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Geordie Ahmed

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    Loïc Remy

    in Football

    Posted

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/queens-park-rangers/9812571/Logic-Remy-launches-PR-drive-to-shed-mercenary-tag-after-move-to-Queens-Park-Rangers.html

    Within minutes of posing with the shirt at the club’s training ground on Friday, the Frenchman was rejecting accusations of greed as decisively as he had rejected the overtures of Newcastle United, who had been favourites to sign him from Marseille. Newcastle manager Alan Pardew suggested that QPR had offered Rémy considerably higher wages and former England captain Alan Shearer claimed Rémy had been motivated by money.

     

    Friday's press conference was thus an exercise in public relations, attempting to shed the ‘mercenary’ tag that had attached itself to Rémy before he had even kicked a ball. Whether anyone believed him is another matter.

     

    “It’s true that I hesitated between Newcastle and QPR,” he said. “I went to meet the staff at Newcastle, and there came a time when I had to make the decision. I was as close to joining Newcastle as QPR. Unlike what has been reported in the press, I was not at an advanced stage of talks with Newcastle.

     

    “It was not a decision about money. Newcastle offered me a very good contract. A lot of people are shocked that I chose QPR. But it’s in no way a decision based on financial reasons. I could have stayed at Marseille, I had a good contract there.”

     

    Ultimately, though, Rémy had to leave. A thigh injury and loss of form meant he fell out of favour under new manager Elie Baup. He was seeking a move to England, and when Redknapp rekindled an interest he had first shown as Tottenham manager two years ago, Rémy was pleased, despite reports that he had initially refused to meet him.

     

    “No, I did not refuse to speak to him,” Rémy said. “I was thinking about my future at that time. I didn’t want to speak to him as I didn’t want him to think I would join the club. It was in no way a lack of respect, he has followed me for 2½ years.”

     

    Redknapp said: “I watched him at Marseille quite a few times, but the fee at the time was in excess of £20 million. I got on well with him last year when I met him in France, so I had a bit of a head start in that respect. I told him I wanted to play him through the middle, whereas he’d have played wide elsewhere.

     

    “I mentioned a couple of players I was hoping to bring in that he knew very well. I said: ‘We are bottom of the league and it’s going to be a real battle but if you want to have a real go, come and take the challenge on’.”

     

    Rémy consulted a notable Marseille team-mate before making his choice. “I spoke to [Joey] Barton,” he said. “He mentioned it is a club with a small stadium, but the fans are terrific, and the ground is always full. He told me it was like a war every week. I am ready for war over the next six months.”

     

    The time-frame was telling. Rémy refused to commit his future to the club should they be relegated. But the battle to avoid that fate resumes on Saturday against West Ham.

     

    http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwmg4kJRMx1r8xcgho1_500.gif

    Lack of Investment

    in Football

    Posted

    tbh I just get frustrated when the negativity goes too far, which it frequently seems to. Getting upset about the transfer window before it's even over, for example... just doesn't seem like people are giving the club a chance, and getting upset in advance, working on the assumption that things will be bad. It doesn't seem fair. I'll be properly and very rationally p*ssed off if Feb 1 comes round and we've managed to perform badly in two transfer windows on the trot, but I'm not going to throw my toys out of the pram until that's actually happened... Don't understand how people can have that attitude on the 17th.

     

    Why the self-enforced "2 windows on the trot" rule?  You can't be p*ssed off at 1 transfer window and expect them to correct it sharpish?  As it stands, we're a player up and a player down.  We need at least 2 top players in before February 1st.

     

    And why have they ignored the centre back position since Sol Campbell left?  This is the FOURTH window since then and we've basically chanced our luck with 3 centre halves (1 top class, 1 ropey if you're being charitable, and 1 with a proven track record of spending half of most seasons recovering from injury) and also a jack-of-all-trades in James Perch who has filled in at times.

     

    Since we got promoted Mike Williamson has played in the league 29 times, 22 times and 17 times so far this season.  That's not good enough.  You seem to be blinded by the fact that we've managed to bring a few good players in, while conveniently forgetting that a lot of the other players are some of the worst s**** we've ever had in the top division.  Why did we go 1 window without replacing Sol Campbell, never mind get on to the 4th window with the manager saying he doubted we could afford both a striker and a centre half?

     

    There's a chronic lack of investment, even a net spend of around £10m a season would have plugged the gaps and kept us ticking over, but we always seem to find excuses for not spending any money whatsoever and leaving ourselves criminally short.  I'm f***ing sick of turning up to matches and watching Shola, Williamson et al, the fact that you're not can only be down to you being such an all-seeing, all-knowing, NUFC fan-hating bore of a person.

     

    Nailed it

     

    This talk of being pissed off on the 1st of Feb is absurd. You just know 1st of Feb will soon be summer and then on and on it goes

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