Odear

Aside from Tim Krul having a very bad injury, is he really that bad of a stopper? He's better than Darlow and Elliott. Perhaps Rafa wants to run the rule over him in early pre season before making a decision.

His confidence has taken a battering over the last few seasons. A huge gamble to have him in hoping he rediscovers his form. Could cost many a point

Well once Graham Carr decided he had to go his own way, there has been plenty of rumours about who would replace him. Rafa has obviously decided to recruit up the chain and promote this young man after a landslide vote to the job of his dreams. Best of luck Stevie Nicks on

didn't we spend ~£80 last summer and jan, get relegated, sell ~£80m in players but at the same time as spending ~£50m on new ones for the champo leaving a ~£30m profit? that's how i recall it 87m from sales. 57m spent on players. Although because Spurs haven't paid the balance of the 30m yet the club would have essentially broken even in terms of cash in the bank. I really think this could be a factor in the hold up this summer. do you know the terms of the sissoko deal like? i always thought it was standard for most clubs to spread the fee over contract length so around £6m a season or whatever I read about it before. They paid a nominal fee up front. Like 5 million, the rest was to be paid a year later. I can't see them going for several instalments, we needed money last summer to fund the transfers and keep the club going. We got 30m from Spurs but there was also 28 million on the table from Madrid, they could easily have taken that so my guess is the terms of the Spurs deal were favourable. 25m is a nice lump sum to get just as we begin our recruitment drive. It's not insignificant either. I have a feeling Rafas budget is closer to 40/50 million so this could amount to half our chest.

didn't we spend ~£80 last summer and jan, get relegated, sell ~£80m in players but at the same time as spending ~£50m on new ones for the champo leaving a ~£30m profit? that's how i recall it 87m from sales. 57m spent on players. Although because Spurs haven't paid the balance of the 30m yet the club would have essentially broken even in terms of cash in the bank. I really think this could be a factor in the hold up this summer.

What's surprising me about this window is that we're one of two teams that have been linked with William Carvalho. The other is City, who lets face it could have bought him by now if they wanted. Really would have thought Spurs and Man Utd would be in for him, or Liverpool to a lesser degree.

You're all cunts and everything is fine ?

It's also becoming clear as day that Rafa isn't being backed as he should be. Why did he not take a holiday again? Something to do with being able to get things sorted out in good time before pre-season no? Pure speculation. He might just not like holidays. Or he's sitting in a caravan right now with a couple of fellow naturists in Sandy Bay, with Mrs Benitez cooking up a fry before naked twister tequila night begins later on.

Rafa gave his statement and said enjoy the summer... what do people on here and twitter do? Keep hitting the refresh button for some bad news that will never arrive... The press have shown themselves up to be utterly clueless. Lee Ryder in particular.. tweeted that this was all bullshit but then goes and runs the story anyway. Why? He's either putting the article up knowing full well it was bullshit.. or he's showing himself up to be clueless by tweeting that this was all bollocks when he hadn't got a clue to begin with. I say it's the former. They're playing us like a fucking fiddle.. just use your brains. Ads.. revenue for clicks etc. Yes we're all disappointed we haven't signed 7 players by now. But if someone could list every player we've been linked with since the end of the season it would be clear as day they are all talking bollocks. We're a business model for these journalists who at the end of the day answer to revenue reports and not journalistic integrity.. and the hysteria on here must be like the fucking gravy train for them.

:lol: f*** sake. Shameless

Retard Therapy Group

Agree with everything other than them having a good season. We know well that the top half of the clubs in the championship are in reasonably good shape. They are far from it. The money they've brought in will disappear into a black hole.. they'd be needing to spend about 30 million to stand a chance of being promoted. I think mid table would be a result for them, but the knock on effect of another season out of the PL could have them in serious trouble (if finances are as bad as reported) Grayson is about as good as they could have hoped for. He could well reshape them into a solid team if given enough time.

Depends, If they sell him they don't have to pay anything Nonsense. We mugged them on the price but they delayed the bulk of their payment until this summer. And Yedlin and Townsend are not in the equation. We made a profit on Townsend somehow. These funds due to come in could be anywhere between 15-50% of our transfer budget this summer, so the timing of when that payment is due could be a cause for a delay in players coming in. Yedlin and Townsend are part of the equation. We owed Spurs money for both. Well Townsend was only part of that equation for 6 months, we sold him to Palace before Spurs bought Sissoko. I'll accept Yedlin could be part of it.. but essentially, what we paid Spurs for him was paid for with the first instalment of the Sissoko deal. They still owe us about 25 million

Depends, If they sell him they don't have to pay anything Nonsense. We mugged them on the price but they delayed the bulk of their payment until this summer. And Yedlin and Townsend are not in the equation. We made a profit on Townsend somehow. These funds due to come in could be anywhere between 15-50% of our transfer budget this summer, so the timing of when that payment is due could be a cause for a delay in players coming in.

Can't check right now but pretty sure he knows Rafa quite well. A quick look at his other tweets sees a pattern of arriving late to non stories.

When we sold Sissoko, Spurs paid a small first instalment and are due to pay the balance this summer... when is that supposed to go through?

Finally someone talking sense. The masses on here won't have any of it though.. "there MUST be a crisis" I accept your point, but the landscape of the club has changed since Benitez has been here. Mike Ashley simply cannot throw his weight around because we have a world class manager who doesn't need to be here. How expensive is it going to be to settle a constructive dismissal case if he were really fucking around? None of it adds up, I think the press know that of all the clubs we're probably the most intense when it comes to wanting to know what happens. It's click bait rubbish that they have already backtracked on. Please refrain from this bollocks. The 'masses' just aren't naive enough to think that it's out of the question. It's called learning from experience.

Finally someone talking sense. The masses on here won't have any of it though.. "there MUST be a crisis"

Most of the hyperbole seems to be on your part tbh. Explain yourself.

Even without making a couple of signings i think Benitez could keep us up, the hysteria is totally unfounded though. He's not here to just keep a club up by the skin of it's teeth.. if this was the case and that was all the club were hoping for, he would walk. He could get any number of jobs in CL clubs over the duration of the season. It would be nice if some of our supporters matured enough so that there isn't a meltdown if there's a few weeks of no significant news.

What? You're going to believe the Ashley hoop licking article instead of the ones that very obviously were leaked from the Rafa camp. They could of course both be true. Penfold is feeding back to Ashley that all is ok, Rafais p*ssed off and lets it known. Ashley gets p*ssed for being lied to. We've all seen employees telling the boss what they want to hear and not what they should hear You're overlooking a glaring question though, what would Charnley have to gain from not spending money that Mike has already sanctioned? It makes no sense.

Where has Ashley said this? He hasn't. But that's not stopping the media running with the story. The same way there was no quotes from Rafa about his "frustration" My point is that the press are fucking clueless and seemingly a lot of people on here are easily led.

Pardew, Carver and Kinnear say hi. Not giving us a team to be proud of makes him a cunt, not thick. Very naive to mix up his vindictive nature with a lack of intelligence.

It's happened often enough so I can't blame the tinfoil hat brigade to be out in force on this one but there really isn't anything to worry about. Ashley isn't thick enough to have a full scale riot on his hands if Rafa was to walk.

I don't think Rafa leaked anything. Journos had nothing to write about so make up a nonsense article, and the rest follow.. then suddenly it's a story. There's nothing in this. If the club were really fucking with him, it would be breach of a very solid contract.. he would have no qualms about leaving. Now not commenting on bullshit reports is another thing. He never put this out there though.. the reporters involved don't have nearly enough access to be "in the know"