Coloccini and Ashley's Evil Master Plan (Mua Ha Ha..)

[Colos Short and Curlies]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

It was just a throw away comment in an attempt to get a smiley out of someone without even reading the quoted post - which it did!

 

I've had a look at your post and agree with some parts (specifically budgetting for Shola's sale and potentailly Smith's also. However as an 'insider' has leaked the £12m budget I think that it would be equally fair to say that the Milner sale was completely unplanned.

 

I don't agree that we've spent nothing. We just recuped an equal amount. Did Spurs spend nothing this summer? Their situation was slightly different as they were pretty much guaranteed £25m+ for Berbatov which they could feasibly spend upfront. I doubt that they nad anticipated selling Keane though so maybe only the Pavluchenko signing was unplanned? I'd suggest that it was htought that we would sell Emre, Rozenhal, Shola and possibly Zoggy and therefore the bulk of any scouting work would have been centred around replacing these players and possibly buy a playmaker in addition. The Milner sale would not have been planned but when the offer of £12m came around it was stupid to turn it down.

 

As for the making the request public. If I was to go to my boss to hand in my notice (which effectively is what Milner did) in the hope that I would get a payrise then I could have no complaints if my job was advertised even if I had asked for no-one to be informed. He played a joker and the club called his bluff. I (sincerely) hope he is happy at Villa and makes the move a success - he was going nowhere fast by staying here.

[madras]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

It was just a throw away comment in an attempt to get a smiley out of someone without even reading the quoted post - which it did!

 

I've had a look at your post and agree with some parts (specifically budgetting for Shola's sale and potentailly Smith's also. However as an 'insider' has leaked the £12m budget I think that it would be equally fair to say that the Milner sale was completely unplanned.

 

I don't agree that we've spent nothing. We just recuped an equal amount. Did Spurs spend nothing this summer? Their situation was slightly different as they were pretty much guaranteed £25m+ for Berbatov which they could feasibly spend upfront. I doubt that they nad anticipated selling Keane though so maybe only the Pavluchenko signing was unplanned? I'd suggest that it was htought that we would sell Emre, Rozenhal, Shola and possibly Zoggy and therefore the bulk of any scouting work would have been centred around replacing these players and possibly buy a playmaker in addition. The Milner sale would not have been planned but when the offer of £12m came around it was stupid to turn it down.

 

As for the making the request public. If I was to go to my boss to hand in my notice (which effectively is what Milner did) in the hope that I would get a payrise then I could have no complaints if my job was advertised even if I had asked for no-one to be informed. He played a joker and the club called his bluff. I (sincerely) hope he is happy at Villa and makes the move a success - he was going nowhere fast by staying here.

wasn't this the same insider who said keegan knew exactly what his remit was and wanted henry.lampard etc.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

It was just a throw away comment in an attempt to get a smiley out of someone without even reading the quoted post - which it did!

 

I've had a look at your post and agree with some parts (specifically budgetting for Shola's sale and potentailly Smith's also. However as an 'insider' has leaked the £12m budget I think that it would be equally fair to say that the Milner sale was completely unplanned.

 

I don't agree that we've spent nothing. We just recuped an equal amount. Did Spurs spend nothing this summer? Their situation was slightly different as they were pretty much guaranteed £25m+ for Berbatov which they could feasibly spend upfront. I doubt that they nad anticipated selling Keane though so maybe only the Pavluchenko signing was unplanned? I'd suggest that it was htought that we would sell Emre, Rozenhal, Shola and possibly Zoggy and therefore the bulk of any scouting work would have been centred around replacing these players and possibly buy a playmaker in addition. The Milner sale would not have been planned but when the offer of £12m came around it was stupid to turn it down.

 

As for the making the request public. If I was to go to my boss to hand in my notice (which effectively is what Milner did) in the hope that I would get a payrise then I could have no complaints if my job was advertised even if I had asked for no-one to be informed. He played a joker and the club called his bluff. I (sincerely) hope he is happy at Villa and makes the move a success - he was going nowhere fast by staying here.

wasn't this the same insider who said keegan knew exactly what his remit was and wanted henry.lampard etc.

 

Dunno. Are A.N Insider and A Source the same people?

[madras]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

It was just a throw away comment in an attempt to get a smiley out of someone without even reading the quoted post - which it did!

 

I've had a look at your post and agree with some parts (specifically budgetting for Shola's sale and potentailly Smith's also. However as an 'insider' has leaked the £12m budget I think that it would be equally fair to say that the Milner sale was completely unplanned.

 

I don't agree that we've spent nothing. We just recuped an equal amount. Did Spurs spend nothing this summer? Their situation was slightly different as they were pretty much guaranteed £25m+ for Berbatov which they could feasibly spend upfront. I doubt that they nad anticipated selling Keane though so maybe only the Pavluchenko signing was unplanned? I'd suggest that it was htought that we would sell Emre, Rozenhal, Shola and possibly Zoggy and therefore the bulk of any scouting work would have been centred around replacing these players and possibly buy a playmaker in addition. The Milner sale would not have been planned but when the offer of £12m came around it was stupid to turn it down.

 

As for the making the request public. If I was to go to my boss to hand in my notice (which effectively is what Milner did) in the hope that I would get a payrise then I could have no complaints if my job was advertised even if I had asked for no-one to be informed. He played a joker and the club called his bluff. I (sincerely) hope he is happy at Villa and makes the move a success - he was going nowhere fast by staying here.

wasn't this the same insider who said keegan knew exactly what his remit was and wanted henry.lampard etc.

 

Dunno. Are A.N Insider and A Source the same people?

was it the NOTW one ?

[TRon]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

That's quite ironic considering the original post on this topic was asking to consider whether it's fair to say we are buying cheap imports and looking to survive only, when the Coloccini signing contradicts that theory quite comprehensively.

[johnnypd]

Yes, but from what that source said it seems like keegan was going for a 'wow' signing (and remember he did say it would be great if ashley gave us one as the fans deserve it) as the source goes on to say keegan had discussions with henry & lampard's agents. that leak looks like a smear campaign - ie they distort facts to view the club in the best light, keegan in the worst light. so going after one of Deco, Henry, Ronaldinho or Lampard gets twisted into going for ALL of those players (with Deco's name politely dropped because he was such excellent value for chelsea) and the club announcing a £12m budget. the fact they think £12m is a big enough figure to impress the fans is indicative of how tightly we're being ran.

 

and i agree that milner can have no complaints about us publicising his request. he tried to play us and we peddled him. the point i'm getting at is that by doing so we advertise his availability which means we probably wanted rid at that juncture. btw i agree that we've not necessarily budgeted for milner's £12m, just that this has what has ultimately happened. it reflects the reality of the situation. had we gone and spent £35m net at that point, receiving another £12m wouldn't drag us back to zero. the fact that one decent sized transfer out can drag us into the black shows we are operating on a tight budget. we may have had £12m to spend but in reality we didnt spend any of it - for the 3rd window in a row. we havent got anything else concrete to go on but this.

[johnnypd]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

That's quite ironic considering the original post on this topic was asking to consider whether it's fair to say we are buying cheap imports and looking to survive only, when the Coloccini signing contradicts that theory quite comprehensively.

 

In response to you asking how the colo transfer fits in with the wider context of the structure at the club, i tried to survey the wider context of the structure at the club.

 

don't start threads if you don't want the subject you raise to be discussed.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

Yes, but from what that source said it seems like keegan was going for a 'wow' signing (and remember he did say it would be great if ashley gave us one as the fans deserve it) as the source goes on to say keegan had discussions with henry & lampard's agents. that leak looks like a smear campaign - ie they distort facts to view the club in the best light, keegan in the worst light. so going after one of Deco, Henry, Ronaldinho or Lampard gets twisted into going for ALL of those players (with Deco's name politely dropped because he was such excellent value for chelsea) and the club announcing a £12m budget. the fact they think £12m is a big enough figure to impress the fans is indicative of how tightly we're being ran.

 

btw i agree that we've not necessarily budgeted for milner's £12m, just that this has what has ultimately happened. it reflects the reality of the situation. had we gone and spent £35m net at that point, receiving another £12m wouldn't drag us back to zero. the fact that one decent sized transfer out can drag us into the black shows we are operating on a tight budget. we may have had £12m to spend but in reality we didnt spend any of it - for the 3rd window in a row. we havent got anything else concrete to go on but this.

 

I've posted it before, but I've had it told to me by a source I trust that we had a bid for Deco accepted both in January for a loan deal and this summer for a permanent transfer but the player turned us down.

 

I think its fairly well accepted that we had bid £16m+ for Modric but lost out to Spurs. This would suggest that money was available for the right people.

 

I'll assume that the Colo deal was due to us missing out on Woodgate in January - but Colo was more expensive.

 

We got a bargain for Jonas based on what Pompey were bidding in January and this has probably saved us £5m+

 

In addition most people think we ovr achieved on what we got for Rozenhal and Emre before Milner was even mentioned. I would say that our incomings from these 3 probably overshoots what we would have thought we would have got by another £5m at least.

 

Of course I would have loved a Turan or Arshavin to have come in, but from what I saw of Gomis at the Euros, Xisco can't be any worse and cost anywhere between £5m and £10m less than Gomis would have.

 

Guthrie also looks neat and tidy, would spending another £3m on Inler give us a significantly better player? I don't know.

 

So its not necessarily a bad thing that we have a 'net' spend of close to 0 if the players we have bought in are good players. Its been good negotiating on both the sales and purchases (for prices).

[TRon]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

That's quite ironic considering the original post on this topic was asking to consider whether it's fair to say we are buying cheap imports and looking to survive only, when the Coloccini signing contradicts that theory quite comprehensively.

 

In response to you asking how the colo transfer fits in with the wider context of the structure at the club, i tried to survey the wider context of the structure at the club.

 

don't start threads if you don't want the subject you raise to be discussed.

 

I don't mind the wider context being discussed but you seem to have glossed over the Coloccini factor altogether, which is really about the type of player we are looking to bring in. Other than that, I accept your view that for the third window in succession we haven't spent loads, but even that needs qualifying.

 

First window, Allardyce wasted big money on Smith and Barton which led to Ashley thinking he'd got his fingers burned imo.

 

Second window, change of manager making things a lot harder.

 

Third window, should have done better...even then I feel the two different directions KK and the club were looking has hampered us, so it's not black and white like some would believe.

[johnnypd]

Yes, but from what that source said it seems like keegan was going for a 'wow' signing (and remember he did say it would be great if ashley gave us one as the fans deserve it) as the source goes on to say keegan had discussions with henry & lampard's agents. that leak looks like a smear campaign - ie they distort facts to view the club in the best light, keegan in the worst light. so going after one of Deco, Henry, Ronaldinho or Lampard gets twisted into going for ALL of those players (with Deco's name politely dropped because he was such excellent value for chelsea) and the club announcing a £12m budget. the fact they think £12m is a big enough figure to impress the fans is indicative of how tightly we're being ran.

 

btw i agree that we've not necessarily budgeted for milner's £12m, just that this has what has ultimately happened. it reflects the reality of the situation. had we gone and spent £35m net at that point, receiving another £12m wouldn't drag us back to zero. the fact that one decent sized transfer out can drag us into the black shows we are operating on a tight budget. we may have had £12m to spend but in reality we didnt spend any of it - for the 3rd window in a row. we havent got anything else concrete to go on but this.

 

I've posted it before, but I've had it told to me by a source I trust that we had a bid for Deco accepted both in January for a loan deal and this summer for a permanent transfer but the player turned us down.

 

I think its fairly well accepted that we had bid £16m+ for Modric but lost out to Spurs. This would suggest that money was available for the right people.

 

I'll assume that the Colo deal was due to us missing out on Woodgate in January - but Colo was more expensive.

 

We got a bargain for Jonas based on what Pompey were bidding in January and this has probably saved us £5m+

 

In addition most people think we ovr achieved on what we got for Rozenhal and Emre before Milner was even mentioned. I would say that our incomings from these 3 probably overshoots what we would have thought we would have got by another £5m at least.

 

Of course I would have loved a Turan or Arshavin to have come in, but from what I saw of Gomis at the Euros, Xisco can't be any worse and cost anywhere between £5m and £10m less than Gomis would have.

 

Guthrie also looks neat and tidy, would spending another £3m on Inler give us a significantly better player? I don't know.

 

So its not necessarily a bad thing that we have a 'net' spend of close to 0 if the players we have bought in are good players. Its been good negotiating on both the sales and purchases (for prices).

 

it's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you stick to that policy we'll inevitably miss out on some players. bargaining from a relative position of weakness (mid-table and no europe) we have to go that bit further than other clubs might. it might not even mean big transfer fees, but something like guaranteeing £15k a week more than a better placed rival is offering the same player we want. I do think we'll spend more in the next two windows but even then this money could simply be carried over from what weve saved these past 2 years. I think shepherd called that 'keeping the powder dry' when we only got Bowyer and it cost us dearly back then, hopefully it won't have such a big effect this time. which brings me to the other aspect of transfer investment - not so much how it translates to on-field success but how it reflects on the board and their ambition. so far we'd be right to be very, very skeptical of Ashley.

[UV]

I've posted it before, but I've had it told to me by a source I trust that we had a bid for Deco accepted both in January for a loan deal and this summer for a permanent transfer but the player turned us down.

 

It wasn't your boss who said we had £100m to spend in the Summer was it? 

 

[Colos Short and Curlies]

I've posted it before, but I've had it told to me by a source I trust that we had a bid for Deco accepted both in January for a loan deal and this summer for a permanent transfer but the player turned us down.

 

It wasn't your boss who said we had £100m to spend in the Summer was it? 

 

 

No, it was my boss who said that there was no set budget but if Keegan could identify the player and we could convince him to come then the money was there.

 

Same thing I suppose!

[johnnypd]

 

he put in a transfer request because a club put in a bid for him and we felt it was too low, so milner asked for more wages to reflect his 'worth'. i think he saw it as a way to get the money he thought he deserved, rather than to specificlly get a move, as despite milner asking the club to keep the request private, we publicised it, basically advertising his availability.

 

i don't know if it is true or not as im just filling the gaps with an educated guess or speculation, though it's not essential to my argument, more a devil's advocate if anything. everton's interest died down a couple of days before milner left, though i think it was that Castillo lad who was the more likely alternative to Smith, given that everton needed to replace a backup central midfielder, whereas theyd started to look at Obinna and Saha upfront. And ameobi's move also fell through a while before because of a hamstring injury. think about how much we were due for those two, the club may have budgeted in Shola's £3.5m move to Stoke (500k already paid) earlier in the summer, and Smith was to go for £4m-£5m. that matches the fee Keegan allegedly mentioned in regard to Milner's value. just something to think about.

 

Milner was unhappy with his wages, a contract he'd signed only a year earlier with 3 years left to run.  An offer came in for him which we turned down.  As you say Milner then saw that as an opportunity to get a raise.  We turned his proposal down, which was the right thing to do IMO considering he'd just had one of his worst seasons only one year after signing his last contract.  Milner asked to go and we got a fantastic offer, so we accepted it.  To say that we decided to move him on to pay for the likes of Coloccini, or that we'd budgeted for selling him, just isn't fair at all IMO.  There's really nothing at all to support that conclusion.

 

Especially as no one in their right mind would budget getting £12m for Milner

 

i didn't say they budgeted £12m for Milner, in fact if you read my post i mention the figure keegan allegedly slated which might be closer to what the club budgeted. before we sold milner the club may have budgeted in for moving on smith and ameobi but those didn't happen and they might have looked at an alternative way of raising funds.

 

and in my OP im talking about how things actually turned out. you can theorise all you want but it's a fact that we spent nothing. once again people take a little detail from a big post and ignore the general argument.

 

That's quite ironic considering the original post on this topic was asking to consider whether it's fair to say we are buying cheap imports and looking to survive only, when the Coloccini signing contradicts that theory quite comprehensively.

 

In response to you asking how the colo transfer fits in with the wider context of the structure at the club, i tried to survey the wider context of the structure at the club.

 

don't start threads if you don't want the subject you raise to be discussed.

 

I don't mind the wider context being discussed but you seem to have glossed over the Coloccini factor altogether, which is really about the type of player we are looking to bring in. Other than that, I accept your view that for the third window in succession we haven't spent loads, but even that needs qualifying.

 

First window, Allardyce wasted big money on Smith and Barton which led to Ashley thinking he'd got his fingers burned imo.

 

Second window, change of manager making things a lot harder.

 

Third window, should have done better...even then I feel the two different directions KK and the club were looking has hampered us, so it's not black and white like some would believe.

 

But Ashley didn't know he'd had his hands burnt by those two deals until well after the transfer window was closed. in fact he wore smith's name on his shirt for a while and told one of the lads on here that 'players like smith are the future of this club' (probably repeating some bollocks he'd heard Allardyce say). we spent very little last summer when you take into account the £6m we got off ajax for luque. If you put that first window down to trepidation and inexperience, and say the january window is acceptable because of managerial transition,  then you'd think we'd make a big statement of intent in the summer 2008 if just to make up for the past 2 windows.

 

RE Colo, as i said i don't think the policy means we can't spend big on players, just that such transfers have to fit into a wider context of restricted finance and that we're hoping to buy players who will increase in value. if we go and spend £15m on one player then we may have to make the shortfall up elsewhere, by buying less or selling more. instead of spending a big fee on a creative midfielder as it seemed we would earlier in the window, we got a bloke in on loan, and that decision, along with shifting Milner, may be directly linked to spending big on someone else. people on here said september would be the time to judge the board, and that's what im doing. considering theyve not put any big funds up for transfers, i'm not prepared to give them another year's clemency and wait til september 2009.

[Guest Dev]

Surely we can all agree on one thing here. Whether Ashley has a 'system', or an evil master plan, or whether he's just having a bit of fun, he has royally fucked it. Whatever way you look at it he's fucked it: This particular debacle will cost him at least 10M in staff payouts upfront, and the cost to the NUFC 'brand' is enormous. What an utter farce to issue a statement about 'financial constraints' when the club will burn about 15-20M in managerial and staff payouts in one year. That's written off money too, it's not going to get any return like a player of that value would. It still makes me very angry, but at the same time it's hilarious that a bunch of twats (whether it included Ashley or not) at the top of the club that thought they could lord about with some ingenious system ended up wallowing in a pit of imbecility far beyond what Freddie and his croneys would have ever devised.

 

Its no wonder Zico or Terim or any of those old stagers are banging the door down to be our next manager. They would work for 6 months and then walk away with a huge payout, reputation intact. I never liked Freddie, but being run by a clown was preferable to being run by a bunch of jumped up arrogant buffoons who have egos the size of the moon, but brains the size of a pea. What a debacle. And we used to do a great debacle. There was definately humour to be found in Guillit. Roeder was a masterstroke of buffoonery. Fat Sam was fucking hilarious.

 

Kev's departure was about as funny as an ebola outbreak. Bring back the clowns I say. If we're going to have halfwits running the show, we should at least be able to laugh. I'm not sure who thinks this whole 'system' is a good idea, but anyone who can't see there have been some gigantic errors of judgement made by Ashley's mob is having a laugh. In any other business anyone who outraged such a huge part of their customer base would be fired. Tell me why the DoF is immune? What a wankfest. Dennis Wise. Fuck me dead.

[TRon]

Surely we can all agree on one thing here. Whether Ashley has a 'system', or an evil master plan, or whether he's just having a bit of fun, he has royally fucked it. Whatever way you look at it he's fucked it: This particular debacle will cost him at least 10M in staff payouts upfront, and the cost to the NUFC 'brand' is enormous. What an utter farce to issue a statement about 'financial constraints' when the club will burn about 15-20M in managerial and staff payouts in one year. That's written off money too, it's not going to get any return like a player of that value would. It still makes me very angry, but at the same time it's hilarious that a bunch of twats (whether it included Ashley or not) at the top of the club that thought they could lord about with some ingenious system ended up wallowing in a pit of imbecility far beyond what Freddie and his croneys would have ever devised.

 

Its no wonder Zico or Terim or any of those old stagers are banging the door down to be our next manager. They would work for 6 months and then walk away with a huge payout, reputation intact. I never liked Freddie, but being run by a clown was preferable to being run by a bunch of jumped up arrogant buffoons who have egos the size of the moon, but brains the size of a pea. What a debacle. And we used to do a great debacle. There was definately humour to be found in Guillit. Roeder was a masterstroke of buffoonery. Fat Sam was fucking hilarious.

 

Kev's departure was about as funny as an ebola outbreak. Bring back the clowns I say. If we're going to have halfwits running the show, we should at least be able to laugh. I'm not sure who thinks this whole 'system' is a good idea, but anyone who can't see there have been some gigantic errors of judgement made by Ashley's mob is having a laugh. In any other business anyone who outraged such a huge part of their customer base would be fired. Tell me why the DoF is immune? What a wankfest. Dennis Wise. Fuck me dead.

 

How many businesses do you know where the customers can set their own prices? The gist of those against the 'Master Plan' seems to be let Keegan sign who he wants for however much it takes. Does M&S operate like that cos I think 50p is more than enough for a sandwich, the bastards are surely ripping us off?

[Guest Dev]

What are you ranting about? The customer base is the fans who pay for season tickets, pay TV, and merchandise. Kevin Keegan is both an employee, and also a large part of the brand. There are no customers setting their price here. Can you go down to Sports Direct and say you want to pay 50p for a scarf? No. So what on earth are you going on about?

 

Internal disagreements occur all the time in companies. When Subway decided to can Jarrod, they didn't issue a press release stating that he was off his tree, which also reads like it was written by some belligerent 12 year old throwing a tanty on the intarwebs. It would alienate the people that eat there and like Jarrod. It's stupid. Even Americans aren't that stupid.

 

If you alienate your customers (this is the people who buy things remember), they stop buying things from you. It's always bad for business. People like Ashley have turned football into a business and they are going to realise very soon that fans don't have to keep buying their product if they hate it.

[Teasy]

Surely we can all agree on one thing here. Whether Ashley has a 'system', or an evil master plan, or whether he's just having a bit of fun, he has royally fucked it. Whatever way you look at it he's fucked it: This particular debacle will cost him at least 10M in staff payouts upfront, and the cost to the NUFC 'brand' is enormous. What an utter farce to issue a statement about 'financial constraints' when the club will burn about 15-20M in managerial and staff payouts in one year. That's written off money too, it's not going to get any return like a player of that value would. It still makes me very angry, but at the same time it's hilarious that a bunch of twats (whether it included Ashley or not) at the top of the club that thought they could lord about with some ingenious system ended up wallowing in a pit of imbecility far beyond what Freddie and his croneys would have ever devised.

 

Its no wonder Zico or Terim or any of those old stagers are banging the door down to be our next manager. They would work for 6 months and then walk away with a huge payout, reputation intact. I never liked Freddie, but being run by a clown was preferable to being run by a bunch of jumped up arrogant buffoons who have egos the size of the moon, but brains the size of a pea. What a debacle. And we used to do a great debacle. There was definately humour to be found in Guillit. Roeder was a masterstroke of buffoonery. Fat Sam was fucking hilarious.

 

Kev's departure was about as funny as an ebola outbreak. Bring back the clowns I say. If we're going to have halfwits running the show, we should at least be able to laugh. I'm not sure who thinks this whole 'system' is a good idea, but anyone who can't see there have been some gigantic errors of judgement made by Ashley's mob is having a laugh. In any other business anyone who outraged such a huge part of their customer base would be fired. Tell me why the DoF is immune? What a wankfest. Dennis Wise. Fuck me dead.

 

How many businesses do you know where the customers can set their own prices? The gist of those against the 'Master Plan' seems to be let Keegan sign who he wants for however much it takes. Does M&S operate like that cos I think 50p is more than enough for a sandwich, the bastards are surely ripping us off?

 

That analogy doesn't work at all.  The situation would be more similar to customers complaining that M&S were buying there stock from the cheapest places possible with less concern for quality then for saving as much cash as possible, despite the high prices for those products to the consumer.

 

NOTE that personally I don't believe the signings have been poor or that effort hasn't been made to spend on quality players.

[Guest Dev]

I can't understand it, but as far as I can tell the logic being used by TRon here is the single issue with Kevin Keegan leaving the club was that he wanted to spend unlimited dollars. Apparantly nothing else went down during that time, and everything else is dandy.

 

I'm not sure what kind of wierd and wonderful system they have installed down at SJP, but where I work if something like this went down, someone (competent) upstairs would demand a list of 'impacts' immediately, one of which would be 'our customers are really fucking shitty at the way we handled this'. Someone would then get their arse kicked, and someone would be fired (I'm not referring to Kev here, for those lesser lights among us).

 

So if they want to run it like a business maybe they should get some business people in there, not some hair-brained over-inflated egos. Mort seemed to manage alright.

[afar]

So, some on here accept that Ashley is in it for the money first and are happy with that and the fact that any success would come as by a by product and that by and large PL safety would be acceptable? With the strategy he is using that is the best we can hope for. If that is the ambition of Ashley and those supporters are happy to accept this then we do not deserve success.

 

 

 

Unfortunately Tsunami you're exactly right, some fans here are happy to cheer the balanced books at the expenses of any hope of success on the pitch. We've gone from a team who were challlenging at the top, to a team who where challenging for Europe, to a mid table team, to a team that's statisfied to remain in the top division.

 

This clinging on to the hope that we'll be another "Arsenal" is fanciful in the extreme.

[BottledDog]

Surely we can all agree on one thing here. Whether Ashley has a 'system', or an evil master plan, or whether he's just having a bit of fun, he has royally fucked it. Whatever way you look at it he's fucked it: This particular debacle will cost him at least 10M in staff payouts upfront, and the cost to the NUFC 'brand' is enormous. What an utter farce to issue a statement about 'financial constraints' when the club will burn about 15-20M in managerial and staff payouts in one year. That's written off money too, it's not going to get any return like a player of that value would. It still makes me very angry, but at the same time it's hilarious that a bunch of twats (whether it included Ashley or not) at the top of the club that thought they could lord about with some ingenious system ended up wallowing in a pit of imbecility far beyond what Freddie and his croneys would have ever devised.

 

Its no wonder Zico or Terim or any of those old stagers are banging the door down to be our next manager. They would work for 6 months and then walk away with a huge payout, reputation intact. I never liked Freddie, but being run by a clown was preferable to being run by a bunch of jumped up arrogant buffoons who have egos the size of the moon, but brains the size of a pea. What a debacle. And we used to do a great debacle. There was definately humour to be found in Guillit. Roeder was a masterstroke of buffoonery. Fat Sam was fucking hilarious.

 

Kev's departure was about as funny as an ebola outbreak. Bring back the clowns I say. If we're going to have halfwits running the show, we should at least be able to laugh. I'm not sure who thinks this whole 'system' is a good idea, but anyone who can't see there have been some gigantic errors of judgement made by Ashley's mob is having a laugh. In any other business anyone who outraged such a huge part of their customer base would be fired. Tell me why the DoF is immune? What a wankfest. Dennis Wise. Fuck me dead.

 

What £10,000,000 on staff payouts? They've all walked haven't they?

[Offshore]

So, some on here accept that Ashley is in it for the money first and are happy with that and the fact that any success would come as by a by product and that by and large PL safety would be acceptable? With the strategy he is using that is the best we can hope for. If that is the ambition of Ashley and those supporters are happy to accept this then we do not deserve success.

 

 

 

Unfortunately Tsunami you're exactly right, some fans here are happy to cheer the balanced books at the expenses of any hope of success on the pitch. We've gone from a team who were challlenging at the top, to a team who where challenging for Europe, to a mid table team, to a team that's statisfied to remain in the top division.

 

This clinging on to the hope that we'll be another "Arsenal" is fanciful in the extreme.

 

Just how long ago was it since we were challenging at the top, you can't put that on the present set-up can you?

 

 

[NE5]

I am not naieve enough to think that Ashley isn't looking to make a profit from Newcastle but if he was only looking to milk the club, why pay a record transfer fee on an international defender? This signing just doesn't fit with the idea being peddled that we are going to buy cheap imports and sell on at a profit.

 

Is it just remotely possible that as someone who's been standing on the terraces, he probably does want to watch a half decent team?

 

half decent team isn't good enough.

 

Keegan broke the record transfer fee for the club for a defender when he bought Darren Peacock, in fact. He also did it again when he bought Warren Barton. Gullit paid big money to buy Marcelino and Goma when the club needed defenders. Then they did it again when they bought Woodgate. Didn't stop them buying strikers and forwards as well. But continue defending the fat b****** for all that your'e worth and ignoring these facts.

 

 

Why did we sell Woodgate then if it wasn't a good deal? Or Les Ferdinand for that matter? I seem to remember a certain "fat b******" chairman describing both deals as exactly that.

 

Les Ferdinand was sold before your scrapegoat was chairman. And Woodgate was a good deal. If you are trying to say the club didn't back its managers, then your on a different planet.

 

Aside of this, you'll never get it, until one day you are looking at a half empty ground of a club that sells its best players. And even then, you'll never admit that you were wrong.

 

Mike Ashley is running this club into the ground, and its extremely sad that people like you have not seen the blindlingly obvious.

He doesn't care about the club, and doesn't particularly want to be successful on the pitch, so long as he makes a profit from ticket sales, player sales, TV Revenue. etc etc. Wake up and smell the coffee.

 

 

oooohh more cherry picking. fred was still a major part of the decision making process when ferdinand was sold to balance the books was he not ?

 

you only ever come back with "back the club"....you can't do it for ever with poor managers and build up debts and have a wages ratio that was stupid. sooner or laterthe finances had to rained in unless fred was going to push his millions into the club (oops sorry..he just took millions out...my mistake)

 

not once have you agreed with me or backed up my comments when I have posted that he was also "part of the decision making process during Keegans first time in charge, in fact instrumental in choosing him and appointing him"

 

Who's cherry picking ?

 

Shame the great directors at every club in the world appoint shit managers sometimes. One day you may get in the real world. I've posted the scenarios of Arthur Cox and Gordon Lee, thats what happens if you have a shit board that doesn't back their managers. When they appoint good ones, they piss off. And you can now add Kevin Keegan to that list.

 

Look, learn and take it in.

 

To repeat. I hope you enjoyed our flirtation for the last decade and a half sitting and competing with the big boys while it lasted.

 

 

 

[Teasy]

So, some on here accept that Ashley is in it for the money first and are happy with that and the fact that any success would come as by a by product and that by and large PL safety would be acceptable? With the strategy he is using that is the best we can hope for. If that is the ambition of Ashley and those supporters are happy to accept this then we do not deserve success.

 

 

 

Unfortunately Tsunami you're exactly right, some fans here are happy to cheer the balanced books at the expenses of any hope of success on the pitch. We've gone from a team who were challlenging at the top, to a team who where challenging for Europe, to a mid table team, to a team that's statisfied to remain in the top division.

 

This clinging on to the hope that we'll be another "Arsenal" is fanciful in the extreme.

 

Don't think anyone's happy with that scenario, the thing is most people don't believe that's the case at all.  Personally I think the team and squad has been improved and that if the new appointment isn't a disastrous one we should finish at least mid table.  If Keegan was still in charge I'd say top 10 at least with a possible top 8 finish.

[TRon]

I can't understand it, but as far as I can tell the logic being used by TRon here is the single issue with Kevin Keegan leaving the club was that he wanted to spend unlimited dollars. Apparantly nothing else went down during that time, and everything else is dandy.

 

I'm not sure what kind of wierd and wonderful system they have installed down at SJP, but where I work if something like this went down, someone (competent) upstairs would demand a list of 'impacts' immediately, one of which would be 'our customers are really fucking shitty at the way we handled this'. Someone would then get their arse kicked, and someone would be fired (I'm not referring to Kev here, for those lesser lights among us).

 

So if they want to run it like a business maybe they should get some business people in there, not some hair-brained over-inflated egos. Mort seemed to manage alright.

 

That's basically it yes. If a business is set up to be cost effective, you aren't going to fire those people who are working according to the blueprint ( which I assume Wise and Jiminez are). I'm sure KK was hired on the basis he was popular with the customers but if his demands are unworkable, or beyond the financial means set out, then what difference does it make how popular he is with customers?

[afar]

So, some on here accept that Ashley is in it for the money first and are happy with that and the fact that any success would come as by a by product and that by and large PL safety would be acceptable? With the strategy he is using that is the best we can hope for. If that is the ambition of Ashley and those supporters are happy to accept this then we do not deserve success.

 

 

 

Unfortunately Tsunami you're exactly right, some fans here are happy to cheer the balanced books at the expenses of any hope of success on the pitch. We've gone from a team who were challlenging at the top, to a team who where challenging for Europe, to a mid table team, to a team that's statisfied to remain in the top division.

 

This clinging on to the hope that we'll be another "Arsenal" is fanciful in the extreme.

 

Just how long ago was it since we were challenging at the top, you can't put that on the present set-up can you?

 

 

 

What the hell has my statement got to do with your point ? It's about the diminishing expectations of fans.