oldtype

Replacement or not we could have just sold him. I'm no fan of Barton but this smacks of impulsive and emotional decision making from the club leadership.

You know you're in trouble when Nile Ranger is the voice of reason at your club.

sad but true

Someone out there would by him. Even if we had to sell him for 99 pence or something, surely it's better than this?

I really don't know now obviously somethin is seriously fucked up in the dressing room

Knowing barton he probably just went up and punched Llambias or something to give them no choice, but surely we could have managed better? I just don't get it

We're paying a good player to leave What? Why? How? ARGH

Fuck. Serious idiocy from all parties involved. Doesn't make any sense on any level.

Fuck

7th-15th is the only real answer. It would take an extraordinary turn of events to push us beyond the mediocrity window either way. The future of nufc is not "bright" or "doomed", it's mostly just "meh"

To be fair, if you bought a football club you have no connections with, plunk in a pile of money, then realize that you're terrible at running it, the fans hate you, and you don't care anymore, what would you do? To be honest I think I think I'd do what he's doing. Just sucks for us as fans.

"Reduce debt, sell club, leave with most of initial investment recouped" seems to be a reasonable description of his plan. Ultimately he is what he is and we still have a football team. Might as well enjoy what we can given the circumstances.

At first glance there doesn't seem to be any. Then again the transfer window isn't over yet so it may not be the time to be declaring unconditional surrender. I thought buying late meant paying over the odds though? There are less than two weeks before the start of the season and we only have one pre-season game out of six remaining to prepare. After that there's an international break which I'm sure will be another hurdle. Fortunately business doesn't stop when the season starts. In fact, for some clubs that's when things seem to kick off. You look at the signings we made last August, you look at the business other clubs have done so far, there's no indicators that lead me to believe we'll not sign more players. Well, other than the sense of panic and deprivation that comes from signing a lot of players early and then stopping for a while.

At first glance there doesn't seem to be any. Then again the transfer window isn't over yet so it may not be the time to be declaring unconditional surrender. the f*** happened to you? i remember when you were virtually suicidal at one point, now we're back to wait and see? again I haven't been morbidly depressed about anything since Hughton was sacked as far as I remember.

At first glance there doesn't seem to be any. Then again the transfer window isn't over yet so it may not be the time to be declaring unconditional surrender.

Our squad depth is roughly comparable with all the teams we can realistically expect to compete with. Obviously there are people with better first teams but depth-wise, everyone would struggle with multiple longterm injuries to their best players

Just because the owner is a shitbag doesn't mean everythin we do will fail miserably. I don't see any particular reason to conclude that the transfer window is now doomed.

We would never have been relegated if we just sacked Kinnear before Portsmouth sacked Adams that year

Obviously the ideal owner is the one who takes on "manageable debt" and invests wisely to naturally grow the club. The vast majority of Premiership owners either tilt towards the extreme of being stubbornly unwilling to take financial risks or the other extreme of being Mr. Moneybags. Very few get that balance right, although ours is unique in that he manages to be extra unlikable in the process.

Sorry not directly pointed at you, but the fact that we're not spending vast sums of money keeps coming up. I still find it strange that in every walk of life you look to spend the least amount of money to bring the greatest benefit, except for football. Of course I would love another striker brought in and a decent replacement/backup for Enrique as a minimum, but for some people it appears that would rather we had spent £15m on a striker of Ba's ability and another £15m on a player of Cabaye's ability, and then spent another £10m on a winger like Marveaux. I like the fact that we are looking outside of the UK for signings as they give much better value for money, and the fact we are exploiting clauses like are we is to me, a good thing. Everyone is happy we're looking for Bargains. People are not happy that we sold our best asset & then used the money to balance our finances. Which is what happened. So a company that has recently been losing money and has a bit of debt uses a windfall to plug some of the gaps? Whilst still recruiting new players in the summer window, exploiting contract loopholes/expirations to reduce these costs. And that's a bad thing? Two types of owners. One sells your best asset, then finds bargains he could have found anyway and uses the money to cover their wages to stop any future loss. The other owner doesnt cover wages using that money, he accepts the potential for a little loss because of them. He reinvests the money back into the transfer fees for other players, with the potential to bring more success to the club & increase the clubs turnover because of that. Along with the bargains hes found, he gives himself a very good chance of achieving this. The 2nd one risks that because he loves football and he loves the club. That is why he bought into it. The first owner is Mike Ashley. Just out of curiosity, how many teams in the Premiership are owned by the former type? (Serious question, as I have no idea.) Manchester City, Manchester United, Norwich City, Swansea City, Sunderland, and Wolves are the only teams with a net loss this transfer window so far Yes, yes, I know none of those teams sold Andy Carroll for 35m in the winter. Just saying. Sorry, I was being a 'tard. I meant the latter type (the "love the club" type). Randy Learner? But then even he has reigned in the spending. No-one should be folled with what's going on at Liverpool, there will be a 'cycle' where the club is forced to break even. If the Champs League doesn't reappear, then player sales will follow to balance things up. I screwed up and left out Liverpool, obviously.

Sorry not directly pointed at you, but the fact that we're not spending vast sums of money keeps coming up. I still find it strange that in every walk of life you look to spend the least amount of money to bring the greatest benefit, except for football. Of course I would love another striker brought in and a decent replacement/backup for Enrique as a minimum, but for some people it appears that would rather we had spent £15m on a striker of Ba's ability and another £15m on a player of Cabaye's ability, and then spent another £10m on a winger like Marveaux. I like the fact that we are looking outside of the UK for signings as they give much better value for money, and the fact we are exploiting clauses like are we is to me, a good thing. Everyone is happy we're looking for Bargains. People are not happy that we sold our best asset & then used the money to balance our finances. Which is what happened. So a company that has recently been losing money and has a bit of debt uses a windfall to plug some of the gaps? Whilst still recruiting new players in the summer window, exploiting contract loopholes/expirations to reduce these costs. And that's a bad thing? Two types of owners. One sells your best asset, then finds bargains he could have found anyway and uses the money to cover their wages to stop any future loss. The other owner doesnt cover wages using that money, he accepts the potential for a little loss because of them. He reinvests the money back into the transfer fees for other players, with the potential to bring more success to the club & increase the clubs turnover because of that. Along with the bargains hes found, he gives himself a very good chance of achieving this. The 2nd one risks that because he loves football and he loves the club. That is why he bought into it. The first owner is Mike Ashley. Just out of curiosity, how many teams in the Premiership are owned by the former type? (Serious question, as I have no idea.) Manchester City, Manchester United, Norwich City, Swansea City, Sunderland, and Wolves are the only teams with a net loss this transfer window so far Yes, yes, I know none of those teams sold Andy Carroll for 35m in the winter. Just saying.

To summarize, the problem is with the overall lack of investment, not the manner through which we're making the signings we are making.

What reason is there to believe that we don't have alternatives other than pessimism? It's worth reminding ourselves that at this point last season we had Perch, Campbell, and Gosling signed.

We've signed players the "normal way" before an have made bids this window so I don't know why we'd be suddenly unwilling. Obviously not going to be signing anyone for 15m anytime soon but I see no reason to believe that we're categorically not signing anyone through negotiations.

Tiote, Cabaye, and Ben Arfa were all bought "the normal way" as far as I can tell. Even James Perch!