quayside

You can't SELL a player that is out of contract. Word - which is why Cacapa, Owen and Viduka aren't options in the poll although some on here haven't quite grasped the concept of how contracts work yet My money is on Oba going first but not to the Prem (wages caps and all that) so lets say Italy and Juventus.

Post Redknapp there was some coughing and spluttering by Mort that Arry hadn't actually been offered the job but it seemed pretty f*cking obvious that he had. I'm just curious where the appointment of Wise came from. Redknapp wouldn't have had any of that surely, so was Wise just brought in to handcuff Keegan in the transfer market because they didn't trust his judgement? Also how would a cheque book manager like Redknapp have handled a net spend of next to nothing? Perhaps that's the reason Redknapp said no. Maybe - but you would think they had sorted all that stuff out before they went as far as signing any sort of Heads of Agreement.

Post Redknapp there was some coughing and spluttering by Mort that Arry hadn't actually been offered the job but it seemed pretty f*cking obvious that he had. I'm just curious where the appointment of Wise came from. Redknapp wouldn't have had any of that surely, so was Wise just brought in to handcuff Keegan in the transfer market because they didn't trust his judgement? Also how would a cheque book manager like Redknapp have handled a net spend of next to nothing?

Why would it matter if they are paying back the loan immediately or in installments. If they are buying the club they will know they are in debt - and would be a factor in their decision making. Right now we're not paying the loan back at all. It would have a pretty significant impact on our finances if we suddenly had to start repaying it all. According to the accounts there is a clause in Ashley's loan agreement that says it becomes repayable immediately there is a change of ownership, rather like the clause that shafted him when he first bought the club. If he really wants to sell I would guess he might have to waive that and take payback over a couple of years or something. Agree with those on here who are concerned about this. We've spent too much valuable time faffing about with takeovers, sacking managers, managers walking out and even managers falling ill - every time it has resulted in a mess.

Dunno about that. They've just narrowly avoided relegation with a huge, expensive squad of misfits and a caretaker manager.

Being generous to the man Hall may have had half a thought on the fact that in 2007 the club was going backwards fast and needed some "fresh blood" - but it probably wasn't anywhere near being his main motive. Hall sold out because he could see the value of his shareholding reducing due to the utter financial mess the club was in. Ashley probably was the first mug to come through the door who had the money and was able to make a concrete, sustainable offer and Hall took it. Why he should bear any blame for any of that is beyond me. Even if he did care at the time how was he supposed to know that Ashley was going to turn out to be as clueless as he has been?

They're more likely to know than we are The Telegraph and their expose about MP's expenses fraud says that. That would mean that there's a high level mole at SJP leaking confidential info to the Sun

Titus is the only one that really fits that description, O Brien maybe got a bit of stick. Is Steve Carr is staying with Brum, because he difinitely did. I don't remember Woodgate, Hughes, Faye getting too much flak.

Me too. It might not be 15 on more than 50k. But the fact is that there have been too many overpaid, under performing, injury prone players in the squad. Absolutely agree, but the OP asked if there were 15 players earning more than £50k OK - we don't know for sure who gets what, and unless the Sun has had access to the players contracts (unlikely) neither do they.

Abject is an extremely generous description of his performance in that match.......

Me too. It might not be 15 on more than 50k. But the fact is that there have been too many overpaid, under performing, injury prone players in the squad.

Don't forget though that the wagebill will include everyone else working for the club. Had this discussion the other night and there's a shitload when you think about it. Obviously that doesn't change the fact our playing squad is making far too much. 1,301 employees make up that £70 million annual wage bill. And yes its quite clear the players have been earning too much.

Absolutely devastated. The only possible upside I can see out of this right now is that Ashley doesn't get to have some f*cking lavish celebratatory piss up - the "my gamble on staying up whilst investing nothing in the squad and implementing some half arsed continental management structure paid off because I still own a Premiership club" party. Ashley has to look in the mirror knowing he's a loser and a failure. What the c*nt does now is anybody's guess tbh.

I tried really hard to find a valid point in that article but couldn't come up with one. It's so bad it should probably be up for some sort of an award. Agree - it's cliche ridden tripe.

Keegan and the fall-out from his departure is the reason why we're looking at relegation rather than our now customary lower-half of the table position. Who's to blame for that episode is the subject of other threads. As to why our usual position recently is lower half of the table rather than the European places, I'd blame Shepherd. He began getting over-involved in the football side of things, and made a series of bad decisions. Yes - my posts on this thread have focused on the events of this season as opposed to trawling back through the club's history. On a historical note IMO the summer of 2003 and the decision to pay a dividend to shareholders rather than invest further in a promising squad was probably a turning point.

With Keegan's history you could make a case for either side although for me there wasn't enough respect shown for someone who knew more about the game than Ashley or his team have been able to grasp. What is undeniable though is that since Keegan left the decision making has been a disgrace from Kinnear's over-staying his welcome to dithering without a manager while he was laid up in hospital. No one else is to blame for that. The primary cause of the instability was nevertheless the Keegan incident. Last summer we had some expectations of a watchable season to come under a talismanic manager. After a decent start the whole show got blown tits up 3 matches in, leaving the club needing to find a manager at exactly the wrong moment in the season (about the same stage of the season that Souness arrived as our third or fourth choice iirc). I can't be alone in feeling certain that we would have had a decent season under Keegan and maybe even the likes of Charlie Zog and Given may not have forced their way out. The whole Keegan incident left a mess that would be hard to manage for any club. We'll never know who the possible willing candidates were post KK, given the timing and the perceived circumstances, but I could well believe Kinnear was one of very few. So my point was that I would like to now how much either party contributed to the situation that screwed everything up in the first place. No argument with what you say about the catastrophic faffing about post Kinnear btw.

I would like to know what really happened with Keegan. It's hard to know how to allocate blame without knowing what exactly was behind one of the pivotal moments of the season. The fact that it happened so early in the season only increased its significance. Properly undermined or just a hissy fit?

Cavorting

I don't know if Young will be back, I find it hard to believe we'll repeat the insanity of Milner at right back. Hopefully Luke Young will be back, and I expect we'll line up Friedel Luke Young - Davies - Cuellar - Shorey Milner - Barry - Petrov - Ashley Young Carew - Agbonlahor Personally I'd like to see Agbonlahor dropped for Delfouneso, but it won't happen. Pants starting line up tbh.....

I've never seen Shepherd as being the type to admit to making mistakes so I'm not sure about all that. To be fair to the current regime in amongst the shamblic PR I do seem to recall that there was some sort of acknowledgement that they had cocked up. Not that admissions of making mistakes amount to much really as its about getting the club moving forward again and if someone can do that I wouldn't care too much about who it was.

a] Their goal was ok. Taylor. b] Our goal was good. Nolan did nothing. c] Yes

But..but..SBR doesn't rate Lovenkrands ...

Beye and the anti-christ Barton being done by Cattermole were fairly pivotal imho,

Maybe there are some pointers on who the piss takers are on the "Players in Public" thread? And I think you're right about Butt and Duff.

I don't know about all this talk of a gutless performance. For me there was a lot of effort, I thought the players tried as best they could right to the end. But what really makes the difference in games like that are quality and confidence - and we have neither right now, especially going forward.