mrmojorisin75

I'd think: "we still need a striker"

he can't, he has to pay back his gambling debts

dunno like, didn't they get 6-8m for dyer? still buys them a few more years for me

wayne bridge then, get man city to pay half his wages great business all our transfer dealings should be followed by "great business" now imo

forgot about those two going to the ACN...don't worry though, we can sign replacements in january

fucking terrified to go to sleep tonight, barton and now enrique in 2 days was there a definitive outcome on that lad taylor from swansea? i hope he resigned with them 'cause 5m for enrique minus 2-3m for taylor = good business for mike unless he's stringing us all along by wanting these two off the books (and wages) before spending to replace them and a striker on average wages then we could be looking at a horrible, horrible season ahead imo

wasn't cabaye with lille since he was 13? as i understand Ba has only kicked up at one club, Hoffenheim as you say, and he had decent reasons from what i remember players exploit loopholes and let contracts expire all the time man, because we're collecting them like football stickers doesn't meant they're a set of cunts we go down i'd expect them to kick up...and the likes of cabaye just left a title winning team to come to this fucking circus, would you blame him if he was pissed off already? i wouldn't

To get Marveaux, Ben Arfa, Cabaye and Ba in for £10m (?) in transfer fees is sensational business. Yeah exactly. So I think to say the entire window has been a failure is going overboard I think. If we can get Barnetta and Erding in for Under £20m I'd be happy. ??

who are you counting here HBA? Ba? Cabaye? Gosling? Marveaux? other than HBA & Ba (harsh imo too) who else have we targetted that "play up and cause trouble"? a player leaving on a free doesn't automatically make him a cunt

worst is obvious and could easily happen with a bad start and some bad injuries best probably a repeat of last season, maybe finishing 8th or 9th if we stay lucky with injuries

no context Zaius, NO CONTEXT!!!

Why is the decent start forgotten about because things have gone a bit quiet though? That's what I don't understand. howay man ian

barton will tear these cunts apart before the ink is dry on his new contact like, at least one good thing will come of this

wonder if they think vuckic and ferguson etc. will just suddenly set the world on fire a la carroll last season happens all the time that like (in FM)

A manufacturing company would go bust if it didn't have materials or the staff to produce the goods it sells correct, you'd look to cut costs in every area that did not affect the quality of the product you were making, only as a last resort should you/would you look to use inferior materials and thus potentially compromise your product reputation (assuming it had one) my point about ashley is that the debts are owed to him for fucks sake, and as mick points out we're running close to even - 35m should and could have seen a little investment above the shrewd buys we've made to climb the table and claw more money in from table positions another year ticks by and barton and smith leave the wage bill (loven & shola?), more cash becomes available within the wage budget and things progress...he chose the alternative instead mike has played the greedy little director taking a chance...he's taken chances before and we were relegated, while i don't think that'll happen again he shouldn't be operating this way man

no one is even asking for "spending big" anymore ian, just some modest investment to try and improve us on the pitch and stop us standing still or going backwards i've never had more faith in our scouting than i have at the moment but like everything with ashley it's always dysfunctional - should be an ashley meme: "ASSEMBLE CRACK SCOUTING SQUAD, DON'T BUY ANY PLAYERS"

cheers Sherlock there's cutting costs and cutting costs - you're so keen to compare football to other businesses would a manufacturing company cut costs by using inferior materials, machinery and people and expect their business to maintain itself or grow? i fucking doubt it unless you have no choice, i.e. going bust is looming, you don't just butcher everything, cut every cost and stop investing in expanding your business, there has to be balance - presently we have no balance, it's all one way ashley is not in that position, he's not short of money himself he's choosing to run the club this way

flaw 1: he's not sanctioning "limited spending", we're not spending anything flaw 2: why can't we be as prudent with money as we appear to be without it? why does every call for money preclude it being spent on "overpaid wasters" nowadays?

So you'll be happy for us to spend nothing until we've been running at a profit for a few years. i'm tired of this shit now, as i've just said elsewhere - when you're making losses in business you don't just stop doing the things that are likely to generate more revenue for the company yes you cut overheads and costs within reason whilst trying to maximise profit what ashley is doing now is not that, he's taking the fucking piss, no club ever had sustained success without a modicum of investment and never will

sorry but it doesn't work like that, he's bought a football club and needs to act accordingly let's say he bought a company that provided a service but was burned on the debt like he was with us how likely is he to make it succeed and pay back by cutting spending and providing a poorer service to his customers? not very if he'd bought a famous comic book company 'cause he liked comic books, he'd not succeed by cutting production costs, hiring cheaper artists and writers and generally destroying the morale of his company and fanbase would he? the man is an utter cunt

tell you what like, he's making a gargantuan effort to make this window an absolute clusterfuck - it's like he's willing the fans to turn on him or something so he can close the gates

WTF, go to bed and look what happens this summer could end up very bad for us, very bad if we're not careful

W.T.F.

Agreed 100%. The League simply isn't what might be termed an 'open' competition any more. Money has changed that. I think it's a sad indictment of the game that finishing 4th is considered the panacea for many a club, even to the extent that finishing in a European spot, a la Spurs is either considered not good enough or a waste of fucking time. right, so what's the solution? bust ourselves trying to get somewhere we simply would not be able to sustain without massive investment (sounds familiar) or fuck about in mid table and hopefully sneak a cup or something? first ones not really an option tbh is it?...only thing that changes the parameters would be a great crop of youngsters coming through and/or stumbling on a genius as a manager who propels the club there himself EDIT: i'm taking ashley out of this train of thought by the way