Clear the Air Talks ?

[NE5]

i don't think there's a set criteria for trophy signings, but my interpretation is that we sign big names, often for big money, in place of genuine team building, to compensate for our lack of real trophies. Owen, Kluivert, even Duff, probably fit into this, Martins might do too. As Janitor says the best example was Rooney but we didn't even sign him.

 

I don't follow this Johnny, or even remotedly agree with it.

 

Its about assessing quality, and building a team of quality players. The higher the quality the better. If you can buy a player such as Rooney, then you know you have someone of the absolute top level and then look at other quality players for other positions.

Whats the point of building a team of players who aren't good enough ?

 

 

The point people are making is that these players were bought at the expense of other positions.

 

The fact is that we could have bought Rooney and ONLY Rooney... would that really have gotten us anywhere? What happens if he'd got crocked and never played a game for us? It's all hyopthetical man.

 

You have to admit that 2 years into the deal, Michael Owen at £16M looked like a massive mistake, as he played 14 games (didn't even complete all of them) and scored 7 goals out of what must have potentially been something like 90 matches, perhaps more. This doesn't even take into account the wages he will have accrued over that period, which must be somewhere up near the £10M mark, even after the compensation stuff.

 

If we'd signed Rooney for an insane amount of money directly after selling Woodgate and the same had happened to him in his first two seasons, I dread to think what the reaction would have been from the fanbase. It would have been justified as well man.

 

your reply was predictable.

 

Say instead of Rooney, we attempted to build a "team" instead, with Luque, Boumsong, Emre ? Because, this is what we DID do instead.

 

Still prefer that to Rooney ?

 

Average players at average prices [or poor buys against the absolute guaranteed quality]  = average team in average position.

 

where are we in the league table ?

 

 

[Baggio]

i don't think there's a set criteria for trophy signings, but my interpretation is that we sign big names, often for big money, in place of genuine team building, to compensate for our lack of real trophies. Owen, Kluivert, even Duff, probably fit into this, Martins might do too. As Janitor says the best example was Rooney but we didn't even sign him.

 

I don't follow this Johnny, or even remotedly agree with it.

 

Its about assessing quality, and building a team of quality players. The higher the quality the better. If you can buy a player such as Rooney, then you know you have someone of the absolute top level and then look at other quality players for other positions.

Whats the point of building a team of players who aren't good enough ?

 

but since we've gone about buying these types of players we've been no better than mid-table and had these flirts with relegation so you can hardly say it's worked.

 

when we bid for rooney we'd just sold a world class centre-half and were desperate for another, but we tried to spend all our money on another striker even though we'd already bought one that summer. that, to me, is the epitome of a trophy signing.

 

likewise with Duff. the brightest player in the squad at that time was a left-winger and we had several other positions needing to fill, but instead we went out and bought Duff, simply because of his name, cos as we all know, he's fucking awful at football.

 

and when we signed Owen, Souness was pressing for Boa Morte and Anelka, ie players who werent big names, and in one case (Anelka) a player with a terrible 'le sulk' attitude who a portion of our fanbase would not have welcomed here. Shepherd refused to back this genuine attempt at team building and instead bought Owen because he is a big name player.

 

no one is saying these are bad players (other than Duff) as it is more than probable that these big names will also be good players.

 

last summer we kind of did the opposite and bought average squad fillers to bolster our thin squad. this hasn't proved entirely successful either. however, at one point in the summer we had only one senior centre-half, taylor, who is of below average quality, so we simply HAD to get numbers in for a variety of less glamorous positions. had we decided to spend £15m on say, a small quick goal-scorer, a totally unneccessary and perhaps damaging purchase, when we already had Owen and Martins for that kind of position, we would've spent the season with Taylor and Edgar as first choice, with the likes of Darren Lough and other academy or reserve players playing dozens of games. that's a bit like how huntington played loads of games last season despite not being good enough for League One, and his presence led to us being knocked out of europe and being mired in the bottom half of the table.

 

ultimately you need to back the manager at building a balanced squad, not just deciding to go out and buy big names but neglect the rest of the team, or going to extremes of generosity when it comes to getting an Owen, but refusing to pay more modest sums on a smaller name like Anelka, who happened to be the better player.

 

Quality post.

[NE5]

It's a "trophy player" when a disproportionate amount of the budget is blown on one star, shirt-selling signing.

 

names ?

 

 

Owen is the only player that genuinely springs to mind to me of players we have actually bought when people bandy this "trophy player" stuff about, because until recently he'd been a massive failure for this football club.

 

Rooney is probably the best example of it, though, and we didn't even sign him.

 

Owens goals, and Martins, have just saved us from relegation.

 

Poor signing ? I don't think so.

 

I don't think ManU would consider Rooney a "trophy" signing, and to be honest I find it absolutely incredible that any Newcastle United supporter would be unhappy to have him.

 

Ridiculous.

 

Just giving you the answer you were asking for, as I assume those two would be the players singled out as trophy signings/potential trophy signings.

 

As for the bold bit, it's a very superficial argument, as someone could easily counter with "if that £16M had been better spent, we might not have been fighting relegation to begin with", which would be a fair enough comment. Then we'd end up in that brilliant never-ending cycle again.

 

Faced with a choice of spending 16m quid on a proven player who you know is top class, or 3 or 4 sub standard players who are decidely risky, its a complete no brainer.

 

The quality player wins every single time, for me.

 

Alan Shearer spring to mind ?

 

Was he a "trophy" player then ? Owen was actually one of the few players around capable of stepping into his shoes, and not being fazed by it or anything. Its exactly the sort of player the club should have looked to replace Shearer with, which they did.

 

 

 

Well kind of yes. didnt we have to end up needing to sell players in order to finance the summer budget after Shearer had signed. Im not doubting the quality of the singin or the player but if i rememebr  correctyl signing Shearer compromised us as a club.

 

So in some respects yes he was a trophy signing. People have a definite view of what a trophy signing is and they dont discrimnate the facts a trophy signings ability or overall quality but people are able to assess there usefullness to a club.

 

For example if you ask them who they;d rather sign Klass Jan Huntelaar otr Thierry Henry, i can bet alot of money that a lot of  people would go for Huntelaar.

 

Now for you id imagine you;d go for Thierry Henry - and thats fair enough, i think people would describe him somewhat of a trophy player and if you can see the reasons why people would rather spend the same money on an unproven talent who has bags of potential then maybe you;ll figure out the difference.

 

oh, I'm quite aware of the difference fredbob.

 

Thanks all the same.

 

Thierry is getting on a bit, the price would have to reflect his age is what I think, just thought I'd add that, along with reminding you that Dyer, Jenas, Bramble, Cort, Ambrose, Gavilan, and Viana all had "potential"

 

I realise it suits some people to pretend the club hasn't attempted this path before .........

 

 

[Rich]

NE5:

 

My reply was predictable - very rich coming from you!

 

To answer your question though, I probably would have preferred the Woodgate money to be given to Robson to spend on team building, rather than to have Robson subsequently sacked because of the club becoming completely unstable that summer and the money then given to Souness to waste, aye. That's if Souness did actually buy Luque, like...

 

[Rich]

Oh, and well done on completely ignoring the Owen stuff as well. Fantastic work.

[NE5]

i don't think there's a set criteria for trophy signings, but my interpretation is that we sign big names, often for big money, in place of genuine team building, to compensate for our lack of real trophies. Owen, Kluivert, even Duff, probably fit into this, Martins might do too. As Janitor says the best example was Rooney but we didn't even sign him.

 

I don't follow this Johnny, or even remotedly agree with it.

 

Its about assessing quality, and building a team of quality players. The higher the quality the better. If you can buy a player such as Rooney, then you know you have someone of the absolute top level and then look at other quality players for other positions.

Whats the point of building a team of players who aren't good enough ?

 

but since we've gone about buying these types of players we've been no better than mid-table and had these flirts with relegation so you can hardly say it's worked.

 

when we bid for rooney we'd just sold a world class centre-half and were desperate for another, but we tried to spend all our money on another striker even though we'd already bought one that summer. that, to me, is the epitome of a trophy signing.

 

likewise with Duff. the brightest player in the squad at that time was a left-winger and we had several other positions needing to fill, but instead we went out and bought Duff, simply because of his name, cos as we all know, he's fucking awful at football.

 

and when we signed Owen, Souness was pressing for Boa Morte and Anelka, ie players who werent big names, and in one case (Anelka) a player with a terrible 'le sulk' attitude who a portion of our fanbase would not have welcomed here. Shepherd refused to back this genuine attempt at team building and instead bought Owen because he is a big name player.

 

no one is saying these are bad players (other than Duff) as it is more than probable that these big names will also be good players.

 

last summer we kind of did the opposite and bought average squad fillers to bolster our thin squad. this hasn't proved entirely successful either. however, at one point in the summer we had only one senior centre-half, taylor, who is of below average quality, so we simply HAD to get numbers in for a variety of less glamorous positions. had we decided to spend £15m on say, a small quick goal-scorer, a totally unneccessary and perhaps damaging purchase, when we already had Owen and Martins for that kind of position, we would've spent the season with Taylor and Edgar as first choice, with the likes of Darren Lough and other academy or reserve players playing dozens of games. that's a bit like how huntington played loads of games last season despite not being good enough for League One, and his presence led to us being knocked out of europe and being mired in the bottom half of the table.

 

ultimately you need to back the manager at building a balanced squad, not just deciding to go out and buy big names but neglect the rest of the team, or going to extremes of generosity when it comes to getting an Owen, but refusing to pay more modest sums on a smaller name like Anelka, who happened to be the better player.

 

what sort of players have put us in the current average position ? The very players to "build a team" instead of spending the money on the likes of Rooney. Which is where we are now in fact.

 

I can't see how anybody can say a Chelsea reserve is a "trophy" player, what does that make Robben who replaced him at Chelsea ? Does this mean that Chelsea didn't need to buy Robben because they already had Duff ?

 

No logic I'm afraid mate, Solano was getting older [and he's now gone] so buying Duff at the price could have been very astute, its only hindsight now saying that because he's been injured and hasn't performed the way he did before makes him an unwanted signing, because the fact is that if he had played like he did at Blackburn, we would all be very happy with him.

 

Fact is we HAVE tried to build a team, its just that too many players have ended up being poor that they are labelled in a way to discredit the board, but it was the managers judgement. FWIW, Souness wrote Michael Owens name on a piece of paper when he was asked who he wanted to buy more than anybody, not Anelka, he said this at Owens press conference. If we had also bought Boa Morte, my guess is that people would be labeling him as "trophy" signing because he certainly is no great shakes, just like Duff hasn't been.

 

The only mistake the club has made, via the managers, is not building a team of good enough players.

 

 

[NE5]

Oh, and well done on completely ignoring the Owen stuff as well. Fantastic work.

 

What question about Owen ?

 

I've answered most things I've seen, unlike other people that I ask, and you know who they are.

 

I also haven't got all day to spend on here too.

 

 

[NE5]

NE5:

 

My reply was predictable - very rich coming from you!

 

To answer your question though, I probably would have preferred the Woodgate money to be given to Robson to spend on team building, rather than to have Robson subsequently sacked because of the club becoming completely unstable that summer and the money then given to Souness to waste, aye. That's if Souness did actually buy Luque, like...

 

 

completely ignoring the fact that Robson was backed when he bought Woodgate in the first place .......

 

I don't think that actually we could afford to turn down the offer from Real Madrid to be honest, in view of his injury record at the time.

 

We did try to spend the money on building a team though didn't we ? Why is it that because Boumsong was a poor signing, you consider this not to have been the case ?

 

 

[Liam Liam Liam O]

 

Owens goals, and Martins, have just saved us from relegation.

 

Poor signing ? I don't think so.

 

I don't think ManU would consider Rooney a "trophy" signing, and to be honest I find it absolutely incredible that any Newcastle United supporter would be unhappy to have him.

 

Ridiculous.

 

 

 

Whilst I agree with what you're saying, I'd say the idea of signing Rooney and the story put out by the club (or one particular person at the club) that we were going for him was a direct attempt to "appease the fans" after selling Woodgate to Madrid.

 

Its the fact that we sold our best defender at the time (and since then) and made a move for a centre forward to try and get over it.

[johnnypd]

i don't think there's a set criteria for trophy signings, but my interpretation is that we sign big names, often for big money, in place of genuine team building, to compensate for our lack of real trophies. Owen, Kluivert, even Duff, probably fit into this, Martins might do too. As Janitor says the best example was Rooney but we didn't even sign him.

 

I don't follow this Johnny, or even remotedly agree with it.

 

Its about assessing quality, and building a team of quality players. The higher the quality the better. If you can buy a player such as Rooney, then you know you have someone of the absolute top level and then look at other quality players for other positions.

Whats the point of building a team of players who aren't good enough ?

 

but since we've gone about buying these types of players we've been no better than mid-table and had these flirts with relegation so you can hardly say it's worked.

 

when we bid for rooney we'd just sold a world class centre-half and were desperate for another, but we tried to spend all our money on another striker even though we'd already bought one that summer. that, to me, is the epitome of a trophy signing.

 

likewise with Duff. the brightest player in the squad at that time was a left-winger and we had several other positions needing to fill, but instead we went out and bought Duff, simply because of his name, cos as we all know, he's fucking awful at football.

 

and when we signed Owen, Souness was pressing for Boa Morte and Anelka, ie players who werent big names, and in one case (Anelka) a player with a terrible 'le sulk' attitude who a portion of our fanbase would not have welcomed here. Shepherd refused to back this genuine attempt at team building and instead bought Owen because he is a big name player.

 

no one is saying these are bad players (other than Duff) as it is more than probable that these big names will also be good players.

 

last summer we kind of did the opposite and bought average squad fillers to bolster our thin squad. this hasn't proved entirely successful either. however, at one point in the summer we had only one senior centre-half, taylor, who is of below average quality, so we simply HAD to get numbers in for a variety of less glamorous positions. had we decided to spend £15m on say, a small quick goal-scorer, a totally unneccessary and perhaps damaging purchase, when we already had Owen and Martins for that kind of position, we would've spent the season with Taylor and Edgar as first choice, with the likes of Darren Lough and other academy or reserve players playing dozens of games. that's a bit like how huntington played loads of games last season despite not being good enough for League One, and his presence led to us being knocked out of europe and being mired in the bottom half of the table.

 

ultimately you need to back the manager at building a balanced squad, not just deciding to go out and buy big names but neglect the rest of the team, or going to extremes of generosity when it comes to getting an Owen, but refusing to pay more modest sums on a smaller name like Anelka, who happened to be the better player.

 

what sort of players have put us in the current average position ? The very players to "build a team" instead of spending the money on the likes of Rooney. Which is where we are now in fact.

 

I can't see how anybody can say a Chelsea reserve is a "trophy" player, what does that make Robben who replaced him at Chelsea ? Does this mean that Chelsea didn't need to buy Robben because they already had Duff ?

 

No logic I'm afraid mate, Solano was getting older [and he's now gone] so buying Duff at the price could have been very astute, its only hindsight now saying that because he's been injured and hasn't performed the way he did before makes him an unwanted signing, because the fact is that if he had played like he did at Blackburn, we would all be very happy with him.

 

Fact is we HAVE tried to build a team, its just that too many players have ended up being poor that they are labelled in a way to discredit the board, but it was the managers judgement. FWIW, Souness wrote Michael Owens name on a piece of paper when he was asked who he wanted to buy more than anybody, not Anelka, he said this at Owens press conference. If we had also bought Boa Morte, my guess is that people would be labeling him as "trophy" signing because he certainly is no great shakes, just like Duff hasn't been.

 

The only mistake the club has made, via the managers, is not building a team of good enough players.

 

 

 

Robben didn't replace Duff as they were at the club at the same time, one played wide right and the other wide left, either side of Gudjohnsen or Drogba. Boa Morte wouldn't have been a trophy signing cos he was fitting into a balanced system that we were planning and at the time N'Zogbia was a raw lad who'd never shown the ability he went on to demonstrate later. so the situation is different from when we signed Duff.

 

Souness himself said at a later date that he wanted Anelka, and even before we went for Owen, there'd been weeks of discussions with Fenerbahce, but Shepherd refused to go as high as £8m, despite the fact a month later he'd pay double that for an inferior player who happened to be more famous (Owen). i remember the thing about passing his name on a bit of paper, but that was a reply to Shepherd's question of 'if you could have one player who would it be?" which suggests a special set of circumstances (northern rock paying their sponsorship money upfront or giving us an interest free overdraft depending on who you listen to) specifically for a 'trophy signing'. we also went for Torres in that window too, perhaps as an alternative to Owen, so i imagine his name was on that bit of paper too.

 

as i've mentioned in my edit, you can't separate shit players in some positions with big name players in other positions. the reason we have the former is cos we wasted all our money on the latter. i've nothing against spending big fees but it has to be done with sense, not chasing after the big names in bright lights cos it gets fans excited.

[NE5]

It's a "trophy player" when a disproportionate amount of the budget is blown on one star, shirt-selling signing.

 

names ?

 

 

Owen is the only player that genuinely springs to mind to me of players we have actually bought when people bandy this "trophy player" stuff about, because until recently he'd been a massive failure for this football club.

 

Rooney is probably the best example of it, though, and we didn't even sign him.

 

Owens goals, and Martins, have just saved us from relegation.

 

Poor signing ? I don't think so.

 

I don't think ManU would consider Rooney a "trophy" signing, and to be honest I find it absolutely incredible that any Newcastle United supporter would be unhappy to have him.

 

Ridiculous.

 

Just giving you the answer you were asking for, as I assume those two would be the players singled out as trophy signings/potential trophy signings.

 

As for the bold bit, it's a very superficial argument, as someone could easily counter with "if that £16M had been better spent, we might not have been fighting relegation to begin with", which would be a fair enough comment. Then we'd end up in that brilliant never-ending cycle again.

 

Faced with a choice of spending 16m quid on a proven player who you know is top class, or 3 or 4 sub standard players who are decidely risky, its a complete no brainer.

 

The quality player wins every single time, for me.

 

Alan Shearer spring to mind ?

 

Was he a "trophy" player then ? Owen was actually one of the few players around capable of stepping into his shoes, and not being fazed by it or anything. Its exactly the sort of player the club should have looked to replace Shearer with, which they did.

 

Not really old enough to appreciate what Shearer truly meant at the time... but as far as his signing goes the record shows that we never reached the heights that we had done in the season before he arrived and then a year after he arrived the team had to be broken up because the club couldn't afford to sustain it any longer, quite possibly down to spunking £15M on one player, amongst other things.

 

Maybe that £15M would have been better spent elsewhere, or maybe they should have just spent £5M or £10M, but we'll never know that will we?

 

Just playing devil's advocate here.

 

I hope that if you advocate spending less money on lesser players, you don't go down the line of criticising players for average prices that turn out to be poor performers ie Barton, Smith spring to mind so far. This being the route you say the club should be taking.

 

 

 

 

[Rich]

NE5, the sentiment is quite obviously right, but some of the logic and reasoning is not.

 

I honestly wish we had the cash to spend on a team of these fabled "trophy players" and I wish there were no repercussions if we did take that route. The fact remains that we weren't sustainable the way it was going though, I remember you yourself making some comments in agreeance with me about the worry of falling behind our competitors financially as well as on the pitch.

 

Sadly though, it just can't be done the way it was anymore, and as you know good players don't always cost massive amounts of money. Beye has come in at £2M and looked a revelation at right-back, Enrique is starting to look the part on the other side as well, and he did cost a fair bit for an unproven fullback from abroad.

 

Big, big improvements can be made without a huge outlay, I think this is what people are getting at. Obviously there comes a time when big money needs to be spent (replacing Viduka is something on the horizon where I can see us spending a hefty amount on a forward), but it has to be done in measure, and along with working on other areas of the team. Shepherd and the managers obviously didn't get it wrong all the time, but they most definitely didn't get it right all the time either.

 

I don't understand why it always has to be one or the other with you, bar the WUM factor.

[Rich]

It's a "trophy player" when a disproportionate amount of the budget is blown on one star, shirt-selling signing.

 

names ?

 

 

Owen is the only player that genuinely springs to mind to me of players we have actually bought when people bandy this "trophy player" stuff about, because until recently he'd been a massive failure for this football club.

 

Rooney is probably the best example of it, though, and we didn't even sign him.

 

Owens goals, and Martins, have just saved us from relegation.

 

Poor signing ? I don't think so.

 

I don't think ManU would consider Rooney a "trophy" signing, and to be honest I find it absolutely incredible that any Newcastle United supporter would be unhappy to have him.

 

Ridiculous.

 

Just giving you the answer you were asking for, as I assume those two would be the players singled out as trophy signings/potential trophy signings.

 

As for the bold bit, it's a very superficial argument, as someone could easily counter with "if that £16M had been better spent, we might not have been fighting relegation to begin with", which would be a fair enough comment. Then we'd end up in that brilliant never-ending cycle again.

 

Faced with a choice of spending 16m quid on a proven player who you know is top class, or 3 or 4 sub standard players who are decidely risky, its a complete no brainer.

 

The quality player wins every single time, for me.

 

Alan Shearer spring to mind ?

 

Was he a "trophy" player then ? Owen was actually one of the few players around capable of stepping into his shoes, and not being fazed by it or anything. Its exactly the sort of player the club should have looked to replace Shearer with, which they did.

 

Not really old enough to appreciate what Shearer truly meant at the time... but as far as his signing goes the record shows that we never reached the heights that we had done in the season before he arrived and then a year after he arrived the team had to be broken up because the club couldn't afford to sustain it any longer, quite possibly down to spunking £15M on one player, amongst other things.

 

Maybe that £15M would have been better spent elsewhere, or maybe they should have just spent £5M or £10M, but we'll never know that will we?

 

Just playing devil's advocate here.

 

I hope that if you advocate spending less money on lesser players, you don't go down the line of criticising players for average prices that turn out to be poor performers ie Barton, Smith spring to mind so far. This being the route you say the club should be taking.

 

I never said that's the route the club should take, you're putting words into my mouth there.

 

I said I was playing devil's advocate, trying to see it from another perspective of what "might have been", I wasn't stating that it's what should have been done.

[Rich]

NE5:

 

My reply was predictable - very rich coming from you!

 

To answer your question though, I probably would have preferred the Woodgate money to be given to Robson to spend on team building, rather than to have Robson subsequently sacked because of the club becoming completely unstable that summer and the money then given to Souness to waste, aye. That's if Souness did actually buy Luque, like...

 

 

completely ignoring the fact that Robson was backed when he bought Woodgate in the first place .......

 

I don't think that actually we could afford to turn down the offer from Real Madrid to be honest, in view of his injury record at the time.

 

We did try to spend the money on building a team though didn't we ? Why is it that because Boumsong was a poor signing, you consider this not to have been the case ?

 

Just like you've completely ignored that the "Rooney money" was then given to Souness, man!

 

I love this stuff, it's fucking priceless. Brilliant way of avoiding this assignment.

[johnnypd]

NE5, the sentiment is quite obviously right, but some of the logic and reasoning is not.

 

I honestly wish we had the cash to spend on a team of these fabled "trophy players" and I wish there were no repercussions if we did take that route. The fact remains that we weren't sustainable the way it was going though, I remember you yourself making some comments in agreeance with me about the worry of falling behind our competitors financially as well as on the pitch.

 

Sadly though, it just can't be done the way it was anymore, and as you know good players don't always cost massive amounts of money. Beye has come in at £2M and looked a revelation at right-back, Enrique is starting to look the part on the other side as well, and he did cost a fair bit for an unproven fullback from abroad.

 

Big, big improvements can be made without a huge outlay, I think this is what people are getting at. Obviously there comes a time when big money needs to be spent (replacing Viduka is something on the horizon where I can see us spending a hefty amount on a forward), but it has to be done in measure, and along with working on other areas of the team. Shepherd and the managers obviously didn't get it wrong all the time, but they most definitely didn't get it right all the time either.

 

I don't understand why it always has to be one or the other with you, bar the WUM factor.

 

sustainability is the key word, like. Even Madrid couldn't afford to keep spending £40m+ on the likes of Ronaldo and Figo, and eventually changed tack as, after a while, it simply wasn't proving successful on the pitch.

[NE5]

i don't think there's a set criteria for trophy signings, but my interpretation is that we sign big names, often for big money, in place of genuine team building, to compensate for our lack of real trophies. Owen, Kluivert, even Duff, probably fit into this, Martins might do too. As Janitor says the best example was Rooney but we didn't even sign him.

 

I don't follow this Johnny, or even remotedly agree with it.

 

Its about assessing quality, and building a team of quality players. The higher the quality the better. If you can buy a player such as Rooney, then you know you have someone of the absolute top level and then look at other quality players for other positions.

Whats the point of building a team of players who aren't good enough ?

 

but since we've gone about buying these types of players we've been no better than mid-table and had these flirts with relegation so you can hardly say it's worked.

 

when we bid for rooney we'd just sold a world class centre-half and were desperate for another, but we tried to spend all our money on another striker even though we'd already bought one that summer. that, to me, is the epitome of a trophy signing.

 

likewise with Duff. the brightest player in the squad at that time was a left-winger and we had several other positions needing to fill, but instead we went out and bought Duff, simply because of his name, cos as we all know, he's fucking awful at football.

 

and when we signed Owen, Souness was pressing for Boa Morte and Anelka, ie players who werent big names, and in one case (Anelka) a player with a terrible 'le sulk' attitude who a portion of our fanbase would not have welcomed here. Shepherd refused to back this genuine attempt at team building and instead bought Owen because he is a big name player.

 

no one is saying these are bad players (other than Duff) as it is more than probable that these big names will also be good players.

 

last summer we kind of did the opposite and bought average squad fillers to bolster our thin squad. this hasn't proved entirely successful either. however, at one point in the summer we had only one senior centre-half, taylor, who is of below average quality, so we simply HAD to get numbers in for a variety of less glamorous positions. had we decided to spend £15m on say, a small quick goal-scorer, a totally unneccessary and perhaps damaging purchase, when we already had Owen and Martins for that kind of position, we would've spent the season with Taylor and Edgar as first choice, with the likes of Darren Lough and other academy or reserve players playing dozens of games. that's a bit like how huntington played loads of games last season despite not being good enough for League One, and his presence led to us being knocked out of europe and being mired in the bottom half of the table.

 

ultimately you need to back the manager at building a balanced squad, not just deciding to go out and buy big names but neglect the rest of the team, or going to extremes of generosity when it comes to getting an Owen, but refusing to pay more modest sums on a smaller name like Anelka, who happened to be the better player.

 

what sort of players have put us in the current average position ? The very players to "build a team" instead of spending the money on the likes of Rooney. Which is where we are now in fact.

 

I can't see how anybody can say a Chelsea reserve is a "trophy" player, what does that make Robben who replaced him at Chelsea ? Does this mean that Chelsea didn't need to buy Robben because they already had Duff ?

 

No logic I'm afraid mate, Solano was getting older [and he's now gone] so buying Duff at the price could have been very astute, its only hindsight now saying that because he's been injured and hasn't performed the way he did before makes him an unwanted signing, because the fact is that if he had played like he did at Blackburn, we would all be very happy with him.

 

Fact is we HAVE tried to build a team, its just that too many players have ended up being poor that they are labelled in a way to discredit the board, but it was the managers judgement. FWIW, Souness wrote Michael Owens name on a piece of paper when he was asked who he wanted to buy more than anybody, not Anelka, he said this at Owens press conference. If we had also bought Boa Morte, my guess is that people would be labeling him as "trophy" signing because he certainly is no great shakes, just like Duff hasn't been.

 

The only mistake the club has made, via the managers, is not building a team of good enough players.

 

 

 

Robben didn't replace Duff as they were at the club at the same time, one played wide right and the other wide left, either side of Gudjohnsen or Drogba. Boa Morte wouldn't have been a trophy signing cos he was fitting into a balanced system that we were planning and at the time N'Zogbia was a raw lad who'd never shown the ability he went on to demonstrate later. so the situation is different from when we signed Duff.

 

Souness himself said at a later date that he wanted Anelka, and even before we went for Owen, there'd been weeks of discussions with Fenerbahce, but Shepherd refused to go as high as £8m, despite the fact a month later he'd pay double that for an inferior player who happened to be more famous (Owen).

 

as i've mentioned in my edit, you can't separate shit players in some positions with big name players in other positions. the reason we have the former is cos we wasted all our money on the latter. i've nothing against spending big fees but it has to be done with sense, not chasing after the big names in bright lights cos it gets fans excited.

 

what you are saying in essence Johnny, is that if a player performs he's a good signing, and if doesn't then he's a "trophy signing".

 

There is no way in the world mate that a player like Damien Duff was bought to sell shirts, he was bought because he was at the time a decent player available at a good price, and with an eye of squad strength and because we had a player approaching the twilight of his career.

 

The only player we have bought who is a truly big name is Owen. And because he was bought to replace Shearer, its completely justified in my book. Its just a shame none of the other cheaper buys haven't turned out as good, which I think is what you and others are trying to say SHOULD be happening, but my point is that it just doesn't. Not to the extent and frequency that you want it to anyway.

 

 

 

 

[NE5]

NE5:

 

My reply was predictable - very rich coming from you!

 

To answer your question though, I probably would have preferred the Woodgate money to be given to Robson to spend on team building, rather than to have Robson subsequently sacked because of the club becoming completely unstable that summer and the money then given to Souness to waste, aye. That's if Souness did actually buy Luque, like...

 

 

completely ignoring the fact that Robson was backed when he bought Woodgate in the first place .......

 

I don't think that actually we could afford to turn down the offer from Real Madrid to be honest, in view of his injury record at the time.

 

We did try to spend the money on building a team though didn't we ? Why is it that because Boumsong was a poor signing, you consider this not to have been the case ?

 

Just like you've completely ignored that the "Rooney money" was then given to Souness, man!

 

I love this stuff, it's fucking priceless. Brilliant way of avoiding this assignment.

 

eeer.......yes, yes it was. For "team building". Shame we didn't get Rooney though, don't you think ?

 

 

 

 

[Rich]

Oh, and well done on completely ignoring the Owen stuff as well. Fantastic work.

 

What question about Owen ?

 

I've answered most things I've seen, unlike other people that I ask, and you know who they are.

 

I also haven't got all day to spend on here too.

 

About how at 2 years into his deal, where he'd probably taken upwards of £10M off us in wages and cost us £16M, he'd played less than 14 games and scored 7 goals - making his signing a bit of a disaster at that point, to say the least.

[Rich]

NE5:

 

My reply was predictable - very rich coming from you!

 

To answer your question though, I probably would have preferred the Woodgate money to be given to Robson to spend on team building, rather than to have Robson subsequently sacked because of the club becoming completely unstable that summer and the money then given to Souness to waste, aye. That's if Souness did actually buy Luque, like...

 

 

completely ignoring the fact that Robson was backed when he bought Woodgate in the first place .......

 

I don't think that actually we could afford to turn down the offer from Real Madrid to be honest, in view of his injury record at the time.

 

We did try to spend the money on building a team though didn't we ? Why is it that because Boumsong was a poor signing, you consider this not to have been the case ?

 

Just like you've completely ignored that the "Rooney money" was then given to Souness, man!

 

I love this stuff, it's fucking priceless. Brilliant way of avoiding this assignment.

 

eeer.......yes, yes it was. For "team building". Shame we didn't get Rooney though, don't you think ?

 

Dunno like. Souness might have driven him out of the club like he did with Bellamy?

[Rich]

...and Robert.

[NE5]

Oh, and well done on completely ignoring the Owen stuff as well. Fantastic work.

 

What question about Owen ?

 

I've answered most things I've seen, unlike other people that I ask, and you know who they are.

 

I also haven't got all day to spend on here too.

 

About how at 2 years into his deal, where he'd probably taken upwards of £10M off us in wages and cost us £16M, he'd played less than 14 games and scored 7 goals - making his signing a bit of a disaster at that point, to say the least.

 

well, if you'd known that was going to happen, you should have rang the club and told them !!

 

 

[johnnypd]

 

 

what you are saying in essence Johnny, is that if a player performs he's a good signing, and if doesn't then he's a "trophy signing".

 

There is no way in the world mate that a player like Damien Duff was bought to sell shirts, he was bought because he was at the time a decent player available at a good price, and with an eye of squad strength and because we had a player approaching the twilight of his career.

 

The only player we have bought who is a truly big name is Owen. And because he was bought to replace Shearer, its completely justified in my book. Its just a shame none of the other cheaper buys haven't turned out as good, which I think is what you and others are trying to say SHOULD be happening, but my point is that it just doesn't. Not to the extent and frequency that you want it to anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

where did i say that? a "trophy signing" has as much chance as succeeding as any other. but let's face it, spending big on one or two names, at the expense of the rest of the squad, or at the expense of less glamorous but better players who would fit into the side better (Anelka for instance), is never going to work. you can argue all you like but since we changed tack at the end of robson's reign and Shepherd began to get more involved in transfers we've gone steadily downhill.

[Rich]

Oh, and well done on completely ignoring the Owen stuff as well. Fantastic work.

 

What question about Owen ?

 

I've answered most things I've seen, unlike other people that I ask, and you know who they are.

 

I also haven't got all day to spend on here too.

 

About how at 2 years into his deal, where he'd probably taken upwards of £10M off us in wages and cost us £16M, he'd played less than 14 games and scored 7 goals - making his signing a bit of a disaster at that point, to say the least.

 

well, if you'd known that was going to happen, you should have rang the club and told them !!

 

 

 

I tried!! Thing is, Shepherd would never speak to the fans man.

 

If Mort had been there, the whole thing could have been avoided!

[NE5]

NE5:

 

My reply was predictable - very rich coming from you!

 

To answer your question though, I probably would have preferred the Woodgate money to be given to Robson to spend on team building, rather than to have Robson subsequently sacked because of the club becoming completely unstable that summer and the money then given to Souness to waste, aye. That's if Souness did actually buy Luque, like...

 

 

completely ignoring the fact that Robson was backed when he bought Woodgate in the first place .......

 

I don't think that actually we could afford to turn down the offer from Real Madrid to be honest, in view of his injury record at the time.

 

We did try to spend the money on building a team though didn't we ? Why is it that because Boumsong was a poor signing, you consider this not to have been the case ?

 

Just like you've completely ignored that the "Rooney money" was then given to Souness, man!

 

I love this stuff, it's fucking priceless. Brilliant way of avoiding this assignment.

 

eeer.......yes, yes it was. For "team building". Shame we didn't get Rooney though, don't you think ?

 

Dunno like. Souness might have driven him out of the club like he did with Bellamy?

 

possibly, he might even decide we are better off without these trophy players ?

 

 

[Baggio]

Oh, and well done on completely ignoring the Owen stuff as well. Fantastic work.

 

What question about Owen ?

 

I've answered most things I've seen, unlike other people that I ask, and you know who they are.

 

I also haven't got all day to spend on here too.

 

About how at 2 years into his deal, where he'd probably taken upwards of £10M off us in wages and cost us £16M, he'd played less than 14 games and scored 7 goals - making his signing a bit of a disaster at that point, to say the least.

 

well, if you'd known that was going to happen, you should have rang the club and told them !!

 

 

 

I tried!! Thing is, Shepherd would never speak to the fans man.

 

If Mort had been there, the whole thing could have been avoided!