Interpolic

Eh? Using the search function? Aye, took me fucking ages.

And I'm off out again, so no replies from me for a few hours at least.

One minute you want us to avoid loans at all costs because it's wasted time and money and is against the transfer principles we've recently established. The next they're fine, no worries. It's almost as if you change your mind on a whim dependent on what Ashley does, and then agree with it. But that can't be the case I'm sure.

I love Billy Furious, he's one of the best NUFC-related writers going. It's not me though. He'll be considerably older than that True Geordie muppet as well.

Take that fucking back, of course he's not Billy Furious.

Btw you don't like loans anyway, you told me you'd prefer us to stick to our guns and only pay our valuation for permanent signings. Anything else is deviating from our principles. You've moved the goalposts to the fucking moon man, and you'll move them back to Earth when it suits you to, as long as the end result is a message of "We're areet man, we're improving slowly (probably too slowly for the naked eye[/pards]), we're in it for the long haul so judge us next transfer window" etc. All of this at a time when Shola Ameobi is still getting games for us, 10 years after his sell-by date, before which he was average at best.

No transfer activity whatsoever isn't moderation in any sense man, I'd be surprised if you were keeping a straight face.

It's actually the lack of a grey area that infuriates those arguing with Ashley apologists, of which you're most certainly one. Moderate investment please. Never happens. Always pinching pennies to ridiculous degrees at the detriment of the squad.

Did I say that? Yeah.

Suggesting the only alternative to the current scenario is going out and spending £200m in an attempt to win the league probably doesn't help your case.

He has already tbf - because we signed 5 players in January 2013, that's done the trick and any permanent signings in the following 2 windows would be a bit extravagant. Doesn't seem to matter that we've also removed numerous medium-to-high earners off the wage bill since Summer 2012.

"He's a manager we're aware of..." Poor Hughton's being Hughtoned.

I've seen some examples of clubs in recent years not letting their top players go unless they know they'll have a replacement tied up that window. Shame our hands are often tied and we can't generally do that though.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9170623/barcelonas-javier-mascherano-reveals-reason-behind-his-liverpool-departure

The player(s) who come in to replace Cabaye could do with a 4-month spell to settle in really, where they're not under pressure of relegation, etc. Shame we never luck out and find ourselves in that kind of scenario.

Ah reet, cheers.

Where you hearing that?

Pards does that too tbf, usually works like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUSpjZEhNU8

Did you see my post in the Ben Arfa thread? I've stuck it below. I seriously think this humming and harring causes us to tread water for painfully long stretches.

Fair.

I'm not sure whether/why it's acceptable to go half a season without adequate cover in important positions, and when you consider that (especially foreign) players often take time to settle in it's going to be a very long term strategy indeed if we continue doing this. We've already seen this situation a few times - waiting half a season while we got our shit together and/or wait for prices to go down, e.g. risking relegation in our first season back up by having Best/Ameobi/Lovenkrands/Kuqi as our forwards when Carroll left, or only buying Anita after we finished 5th when we most certainly needed more with a European campaign to contend with. We move at a snail's pace when it comes to transfers and it often hamstrings the team, causing us to plod along rather than push on and do anything remotely meaningful.

I wonder how good the EPL would be if England had an actual sports media. It's so bad here tbh. I can't think of one journalist/pundit I respect. The is version is streets ahead It sounds like no one with a TV gig watches a minute of our games. That's basically it, they do the bare minimum and watch what's on/big teams. Then peddle the latest cliche around "pardew is doing fine", I seem to recall one saying we were a threat from set pieces once A threat to the fans behind the goal and the players making up the wall. And to ourselves if i recall, we seemed to end up conceding from them we innovated the set piece Getting back to it, I saw something when that dude walked up to Pards and tried to give him his season ticket. The caption was like "They're 8th!" all incredulous that the fans would be this p*ssed off. I found it hilarious, tbh. How unaware of our team/play/last two seasons do you have to be to think we're overreacting. That's it, that's the rhetoric that's getting put out there constantly, so it becomes fact as people don't know/care enough about us. It's grim. The deadly bit of it is that we've probably got an owner that gets his opinions from TV. I'd honestly be surprised if he even watches football, I don't think he even likes it Comes to the games, sees a relatively full house. Looks at the table, not in the bottom three or top six, good enough. I genuinely think thats the case, I'm sure that latest article said he hadn't been to a game in like 6 months. Doesn't even live up here He's a glance owner. That's how Kinnear being terrible escaped his attention. Yeah basically hired him, fucked off somewhere. This next DOF hire (if he makes one) will determine if anything will ever happen for this team as long as he owns it. Get a football mind in that understands what the fanbase wants and we could probably accomplish something. it was pointless us even entering the cups as usual under this ownership. That boiled my piss. Not trying v Cardiff with 8th or 9th in the league all but guaranteed was criminal. For some reason everyone does it though. Saints rested players yesterday despite being in basically the same situation as us Well not everyone. Swansea and Wigan won the domestic trophies last year, the mackems are in a final and a quarter final this time. Countless other examples in recent times.

You tell him, mate.

I wonder how good the EPL would be if England had an actual sports media. It's so bad here tbh. I can't think of one journalist/pundit I respect. The is version is streets ahead It sounds like no one with a TV gig watches a minute of our games. That's basically it, they do the bare minimum and watch what's on/big teams. Then peddle the latest cliche around "pardew is doing fine", I seem to recall one saying we were a threat from set pieces once A threat to the fans behind the goal and the players making up the wall. And to ourselves if i recall, we seemed to end up conceding from them we innovated the set piece Getting back to it, I saw something when that dude walked up to Pards and tried to give him his season ticket. The caption was like "They're 8th!" all incredulous that the fans would be this p*ssed off. I found it hilarious, tbh. How unaware of our team/play/last two seasons do you have to be to think we're overreacting. That's it, that's the rhetoric that's getting put out there constantly, so it becomes fact as people don't know/care enough about us. It's grim. The deadly bit of it is that we've probably got an owner that gets his opinions from TV. I'd honestly be surprised if he even watches football, I don't think he even likes it Comes to the games, sees a relatively full house. Looks at the table, not in the bottom three or top six, good enough. I genuinely think thats the case, I'm sure that latest article said he hadn't been to a game in like 6 months. Doesn't even live up here He's a glance owner. That's how Kinnear being terrible escaped his attention. Yeah basically hired him, fucked off somewhere. This next DOF hire (if he makes one) will determine if anything will ever happen for this team as long as he owns it. Get a football mind in that understands what the fanbase wants and we could probably accomplish something. Unfortunately I think we're far beyond the point where this factor or that factor will affect matters to any great degree, or believing that there is still any mystery or doubt about the owner's ambitions for us. This season we got to 30-odd points and thought it job done and it was pointless us even entering the cups as usual under this ownership. There is no desire to push on, rather to plod along. That's it. We'll have to sign a number of players this summer just to stand still, due to numerous players leaving already/soon and the wilful negligence of the squad's needs for 2 transfer windows running. Sadly I don't even have much faith in Ashley to do that bare minimum in the summer, he loves leaving the squad short when he believes he can get away with doing so.