leffe186

It's not just about being a laughing stock to other fans, but ourselves too. I think hating another team for doing better than us is pathetically bitter "(and hating out of jealousy is the ultimate compliment, and those knobheads deserve no compliment). They did better because they were managed much better etc. Eh? I thought hating another team for doing better than mine was an integral part of being a football fan.

I know the man says you have four massive days, but I think ours are even more crucial. You have a settled squad and manager, with a couple of obvious issues. We are in transition, with s***-loads of money burning a hole in our pocket, and also squad issues. I'm terrified we'll f*** it up. Great point, when i think about it sometimes i overreact sometimes we have a settled squad that got us 5th last season i should chill out tbh. As for you, i'll be shocked if you don't bring at least one player in, might not be enough but there you go. If we only get one player in there will be rioting in the High Rd. Far too much money, and far too many issues (although tbf we still have a decent first XI). Your key, as it always has been, is not to lose anyone.

If it is strongly linked to this forum among Newcastle forums (fora?) then I wonder if age is a factor. I think there are a fair few on here who grew up, like me, in the age of Liverpool dominance (and, not entirely coincidentally, the backpass). I hated (and still hate) Liverpool because they were the glory-hunters' club of choice when I was a kid. Not fussed about Man U, because at least they stopped Liverpool and Arsenal from winning everything (well we certainly weren't going to). Either way, I've never really had anything against fans of one particular club because we've all got our fair share of twats. I just hate certain clubs, because I am a footy supporter and thus a bit of a child. I've certainly met an awful lot of self-righteous Liverpool fans (plastic ones too), but, clearly wacko is ace.

He'll need to take up new legs too.

Not on massive wages, but we can't keep em all. There's a kid called Button who's hopefully going to be good enough (homegrown etc etc) and Gomes is supposed to be on his way back to PSV. Personally I'm amazed we didn't go for Vorm, but there you go. Maybe we're working towards an entirely French-speaking defence. I know the man says you have four massive days, but I think ours are even more crucial. You have a settled squad and manager, with a couple of obvious issues. We are in transition, with shit-loads of money burning a hole in our pocket, and also squad issues. I'm terrified we'll fuck it up.

I'd say it's exactly on topic It really is far too early to say, for us even more than you. I'm happy so far, but so much hinges upon Modric and his replacements. We were comfortably the better side against you in that first half, yet there was evidence of a dearth of creativity (despite hitting the woodwork twice). If VDV goes, as well as Modric, I would be very unhappy with the window, as that's a level of class that's hard to find. It's clear that Levy will back AVB's judgement, in particular from the Dawson sale. I like that he's so confident, but it makes me nervous, as the consequences of failure may be all the more grievous. The advantage of having everything built around a clear philosophy is that the kids can be brought through more easily. It does have to work in the first place though. I like Verts and Sigurdsson, and Adebayor. I can live with us getting decent money for Corluka, Pienaar, Kranjcar, Bassong and Dawson - that prob covers wages and transfers in and leaves a small amount left over. It all hinges upon what happens next though. I'd like LB cover, a young keeper, a young CB, someone interchangeable with Bale and/or Lennon, shit-hot replacement for Modric and possibly another forward. All of that is simply not going to happen. The shit-hot replacement plus one of the others would probably leave me happy.

I know that other clubs are apparently pissing on it from great height, but wouldn't this endanger your compliance of FFP? Personally, I think that Top 4 is a closed shop between London and Manchester, which is not to say you shouldn't be ambitious. But I wouldn't frustrate myself demanding a Top 4 challenge this season, or even thinking you're just 2-3 signings (that probably won't happen) away from being in that position. Rather, focus on building a team where finishing 5th-6th isn't seen as an overachieving season, but your natural place in the PL. I think you have made big strides on that regard, with the signing of Arnita and - again - retaining and having people like Santon, HBA, Cissé, Cabaye, etc... fully adapted and able to spend an entire season with you. Look at Sunderland, they have retained Sessegnon but look at the other outstanding players they had these past years... Bent, Gyan, Cana... did any of them spend more than 18 months at the club? Have in mind that you were promoted two years ago, and you have covered a lot more ground than anybody could expect. But building the structure and the reputation to consistently attract players and always be "in the mix" still takes more time than that. Personally, I think the aim this season is to show the world that you weren't a flash in the pan (and I think you have the quality for it). Agreed. And me too. The problem is when people talk about "investing" 25M, or "speculating to accumulate". Teams like ourselves and yourselves are now in a position when we are pretty much breaking even without transfers, and our wage bill is about where it should be. There just isn't much room for manoeuvre, and what are you going to accumulate? If we now spend 25M on new players, how exactly do we balance the books? We need to get more money from somewhere. Breaking into the CL will cover that, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to do that every year. The increase in TV money will help, but I suspect a fair bit of that has gone, and will go, into increased wages and bonuses. Without a windfall, the only way to make forward steps is to exploit the transfer market and develop youth. Spurs have been working on that for a while, and so we're a couple of years ahead of you on the pitch. We had a large enough squad to be able to handle selling squad players this summer - Corluka, Kranjcar, Bassong, Pienaar, prob Dawson - with others still available (Jenas, Bentley, Rose, maybe Defoe). We have a handful of youngsters who can expect to play regularly this year and next, plus others coming through. You're not yet in that position. With that in mind, the key is for you to keep players, pick up bargains, and develop the youth. You can then afford to sell one or two biggies to keep the squad improving. The signs are already there in Campbell and Ferguson, and the "cheaper" players like Anita and Bigi. The sad truth is, without the silly money clubs we would both have qualified on merit for the CL this year. There's an argument that we would both have challenged for the title. With the silly money clubs, there are certain players that are simply out of reach, that beforehand might well have come to us (Oscar, Hazard, Aguero, even Dzeko ffs etc etc). As a result, we need to take the long view with the occasional punt. After all, for Berbatov there's a Bent, for Modric there's a Bentley. You have managed to pick up Cisse, Ben Arfa et al without having to gamble too much money. When you have a stronger squad you might be in a position to take more of a punt. The bottom line is, unless FFP has teeth we're pissing in the wind.

Magedia US

To be honest, it's not even funny. It's one of the main reasons they're now a damn good club. Constantly rip people off. Imagine if we still had Graham Carr too...

Hang on a minute, is this "Sky Sports understands"? All bets are off.

Easing him in apparently. The story is that he rested some players who had games midweek, and that's why VDV was on the bench too: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/spurs-fan-van-der-vaart-vertonghen-feature-belgium-181500130.html I suspect he'd like to give him a home debut too. AVB does seem pretty hot on details.

I dunno. I'd like another kid in from somewhere as we haven't got any more coming through, but we have Kaboul, Vertonghen, Gallas and Caulker. Compares favourably to most others I think.

I mean, I'd rather keep him as back-up and all, but Jesus.

Yeah that's the issue. But like I said, it's as if they're paying us 10M in instalments. It's as if they're simply paying us 5M to take him off their hands, and they might be saving that in offsetting amortisation over the last two years of his contract. I don't know why they didn't structure it as a free transfer tbh. This way is just... messy, suspicious and stinks of corruption An equivalent reduction in transfer fee would be the wages Citeh will pay Adebayor over the length of the new contract. Unless the contract is long enough to put Spurs at a profit on the purchase :lol: Well, we're not exactly at a profit because from our point of view we're just paying 5M plus 80K a week. All it does is offset City's costs for FFP, as Dave so succinctly put it. We're at a profit if you think we actually should be paying 175K a week for him.

If they take Jenas and Rose I will die laughing.

From which perspective? If you mean that you're waiting to find out if you qualify so that you can spend all that extra loot, then you'll be sorely disappointed It wouldn't cover half a Dawson. As your man says, there really isn't a lot of money in it (http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/newcastle-boss-alan-pardew-hits-1268823). However, if you're waiting to find out if you need to strengthen the squad, then you probably need to strengthen it anyway. I think it's waiting to find out whether we need to strengthen further or not. Qualification could also mean off-setting clauses in targets' contracts, or maybe the targets themselves want to make sure we're in Europe before committing. There's a lot we don't know about how transfers work and why, but I reckon European qualification is a milestone after which we'll see some movement. I sincerely don't think we're leaving it all for deadline day, so my theory makes the most sense I agree, I don't think for one second that any buying club actually wants to leave it till deadline day. I mean, brinkmanship is all well and good, but there's far too much at stake. There are loads of people on Spurs sites who feel it's a deliberate ploy by Levy, but honestly, everyone wants to get their players embedded in the squad before even pre-season. I also agree with you on the contract front - some clauses may well kick in - but I remain to be convinced how much of an attraction the Europa Cup is to prospective players. I mean, UEFA have made such an almighty pig's ear of the whole competition.

Yeah that's the issue. But like I said, it's as if they're paying us 10M in instalments. It's as if they're simply paying us 5M to take him off their hands, and they might be saving that in offsetting amortisation over the last two years of his contract.

I get that. So why is everyone so pissed off then? Surely we're the fools for paying 80K a week (our new highest earner, in all likelihood).

We don't know yet, not confirmed on the site.

I have seriously considered walking away from football over the last couple of years. Chelsea were bad enough, but now I live in the US and have kids, so I'm somewhat removed. The whole thing just makes me feel sad.

I would have thought Pienaar, Mirallas, Rodellaga (for free), Gunter and Kyle Bartley would have been suitable (although Pienaar was obviously only going to Everton). Fair point though. There is a massive gap between the big boys and the rest - just look at all the players we have supposedly been going for and their eventual destinations/wages/fees.

It will be interesting to see how this shows up. Thing is, Citeh shouldn't have signed that ludicrous contract in the first place. If this is true (and it seems to be broadly accepted) then who else are they going to sell him to? They simply had to get him off the books, and that 175K per week would work out at around 8-9M a year. I think he had two years left on his contract, so they would have paid out around 17M or so, for no return. As it is, 95K per week works out at, what, 10M over the length of his contract. They save 7M, and get 5M from us (I can't be bothered to work out the amortisation stuff). They also get to pretend that they're making reasonable moves to address FFP. Why didn't you go in for him? Why weren't there other clubs beating City's door down? Genuine question btw. I can't see him not playing against them, we hold his registration. It's as if City are giving us a downpayment of 10M spread over two years. In other words, you could say that we are buying him, paying him 80K pw, and they are paying us 5M. Hee hee.

From which perspective? If you mean that you're waiting to find out if you qualify so that you can spend all that extra loot, then you'll be sorely disappointed It wouldn't cover half a Dawson. As your man says, there really isn't a lot of money in it (http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/newcastle-boss-alan-pardew-hits-1268823). However, if you're waiting to find out if you need to strengthen the squad, then you probably need to strengthen it anyway.

How much money do you reckon you have available for transfer/wages etc? Just idle curiosity. Do you reckon you have enough to get both Carroll and Debuchy? No clue on money. All that I believe is that we are determined not to run at a loss, and even that you'd suspect has a bit of flexibility if a an incoming or outgoing deal stuck us as too tempting. I would say, barring further sales, it would be one more permanent signing (no idea who, but presumably a striker or full back), and if Carroll does return it would have to be as a loan (initially at least). Yeah, that was my guess. Without a window on the money for this year, I'd expect both of us to be sell-to-buy or thereabouts.

How much money do you reckon you have available for transfer/wages etc? Just idle curiosity. Do you reckon you have enough to get both Carroll and Debuchy?