They were all right...

[Hanshithispantz]

There is a middle ground between buying absolutely fucking nobody and spending tens of millions on mercenaries, believe it or not.

We only had 7-8 months to find one to be fair. And when you look at it that way it's completely acceptable that we're still starting Peter Lovenkrands in the Premiership like.

[Guest bimpy474]

If we hadn't have had such an awful owner in the past, who spent way over the odds on everybody, we wouldn't hold these views.

 

Under shepherd we over spent to the max, and were held to ransom for wages, and ended up with complete mercenaries. You may not care about finances saying its only a few extra million, but we are now getting in top quality players, who want to sign for the club, not the wages or agents who want the fees. We are biding our time, so what we had 9 months to bring in a striker, i believe we filled that issue when we got ba, and another to support him was a bonus, if they aren't available at the right price, or the right wage, then we are right to wait it out until january.

 

We are in a situation unlike we have been before. All wages are covered, all transfer fees are paid. If in january the right player comes up (and he must be the right player, not just a player for the sake of it) then we have that money there, ready to spend. Ashley takes nothing out of this club, at all. To say par dew has seen non of it, is a bit of a farce. He knows the situation, all fees don't just cover the players cost, it covers the whole package. We are on a very, very solid path and compared to this time last year, are in a better state in my opinion. We may have lost nolan, but he was ageing and immobile, to replace him with cabaye is fantastic. We have lost a trouble maker in barton who we could not truly rely on (see gervinho incident or pedersen). We have moved a proven goal scorer in up front and added pace and quality in marveux, santon and the signing of ben arfa. not to mention the potential with mehdi and obertan. Players who we now don't have to worry about any finances for, we have a clean slate to keep looking.

 

I personally can accept not buying a striker if we didn't feel the price was right, or the demands. To be blunt, the fact we have well and truly f***ed off the likes of the luque and owen farce, is fantastic, all players and deals that are done for the good of the club, and not for wage packets of people not connected to nufc are welcome. If you think for 1 second mufc deal in any other way, then you would be insane, and this, is the kind of standing in the game, at negotiating level we should be looking at.

 

Great post, but expect some abuse.

 

Yeah!!!! You f***ing t***.

 

 

 

[Foluwashola]

There is a middle ground between buying absolutely f***ing nobody and spending tens of millions on mercenaries, believe it or not.

 

yep, its called mediocre, tiote, ben area, cabaye, coloccini, fit in to the perfect bracket we should be looking for

 

We had multiple opportunities to purchase a striker who could have been the next Tiote, Ben Arfa etc...

 

Instead we'll continue to play the likes of Best, Shola and Lovenkrands. You may be right, the path we're on may lead us to a magical world, this doesn't excuse the fact we didn't bring in a striker. This is why people are disappointed.

[Guest Rainforest]

If we hadn't have had such an awful owner in the past, who spent way over the odds on everybody, we wouldn't hold these views.

 

Under shepherd we over spent to the max, and were held to ransom for wages, and ended up with complete mercenaries. You may not care about finances saying its only a few extra million, but we are now getting in top quality players, who want to sign for the club, not the wages or agents who want the fees. We are biding our time, so what we had 9 months to bring in a striker, i believe we filled that issue when we got ba, and another to support him was a bonus, if they aren't available at the right price, or the right wage, then we are right to wait it out until january.

 

We are in a situation unlike we have been before. All wages are covered, all transfer fees are paid. If in january the right player comes up (and he must be the right player, not just a player for the sake of it) then we have that money there, ready to spend. Ashley takes nothing out of this club, at all. To say par dew has seen non of it, is a bit of a farce. He knows the situation, all fees don't just cover the players cost, it covers the whole package. We are on a very, very solid path and compared to this time last year, are in a better state in my opinion. We may have lost nolan, but he was ageing and immobile, to replace him with cabaye is fantastic. We have lost a trouble maker in barton who we could not truly rely on (see gervinho incident or pedersen). We have moved a proven goal scorer in up front and added pace and quality in marveux, santon and the signing of ben arfa. not to mention the potential with mehdi and obertan. Players who we now don't have to worry about any finances for, we have a clean slate to keep looking.

 

I personally can accept not buying a striker if we didn't feel the price was right, or the demands. To be blunt, the fact we have well and truly f***ed off the likes of the luque and owen farce, is fantastic, all players and deals that are done for the good of the club, and not for wage packets of people not connected to nufc are welcome. If you think for 1 second mufc deal in any other way, then you would be insane, and this, is the kind of standing in the game, at negotiating level we should be looking at.

 

Great post, but expect some abuse.

¨

 

You forget the fact that we were looking for a striker even before Carroll were sold.

Its very easy to go on about "the right player for us" etc, the simple fact is that our current striking force is amongst the absolute weakest in the premier league, it was lacking when before we lost carroll and beyond excuses after he went. There is not "one" right player out there for us - fucking hell you make it sound like a life-long marriage. Its about upgrading on what you already got, and there must be dozens - sorry hundreds - of strikers plying their trade in europe who is certainly more skilled and more talented individuals than Ameobi/Lovenkrants/best.

 

Its about finding the greatest upgrade you can within the frameworks of your current budget - if you have X amount of money available, you get your scouts out there and tell them to find the best possible striker for that amount of money - in other words obviously we are not gonna get the absolute cream of the crop - but other than that its worth a shot imo.

 

The fact that we have now, 8 months after we announced the hunt for a striker were on - no new faces just tells me there were no incentive to find anyone. If we havent mapped them by now, we never will.  We just sold up and figured our backup strikers could do a job so there is no need for anyone.

 

The Lying is what gets me the most - but not aiming for a quality striker line up is just as depressing tbh.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Beren, I don't really disagree with that post except that the club being in the black would have to happen for more than one year for it to stop being an objective, but the bit about liquidation is mental mind.

 

Fair enough

 

You can though, I hope, see that they have actually gambled on our long-term future by essentially cutting our feet from under us (Carroll, Nolan, Barton, Enrique) and then hoping the new legs (Obertan, Santon, Ba, Cabaye) keep us in the division over the course of two transfer windows?

 

And it is hoping, really. It isn't even financially prudent. It's gambling on one of the key components of all our revenue streams - Premiership football. We survived the second half of last season (thank you Leon Best, Jonas and Joey Barton, among others! ), but it's conceivable - at the time Carroll was sold we could have sunk like a stone. He was either getting our goals, or flicking them on for Nolan! (Pre-injury).

 

IMO, building on the core we had with lower staff/player turnover could have yielded better football, higher rankings, more money. Ashley/Llambias must be Conservatives though, because they're cutting public services left, right and centre and they don't really give a shit about the consequences it has as long as it is ostensibly improving the balance sheet (oh look, an exaggerated analogy Apologies for the 'last refuge' gibe. Immature of me to say in retrospect).

 

Yeah, I've said before that the pace of the change in the squad is too fast for my liking. Any change of that pace is a risk.

 

But at the same time I don't think our outgoings are as bad as people think. Carroll obviously a massive blow, but Nolan not so much and he wanted to seek a better deal which we were right not to match. Barton again I would have liked to have kept but he accelerated his own departure with his twitter bollocks. I think the club overreacted a bit, but the principle was right. Enrique I believe was inevitable, he had just got good enough to play for a better team at the same time that his contract was running out.

 

Specifics aside, I agree we are gambling to a certain extent, I just think our chance of relegation is tiny enough to make me not that scared about it. Wood touched.

[Beren]

[Rich]

There is a middle ground between buying absolutely fucking nobody and spending tens of millions on mercenaries, believe it or not.

 

Exactly. For all the good points in dazza's post it glosses over the fact that Maiga and Pieters (at the very least) looked very keen to come here and were prevented from doing so by a few million here and there if reports are to be believed. We had obviously singled them out as two targets worth pursuing and still failed to do a deal. It's fair enough to not get bent over a barrel in negotiations and I can't deny they've done some cracking deals both ways, but say for instance we pulled those two players in on top of what we currently have and things would have a very different complexion. Even just Maiga and people would be happy enough.

 

Not a lot came out about Ridgewell but you'd imagine that to be a similar case, although Cisse and Cissokho I could just about accept given the figures quoted, if they were indeed accurate. It's frustration more than all out anger for me, again. I just don't understand the way they do things, there are so many contradictions in the way they go about their business at times.

[Heron]

FTR Dazza, I disagree with approximately 98.64% of your main post. However, I'm sure the nocternal species will argue this further, as I quite frankly...can...not...be...fiddled.

[BottledDog]

If we hadn't have had such an awful owner in the past, who spent way over the odds on everybody, we wouldn't hold these views.

 

Under shepherd we over spent to the max, and were held to ransom for wages, and ended up with complete mercenaries. You may not care about finances saying its only a few extra million, but we are now getting in top quality players, who want to sign for the club, not the wages or agents who want the fees. We are biding our time, so what we had 9 months to bring in a striker, i believe we filled that issue when we got ba, and another to support him was a bonus, if they aren't available at the right price, or the right wage, then we are right to wait it out until january.

 

We are in a situation unlike we have been before. All wages are covered, all transfer fees are paid. If in january the right player comes up (and he must be the right player, not just a player for the sake of it) then we have that money there, ready to spend. Ashley takes nothing out of this club, at all. To say par dew has seen non of it, is a bit of a farce. He knows the situation, all fees don't just cover the players cost, it covers the whole package. We are on a very, very solid path and compared to this time last year, are in a better state in my opinion. We may have lost nolan, but he was ageing and immobile, to replace him with cabaye is fantastic. We have lost a trouble maker in barton who we could not truly rely on (see gervinho incident or pedersen). We have moved a proven goal scorer in up front and added pace and quality in marveux, santon and the signing of ben arfa. not to mention the potential with mehdi and obertan. Players who we now don't have to worry about any finances for, we have a clean slate to keep looking.

 

I personally can accept not buying a striker if we didn't feel the price was right, or the demands. To be blunt, the fact we have well and truly f***ed off the likes of the luque and owen farce, is fantastic, all players and deals that are done for the good of the club, and not for wage packets of people not connected to nufc are welcome. If you think for 1 second mufc deal in any other way, then you would be insane, and this, is the kind of standing in the game, at negotiating level we should be looking at.

 

Wow. You better hide mate.

 

 

Good post dazzanufc1892, very disappointed we have failed to bring in a striker, but I'd like to think we are in a position to do so if the right player comes along.

As it stands we have created a squad that is good enough to win games, if we can get a striker that fits us in January then we could still have a cracking season.

 

As I say, to have the number 9 still sitting on a peg is ridiculous and deserves criticism, but in the scheme of things I'm happy with what we are trying to do, have faith in the team we are building, and am not pessimistic about the clubs prospects moving forward.

 

 

 

[Cajun]

Carroll replaced by Ba? And since we've sold Carroll, Ba has been a helluva lot better in the Premier League.

 

if you genuinely think Ba is a better player than Carroll , i've got nothing to say anymore. mind you , form is temporary class is permanent

 

Doesn't that completely negate your argument given that Ba has been an absolutely lethal striker for 6 years where as Carroll has had 6 prolific months at the top level and 6 which where very hit and miss?

 

Ba never play top level football until Hoffenheim promoted 3 years ago ,never scored more than 15 goals a season, and i don't think he will improve anymore, while Carroll show he's a up and rising talent with his 6 months EPL performance , that's what i think

so whats his record at the top level only ?

 

He won't answer that, fact is Ba has scored a lot of goals at every level he has played in. It wasn't that long ago when a few were saying "£4m for Carroll from Stoke? Fuck yeah!?".

 

The argument is so flawed.

[The Prophet]

My two pennies worth...

 

I'm not at all impressed with the ambition we've shown this window. We've had a substantial amount banked from January with a promise of re-investment and we've barely seen a wrapper of it. This is before you touch on the failure to sign a second striker and the apparent bullying of clubs that has culminated in two of them reporting us to the footballing authorities. Deceitful, underhand behaviour. However it's not all that bad.

 

We've signed some real quality. Cabaye, Marveaux and Ba in particular should go a long way in improving the squad we finished with last term, we've also brought in Obertan and Santon, two promising young lads. Overall I think we have improved on last season’s squad, despite losing both Nolan, Barton and Enrique, even if they do take some time to gel together. Some of these lads have heavily contributed to a promising start to the season including a point against a full strength Arsenal and a win away to our local rivals, not bad going at all.

 

While Ashley and Llambias are at the helm they’ll penny-pinch until the club is running off its own profit or the fat man finally sells up. They also behave like a pair of spineless shitbags, but then we already knew this. Despite the disappointment deadline day has brought I think there are some real positives to take from this window and I see no reason why we can't go on to establish ourselves in the top half of the table. Things aren't great, but they could be a hell of a lot worse.

 

[timnufc22]

If we hadn't have had such an awful owner in the past, who spent way over the odds on everybody, we wouldn't hold these views.

 

Under shepherd we over spent to the max, and were held to ransom for wages, and ended up with complete mercenaries. You may not care about finances saying its only a few extra million, but we are now getting in top quality players, who want to sign for the club, not the wages or agents who want the fees. We are biding our time, so what we had 9 months to bring in a striker, i believe we filled that issue when we got ba, and another to support him was a bonus, if they aren't available at the right price, or the right wage, then we are right to wait it out until january.

 

We are in a situation unlike we have been before. All wages are covered, all transfer fees are paid. If in january the right player comes up (and he must be the right player, not just a player for the sake of it) then we have that money there, ready to spend. Ashley takes nothing out of this club, at all. To say par dew has seen non of it, is a bit of a farce. He knows the situation, all fees don't just cover the players cost, it covers the whole package. We are on a very, very solid path and compared to this time last year, are in a better state in my opinion. We may have lost nolan, but he was ageing and immobile, to replace him with cabaye is fantastic. We have lost a trouble maker in barton who we could not truly rely on (see gervinho incident or pedersen). We have moved a proven goal scorer in up front and added pace and quality in marveux, santon and the signing of ben arfa. not to mention the potential with mehdi and obertan. Players who we now don't have to worry about any finances for, we have a clean slate to keep looking.

 

I personally can accept not buying a striker if we didn't feel the price was right, or the demands. To be blunt, the fact we have well and truly f***ed off the likes of the luque and owen farce, is fantastic, all players and deals that are done for the good of the club, and not for wage packets of people not connected to nufc are welcome. If you think for 1 second mufc deal in any other way, then you would be insane, and this, is the kind of standing in the game, at negotiating level we should be looking at.

 

Great post, but expect some abuse.

 

I am, I'm waiting for the shepherd fans who stood outside chanting like a loon and cheering at the "us geordies are a special breed of people to come haring after me

 

I agree the summer window has actually been decent, we have bought some seemingly good players, and I certainly dont see us scrapping for relegation. But I do not believe there was ever any intetion to spend anything near 35m, so I do not agree with Pardew/the club saying there was 35m to play with this summer. Get the season ticket sold, basically. And most of all, I do not agree with raping the club of its heritage by, in this instance, removing the iconic Newcastle United sign from the east stand. This tells us the man in charge is, despite being a billionaire, also a class-less low life - prepared to act out his childish two-fingers message to his 'customers' in such a disgusting, pathetic and blatent way, because they dared to react to his lies. That goes beyond football.

[themanupstairs]

Beren, I don't really disagree with that post except that the club being in the black would have to happen for more than one year for it to stop being an objective, but the bit about liquidation is mental mind.

 

Fair enough

 

You can though, I hope, see that they have actually gambled on our long-term future by essentially cutting our feet from under us (Carroll, Nolan, Barton, Enrique) and then hoping the new legs (Obertan, Santon, Ba, Cabaye) keep us in the division over the course of two transfer windows?

 

And it is hoping, really. It isn't even financially prudent. It's gambling on one of the key components of all our revenue streams - Premiership football. We survived the second half of last season (thank you Leon Best, Jonas and Joey Barton, among others! ), but it's conceivable - at the time Carroll was sold we could have sunk like a stone. He was either getting our goals, or flicking them on for Nolan! (Pre-injury).

 

IMO, building on the core we had with lower staff/player turnover could have yielded better football, higher rankings, more money. Ashley/Llambias must be Conservatives though, because they're cutting public services left, right and centre and they don't really give a s*** about the consequences it has as long as it is ostensibly improving the balance sheet (oh look, an exaggerated analogy Apologies for the 'last refuge' gibe. Immature of me to say in retrospect).

 

Yeah, I've said before that the pace of the change in the squad is too fast for my liking. Any change of that pace is a risk.

 

But at the same time I don't think our outgoings are as bad as people think. Carroll obviously a massive blow, but Nolan not so much and he wanted to seek a better deal which we were right not to match. Barton again I would have liked to have kept but he accelerated his own departure with his twitter bollocks. I think the club overreacted a bit, but the principle was right. Enrique I believe was inevitable, he had just got good enough to play for a better team at the same time that his contract was running out.

 

Specifics aside, I agree we are gambling to a certain extent, I just think our chance of relegation is tiny enough to make me not that scared about it. Wood touched.

 

Was reading through the Nolan thread the other day, and it makes for hilarious reading in hindsight. You'd think he was our Ali Dia the way some went on about how shit he was, and now it seems the majority are furious he was sold. IMO he was the best captain the club has had for many years, and scored some important goals for us over 2 enjoyable season. But he was clearly on a rapid decline physically, and selling him for the maximum fee we could have got was the absolute correct decision from a footballing point of view. Big shame is that maximized fee wasn't re-invested in an obvious way that would show the fans where the club is headed.

 

Overall, the only deal we really got screwed on was Enrique. The AC money was daft, and Barton pushed himself out.

[Guest Rainforest]

Im sorry but what has Marveaux proven to put him in the same boat as Cabaye and Ba? Other than having 1 good season and being a perma-crook the following one. Seems like a massive gamble to me..... if he came with a pricetag   

[Guest dazzanufc1892]

If we hadn't have had such an awful owner in the past, who spent way over the odds on everybody, we wouldn't hold these views.

 

Under shepherd we over spent to the max, and were held to ransom for wages, and ended up with complete mercenaries. You may not care about finances saying its only a few extra million, but we are now getting in top quality players, who want to sign for the club, not the wages or agents who want the fees. We are biding our time, so what we had 9 months to bring in a striker, i believe we filled that issue when we got ba, and another to support him was a bonus, if they aren't available at the right price, or the right wage, then we are right to wait it out until january.

 

We are in a situation unlike we have been before. All wages are covered, all transfer fees are paid. If in january the right player comes up (and he must be the right player, not just a player for the sake of it) then we have that money there, ready to spend. Ashley takes nothing out of this club, at all. To say par dew has seen non of it, is a bit of a farce. He knows the situation, all fees don't just cover the players cost, it covers the whole package. We are on a very, very solid path and compared to this time last year, are in a better state in my opinion. We may have lost nolan, but he was ageing and immobile, to replace him with cabaye is fantastic. We have lost a trouble maker in barton who we could not truly rely on (see gervinho incident or pedersen). We have moved a proven goal scorer in up front and added pace and quality in marveux, santon and the signing of ben arfa. not to mention the potential with mehdi and obertan. Players who we now don't have to worry about any finances for, we have a clean slate to keep looking.

 

I personally can accept not buying a striker if we didn't feel the price was right, or the demands. To be blunt, the fact we have well and truly f***ed off the likes of the luque and owen farce, is fantastic, all players and deals that are done for the good of the club, and not for wage packets of people not connected to nufc are welcome. If you think for 1 second mufc deal in any other way, then you would be insane, and this, is the kind of standing in the game, at negotiating level we should be looking at.

 

Great post, but expect some abuse.

¨

 

You forget the fact that we were looking for a striker even before Carroll were sold.

Its very easy to go on about "the right player for us" etc, the simple fact is that our current striking force is amongst the absolute weakest in the premier league, it was lacking when before we lost carroll and beyond excuses after he went. There is not "one" right player out there for us - f***ing hell you make it sound like a life-long marriage. Its about upgrading on what you already got, and there must be dozens - sorry hundreds - of strikers plying their trade in europe who is certainly more skilled and more talented individuals than Ameobi/Lovenkrants/best.

 

Its about finding the greatest upgrade you can within the frameworks of your current budget - if you have X amount of money available, you get your scouts out there and tell them to find the best possible striker for that amount of money - in other words obviously we are not gonna get the absolute cream of the crop - but other than that its worth a shot imo.

 

The fact that we have now, 8 months after we announced the hunt for a striker were on - no new faces just tells me there were no incentive to find anyone. If we havent mapped them by now, we never will.  We just sold up and figured our backup strikers could do a job so there is no need for anyone.

 

The Lying is what gets me the most - but not aiming for a quality striker line up is just as depressing tbh.

 

you say its weak.....i honestly believe ben arfas injury changed a lot. he is seemingly going to be playing behind a lone front man, be this shola, best, or ba. Which would mean the club were looking for another potential play maker who could fill both in that position, and as a striker. Most players we were looking at, seemed to fit this mould. So rather than looking like a team that will play 2 up top, look at us as a team who will be playing 1 up top, which is seemingly the game plan after who we have and the targets we are looking at. What use would it be, us shelling out 10mil on a player who may not fit a formation we are seemingly building towards.

 

Ahh thats why, we are newcastle united, we spunk money away because its nice to have a glistening new striker and be all over the tv with 20 inbred charvas doing the old reach around to david craig live on tv. Lets see how we line up when bens back, we have adequate cover until then to see how things pan out. And if we do go for 1 up top, how good will it be when we know who we want when our full teams out, rather than that last day glory signing....

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Totally agree that it was wrong to say the whole £35m would be invested, but I think it was more an instinctive reaction of a regime trying to justify a very unpopular sale than a devious plan to sell season tickets.

[Guest Rainforest]

As far as Nolan goes, how can one actually be on the decline physically when ur only 28? Surely nothing a proper diet and more conditioning couldnt fix. Imagine Nolan with a Kuyt-esque engine. Would of been a monster.

[Heron]

If we hadn't have had such an awful owner in the past, who spent way over the odds on everybody, we wouldn't hold these views.

 

Under shepherd we over spent to the max, and were held to ransom for wages, and ended up with complete mercenaries. You may not care about finances saying its only a few extra million, but we are now getting in top quality players, who want to sign for the club, not the wages or agents who want the fees. We are biding our time, so what we had 9 months to bring in a striker, i believe we filled that issue when we got ba, and another to support him was a bonus, if they aren't available at the right price, or the right wage, then we are right to wait it out until january.

 

We are in a situation unlike we have been before. All wages are covered, all transfer fees are paid. If in january the right player comes up (and he must be the right player, not just a player for the sake of it) then we have that money there, ready to spend. Ashley takes nothing out of this club, at all. To say par dew has seen non of it, is a bit of a farce. He knows the situation, all fees don't just cover the players cost, it covers the whole package. We are on a very, very solid path and compared to this time last year, are in a better state in my opinion. We may have lost nolan, but he was ageing and immobile, to replace him with cabaye is fantastic. We have lost a trouble maker in barton who we could not truly rely on (see gervinho incident or pedersen). We have moved a proven goal scorer in up front and added pace and quality in marveux, santon and the signing of ben arfa. not to mention the potential with mehdi and obertan. Players who we now don't have to worry about any finances for, we have a clean slate to keep looking.

 

I personally can accept not buying a striker if we didn't feel the price was right, or the demands. To be blunt, the fact we have well and truly f***ed off the likes of the luque and owen farce, is fantastic, all players and deals that are done for the good of the club, and not for wage packets of people not connected to nufc are welcome. If you think for 1 second mufc deal in any other way, then you would be insane, and this, is the kind of standing in the game, at negotiating level we should be looking at.

 

Great post, but expect some abuse.

 

I am, I'm waiting for the shepherd fans who stood outside chanting like a loon and cheering at the "us geordies are a special breed of people to come haring after me

 

I agree the summer window has actually been decent, we have bought some seemingly good players, and I certainly dont see us scrapping for relegation. But I do not believe there was ever any intetion to spend anything near 35m, so I do not agree with Pardew/the club saying there was 35m to play with this summer. Get the season ticket sold, basically. And most of all, I do not agree with raping the club of its heritage by, in this instance, removing the iconic Newcastle United sign from the east stand. This tells us the man in charge is, despite being a billionaire, also a class-less low life - prepared to act out his childish two-fingers message to his 'customers' in such a disgusting, pathetic and blatent way, because they dared to react to his lies. That goes beyond football.

 

Nail on head.

 

 

[Guest Potter]

Totally agree that it was wrong to say the whole £35m would be invested, but I think it was more an instinctive reaction of a regime trying to justify a very unpopular sale than a devious plan to sell season tickets.

 

Well you would say that wouldn't you, since every fucking post you make is an apology for the fuckwits running the club.

 

No offence intended of course you spastic.

[Heron]

Beren, I don't really disagree with that post except that the club being in the black would have to happen for more than one year for it to stop being an objective, but the bit about liquidation is mental mind.

 

Fair enough

 

You can though, I hope, see that they have actually gambled on our long-term future by essentially cutting our feet from under us (Carroll, Nolan, Barton, Enrique) and then hoping the new legs (Obertan, Santon, Ba, Cabaye) keep us in the division over the course of two transfer windows?

 

And it is hoping, really. It isn't even financially prudent. It's gambling on one of the key components of all our revenue streams - Premiership football. We survived the second half of last season (thank you Leon Best, Jonas and Joey Barton, among others! ), but it's conceivable - at the time Carroll was sold we could have sunk like a stone. He was either getting our goals, or flicking them on for Nolan! (Pre-injury).

 

IMO, building on the core we had with lower staff/player turnover could have yielded better football, higher rankings, more money. Ashley/Llambias must be Conservatives though, because they're cutting public services left, right and centre and they don't really give a s*** about the consequences it has as long as it is ostensibly improving the balance sheet (oh look, an exaggerated analogy Apologies for the 'last refuge' gibe. Immature of me to say in retrospect).

 

Yeah, I've said before that the pace of the change in the squad is too fast for my liking. Any change of that pace is a risk.

 

But at the same time I don't think our outgoings are as bad as people think. Carroll obviously a massive blow, but Nolan not so much and he wanted to seek a better deal which we were right not to match. Barton again I would have liked to have kept but he accelerated his own departure with his twitter bollocks. I think the club overreacted a bit, but the principle was right. Enrique I believe was inevitable, he had just got good enough to play for a better team at the same time that his contract was running out.

 

Specifics aside, I agree we are gambling to a certain extent, I just think our chance of relegation is tiny enough to make me not that scared about it. Wood touched.

 

Was reading through the Nolan thread the other day, and it makes for hilarious reading in hindsight. You'd think he was our Ali Dia the way some went on about how s*** he was, and now it seems the majority are furious he was sold. IMO he was the best captain the club has had for many years, and scored some important goals for us over 2 enjoyable season. But he was clearly on a rapid decline physically, and selling him for the maximum fee we could have got was the absolute correct decision from a footballing point of view. Big shame is that maximized fee wasn't re-invested in an obvious way that would show the fans where the club is headed.

 

Overall, the only deal we really got screwed on was Enrique. The AC money was daft, and Barton pushed himself out.

 

Nolan was mint.

[Guest Craig-NUFC]

Just as a side note, but didn't Pardew say at the start of the window in that radio interview that he did that this is year 1 of a 2 year project, with the aim to finish mid-table this year and then push on next. Just putting it out there.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Totally agree that it was wrong to say the whole £35m would be invested, but I think it was more an instinctive reaction of a regime trying to justify a very unpopular sale than a devious plan to sell season tickets.

 

Well you would say that wouldn't you, since every fucking post you make is an apology for the fuckwits running the club.

 

No offence intended of course you spastic.

 

 

Wow.

[Guest Rainforest]

Dazza, the master-plan playing off Ben arfa went tits up the moment De Jong tackled him last season. Nothing to indicate he will be back to his former self 100%, so its a massive gamble at this point, obviously not gotten any better with his second injury. Only time will tell but unlikely he will be AS brisk as he was.

[The Prophet]

Totally agree that it was wrong to say the whole £35m would be invested, but I think it was more an instinctive reaction of a regime trying to justify a very unpopular sale than a devious plan to sell season tickets.

 

Well you would say that wouldn't you, since every f***ing post you make is an apology for the fuckwits running the club.

 

No offence intended of course you spastic.

 

Tears before bedtime?

[Heron]

Totally agree that it was wrong to say the whole £35m would be invested, but I think it was more an instinctive reaction of a regime trying to justify a very unpopular sale than a devious plan to sell season tickets.

 

Well you would say that wouldn't you, since every f***ing post you make is an apology for the fuckwits running the club.

 

No offence intended of course you spastic.

 

:lol: