PRL

Also, petty gripe, but can the sub-ed not even get simple things like which penalty this is right? http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/07/newcastle-united-arsenal-premier-league (although rare praise from Taylor...)

Watched a bit of footage that was likely mentioned earlier in the thread but I thought was pretty interesting... Seems about 3 mins into end of first half stoppage time Barton intends to go two-footed at Arshavin, who turns, and Barton pulls out partially, eventually going through the back of Arshavin's legs with and almost on his own knees, looked like a foul but nothing more thanks to him pulling out. But as a foul wasn't given, Barton manages to crawl back to his feet and play the ball forward, at which point Diaby comes in massively late, seemingly intent on going for Barton's ankle and not anywhere near or with any intention of getting the ball. Barton looked to be pretty hurt by the tackle but Diaby did the whole 'play hurt' thing as well and we got a free kick but there was no caution. May have meant Barton saw him miscontrol in the second half and go in as full blooded as possible. Not saying it was a foul by Barton, but he may not have gone in with quite as much vigour had someone else miscontrolled. Know we can't post links but as someone mentions 101greatgoals.com hoping i can mention that this was at the arsenalist.com? If not, apologies, please snip away.

If they wanted to build a team to win things & keep their best players & had the means to do so then they should react to what other clubs are willing to offer the lad if they want to keep him ofcourse. Otherwise they would lose him, as realistically they likely will at some point. Its very simple, if you dont negotiate you'll lose your best players as the player will nearly always go for the money if its being offered & they are being much more highly valued elsewhere. How much would you be willing to give Carroll? However much Liverpool offered. Like, if Man Utd came in and offered him £200k a week to move, we should give him £210k, yeah? Makes sense, it's his market worth, init. Think you're winding yourself up mate by making assumptions about my argument that you've jumped into half way. Ive said we should have negotiated Carrolls contract, i doubt we needed to match what pool were offering to keep him here. It just needed to be closer to matching his current valuation in the market. Even if thats only 15m or 20m, 30k a week as a wage does not match that value. How do you disagree? Fair enough. But then if he has a shocking next 12 months, shall we expect him to drop back down to what he was on 12 months ago?

But it's the same with virtually every club sadly. I know this has been mentioned before but it's worth reiterating that in the last couple of years Everton have lost Rooney, Tottenham have lost Berbatov & Carrick, Liverpool now Torres, Arsenal have lost a load of players and same will happen again with Fabregas at some point, even the Mancs lost Ronaldo. Would you describe all of these clubs as selling clubs? The only two not listed are City and Chelsea, and City almost lost Tevez when he kicked up. These two are the only two, due to their owners, that have the power to ensure their best stay put simply through huge finances. So, do we start dreaming of a Qatari takeover? Then we have the opposite problem of having a bunch of mercenaries whose sole purpose on tyneside is picking up a pay cheque. I think you summed it up best in the other thread, football is fucked whichever side of the fence you're on for very different reasons. Being a fan is a pretty fucking miserable lot with the game as it is right now.

Really is. It's like when Partridge does his 'I'm a lad' act. Can't see how they can keep him after sacking Gray now. Bye bye hairy hands. I hope Stelling hasn't been up to any of this, he's the only one I like.

I'd say I was actually more devastated by the appointment of Souness than the actual sacking of Bobby at the time

Chelsea FA Cup Semi-Final defeat. Was my first time at Wembley, actually my first time in London and first time at a game on my own. Our fans were fucking amazing but didn't make it any less painful.

Not sure how selling up would constitute big transfer news. Also, highly doubt he'd have sacked Hughton and chucked Pardew a 5.5yr deal if he was intending on an imminent sell up, and who would be stupid enough to waltz in and buy the club without lengthy negotiations and proper due diligence...

Stopped reading there. I guess the rest was just as hilariously moronic. You're right, his strike rate of circa 1 in every 4 games is infinitely superior to Shola's 1 in 5. It's not like he gets a lot more chances in his games at Arsenal either... Bendtner's record is around 1 in 2.5 when you calculate based on minutes on the pitch. He also is a much better all-round player, has far superior technique and scores important goals. Infact it's not even worth arguing. The mere comparison is ludicrous to the extreme. Bendtner is a good player who often suffers from poor decision making, but to suggest he is 'shit' or 'not Premier League quality' is simply moronic. You appear to have applied quote marks to words I haven't used?! The white shola mark was flippant (although looking at the stats on wiki they don't appear vastly different. Not sure what minutes on the pitch per goal Shola has, mind - you know per chance?) and based more on Bendtner's ability to look like someone who has never seen a football before when presented with a vast number of scoring opportunities. He is, I agree, of Prem quality, but so is Heskey (and arguably Shola), and many other strikers who could be described as a donkey based on a fair number of displays. I wouldn't want us to sign him for any number of reasons - cost, attitude, ability (in relation to cost).

All Shola needs to do is score one on his debut for Nigeria and he's set

Stopped reading there. I guess the rest was just as hilariously moronic. You're right, his strike rate of circa 1 in every 4 games is infinitely superior to Shola's 1 in 5. It's not like he gets a lot more chances in his games at Arsenal either...

Bendtner is just a white Shola. His stats are average and he's a tosser of the highest order (going off what he says in the media). I would echo and add to the link here. Would rather have Bothroyd, least he wouldn't cost much http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,13320_6660788,00.html (NB - i don't think we'd be in for him anyway, I just really don't like the guy, as a footballer or a person)

Swindon, just slapped in transfer request, never looked anything special when i've seen him. Would ask my uncle who is a season ticket holder there, but he told me Tozer was a future england captain so i shall not seek his views again.

Isn't there direct quotes attributable to him saying he was interested in all 3?

Hmmm... Not sure I follow that logic. Bothroyd was recently an England centre forward, are you keen for us to sign him up? At least he's shown some form in the last half a decade whereas SWP has been dreadful every time I have seen him without fail. My issue with replacing Routledge with SWP would be that they are essentially the same player, except one is older and would cost a lot more than the other. I've seen absolutely nothing from SWP to suggest his dip in form is temporary. He'd be another Damien Duff. We've got rid of so many of the highly paid mercenaries, adding another to the squad will hinder rather than help. If I was Carroll and he came in on double my wages, I'd be pretty hacked off. Same for Barton, Enrique and the likes who are near the end of their contracts - why should they take a wage cut if some underperforming has been is coming in on more salary. It's not just a player for player comparison, it's the effect on the squad. Taking out someone who is obviously not one of the high earners who didn't seem to expect to start and replacing them with someone who more than likely would (and with the wages he'd expect, I'd imagine Pardew would feel he'd have to play him as Ashley would want to know what the fuck was going on otherwise). I'm not against getting rid of Routledge, but to replace him with SWP would be a pretty huge error in my view, whether loan or permanent. I'm assuming SWP would be prepared to take a significant wage cut which is what is suggested in the Journal. I haven't followed SWP's career lately so if he's lost all his ability for some reason then we should stay away. He's scored some pretty good goals in his time so I think that alone makes him an upgrade on Routledge. Isn't it possible that his acreer stagnated because he went to Chelsea and then City where the managers prefer a more hard working style? Not to mention they can afford the best players? Ah, hadn't seen anything indicating he'd actually be willing to take a significant wage drop, if that's the case a lot of my argument is rendered useless... Certainly could be the case regarding his form as you say, but that does stink of Duff, and he was certainly in better form (or, had spent less time out of form and out the team) at the time we signed him. My gut feeling is just that the one thing I've really liked about the Ashley reign is the move away from players living on past glories who the big clubs wanted rid of and started trying to bring in younger, hungrier players. I fear Pardew's main flaw might be his inability to work with this model / his desire to bring in 'names'. We'll see in time if that's unfounded or not, but the names he seems to mention in the press (Bentley, Roque Santa Cruz, Beckham) don't instill me with particular confidence in his skills in the transfer market. Funnily enough, I'd be quite happy to move to a director of football model as tried under Keegan at this point in time. Pardew seems to be doing alright with the players, just worried about ins / outs. (Would definitely prefer to take a punt on Legear, looking at the newest posts)

Hmmm... Not sure I follow that logic. Bothroyd was recently an England centre forward, are you keen for us to sign him up? At least he's shown some form in the last half a decade whereas SWP has been dreadful every time I have seen him without fail. My issue with replacing Routledge with SWP would be that they are essentially the same player, except one is older and would cost a lot more than the other. I've seen absolutely nothing from SWP to suggest his dip in form is temporary. He'd be another Damien Duff. We've got rid of so many of the highly paid mercenaries, adding another to the squad will hinder rather than help. If I was Carroll and he came in on double my wages, I'd be pretty hacked off. Same for Barton, Enrique and the likes who are near the end of their contracts - why should they take a wage cut if some underperforming has been is coming in on more salary. It's not just a player for player comparison, it's the effect on the squad. Taking out someone who is obviously not one of the high earners who didn't seem to expect to start and replacing them with someone who more than likely would (and with the wages he'd expect, I'd imagine Pardew would feel he'd have to play him as Ashley would want to know what the fuck was going on otherwise). I'm not against getting rid of Routledge, but to replace him with SWP would be a pretty huge error in my view, whether loan or permanent.

Safe to say they've got their own concerns at the minute

I think VdV was the exception as opposed to the rule. Look at the prices Spurs are asking for their squad players - they have a decent pool of talent but they still want big money for Bentley, Keane, etc. not to mention talking towards £50m for Bale who, once again, has only really been showing this form regularly at the tail end of last season / beginning of this.

Eh? He's still young, English and scoring freely. Rightly or wrongly, that guarantees a silly price tag. If he was at a club with a better pool of talent we'd be challenging for Europe and still wouldn't be selling him, let alone for less. It's common sense and it happens all the time, a clubs "prized asset" will allways have an inflated price tag and they will be reluctant to sell for anything other than a silly fee due to his imprortance to the team. If Carroll was at Manchester United there is absolutely no way they would turn down 20 million for him You're f***ing nuts, tbh. I was going to debate the point further but can't be arsed. There is no point, clubs will hold on for a silly fee to keep there prized asset and Man United would sell Andy Carroll if someone stumped up £20 million. City's recent stupidity in the market seems to have warped folks perspective of a players worth massivly tbh Right, so do you think the Mancs would let Hernandez go for under £20m? Bearing in mind he's done nothing to look better than Carroll this season and it's his first full season in the league much like Carroll? I don't think they would.

Really? Just knew that it was Everton next weekend, didn't check for midweeks. Shame

Who's his first tow games against? Manure and? Everton

If he loses the next two he'll already be fucked. There will be scousers everywhere saying he's not up to it and that it was a mistake to bring him back. Couldn't start with a worse two games if you ask me (obviously if he wins them then that changes it entirely!)

glen_johnson

Last two 'tweets' from Johnson: 'He was average at the best of times, the only reason he's on that show is coz he gambled all his money away. The clown! ' less than 5 seconds ago via ÜberTwitter 'Comments from alcoholic drug abusers are not really gonna upset me and who is Paul Merson to jugde players, he was average at the best of times. ' The irony in Johnson calling Merson 'average at the best of times' should not be lost.

Grant, next week