oldtype

I mentioned it yesterday. I think people are looking at N'Zogbia's previous and ignoring the spin, whereas with Martins people find it easy to disbelieve the Sun. I don't think it's necessarily illogical that people interpret comments from a player who has time and time again spoken out about his love/loyalty to the club differently from those of a player who pouts and screams about leaving every summer.

would have been happy to have Sidwell, especially at that price. You can always use some decent extra bodies. Nevertheless not horrified that we missed out on him or anything.

Agree with that. He'd be a good squad player but only if it's a small fee and modest wages. Spending about £2m replacing Emre with Sidwell wouldn't be wise imo. Aye and he's probably on mega bucks at Chelsea and won't want to take a paycut. £45k a week apparently. Not worth that, nor he is close to being worth a £5m pricetag. At today's going rate, anyone who's English and even remotely playable in the Premiership is worth 5m.

Top teams are recognizing that two brilliant games in a major tournament does not suddenly make a "very good, worth 10m-ish" target into a "throw 20m+ at them immediately!" target. Probably all waiting for his market value to settle back down to a reasonable level. He's a player that would have a role in most top teams, but not one they're willing to buy at any cost. Might as well force their hand by putting in a bid? Would be worth it just to see who he rejects us for

I swear, you couldn't make up the kind of drivel he spouts Still think he's a Mackem who decided to spend his summer holidays WUMing on a Toon board.

I'm 23, and he looks far, far older than I do. Then again, I'm Asian so I'll always look like a kid till I hit 30.

Damn it mate, you know you had me doing a little happy dance for a full minute there? "It's ok, we still have Wes Brown"

Mint way to do business this is. If nothing else, it proves that the current regime knows the media for exactly what it is and is staying away. Surprised we haven't had "unproven and unexciting signing from a foreign league who probably won't adapt" or "signing a player who bought out his own contract provfes that we're skint" from the doomsayers yet.

would love to see a couple decentish signings within a week to shut up all the speculation.

BINGO Also notice how they go past swinetiger hahaha Poor lad, must feel like killing himself

he's very good at final... doubt he'll be cheap... so unrealistic Already playing in a CL club, so certainly not realistic. Looked pretty good at Euros though, although I'm not sure how well he'd adapt to England.

Even Peter Andre can manage that Jokes fail when you have to wiki twice just to get the punchline.

Ameobi. Loved him when he was coming up the ranks, still like him despite how s*** he is. Just wish he would agree to a move so he could do the club a final service. http://www.xportsnews.com/Portals/0/%EC%9D%BC%EB%B0%98%EB%B8%94%EB%A1%9C%EA%B1%B0/%ED%8C%8D.jpg Park Chu-Young(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Joo-Young). Korean lad that nobody on here probably knows or cares about, but I still have to mention him because I go on the obligatory rant whenever I have the chance. Was all the rage in 2004 when he single-handedly bum raped all opposition at the U-20 Asian Championships and had a very good tournament at the U-20 World Championships. Honestly thought we had our own Wayne Rooney coming up, but basically went bonkers over all the media pressure and had a wicked niggly injury that hurt his pace and confidence. Ferguson was apparently a big fan and wanted to buy him in the summer of 2006 but he had such a s*** World Cup that it killed the interest. Naturally, that torpedoed his confidence even more and now he struggles to score against the likes of Jordan and Turkmenistan. Still does the business for my hometown club, so I still like him, but I don't think I've ever seen so much potential go down the drain. He literally had everything: pace, talent, technique, positioning, instinct in the box... All gone to naught because he just couldn't take the media pressure and as far as I can tell, doesn't really enjoy being a professional footballer anymore. Some really fantastic stuff on Youtube if anyone would like to bother. ....That rant went on a lot longer than I thought it would. From his Wiki article

If you can't take it, you're all welcome to give up your STs so there'll be one left for me to pick up when I move to the UK for a couple of years to get my Masters.

He was pretty good, but not even the best player on his team imo. I'd have Nihat and Altintop in there ahead of him.

Only my second major Int tournament. I thought I enjoyed Germany 06. Destroyed that. Actually thought Germany 06 was one of the worst tournaments ever. I suppose you like penalty shootouts? I think this is the most fun I've ever had with an international tournament my country isn't involved in.

Let me put it this way. Completed Premiership Signings as of 06/30/2008 Arsenal: Aaron Ramsey Bolton: Johan Elmander Chelsea: Bosingwa Fulham: Andranik Teymourian Liverpool: Phillip Degen Portsmouth: Glen Little Tottenham: Luca Modric, Giovani Dos Santos Dear God, we're one of the of the 13 clubs who haven't made a transfer yet! Down with the new board! To think, we could have signed Glen fucking Little by now.

umm... no.

so, this is a joke, right?

Buffon Anyukov Mertesacker Puyol Zhirkov Xavi Senna Sneijder Ballack Arshavin Villa Coach: Guus Hiddink This team would fly the Turkish flag, despite the fact that I couldn't find any space to put actual Turkish players in

Probably more than one. By the way, can we all agree to always refer to him as "Alan fucking Smith" now?

Don't think it would be impossible if he moved somewhere like Hull.

Someone's made a comment to this effect before but... You look at players like Fabregas, Iniesta, Xabi, and Torres... And then you look at a player like Alan fucking Smith and think that they're playing the same sport... Just depressing.

A little bit of me inside dies every time I see a trophy ceremony at a major tournament. It's just that I can imagine how happy the people supporting the winning team must feel, and I know that neither the club nor the country I support are likely to win anything anytime soon. Sad :/

Germany never had a chance with Ballack at less than 100%. They're completely soulless without him.