Hughesy

As if he was that bad today.... seriously get some fucking perspective.

Looks pretty good. Better than I'd hoped.

That is so remarkably wrong. He wasn't even close to potentially being one of the most gifted players this country has seen. Do feel sorry for him though.

Sunderland look terrible..

9th

We are struggling to get one striker in never mind two. Even if we sold Lovenkrands - we wouldn't need 2 more strikers.

ITAT is an appropriate name for Sports Direct to sell through..

See oldtype + the thousands of Newcastle supporters in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia etc. I don't think there are that many fans out in Asia from my experiences there. Enough, but not nearly in the same league as your Liverpools and Man Utds.

Got no objections to Shola being 3rd or 4th choice for a bit.

That game was ridiculous. I think it was about 40 shots on goal. Wonder if that is a PL record?

Would be pretty happy if we got Pavlyuchenko. Much better player than he is given credit for.

I am bit confused - I thought you want him to stay? Surely if you want him to stay, you should be delighted at what Hurst has said? Or are you just upset at poor little Joey's reputation being besmirched?

Is there some sort of website where you can find out someone's market value? Sounds incredibly useful this whole 'market value' thing. We should tell more people about it.

Can't disagree with a word of that.

Is Hughesy an anagram for Derek? I suppose I shouldn't bite - but seriously - is that the best you've got?

Course not, but agents can be prone to exaggerating in the media to achieve what they want. No idea whether £40k a week is what he's worth, what he should be paid, too much or too little. All football wages are mental. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that means we should pay every player whatever it takes to get them. Do you? Would we be having this debate if we'd offered him 50k, or 60k? Just seems like a discussion that's purely subjective. Say we've offered him the same as Cabaye is on, that seems fair to me. If we genuinely want a player then we have to pay what is necessary, both to satisfy his club and the player (plus his agent I guess). What that figure actually is, and what other players like Cabaye are on is totally irrelevant; each is its own case. If we want him, we'll have to pay what it takes. If it's too much for us, the transfer simply isn't happening. This is apparently the player's agent, how often do you hear agents come out with reactions like this? It's not common to deride an offer like this. He claims we've known what he's on for some time. Perhaps foolishly I assume Llambias can operate Google and knows his current club is in the Champions League and has far better prospects than us. To therefore not offer somewhere near what it takes to get him is just stupid. Like we did for Owen, Duff, Geremi etc etc. Don't get me wrong - offering less than someone is on is stupid. But we shouldn't pay whatever a player asks for and should be within our wage structure. Ignoring the debate over whether a wage cap is a good thing or not, if our structure is that rigid then we should know within one or two phonecalls whether players are going to be attainable or not. We shouldn't even be wasting time and resources scouting them. Again, there's simply no excuse after all this time. Oh, and that's an interesting set of names you mention considering one was signed by Ashley and one was supposedly offered the biggest contract in NUFC history... by Ashley. Once again, if we have so much trust in our scouting team to deliver value for money, we should be willing to back his judgement. I am not denying that some ridiculous contracts had been offered by Ashley. Clearly though, there has been a shift towards a wage structure. Like it or not, that is what we are operating under. So just offering what a player wants is: a) never going to happen; and b) slightly stupid anyway. I do, however, agree with your point re backing our scouting team.

Course not, but agents can be prone to exaggerating in the media to achieve what they want. No idea whether £40k a week is what he's worth, what he should be paid, too much or too little. All football wages are mental. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that means we should pay every player whatever it takes to get them. Do you? Would we be having this debate if we'd offered him 50k, or 60k? Just seems like a discussion that's purely subjective. Say we've offered him the same as Cabaye is on, that seems fair to me. If we genuinely want a player then we have to pay what is necessary, both to satisfy his club and the player (plus his agent I guess). What that figure actually is, and what other players like Cabaye are on is totally irrelevant; each is its own case. If we want him, we'll have to pay what it takes. If it's too much for us, the transfer simply isn't happening. This is apparently the player's agent, how often do you hear agents come out with reactions like this? It's not common to deride an offer like this. He claims we've known what he's on for some time. Perhaps foolishly I assume Llambias can operate Google and knows his current club is in the Champions League and has far better prospects than us. To therefore not offer somewhere near what it takes to get him is just stupid. Like we did for Owen, Duff, Geremi etc etc. Don't get me wrong - offering less than someone is on is stupid. But we shouldn't pay whatever a player asks for and should be within our wage structure.

At least it sounds like he is at least entertaining the idea of coming to us... if we offer him the money he wants.

Never quite get the view on agents - yes some of them might be complete pains, but in reality footballers do need someone to represent them and negotiate contracts on their behalf (as well as sponsorship, endorsements etc etc) and that person is always going to charge for that service. To be honest, I don't know why more players don't use lawyers (who have a professional code of conduct that regulates them and normally charge by the hour as opposed to receiving a percentage of wages or transfer fees etc) to be honest.

Surprised he is on £40k a week at Leverkusen.

If you were a multi-million pound footballer, would you want to be lugging around a rifle in some god-forsaken corner of the Korean wilderness for two years at age 35, being commanded by kids literally half your age? Doing any kind of miltary service at all wouldn't be ideal.. I suppose I just thought it might be better that way as at least he could then have an uninterrupted career.

What are the problems with him taking option 3? Why is that much worse?

The realisation might be setting in that few, if any, clubs think Barton is quite as good as he thinks he is.

Nice fact statement. Alan Smith has 281 PL appearances.

Yes because I know each and every manager and football staff personally. So what is your opinion based on? FM?