sturla

So just a 70 million profit this year then :-) It will be interesting to see how much profit we make in the accounts as so far we have only spent the money brought in with sales and although there may be an increase in wages, surely most of that will have been covered by the wages of Cabaye, Debuchy, Shola and Gosling. Of all the new arrivals, I would have thought that only De Jong and Cabella will be on relatively big wages. If we don't bring in anyone else, surely we will be making a massive profit and if that is not the case, then something is not right as the club is run on a shoestring as it is. If nothing changed from right now we'd probably be making a profit of somewhere between £30m-£40m. Depending on exactly what date the accounts cover (which I can't remember exactly). Spending money on players doesn't affect profits, selling players does however and wages+depreciations. Players are thought of as assets in football club accounts. They are bought in as assets and their value is depreciated evenly throughout their contract. Tiote i.e. was bought for 3,5m pounds and lets assume the agent fees were about 0,5m. So 4m in total. Don't remember how his original contract was but lets say 4 year. Tiote would then be 4m in the books when he was bought as an asset and 4m out in money so the books are the same. Each year he would then get depreciated 1m. That would make him fully depreciated this year and his value in the books would be 0. So any amount we would get for him would go in as a profit since his value is 0. This is of course simplified a bit. An accountant could explain it better.

This will be AP starting 11 with everyone fit!

TBF, his exile to the reverses might have more to do with attitude than 1,5kg or tracking back. Not saying I wouldn't love him back, but if it's a case of attitude I'm not sure. A rotten apple in the squad can have very damming effect. Sir Bobby wouldn't have had this problem, he handled players with a lot worse attitude. But Sir Bobby was one of a kind! Ben Arfa needs a manager like that.

HappyFace: where are you getting these stats from?

More from Lacazette after tonights game apparently: "I've made the decision to stay for one year or more", the striker told Canal +. He scored from a penalty in a 2-0 win over Rennes. Looks like we will be waiting until January to go after a prolific striker.

Who ??

If you look at the statistics, you can see why some people are advocating for a prolific striker. With Remy in the team last year we conceded on average 1,2 goals per game. Without him we conceded 2,2 goals per game. Thats 1 less goals a game with a prolific striker. Of course this doesn't tell the whole story. To many other variables come into the equation that could affect the numbers. But it does make an interesting point about teams putting more pressure on us when we have nothing upfront that is remotely threatening. It is obvious that the main focus of this transfer window has gone into fixing that (Riviere, Cabella, De Jong, Ferreyra, Perez). But it seems like they still think we need that threat that Remy gave us last year. If we buy Remy, he will likely give us about 24-30 games and 10-15 goals. The players we have already bought would give us better return than last year in the games where Remy is injured. Lacazette would hopefully give us more games but is more of a question-mark in amount of goals. Somehow I would still prefer him to Remy. Campbell on loan is not interesting for me!

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/a-tale-of-two-cities-how-geordie-cloud-drifted-over-sunderland-9652632.html Shocked if true. All over twittor, probs just nabbed it from that. That one liner from the independent is the root of this all. Nothing in this I think.

I would prefer Lacazette to Remy, even though Remy is the safer option. He also looks really energetic and powerfull on YT!

Didn't say it was true....

I think I read somewhere that he is actually is on lik 40.000 a month and they want to double his wages and take out the release clause. It was 2 days ago so I don't remember where it was.

He isn't rated by Villa fans, but had a decent World Cup. Don't think he would improve us.

Judging by this display we will desperately struggle for goals with this squad. This is still pre-season though.

We need a poll of who is the bigger idiot, Ravel or Ranger......

If we are replacing player for player: Shola -> Riviere De Jong -> Perez Remy -> Not filled Cabaye -> De Jong Gosling -> Colback Debuchy -> Janmaat Marveaux -> Cabella Of course many of these replacement are very different players. While Cabaye played in the midfield, De Jong will be more of a forward. This is purely a list of player for player. Maybe Cabella would be better suited as a listed Cabaye-replacement, but he really isn't that either. Obviously all players except Colback need to adjust to the premier league. I would say, if we replace Remy with adequate player (maybe with Remy), we will be a little worse off than we were in the beginning of last season, but hopefully when players adjust we will be a bit better off. (I'm a optimist!!!)

According to http://www.transfermarkt.com/loic-remy/leistungsdaten/spieler/45121/saison/2013 he spent most of his time as a CF. Not sure how reliable this info is though.

Harry: "He has never failed a medical before. He’s never had a problem and didn’t miss a game at Newcastle (where he spent last season on loan)." He missed 10 games in the second half of the season, 6 because of injury, 3 because of ban and the liverpool games which you could also put down to injury according to Pardew. Harry didn't exactly follow him last season did he......

http://www.transfermarkt.com/pierre-emerick-aubameyang/leistungsdaten/spieler/58864/saison/2013 Looks like he had a dry spell after 15.feb. Maybe why Dortmund want rid?? What do you mean? You're allowed to change strikers when they stop scoring?!? Someone needs to tell someone about this! It's the German league, different rules!

http://www.transfermarkt.com/pierre-emerick-aubameyang/leistungsdaten/spieler/58864/saison/2013 Looks like he had a dry spell after 15.feb. Maybe why Dortmund want rid??

Pretty sure we only won one game without him, you might be counting Fulham where he only came on after 75 minutes (and we scored the only goal in the 86th). Yes, you are right, missed his sub there. Makes it even worse without him!!!

With Remy in the team we won 14 of 25 games earning 45 points. Without Remy in the team we won 1 of 13 games earning 4 points. He was immensely important to our team last year. More important than Cabaye in my opinion. Don't care if he wanted CL club over Newcastle. If he is willing to come now it will be excellent for Newcastle. EDIT: Missed that Remy was a sub in the Fulham win. Changed the stats accordingly. Made it look even worse without him!!!1

I was looking at last years stats (league games). With Remy and Cabaye in the team we had a 56% wins (18 games) With only Remy in the team we had 50% wins (6 games) Without them both we had 8% win ratio (13 games) We need offensive threat to take some pressure of our defense. De Jong, Cabella and Rivera will help but we still need someone to replace Remy and get us 10-15 goals.

Does anybody actually believe Newcastle will sign a player of his caliber. I for one do not. The price we are willing to pay for players is low. The wages we are willing to pay players are also low (comparing to other clubs we would like to compete with). But we still waste time trying to bargain for players who are out of our price range/wage range.

Martinez has Lukaku. He make an immense difference for them. Last year West Brom made 8th place with Lukaku, but are currently sitting in 16th without him. Don't think Martinez would be doing as good without him. But only time will tell.

It is a challenges managers often sets for their players, although usually not through the press. Not sure if it is a good or bad thing. Would guess Altidore needed the extra push, perhaps he didn't react to well in 1on1 chat with Poyet.