Mike Ashley

[Dave]

It basically means that the biggest difference between seasons like the last one and this comes purely down to luck. If you're lucky, you might have a full compliment of capable players and qualify for Europe. If you're unlucky, relegation is a real possibility.

 

What a fantastic model, I can't believe nobody has thought of it before.

[Wullie]

Taylor missed nearly all of last season and Ben Arfa wasn't picked regularly until after this time last year so to suggest it's ok for that to have had the impact it has is ridiculous.

[nufc4eva]

His transfer policy is flawed, it suits us fine with no injuries but every team gets injuries and there is no adequate backups in place.

 

Yip, however his policy has brought us Ba, Cisse, Cabaye, ben Arfa, Tiote, Anita, Santon, Debuchy, Marveux in last 3 seasons. Not bad really. The problem is the mindset that someone needs to be sold to offset this, even if Simpson / Williamson goes we need that squad player.

 

We also need to develop players like Sammy, Tav, Fergie, Abeid, Bigi, Amalfatino, Streete, Campbell, Inman, Dummett to be capable of playing in the team. It's up to the manager to work that one out as it could solve a few problems really. Getting a few of those to being good players to bring in with right mentality, tactical nous, discipline etc would save us a fortune but we need the coaching and management to drill it into them because tactical and discipline seems shocking in all but Bigi - never seen Streete obviously

 

Inman ? The guy was scoring and creating goals for the reserves earlier in the season and didn't even get near the first team....

What has happened to him ? He's over 20 now isn't he ?

 

On loan at Crewe now, tbh he should have been out at 18/19. Sammy, Ferguson, Tav etc could all do with loans at Championship clubs for a few months. Not sent to Scotland or anywhere, we need them getting that experience and confidence in the league below us for a full season with the hope of bringing them into first team the year later or sending out again if not quite ready. We are hopeless at developing players tbh

 

 

[nufc4eva]

It's not really that mental, all he's basically saying is we can't afford two great players per position, with one sitting on the bench. I don't think that's insane, the debate is over the quality of the specific replacements (let's call them 'brown' players!). And the real crisis comes when more than a couple of purples are out injured.

 

Don't think it is brown, they had a colour for different roles also, from casino days I believe

[Ryan_Taylor]

It's not really that mental, all he's basically saying is we can't afford two great players per position, with one sitting on the bench. I don't think that's insane, the debate is over the quality of the specific replacements (let's call them 'brown' players!). And the real crisis comes when more than a couple of purples are out injured.

 

Don't think it is brown, they had a colour for different roles also, from casino days I believe

 

Sounds like we're playing real life FIFA Ultimate Team ffs.

[Deputy Dawg UK]

It basically means that the biggest difference between seasons like the last one and this comes purely down to luck. If you're lucky, you might have a full compliment of capable players and qualify for Europe. If you're unlucky, relegation is a real possibility.

 

What a fantastic model, I can't believe nobody has thought of it before.

    BIRMINGHAM

[Dave]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

[themanupstairs]

At what point did llambias qualify as a sound judge of footballing talent?

 

A casino manager until a few years back & now he`s sudenly re-invented as an almost sage like figure offering opinions on the playing staff that are quite clearly bullshit.

 

I`m not sure what worries me more: Either this is his opinion & transfer policy is being infuenced by such, or this is Pardews thoughts-by proxy.

 

I'm pretty sure they're learning about the business of football as they go along. Not a bad idea in theory, unless you're learning from the wrong people.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I doubt Llambias claims to be a judge of footballing talent. He has Pardew and Carr for that.

[Ryan_Taylor]

I doubt Llambias claims to be a judge of footballing talent. He has Pardew and Carr for that.

 

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-cSpYxwXnrDXxIDvlFfAzuc6zjx7g8sBC84HyMPG3M82jQS5uHmmY1nwVVg

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

if he's not going to pay for more than 11 players worthy of a place in the starting lineup then he should, in theory, at least pay to employ some fitness and conditioning staff with half an idea on what their job involves.

 

Some of it might be bad luck, but ffs you can't help but wonder why we pick up injuries so easily.

[johnnypd]

Considering he always misses half a season and isn't THAT good can we class Taylor as being half-purple? let's say, mauve?

[BottledDog]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

Quit sucking all the joy out of life.

 

We clearly have a structure where we feel we can assign a certain amount of the budget to those on higher wages, and like every club it is difficult to justify having highly paid players sitting on the bench (or even in the reserves ala Xisco). Llambias just tried to simplify things in answer to a question. Of course we're flexible. Of course things change.

[BottledDog]

I doubt Llambias claims to be a judge of footballing talent. He has Pardew and Carr for that.

 

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-cSpYxwXnrDXxIDvlFfAzuc6zjx7g8sBC84HyMPG3M82jQS5uHmmY1nwVVg

 

Thought you didn't think he had any say, but if we're going down that route...

 

http://www.talksport.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/ts_news_article_header_image/Demba_Ba_0.jpg

[pi_D]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

Quit sucking all the joy out of life. Jeez.

 

We clearly have a structure where we feel we can assign a certain amount of the budget to those on higher wages, and like every club it is difficult to justify having highly paid players sitting on the bench (or even in the reserves ala Xisco). Llambias just tried to simplify things in answer to a question. Of course we're flexible. Of course things change.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

Quit sucking all the joy out of life. Jeez.

 

We clearly have a structure where we feel we can assign a certain amount of the budget to those on higher wages, and like every club it is difficult to justify having highly paid players sitting on the bench (or even in the reserves ala Xisco). Llambias just tried to simplify things in answer to a question. Of course we're flexible. Of course things change.

 

Far too sensible a view that.

[arnonel]

One thing I dont understand about the current structure.

 

If the purpose is to buy low, so that we can sell high later.

 

Surely that means then, that if we have more stock, we stand more chance to make money?

In Sports Direct terms: Right now we only have a few shirts in the shop. We need more shirts, else we wont hit revenue targets.

 

[Dave]

Define 'highly paid'.

 

A useful comparison might be the Spurs squad, which I'm pretty sure was the last club held up as the one we are trying to emulate.

[Benwell Lad]

So this latest crisis we're in makes it open season to question/criticise/abuse Ashley's ownership and his financial strategy again.

That's fine of course, but what is the suggested alternative this time, bearing in mind he won't be changing course any time soon ?

Is it fairy godmother Arabs, fanzine editors wanting our pension pots or perhaps another "Geordie" knight in shining armour dashing to our rescue?

[Dave]

Eh? There is no alternative. All we're doing is discussed the relative merits.

[steve_69]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no fucker else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be shit hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

[BottledDog]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no fucker else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be shit hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

Good is gonna be great. Bassong x 2.

[nufc4eva]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no f***er else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be s*** hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

 

In some respects all we need are a handful of Purple players such as Colo,Cabaye, Ben Arfa, Cisse etc and the rest to be competent football players not superstars. Likes of everton have a few handy players in Baines, Fellaini and Pienaar, Jelavic the rest are competent but would struggle if just dropped into our team imho

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no f***er else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be s*** hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

IIRC Bassong was signed after being offered to Keegan and doing a trial here. Think he was a KK signing. You're right though.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

If I couldn't afford to run my car, I'd sell it.  If he can't afford to run a football club, then put us up for sale.

 

Still utterly laughable that for a businessman, this clown didn't conduct due diligence.