Hughesy

Exactly. This is the problem though, we have sections of the fans who are very naive, and think Football is just Premier Manger 98 on the Playstation. In fairness - we didn't exactly see the fruits of that connection did we? Can hardly blame ppl for thinking that it was a senseless move. You don't need to loan players to break into the South American market....

Would love Kevin-Prince Boateng and Anthony Annan here! Vittek btw is pretty awful (despite the 3 goals he's scored at the world cup so far). He wasn't good enough für Nurenberg. And they are an awful club. And I really really don't think we need Boateng. We have enough of these kind of players in Barton and Carroll. We don't need another player who is "dangerous". Not that we'd ever get him...but how could you think we don't need someone like Boateng? He would offer a touch of class and creativity to our midfield. Would be a fantastic signing.

Are these Puma shirts meant to be tight fitting ones or does Lovenkrands just have very skinny arms?

Oh shit... did he pronounce something wrong? On live tv?? Shit - must mean he's a complete moron.

Heskey was one of our best players tonight. Never been a huge fan but his hold up play and link up play was brilliant. Much rather have him on the pitch than the flat track bully Defoe.

Ilan looked like a good player. If he is on a free, we should snap him up.

Fletcher to Wolves for 7.5 million apparently. (Skysports).

Bit of a difference between Redknapp and Mourinho...

Just to echo everyone else - Onuoha would be a fantastic purchase. Would be delighted if we got him.

On a footballing basis? Jenas is on a different level as a footballer to Ambrose.

Don't really why people think Villa would accept a figure of around £20 million for Milner. They bought him for 12-13 million - so it isn't as if the figure being bandied around represents anywhere near a large enough profit for a player who adds so much to their team.

Signing on fees are spread over the length of the contract - so it's not like you pay the player a lump sum of 500k upfront on the day he signs.

Couldn't work out what was going on in those scuffles. The bald guy did fly though... Was odd that it happened when it did though because it all seemed to have quietened down when the punches flew. Was good to see the QPR guy in the brown jumper get escorted out.

That's the most stupid thing I have ever read.

Not sure if this has been posted or not - Faye appears to be making friends at Stoke.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/apr/27/stoke-city-abdoulaye-faye-glenn-whelan

Really wasn't anywhere near as bad as people are making. Such nonsense spouted here sometimes.

Mike Hooper is a bouncer at Studio in Chester le Street. He's fuckig huge! I thought he 'bounced' in Durham.

Wolves would want a minimum of £10-12 million for Doyle, I reckon. Would be a bad buy at that kind of price.

Does seem a bit odd - but people seem to lap up the stories so... they probably don't care.

Gerrard also has a 16 year old lass pregnant apparently. Thats all from the same guy who broke the whole Terry/Bridge thing a week before anyone else. Theres always rumours about his missus being rattled by another bloke mind so i'm not too sure, she does look like she's a terrific slag though. About a month ago, I heard from someone who works at a tabloid newspaper that the papers have got a hell of a lot of Ashley Cole/Terry/Bridge type stories on England international footballers that they were planning to run in the build up to the World Cup. This vaguely fits in with this Gerrard runmour. We shall see..

Garrido isn't that.... oh never mind. Let's move on from Man City rejects.

As I pointed out earlier - not if City want to get rid of them. If City want to get rid, they will end up paying a percentage of the player's existing salary I imagine to facilitate their departure. It just depends on what wages we could actually offer over and above that.

On reflection - I am happy to admit that you are possibly right on that one. I am trying to remember how I felt when we bought Duff. Pretty convinced I wasn't happy about Smith, Butt and Geremi. Duff was probably the exception. Hard to judge without hindsight really. I suppose the distinction in my mind is that the players above were offloaded seemingly because they weren't good enough, whereas I regard some of the players that City are offloading as being offloaded simply because City just buy players on a seemingly random basis. Therefore, I suppose I think they will end up offloading players who still have something to offer and I see potential value there. As I said earlier - as a general rule I would advocate the purchase only of young and hungry players. I suppose I was making the distinction based on the fact that Petrov doesn't seem to have lost any pace (whereas it was clear that all the NUFC players above had) and seems very effective whenever I see him play. RSC just seems to have been a bit unlucky with injuries early on and then the fact that they bought Adebayor and Tevez.

I completely agree on the policy of buying players on the up. 100% behind that policy and I've always advocated it. In fact I've done it quite a lot in this very thread I think. However, I think that because City are quite unique since they have endless pots of cash to hoard good players, they will inevitably end up offloading good players who could do a job for us and are still in their 'prime'. I think there is a world of difference between buying someone like Geremi, Smith, Duff, Butt etc and getting someone like Santa Cruz or Petrov on loan - in terms of risk and the ability of the players. The reason I mentioned Santa Cruz was because you left him out of the players you stated wouldn't come to us and labelled the rest as crap. Therefore, I assumed you had lumped Santa Cruz in with the crap. All I will say in relation to Garrido is that he is far more likely to get games here than he is at City - so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he could move if he wanted to challenge for a place.

The ones we could afford would either sign for better sides or require too high wages. Wouldnt touch 75% of them with a 200 ft barge pole tbh I suspect City might be open to loan deals as well - so I personally wouldn't rule it out. Eh? What has City's loan policy got to do with what i posted? All I was suggesting was that some of the above players might be available on loan - therefore our risk is somewhat lessened if we were to get them for a year on loan. Yeah but as the majority on that list are utter crap and Robinho, Ireland, SWP wouldnt ever sign for us what does it matter how much risk there is when they wont help us or wont come? You'd be mad to turn down Santa Cruz on loan and I think Garrido would be pretty good cover/competition for Enrique if he was brought in on loan. I don't think Petrov on loan would be that bad. I agree that you shouldn't go near Vieira, Benjani or Johnson. Not sure about Caicedo - is he on loan at Sporting? Not sure how he has done there.