Jack Flash

What exactly were we looking forward to in 2007 when we were insolvent, had borrowed against every asset, our owners weren't going to put any money in and we had Allardyce as our manager? People do seem to judge the previous regime only based on the Champions League years. It's another stick to hit Ashley with so it'll be wheeled out when convenient.

http://twitter.com/#!/GaryTrowsdale Can people with twitter either ask him to clarify or tear him to pieces? Either is cool.

Selling their best players, not winning a trophy in ages, notorious bottlers, nice stadium and a grey haired philanderer at the helm. We're the Danny Devito to their Arnold Schwarzenegger.

http://www.nufc.co.uk/articles/20101130/payments-to-agents-200910_2281670_2233721 If this figure is after signing about 10 players we surely can't have paid out too much more this summer?

Agreed on all counts. I'm sure Pardew himself said many times that January is the hardest time to buy players so they've obviously not consulted him on this.

I'm not one who demands we spend millions every window, but the more I hear about all these extra fees added on to transfers and contracts the more I despair. I can't remember a transfer window in the past where all this extra stuff was so important/expensive, nor can I remember a window where it was mentioned as much. Call me cynical but I can't help but feel they're being used as an excuse to try and appease us after we've been promised all that money will be spent.

Ultimately we've had six months to decide what to do with at least £30m of allegedly unexpected income, with the benefit of what some seem to say is the world's best scout and a manager who apparently has the full backing of his manager and the club owner. And yet here we are, with people happy to 'hope it allows us the ability to react to opportunities, if there are any'. If we're so hard up that we needed to sell our best striker and most promising talent for big money just to pay wages and to afford to bring in couple of free transfers, it makes you wonder if they'd fully intended on flogging Carroll all along. And if that is the case, who's next out of the door? Why are you taking the 'hope it allows us the ability to react to opportunities, if there are any' quote to task? Do you disagree with it? Do you disagree that having an influx of money might allow us to jump on unanticipated oportunities if they come up towards the end of a window, that we might not ordinarily be able to stretch to? If we've had a significant amount of money to spend for 8 months I'd have expected us to be finished our spending by the first game. Sounds great, and we are clearly trying to do that with players tied up before the window even opened, and the next signing in hopefully before we hit America according to Pards. But if we're prudent and a domino of transfers means a top player becomes available to us late in the window and we're able to stretch to him, that woldn't be a bad thing, right? It would be a good thing if he was a good player/good price etc, but I'd have hoped we wouldn't need to be doing this. We start with some hard games and ideally we should have our best players signed and ready for those games.

Ultimately we've had six months to decide what to do with at least £30m of allegedly unexpected income, with the benefit of what some seem to say is the world's best scout and a manager who apparently has the full backing of his manager and the club owner. And yet here we are, with people happy to 'hope it allows us the ability to react to opportunities, if there are any'. If we're so hard up that we needed to sell our best striker and most promising talent for big money just to pay wages and to afford to bring in couple of free transfers, it makes you wonder if they'd fully intended on flogging Carroll all along. And if that is the case, who's next out of the door? Why are you taking the 'hope it allows us the ability to react to opportunities, if there are any' quote to task? Do you disagree with it? Do you disagree that having an influx of money might allow us to jump on unanticipated oportunities if they come up towards the end of a window, that we might not ordinarily be able to stretch to? If we've had a significant amount of money to spend for 8 months I'd have expected us to be finished our spending by the first game.

Tiote's new contract and some new nets at the training ground.

And vice versa. wink wink.

Has this just been worded badly or have we spent the £35 million already?

Isn't he currently the backup left back? Either way, I doubt he'll start many games in midfield next year with the players ahead of him.

It's more things he has said in the past and been completely proven wrong about. "I promise Carroll wont leave", "All the money will be reinvested back into the team" etc. If Nolan's "comments" are true about how unhappy he was with Pardew not fighting for him then that's worrying too, as he's said in the past he wanted to keep him. It is the way it works, so why should we be the only ones playing it straight? Look around at the crap other clubs come out with. Example: Read what Levy said about Berbatov (and other players) leaving, he knew Berbatov was gone, it was purely designed to talk the price up. Look at the false outrage expressed when players (and managers) are tapped up by clubs that do exactly the same thing themselves. You could also read what Levy and Redknapp have said about Modric leaving and let's see where that one ends up. This is a multi million pound industry and people spout all sorts of shyte to get selling prices jacked up, players to perform, players to join their club, keep fans onside etc etc etc. It is what happens, it is an industry with no integrity and we have gone beyond any justification for moral outrage. That's all true, but it wasn't so long ago our owner and chairman were judged to have deliberately and repeatedly misled us in the past so I'm inclined to think it's a bit more serious than the stuff you mention. It might not be, but I find it very hard to trust them/Pardew.

Will it show up on the accounts how much of this money we've spent on the training ground? It must be a decent enough amount for him to be bringing it up.

It's more things he has said in the past and been completely proven wrong about. "I promise Carroll wont leave", "All the money will be reinvested back into the team" etc. If Nolan's "comments" are true about how unhappy he was with Pardew not fighting for him then that's worrying too, as he's said in the past he wanted to keep him.

Agree with myself. Kept his cards very close to his chest as expected, but that's probably because he knows very little about the important issues we want to know about. Well you were right, but the reason behind it is still pure assumption. I think there are enough reasons to believe he's in the dark about some important things. One caller accusing him of "management speak" or something in relation to the Carroll money© was a fairly astute comment.

Agree with myself. Kept his cards very close to his chest as expected, but that's probably because he knows very little about the important issues we want to know about.

He'll say the right things but he's completely unbelievable now. He clearly doesn't know as much about transfers/the club as he claims.

We don't NEED a new winger but we do need a new striker so I assume we'd be prioritizing?

I didn't mean they were "playing against each other" in that regard, just that Barton was much more influential in the games.

tbf to Barton, in the 2 times they played each other this season there was only one winner. Same with Parker, though he is very much in demand so his "in a different league" comment is rather embarrassing considering Barton's current position.

And yet not 1 offer to buy him...

Or that we haven't had any offers for Barton and probably wouldn't be able to get rid of him even if we wanted to?

N'Zogbia out, SWP in They must know that's an awful swap. They must.

Comparing the last Arsenal match to the next one we should have Cabaye, Ben Arfa and Ba in for Nolan, Lovenkrands and Best plus a much stronger bench. 5-4 this time.