Ishmael

I am soon to become a user of Sport 10 and I will enjoy the Ben Arfa video again and again.

They'll have started packing the equipment by then. We'll get Blackburn's goal then 'but Newcastle turned it around and won. Bolton meanwhile...' Kind of like a Paxman's weather forecasts approach to football highlights.

Obviously would have?

Yup, watched that one

'Aggravated racial abuse'.

Yeah, but even still... How?

Isn't he living in Australia where it's like compulsory to black-up at least once a month?

How the hell did that happen?

He really couldn't. Risk.

Considering this is only our second season back in the League, it's not hard to see why we're so reliant on a few. Hopefully, that balance continues to shift now that we have shifted out the old guard and put a strong framework in place. Exactly. We're not there yet, but we are heading in the right direction. Especially now that we have 2 of the best players from France, plus one of Italy's most exciting prospects in our midst. You'd like to think that others would want to follow.

What Parsley said really. It would be extremely brave and ever so foolish to go all or bust.

Ben Arfa xsmug

Nah, he's been a consistent scorer for all his career, albeit not at this seasons incredible standards. Except at Watford... but that wasn't Ba's fault.

Only if he gets improved terms ofc. Be that a wage increase, wage security or in terms of contract length. You'd image they would have the pull of CL football as well, which would be hard to say no to.

If a club meets the release clause and and offers him an improvement on his current contract then, given his condition, he would be a foolish (or extremely loyal) man to turn it down. There's little probability of that happening imo. There is too much risk.

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard or read a manager responding to Redknapp’s ‘soft’ tapping-up of players before. It wasn’t a ‘keep off warning’ as such. Merely a ‘don’t talk about my players’ warning. Like I said, I don’t think another manager has responded directly in this way to Redknapp before. It puts Redknapp in a slightly different position to what he is usually used to. He’s media savvy, so will probably breeze through a response and nothing will happen. But, he will have a little think before talking about Ba or any one of our players again. Imo at least.

And you can understand why he and his agent would want a release clause in his contract at an extremely reasonable* price. If a bunch of morons (e.g. Liverpool) were foolish enough to be willing to bid £10m, Demba would obviously receive a pay increase, signing on fee etc. Which to a person who could quiet easily have to give up football the next day would be gold dust. *relative to his condition

Prior to signing for West Ham he was due to move to Stuttgart, but failed his medical.

I felt that as well but the way he has performed this year and now this apparent clause of 10 mil. 10 million is nothing to these clubs really bar maybe tottenham. So if he can carry his form on for them like he has for us even if just for a year or two then they will. I don't think there is a single club, aside from M'City, who could feasibly gamble £10m on a player who has an extremely high risk of having to have prolonged resting periods, go under the knife, or even retire. Not even Tottenham.

Disregarding the release clause speculation, Pardew has managed to belittle Redknapp with ease and also, to some extent, the journalists who posed/agreed the line of questioning. It was an extremely subtle warning, which also served as a means to alert the media that Redknapp should not be talking about Newcastle players.

Thanks Dave btw. Santon for me

We don't know about the degenerative condition in any real depth, but what we do know is that it was enough to put off Stoke City from paying ~£8m for him. I'd say with confidence that I cannot see any club bidding near that figure, even considering how prolific he has been. The knee condition must be too sever to justify investing millions in him. I'd be extremely surprised if anyone bid an amount close to the supposed release clause this transfer window. Maybe, the situation will change at the end of the season, but that's 6 months away and it's plenty of time for the club to think about the situation.

Pardew 10, Redknapp 0.