Hughesy

I would genuinely have rather seen Perch playing there instead of Henderson.

Was that a 'everyone on this forum said Terry was awful' or 'he played really great'? I was more referring to tv pundits rather than here. Wasn't on forum last night so don't know what people said. I thought Terry was quality last night. Fair enough - I thought he was awful. He was alright at the usual last ditch defending and heading the ball away, but I thought his positioning and decision making was very poor.

Was that a 'everyone on this forum said Terry was awful' or 'he played really great'? I was more referring to tv pundits rather than here. Wasn't on forum last night so don't know what people said.

Probably going to be pilloried for this, but I actually thought Milner played reasonably well yesterday. Would have taken Young off (regardless of penalty miss) way before Milner. Not quite sure why no-one seemed to pick up on how dreadful Terry was. Embarrassing to watch him at times.

Then why come into the pet hates thread, when the majority of people on this forum dislike most pundits and commentators?? It was slightly tongue in cheek to be honest - but surely my footballing pet hate of people complaining about commentators is as valid as a pet hate that actually complains about commentators?? In addition, I am not sure that it follows that I shouldn't come into a football pet hates thread because I don't get worked up about pundits and commentators?? Well my pet hate is of people who's pet hate is that of people who's pet hates are against commentator's pronunciation of players. That should - 'Well my pet hate is people whose pet hate is that of people whose pet hates are against commentators' pronuncation of players' names.' And that also isn't my pet hate. It works on many more levels than that. It applies to commentators AND pundits...

Then why come into the pet hates thread, when the majority of people on this forum dislike most pundits and commentators?? It was slightly tongue in cheek to be honest - but surely my footballing pet hate of people complaining about commentators is as valid as a pet hate that actually complains about commentators?? In addition, I am not sure that it follows that I shouldn't come into a football pet hates thread because I don't get worked up about pundits and commentators??

My footballing pet hate is people endlessly banging on about how awful commentators and pundits are.

Which half of the squad are dickheads? I was going through the squad yesterday trying to work out how many of them are truly objectionable and came up with Terry, Cole and Gerrard. And I have a grudging respect for Cole and Gerrard. So actually, bar Terry, I don't think the players that 'hateable'. Sure Downing and Henderson are rubbish - but their lack of ability doesn't make me think they are twats.

Stewart Downing?

http://www.soccerbase.com/players/player.sd?player_id=55986 Cheers.

His goalscoring record in the league for Twente is better than 1 in 2. True, but think about how prolific other have been in the Dutch league. I was almost expecting closer to a goal a game. Don't know why we're bothering. Not really my point - I haven't seen him play and was merely trying to ascertain if he has more than just goals to his game. Holland is undeniably a fairly 'easy' league to score in.

Jesus - all I did was read on wikipedia that he had scored 39 goals in 76 games for Twente. Just thought he might have stats more like Van Nistelrooy, Kezman, Alves etc..

His goalscoring record in the league for Twente is better than 1 in 2. True, but think about how prolific other have been in the Dutch league. I was almost expecting closer to a goal a game.

He hasn't been as prolific in Holland as I'd thought he had. Is he more a creative player than a pure goalscorer?

How good is he? What type of striker is he - can he be compared to a Premiership striker?

I find watching football at home a proper luxury, hopefully will be staying in for it. Going to the pub is what I do when the match is on Sky. I'm a loser, basically. Exactly the same - except that I have Sky, so I rarely bother going to the pub to watch any games..

This. Was thinking the other day how the only years I was really enthusiastic about England was from Italia 90 to probably Euro 2000. After Shearer retired, I never really felt the same enthusiasm. Remember watching the Italia 90 video endlessly when I was young and trying to recreate Platt's volley against Belgium in the garden...

I didn't say that we should match offers from other clubs. I do think that we brought him in on the cheap and he's had a very good season so we might have to look at doing something with his contract which we do seem to be doing. He's our player and he's said many times that he's happy here so we should have a good chance of working something out as long as we don't make him feel that he's being taken for granted. Agree with the sentiment, but I am not sure how, even if we left things as they were, Ba could justifiably feel like he was being taken for granted.

Are Man United a feeder club for Real Madrid? I mean.. they sold Ronaldo, Beckham and Van Nistelrooy to Madrid, so that must make them a feeder club.

Genuinely don't quite understand why we aren't in the market for another striker anyway. We can't go through a season with only Cisse, Ba and Ameobi. Even if Best doesn't go, we should be looking to sign another striker.

France at 12-1 with their squad is surely the value bet of the Euros.

Never scored 20 league goals in one season in his entire career.

so have we insured him or not ? As Roger says I assume. Obviously I don't know for a fact, but I can't see an insurance company insuring a £7m signing (see Stoke transfer). And if they do, I assume the premiums would be huge. I reckon Ashley knows this and probably assumes that the list of clubs willing to take a chance on Demba isn't quite as long as the media and/or Demba's agents would like to make out. He is therefore unwilling to up Demba's already pretty decent salary after a good 1/2 to 2/3s of a season. Again, how relevant is this? I imagine the premium for insuring professional footballer's wages and "value" is prohibitive in any case. Why would millionaire/billionaire owners of football clubs insure their assets per se when they know they only people making money from this is the insurance companies. If you have 30 professional players on the payroll you will always have one or two serious injuries. I imagine football clubs can do their own risk management when it comes to this without having to rely on handing over huge insurance premiums. So you don't think that clubs take out insurance policies on their players ie their most valuable assets? I can't believe that a club would spend millions of pounds on a player and agree a contract to pay him millions of pounds and then not take out insurance. With Ba - I don't know if he is uninsurable or just that the premiums for a player with a degenerative knee problem are just very high. Again, the risk of taking Ba on a free and possibly not insuring him/or paying higher premiums are not nearly the same as a club buying Ba for 7m and paying wages in excess of 50k a week. I could be wrong on all this - but it seems to me to be common sense.

Again I am not 100% certain - but I can't believe that a club would spend millions of pounds on an uninsured asset that could be worth nothing. After having paid £7m in transfer fees and then, for example, £15m in wages... you would want some sort of insurance. It's probably explained in the accounts.

so have we insured him or not ? As Roger says I assume. Obviously I don't know for a fact, but I can't see an insurance company insuring a £7m signing (see Stoke transfer). And if they do, I assume the premiums would be huge. I reckon Ashley knows this and probably assumes that the list of clubs willing to take a chance on Demba isn't quite as long as the media and/or Demba's agents would like to make out. He is therefore unwilling to up Demba's already pretty decent salary after a good 1/2 to 2/3s of a season.