Lloydie

I'm with Billy Ray on this one. Roeder has done and is doing a good job in very difficult circumstances. Imagine if we'd been able to play a fit Ameobi alongside Martins instead of Sibierski, imagine if we hadn't had to employ a different back line every game. I'd guess that any four of our defenders playing together regularly would have got better results than the constantly changing lineups we've had to send out. One thing often overlooked is the time it takes players to get back to their best after returning from injury. So it's not just the players who are out, it's the players who are on the pitch but still a couple of weeks away from their best. We've had two or three of those in the side most games this season. Against Fulham we had Duff, Carr, Bramble and Gooch (can't remember how to spell his surname) all lacking match practice / integration into the team.

Or get sent off ^-^

It's basically pronounced Derk Kout However the one that really winds up the Dutch is our inability to say Cryuff. It's one syllable. - Cruiff. Definately not Cry uff Things I hate.... Those flags at Bolton (I've only seen them on TV and I hate it...) The way commentators find diving terrible unless it's an England player Players mobbing the referee and the referee not sending them all off

On a less? pessimistic note I can see the current fad for buying premiership sides fading away when the owners get bored (Is Abramovich already bored?) and folks realise that the profits aren't there.

Just to check, of the 20 Premiership clubs we now have Chelsea (Russian) Man U (American) Liverpool (American) Aston Villa (American) Portsmouth (Russian) West Ham (Icelandic) 30% of the league wholly foreign owned. Of these clubs only Man U actually acts like a business, in that it makes profits and invests sanely. Four of the rest live beyond their means, and with Liverpool it's too early to tell what they're going to do, but I'd guess that with a new stadium they could be self supporting and compete at the top level.

Livepool have been sold http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2006989,00.html 174 million was the asking price. For a club in the champions league, with a new stadium on the way and 45 million in debt. Anyone still think our shareholders were being reasonable asking for £150m for Newcastle?

Answer 1 about the squad and the manager, but a bit of Answer 2 about the chairman.

I don't want Parker injured. I think for away games a midfield of Milner, Butt, Parker, Duff looks very solid and should still be able to get forward well. Certainly until our defence is settled.

Yeah, turned around the mess Souness left, got us into Europe, got us through the Intertoto and has now got us 9th in the league despite having a monster injury crisis. Say what you like but there's eleven teams having a worse season in the premiership who haven't had to field their academy players plus a right winger as a back 4. Got Butt playing well, got Dyer back and playing well, getting the best out of Milner, signed Martins (best big money acquisition of the season) and Sibierski (best no money acquisition of the season). Yup, he's done nowt. Must be time to go through another exercise of ditching a manager, paying them off, restructuring the squad and starting all over again...

We'll be fine. We didn't sign anyone because we've not got the cash for big signings, it seemed like we could stretch to 3 million or so to bring in Babel which would have been a bargain, but that was it. It was also clear by the end that we needed to move Luque on if we were going to bring in anyone on good wages - and we didn't. I for one am glad that we've not got a panic bought 4 million leftback who will turn out to be the next Boumsong / Luque in the next few weeks, because you know that some of the clubs who've been shopping have and they'll be stuck with them for years. The clubs who spent significantly were at the bottom end of the table and did it using money from sugar daddies that we just don't have access to. 18 million has been spent by West Ham! It'll be interesting to see how Blackburn's signings work out though - all cheap and mostly defenders. When Mourinho can't pick up a decent centre half to support his title challenge you've got to assume they're in short supply. Right now things are looking a lot better. Nobby got a much needed rest yesterday but with him fit and Duff playing his way to fitness we've now got Milner, Duff and Solano covering two midfield slots which is better than it's been in a while. We've got cover in the centre of defence again, and three fit strikers all scoring goals. Left back is still a bit of an issue but at least it's now about which of Huntington, Ramage or Edgar plays there rather than starting all three. Hell even Bernard managed to play for the reserves...

So does the fact no-one was moaning about Parker on the thread mean he played well? How many goals is that for Sibierski, 7? (3 Prem?) Terrible signing :-)

Agreed. It's a meaningless interview, but I still believe that he can and will play a lot better than he has done for us to date.

Has definately got the physique for the target man stuff, and can hold the ball up well if it's in to his feet. Reasonably tall, still a bit skinny but looks like a great athlete. Not so sure about his ariel prowess, mostly due to Ajax making him spend his life on the wing. Kluivert is the usual comparison over here, not Henry. Just discovered his official website. http://www.ryanbabel.nl The dutch for video is 'video'. The 'debut jaar 1' video is of the stuff that caused all the excitement. Ignore the 'gansta' look and feel. I've never heard of him misbehaving.

Able to lead a line, score goals and play 90 minutes week in week out. Babel will need a bit of time to settle and those two years younger are a big two years. I wouldn't want him trying to do the job Martins is doing at the moment where he's the focus for the whole attack and under huge pressure. In a few years time though ...

I've seen Babel play a couple of times in the flesh and a lot on TV and as far as I'm concerned he's the real deal. He's strong, he's quick and he's got stacks of skills. He scored a number of magnificent individual goals in the last few seasons and gets the odd tap in as well. At Ajax they have an addiction to 4-3-3 which means Babel ends up playing on the left wing trying to provide service to Huntelaar in the middle. To these English eyes Babel has the build and mentality to be an out an out striker, the kind of number 9 the Dutch don't like to produce (even Van Nisterlrooy has always said he wanted to be a number 10 like Bergkamp/Cryuff), and looks wasted on the wing. Bearing in mind that he's only 20 I'd suggest that he's not going to be quite in the Martins class the moment we sign him, but he'll certainly be able to do a job up front. Within a few years if he develops well he could easily be a regular 20 goals a season player. Sadly I can't support this move as my wife (Ajax fan) will never forgive me. Especially if we give them Luque.

It's a bit of both. One thing to note is that since we've been playing the kids at the back the fullbacks have been under orders to be a lot more cautious, and our wingers have been told to pay more attention to covering them. So when we're going forward the wingers aren't getting the overlaps / support they want and the forwards are often stuck without anyone to pass to out wide. The rest (balls bouncing etc.) I think can be put down to a lack of experience. This has also got to be about the worst time to be making your debuts. You want to come into a winning team where there are pleny of experienced players around to support you. Instead we've chucked the kids into high pressure games, often against top class teams , and it must be wierd to be in the centre of defence, look left, look right and think you're in an academy game, then look up and see Robben, Drogba and 50 000 supporters...

It's true next years TV money changes things a bit. But there are a few things to be cautious about * We might have already earmarked it for paying down some debts * Every player with a choice will delay contract negotiations till next year and try to get their 'fair share' But mostly, every time there's been a big influx of cash into the game it's not made the clubs more profitable. Yes they've got a lot bigger, but the real winners have been players and agents every single time, plus a handful of executives who have been able to float clubs for massive valuations on the basis of future profits that haven't materialised. Things are further messed up by the fact that some clubs (Chelsea, Portsmouth ...) are backed by individuals who don't care if they make money, leaving those clubs without sugar daddies in the cold. I would guess that if the owners of the two clubs walked away now they'd both be in liquidation within months and that's something that's very hard to compete with. In the medium term if I owned a club I would * Invest in the academy (we seem to be doing this a bit) * Invest in scouting (we don't seem to have got this bit right) * Introduce performance related pay across the squad, executives and management team (Martin O'Neill has been talking about this at Villa) As I said elsewhere, the model in terms of stability and investing is probably Bolton, although I don't like their playing style and they do seem to have a lot of veteran players on their books. The model for academies is definantely Ajax - my wife, (who is Dutch and a fan) was moaning last night that they've only had one or two players through the academy this season. In an 'average' season they expect about three....

First, having spent the money you had in the past doesn't mean you can magically spend money you don't have in the future. Second, I'm tired of this, so I'm trying to read the accounts. First thing I've discovered is that this http://www.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/staticFiles/16/a9/0,,10278~43286,00.pdf is scanned in from a paper copy. Take a look at page 8. Some of the other documents are missing! Not exactly a sign of the club taking it's responsibilities toward the shareholders seriously. <a href="http://www.bp.com/PublicationArchiveListingIssueSorterAction.do?categoryId=9010688&contentId=7021119&issueDate=All&sortType=Date">This is what it should look like.</a> Anyway... 2005 saw us more or less break even with 87 mio in revenue, 6 million profit 2006 sucked (no Europe) so 83 mio in revenue, 6 million loss 2007 back in Europe, slightly worse luck in the cups so maybe about 87-90 mio again after some inflation etc. The main reason for the losses in 2006 is the difference is Amortisation of Player Registrations. When you buy a player you add them to your books as an asset at the price you paid. You then write them off over the length of their contract. So sign a player for 5 mio cash up from on a 5 year deal and here's what your books show Year 0 (day of signing) : cash position -5 mio, assets +5 mio, change in balance sheet, 0 Year 1 : Cash position still -5mio, assets +4 mio, change in balance sheet -1 and so on till Year 5 : Cash position -5 mio, assets 0 mio, change in balance sheet -5. What this means is that the effect on the balance sheet (not the operating profit / loss) is based on the average of your transfers over the previous five years (assuming all contracts are five years). Up unitil Souness went on the lash our amortisation had been running at about 10 mio a year. After the big spending it went up to 16 mio a year and we're going to be paying there or there abouts for the next few years. That means that this year we're going to lose money again unless some sort of cost cutting miracle has taken place behind the scenes. Most of our costs are wages. The most recent numbers didn't include a full year of wages for Martins and Duff, which probably makes up for Shearer no longer being on the wage bill. Wages to revenue remains a thoroughly unhealthy 63%. While we're not operating in Leeds United territory yet we are heading that way. Once we stopped qualifying for the Champions League we were living beyond our means, and since we've failed to get back there we're getting further and further into debt. Our costs of finance (interest payments) went up from 5.6 to 6.3 mio last year. Since we're making losses again that's going to get worse again. Perhaps the most interesting number is that net assets (everything we've got minus everything we owe, but not including players which count as intangibles) was 16 mio. A year earlier it had been 30 mio. That's a number banks are going to look at very closely since it's basically what they can get if we default on our loans - as Leeds discovered once clubs know you're in financial trouble they won't pay you good money for players. There's also a wierd rule that means football related debts have seniority, so clubs we still owe money to on transfers get first rights to cash in the event of a liquidation. That puts off banks from investing in risky clubs even more. * Cash on hand was 9.3 mio, in June a year earlier it was 17 mio. Basically all this means that we are running short and spending on a big money signing without selling first would be taking a big risk with the long term financial health of the club. If we don't get into Europe this season we'll be a selling club in the summer. * Not to say we're risky atm, but every loan is assessed as a risk and for this reason football clubs are riskier than other businesses and so pay higher interest or get less credit...

Maybe this is what happened. Coming up to Christmas we've got two interested parties looking to buy the club and inject funds. Shepherd tells Roeder the deal is going to go through and to prepare accordingly. Meanwhile Shepherd goes to look at private islands in the carribean. By the time the window opens we're down to one bidder, and then none. Now we really are skint. Loan moves and transfers are dependent on moving players out to cut the wage bill but with no-one wanting Luque and swap deals including Bramble being turned down we're not able to do even that. The result is Roeder heading for the bargain basement at short notice and having to open negotiations about players before he's finished checking them out properly. Finally, fed up with the situation Alan Oliver gets the off record briefing about no money in the kitty as the manager does the only thing he can do to blame the chairman.

Hmm, saw Copenhaagen play Ajax in champions league earlier this year. So I assume he was playing. Their back line was collectively utterly dominant in the air. Will need to see a picture to work out who we're talking about.

What is that? You know when a player trys to trap a ball and it bounces two yards away and the defender nicks it? That's not having technique. You know when a player trys to trap a ball and the defender tries to nick it only to discover he's just been beaten? That's good technique. Add similar analogies for being able to make the ball do what you want it to in other situations, shooting, passing, etc. Also tackling without fouling, getting distance on defensive headers. I suspect this is a long running thing though, so I'll shut up now.

Article from the Dutch Telegraff at http://www.soccernews.nl/news/23975 my bad translation follows... FC Utrecht defender Edson Braafheid is close to a transfer to England. Newcastle United and Manchester City have bid? to FC Utrecht for the leftback learns the Telegraaf. The two English clubs will pay 400k euros for Braafheid to sign straightaway. braafheid expected last week to go to FC Twente, but at the last moment said that he couldn't take the step. On the office website communicated FC Twente that a contract had been signed. The club trainer Fred Rutten wanted Braafheid to come in the summer for no transfer fee. FC Utrecht have acknowledged that the youth international cannot count on much playing time at the Domstedelingen. Coach Fooke Booy has been leaving the player out of the selection (possibly just since the deal with Twente, not clear). The defender discovered from the trainer that he had a deal with FC Twente but only nearly. (not sure about the last sentence at all)

Just saw that myself. No idea if he's any good. I see a bit of the Dutch league on TV here and it's really not good stuff, Twente aren't exactly a top side either. That he played for the Holland U21s means very little. They're a good side, but they're very heavy on technique and light on physique. Indeed I'd guess that any defender coming to the Premiership from Holland is in for a bit of a shock in their first few games. So for me at least an unknown quantity. But my prediction of loan signings and people we've never heard of is looking good...

I agree with most of that. We've probably got no real cash, we're not going down this season and Europe is going to be a hell of a stretch regardless of signings. So yup, keep it simple, hunt for value and look to build on what we've got. Three or four new players through the academy is a great positive from this season - even if only one or two cut it that's pretty much par for the course for our signings. Add the progress of Milner and Martins, plus the return of Dyer and the squad has probably come quite a long way this season, regardless of spending. Just a shame Owen is crocked...

Have to check, but I don't think Blackburn have been pennypinching...