AyeDubbleYoo Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Mike Ashley could of won over ALOT of supporters today. A pure half arsed effort!! He never stood a chance, the volume and signings that would have made people praise him was impossible. (Sorry, but it's could have.) Utter bollocks. In what way? I know you're an intelligent poster, so what would have been 'good enough'? And also, how would that compare to what a premiership club has ever done in a January window? If we'd signed someone like Johnson (young, talented, attacking central midfielder), I think pretty much everyone would have praised the owner for taking a positive step to address our biggest problem through investment in the first team, even if some wanted yet more. I just can't stand this 'you wanted £60m spent'/'it was impossible for Ashley to win' argument. It's totally inaccurate; simply muck-spreading. I just don't believe everyone would get off Ashley's back if we had added Johnson to the signings we made. Johnson and Bent, and Veloso, then we're talking. I'm not saying people wanted £60m spent, but everyone knows good players are hard to get in January - they just don't want to take anything away from their anti-Ashley stance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menace Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Stoke, West Brom, and Pompey/Boro/Us to go down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bleedinblacknwhite Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Miracles? Who the f*** was expecting miracles? We were lacking both quality AND quantity this window, but sorting out quantity would have been enough to keep us up in the short term. We needed bodies pure and simple. Here's the cold, hard facts: our main relegation rivals, Hull, West Brom, Stoke, Portsmouth, and Blackburn have all strengthened majorly in this window or at least made an effort to shore up their weaknesses. We've gone and made a f***ing profit. Idiocity of the absolute highest order. im not fully up on the other transfers (so correct me if if needs be) hull - bought jimmy bullard and a defender we rejected. we bought nolan and a versatile defender/midfielder who is decent. west brom - just loaned a midfielder? not major strengthening. stoke - james beattie and etherington. they've done well enough but they'll still go down imo. pompey - sold their best 2 players for a s*** load of money and didnt replace either well enough. barely spent anything. blackburn - bought diouf. lost derbyshire. not too good either. sunderland - lost diouf, chimbonda and chopra and got ben haim. poor. boro - swapped mido for king. meh. like i say, if i've missed anyone fill the names in, but that doesnt look to me like they've done much better than us. if we get a few players back then we'll be fine. They also dont have their 14 players out with injury especially to those in key positions. They also have just released their best goalkeeper have they. Stop comparing us to other sides, it is quite clear we are not in equal positions. Surely the fact that we've got all these injuries and still aren't in the drop-zone is a positive? We were one unfair penalty decision away from being there... We just lost owen & barton once again. If things do not pick up soon, it is quite clear WE are not a side that will be able to pull ourselves out of the sht if we land in it. We'll have to rely on other teams, problem being their run in of games is not as hard as ours. We look increasingly likely to get relegated. A LOT relies on Martins and us beating West brom, possibly our future in the prem. And how many unfair penalty decisions away from the top half of the table are we? The amount of penalties given against this season that have not been penalties is unbelievable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sicko2ndbest Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 David Craig on the phone Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_F Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 No, the squad has not improved. We lost Shay Given. Harper is no fucking replacement. Nolan and Taylor are nothing. They are bodies. Nothing more. Especially with Barton and Guthrie out for the season. Unfair on Stevie Harper imo. He's never let us down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcmk Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Stoke, West Brom, and Pompey/Boro/Us to go down. Huh you ignore Spurs why? Also Hull are shooting down the table. Bolton are very weak too! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayson Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 just because im not crying like a bitch about being "omg!! relegated" because we didnt spend £60 million? the squad HAS improved. like ive said many times, not by a huge margin, but its better. if you look at other clubs around us in the table you'll be surprised at how badly some of them have done. as for the scouting thing, we've signed about 5 promising youngsters from around the world this window and improved the squad a bit on a very tight budget. i wasnt expecting miracles, it appears some people were. Tripe like that really doesn't help your argument. there's about 100 pages of people screaming "omg f***ing buy anyone!!!!" "who? f*** it, buy him!!" they're almost suicidal because we havent significantly improved the squad on a very small budget. Libertine, please explain "very small budget" we just sold given and zog for around 14/16 mill. We spent about 5. Perhaps the money was there, perhaps our scouting system failed, perhaps our negotiators are crap & failed at their jobs or Ashley, a man quite obviously clueless about football, is gambling on the idea that these signings are good enough to improve a side with 14 injuries. Perhaps there are many many far more likely & understandable positions to take than the load of nonsense you're spaffing out and the rest of us are ligitamately annoyed for a good reason. we got the money for those 2 within the last 48 hours with very little guarantee of either deal going through (failed medicals, n'zog possibly waiting for a better offer) so to spend that money before we get it (with the state of our finances) would be suicidal. the last minute bids (£16 million) were last minute because we got the money last minute. the rest is up to you whether you believe kinnear was really bidding on players for the last few weeks (from the "£10 million" quote). say what you want about all that, but the squad has improved a bit. Obviously they would not fail medicals as we knew they were fit, any well organised club would have deals lined up for this exact situation OR hurry their other deals through. We were in clear negotiations with man city over one of our players, during this time if we wanted one of theirs we would/should have made it apparent in some way. If they said no but given wanted to leave anyway it makes absolutely 0 sense to then bid for one of their players unless we did it purposly because we knew it would get rejected. Anyway Ashley already gave Kinnear 10 mill according to him remember. Ashley will lose a whole lot more if we're relegated, this isnt really a place to be talking about his finances. Facts are EVEN IF our deals hadnt gone through (we clearly knew they would days ago) we STILL should have spent money to assure our survival in the prem. There is no excuse for this situation. Maybe you should ask yourself why you keep trying to find some. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unlucky Luque Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I still believe there is one final signing soon to be revealed... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Mike Ashley could of won over ALOT of supporters today. A pure half arsed effort!! He never stood a chance, the volume and signings that would have made people praise him was impossible. (Sorry, but it's could have.) Utter bollocks. In what way? I know you're an intelligent poster, so what would have been 'good enough'? And also, how would that compare to what a premiership club has ever done in a January window? If we'd signed someone like Johnson (young, talented, attacking central midfielder), I think pretty much everyone would have praised the owner for taking a positive step to address our biggest problem through investment in the first team, even if some wanted yet more. I just can't stand this 'you wanted £60m spent'/'it was impossible for Ashley to win' argument. It's totally inaccurate; simply muck-spreading. I just don't believe everyone would get off Ashley's back if we had added Johnson to the signings we made. Johnson and Bent, and Veloso, then we're talking. I'm not saying people wanted £60m spent, but everyone knows good players are hard to get in January - they just don't want to take anything away from their anti-Ashley stance. Failure/unwillingness to sign yet another striker is understandable IMO. Leaving Butt in the midfield is not. I'm dying for Ashley to prove me wrong. At the moment there's just nothing to go on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Libertine Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 They also dont have their 14 players out with injury especially to those in key positions. They also have just released their best goalkeeper have they. Stop comparing us to other sides, it is quite clear we are not in equal positions. not a keeper specifically but some of them have got considerably weaker by selling good/their best players. we havent got THAT much weaker as harper is more than able and n'zogbia wouldnt have played anyway. according to physioroom, most of our players are back this week/month so its not like they're all out for the season. who should i compare us to then? chelsea? villa? everton? or just the teams we're fighting against? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayson Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Stoke, West Brom, and Pompey/Boro/Us to go down. Huh you ignore Spurs why? Also Hull are shooting down the table. West Ham are very weak too! They'll do better with keane again now Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sicko2ndbest Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I still believe there is one final signing soon to be revealed... Denilson? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SUPERTOON Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I still believe there is one final signing soon to be revealed... mackems.gif Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_F Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Stoke, West Brom, and Pompey/Boro/Us to go down. Huh you ignore Spurs why? Also Hull are shooting down the table. West Ham are very weak too! West Ham are near the top of the current form table. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SUPERTOON Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I still believe there is one final signing soon to be revealed... Denilson? Where has this rumour come from. He is a DM to start with so Arshavin is not a replacement plus he is an Arsenal regular. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcmk Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Stoke, West Brom, and Pompey/Boro/Us to go down. Huh you ignore Spurs why? Also Hull are shooting down the table. West Ham are very weak too! West Ham are near the top of the current form table. just seen. Didn't realise they are doing so well now, they do have weak squad though with Bellamy going. Edited post now Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gazza ladra Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 No, the squad has not improved. We lost Shay Given. Harper is no fucking replacement. Nolan and Taylor are nothing. They are bodies. Nothing more. Especially with Barton and Guthrie out for the season. Unfair on Stevie Harper imo. He's never let us down. He's no replacement for Shay Given. Nothing against Harper. He's not as good. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DMan Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I still believe there is one final signing soon to be revealed... Your blind faith is astounding considering we have been shafted in every other window, who the f*** do you think we will sign? Yet again it has just been a whole load of bullshit. Can't wait to hear what both Ashley and Kinnear have to say. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I still believe there is one final signing soon to be revealed... mackems.gif The fucking nerve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I've said people need to lower their expectations but at the same time a lot are taking their views out of context. No one was expecting a massive signing, in fact at the beginning of January expectations were quite low, then silly season begins and we getting linked with the likes of Veloso people getting sucked into the media hype. So yeah expectations were too high for some but some people rightly wanted more. I wanted more. The business we've actually done isn't too bad. It's the fact we've failed to bring extra bodies in. Like I said we can't really lay direct blame at Ashley and the recruitment team until we know the full picture, if speculation was to be believed he was attempting to throw £16 million around, not a small sum. However this money wasn't spent and we're still sorely short of players. A decent transfer market would of eased fears of relegation but I think today it's finally dawned on a lot of people we're in deep shit and that in itself might be one of the reasons we struggled to attract players. There will be a lot of finger pointing going on with what is rightly being described as a missed opportunity. However this does not bring us any closer to relegation. The problem is it doesn't help us out of it either. So all in all undeniably disappointing, underwhelming but no where near bad enough to fuel claims we're going down because of it. If anything the continuing post-window witch hunt will do more damage than the transfers (or lack of them) themselves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Theres also the point that I don't feel "smug" that he has done exactly what I thought he would - if he had actually spent a nett amount of money I wouldn't exactly have been pissed off - the squad would (probably) have been been better - winners all round. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikon Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 1 month and this is all that we could come up with...Not good enough imo, nowhere near..And im afraid that we could get relegated and god knows when we would be back in the PL again... Better start praying that we stay up... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
80 Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 What a bunch of f***ing morons. We haven't a clue what bids we made, who we held talks with, who we may still be holding talks with and yet people still pour themselves over these media sites expecting the God's honest truth. Selective reading at its very best my friends. For all we know we're still working on deals behind the scenes, we might not, we haven't a f***ing clue. Look at the summer for an indication of how unpredictable we are in the market. Indeed, we can only go on the tangibles - tangibles you are blind to. Shy of an unlikely surprise, they are bad - Ashley's organisation has, at best, failed to achieve necessary successes. At worst, they didn't attempt to achieve them. But at the end of the day if we haven't strengthened the team any further, it's a bit like yesterdays result. It doesn't put us any closer to the drop but it doesn't really help either. We are still well capable of staying up, it isn't the end of the world man. You seem to think we are operating in a sealed environment. We are not. Yesterday's result was us failing to win a relegation six-pointer at home. Those are the matches that must be won to stay up. Any assumption to the contrary takes it as true that we're as likely to draw against Man United, Liverpool (1-5) et al at home. In case you forgot through lack of interest, Sunderland won the converse fixture - a direct relegation rival of ours now holds a two point advantage over us. We don't have a lot to go off but a few sources corroborated we made an eleventh hour bid for Johnson. If this was indeed the case why was it so late? Were bids elsewhere rejected? Did talks break down? If so why did they break down? It isn't as simple as saying Ashley failed, we are only getting a key whole view of the full picture, until we know the reasons behind the lack of activity it's difficult to hold the recruitment team accountable. All that can be said is this is a disappointing transfer window due to a lack of personnel being recruited. Regarding your second point in an ideal world it is a game we needed to win. However you've got to take into account injuries, the fact it was a derby and Kinnear's general failings as a manger. The worrying thing is in the short term two of these things are unlikely to change. However in the long term we still have several opposition relegation rivals to play, should things pick up by then and given we pick up the off point from teams above us we should survive. A good transfer window would have helped in the short term but at the end of the day this squad is good enough to stay in the Premier League, we just need to drop this attitude of feeling sorry for ourselves. Do you think we simply possess extraordinarily bad fortune, then? Maybe Napoleon was right, then, preferring lucky Generals to good ones. This is as simple as saying Ashley failed. We can go over the reasons for why that failure took place, but it's definitely a failure. Why do these big bids keep going awry? Good question. We'll just have to go on what is demonstrated before us - Ashley's administration repeatedly fails to advance NUFC's fortunes and has us staring at the prospect of relegation. Re: bold, indeed - who's apparently offering him another 2 1/2 years in charge? You’re looking at a rather wide context when my point was a pretty narrow one to begin with. Yes Ashley has failed in some departments. His lack of footballing experience led to the events that unfolded earlier this season and his lack of due diligence on the club means he inherited a few nasty surprises when he bough it. That's to name just two of his errors I'm not praising or in fact defending where he's taken us as the club as a whole I was simply reflecting on the transfer market. In the context of this transfer market though did Ashley fail? We just don't know. He appointed a recruitment team who along with Kinnear only brought the three fresh faces in. Indeed this is disappointing but can we categorically point the finger at them or are there external factors to consider, maybe in this instance we were simply unlucky, until the picture becomes a bit clearer we just don't know. So yeah looking at the big picture it would certainly appear Ashley’s failings have had a major contribution in where we are now. He started a chain of events which led to the main contributing reason for our position today. But to then say "oh Ashley has consistently made mistakes, so this transfer window must be his fault" which essentially what your insinuating, is a completely illogical argument. I don't see how I'm taking your points that widely. What I'm saying is 'we've consistently failed to get what we need in transfer windows while under Ashley's administration' and I'm identifying that a factor present in each of those windows is Ashley's administration. There's more to it than that, of course, there's the fact that all three of his managers have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the way his administration conducts its behaviour during windows, for example. Seems logical, then, to hold suspicions. If we ARE going to look at the wider picture, then things look even worse. There's the fact he's gone through three managers in 18 months and the latest of them is Joe Kinnear. Wider circumstances thus make the results of our affairs with the transfer market even more important. This latest failure is all the more significant, therefore. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I've said people need to lower their expectations but at the same time a lot are taking their views out of context. No one was expecting a massive signing, in fact at the beginning of January expectations were quite low, then silly season begins and we getting linked with the likes of Veloso people getting sucked into the media hype. So yeah expectations were too high for some but some people rightly wanted more. I wanted more. The business we've actually done isn't too bad. It's the fact we've failed to bring extra bodies in. Like I said we can't really lay direct blame at Ashley and the recruitment team until we know the full picture, if speculation was to be believed he was attempting to throw £16 million around, not a small sum. However this money wasn't spent and we're still sorely short of players. A decent transfer market would of eased fears of relegation but I think today it's finally dawned on a lot of people we're in deep shit and that in itself might be one of the reasons we struggled to attract players. There will be a lot of finger pointing going on with what is rightly being described as a missed opportunity. However this does not bring us any closer to relegation. The problem is it doesn't help us out of it either. So all in all undeniably disappointing, underwhelming but no where near bad enough to fuel claims we're going down because of it. If anything the continuing post-window witch hunt will do more damage than the transfers (or lack of them) themselves. This is pretty much what I think, although I think we will be slightly more likely to stay up now we have a couple more bodies in midfield. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_F Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 Stoke, West Brom, and Pompey/Boro/Us to go down. Huh you ignore Spurs why? Also Hull are shooting down the table. West Ham are very weak too! West Ham are near the top of the current form table. just seen. Didn't realise they are doing so well now, they do have weak squad though with Bellamy going. Edited post now Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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