Hughesy

Dave has already brought it to the thread that player trading is excluded, pointless, irrelevant, redundant point. Carr & Pardew present the targets and clearly think they're worth the investment, hence him getting regularly p*ssed off when for whatever reason a deal isn't done for their targets. The football people identify the targets, the finance people do the deal, what is the wrong player? Is Debuchy the wrong player? A French International who is 10 times the player Simpson is but won't cost 10 x in £. If you're that intrigued I'm sure google will help you and it'll be able to clarify if it was £7m or £9m if it that much of an issue, there are Pardew quotes. Why is player trading redundant? Regardless of whether someone thinks player trading specifically is redundant, our overall financial situation is not redundant. I am sure one of the resident accountants can highlight the losses we have made over the last 5-10 years. One year of breaking even does not eradicate historic losses. Evidence for Pardew getting pissed off when deals are done for targets? I haven't seen him making any comments in the media - he seems generally to be pretty sensible about our transfer dealings and accepts the financial situation and recruitment strategy as it stands.

Add 15th August 2012 to that, where were we on 15th August 2012? Seriously, somebody mentions a period of years and you want to know where we were for a month. We'd be 8th in the table. What's your point?

Far too many of our fans have a very small time attitude now imo. Happy to exist in mid table financial stability and anything else is a bonus. The club like to perpetuate it too. "Please don't take our players, pretty please?" It isn't a 'small time attitude' to acknowledge that there are at least 5 or 6 teams that can afford to spend substantially more than us. It isn't a 'small time attitude' to acknowledge that in order to compete with these clubs on any level we need to be run on a sensible financial basis. More than that regularly outspend us, we're 19th in net spend in the last 5 years, yet we finished 5th last year. We're ran sensibly and adding a RB, CB cover and Striker could all be done for the same amount of money they've had in failed bids already. This defeatist and apologist attitude is exactly what people are talking about. You've got to add a bit of context to what you are saying. We were in a terrible financial position not very long ago. That seems to have been forgotten. We still can't afford to spend large amounts of money. Personally I would have liked us to have added more players this transfer window so we could have made an extra push towards 4th place, but I would much rather get the right players in at the right price than take gambles on players that aren't right for us. In addition, for someone who is so keen on the net spend issue - could you let me know where we were in the 'NET SPEND TOTALISER' for January 2012? Context is we're not in a terrible financial position, we've returned to profit, we can afford to spend large sums of money (by our standards) as our failed bids are proof of. They've put aside quite a substantial amount of money judging by the failed bids to strengthen, I just hope some of it used to strenghten our weaknesses, I don't care how much it is, we can clearly afford it or they wouldn't have been in for them in the first place. We spent a whopping £7m in January didn't we? Held back from from the Carroll sale some 12 Months prior. A little bit of invention, a little bit of ambition and we might have as good a season as we did last Year. So as soon as we break even (mainly due player sales), you want us to start spending larger amounts again?? You do realise that we were running at a loss for years before that? Do you think those losses don't count or something? Re the failed bids - yes, it looks like we have been prepared to spend money on players. But crucially, it is the right money on the right players. If Carr and Pardew don't think that there is a right back out there worth the money that is being asked for them, what is the point in buying the wrong player just for the sake of it? It doesn't make any sense, business, footballing or otherwise. I think we can assume the Cisse purchase was nearer 9 million to be honest - but I still am intrigued to know who spent more?

To be honest, it's probably the same people who were able to foresee that getting rid of Nolan and Barton and acquiring the likes of Cabaye and Ba was a step in the right direction as opposed to running round prophesying disaster and gloom. So I know who I am more inclined to agree with.

Far too many of our fans have a very small time attitude now imo. Happy to exist in mid table financial stability and anything else is a bonus. The club like to perpetuate it too. "Please don't take our players, pretty please?" It isn't a 'small time attitude' to acknowledge that there are at least 5 or 6 teams that can afford to spend substantially more than us. It isn't a 'small time attitude' to acknowledge that in order to compete with these clubs on any level we need to be run on a sensible financial basis. More than that regularly outspend us, we're 19th in net spend in the last 5 years, yet we finished 5th last year. We're ran sensibly and adding a RB, CB cover and Striker could all be done for the same amount of money they've had in failed bids already. This defeatist and apologist attitude is exactly what people are talking about. You've got to add a bit of context to what you are saying. We were in a terrible financial position not very long ago. That seems to have been forgotten. We still can't afford to spend large amounts of money. Personally I would have liked us to have added more players this transfer window so we could have made an extra push towards 4th place, but I would much rather get the right players in at the right price than take gambles on players that aren't right for us. In addition, for someone who is so keen on the net spend issue - could you let me know where we were in the 'NET SPEND TOTALISER' for January 2012?

Far too many of our fans have a very small time attitude now imo. Happy to exist in mid table financial stability and anything else is a bonus. The club like to perpetuate it too. "Please don't take our players, pretty please?" It isn't a 'small time attitude' to acknowledge that there are at least 5 or 6 teams that can afford to spend substantially more than us. It isn't a 'small time attitude' to acknowledge that in order to compete with these clubs on any level we need to be run on a sensible financial basis.

For all this talk about their front 4, I am not sure I would pick any of them in our starting line up. Decent players by all means, but not players I would fear.

That sentence could be read very differently.

he would be a great signing.. which would make it that much more painful.

I reckon we'd only sell for around £20-25 million and I can't see that being offered.

The floaty cross, like the one Ba scored from last week? His crossing is terrible. One cross that indirectly leads to a goal isn't going to change my mind on that one. It's the inability to actually attack his opposite full back with any kind of pace or guile that more annoys me. Just slows down the attack so much.

If I see Simpson get the ball in the opposition half in acres of space, proceed to shuffle along until both the opposition full back and winger have had time to close him down and then put in one of his floaty crosses...

What is most frustrating is that we are on the cusp of having a very very good squad, but as always seems to be the way with NUFC, we never seem to push on and bolster the squad to take us to that next level (see SBR and the Bowyer season and to a certain extent the selling of Ferdinand). If you bought debuchy, a centre half and a back up striker, we really would have an exceptionally good squad, one that could genuinely push the top 4.

Should have been an indirect freekick and a booking. That rule is ridiculously vague.

Don't forget being interviewed by the press. Particularly disgraceful.

Not sure how people who don't like London manage to meet these horrifically unpleasant people. Maybe I am just used to it (or indeed one of those unpleasant people) but I can't say I have seen much evidence of this phenomenon.

As if he shoots because the crowd tells him to..

Should have picked Nathan, wont get many points for a Leicester player....... Oops...

Exactly. It's f***ing rank. Of course we're deluded for wanting the c*** ran out of town after a few months of it. Tell me about it. The thick c***s on Sky's saturday afternoon thing we moaning on about how Villa fans didn't give McLeish a chance, how he did an ok job. Offensive bullshit. He didn't get any serious crowd stick till about March, for starters. Houllier got much worse than that. Football punditry is essentially a closed shop of former pros who do nothing but stick up for other former pros. Didn't see MOTD, but I thought I saw some comment on the Guardian that Hansen has immediately ripped into Rodgers and the Liverpool defence after the first game of the season, yet hardly had a bad word to say about Dalglish all season?

Lloyd Dyer on the bench... nightmare.

I think he is ok at centre half actually. He uses the ball well out of defence and alongside a more dominant partner (ie Colo or maybe Saylor) he looks a lot more solid.

Bare bones is a bit dramatic, Williamson did plenty good enough last year. Sure, he's not amazing but he's a solid Premier League player like Simpson. The other thing to bear in mind (particularly considering our manager's comments recently about controlling the midfield being key) is that we've just added another apparently strong and technically excellent central midfielder to the squad. Just having Tiote in the last few years has transformed our fortunes, and that improved further with Cabaye. If we can get the three of them into the same side somehow, the pressure on the defence should lessen. Don't forget Perchinho.

Hopefully not posted already: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/aug/16/manchester-city-player-statistics

May have been posted already - but one of the better Secret Footballer columns in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/aug/10/secret-footballer-undercover-premier-league

As well as his history with shearer. All in all - a bit of an odd bloke to work out. Find his eulogising about SBR a bit difficult to take as well given the way Bellamy treated Robson.