass is greener elsewhere. With a paper thin squad last year, we've bought 7 players since, but have shipped 6 out, so we're only 1 up on where we were. Also this talk of Man City, would you really want your club run like that? Players bought on the never never in a desperate attempt to keep up appearances? No ta.

As if.

Jesus, really? I thought he was one of the most laughably shit players at the Euros myself.

I'd love us to get Milner, and by and large I don't give a scooby how much we spend (it isn't my money), but really, 12 million of your English pounds? Fucking hell. If MON could get over his pathological fear of shopping outside the British Isles, I'm sure we could find a much, much better player than Milner for that amount in Europe.

Lad at work was going tonight, said it was only a Tenner.. what was the crowd mate ? 25,400 Not too bad considering 4-1 up from first leg, and live on telly. Still wish I hadn't bothered. Aye thats not bad. Another couple of season ticket holders in the office couldnt be arsed to go. I guess they saw what was coming I had to work till late so raced across town to get there in time for a quick drink in the ground. I was spitting feathers, got to the front of queue and remembered there's no booze on sale at UEFA games. Left with a full 15 minutes to go. The most low key match Ive been to in ages.

We've got Gash playing for us, too. Harewood and Knight for example.

Lad at work was going tonight, said it was only a Tenner.. what was the crowd mate ? 25,400 Not too bad considering 4-1 up from first leg, and live on telly. Still wish I hadn't bothered.

He was far from our shittest player tonight (I've just got back, what a waste of an evening that was). Harewood is simply not good enough. Knight was dodgy, Reo-Coker is incapable of passing a ball 5 yards to a team mate. Routledge and Salifou were the only two who looked vaguely decent.

Not necessarily, but you're taking it literally. The point I was trying to make was that Ashley might not be a RA style billionaire owner, but neither is he a Shinawatra or Gorfulgoldfishbowlsson one either. Maybe a responsible billionaire is the best type of billionaire owner to have?

re the huge turnover thing ..... you also have to take into account the cost of generating that turnover. The obvious example is the signing of expensive players that create a buzz, help put bums on seats and sell shirts, all major contributors to turnover. Hasn't Ashley discovered that the cost of generating that turnover was way too much and the club was sitting on a debt mountain, which he has now paid off? I reckon he'll play it similar to Lerner - make the money available when the manager needs it but improve the business efficiency of the club and get it to contribute as much as it can, without necessarily having to be self sufficient. I'd take that over Shinawatra (who will leave Man City in a perilous situation) or the Icelandic bloke at West Ham (who went mental last year and has now got bored with the whole affair) any day of the week. These are extremely rich men looking for a way to have a bit of big boys fun, even if it does cost them a lot of money. What they're obviously not going to do is irresponsibly blow a large chunk of their wealth in doing so. There will never, ever be another Abrahmovich. I think people are slowly starting to understand that.

Get any Birmingham supporter on here and they will tell you his workrate is indeed excellent. The only problem with that suggestion would be finding one who can write, let alone operate a computer.

Convicted murderer (well, death by dangerous driving twat) = Lee Hughes.

Nile Ranger? Is that a real person's name? How fucking cool is that. EDIT it sounds like an Egyptian ferry or something.

re the transfer request ... as i said before, I'd be surprised if he wasn't as good as gone for the club to issue that statement, but trust me, having had a summer of a player agitating in the press for a move WITHOUT submitting a transfer request, there's a lot to be said for Milner having the cojones to actually submit one. Far better that than getting his agent to whinge to the NotW.