RobH

Weah. Im convinced Edit: Thought we were still looking for W

Presume its since 1994. Probably rules papin out.

Pauleta? Clutching at straws here

Montpellier but still might have edit: nope

Adriano?

Willian? Quaresma?

He's better than his brother. He's class and hence we wont be getting him.

:lol:

Using that from now on. Edit: Cockwomble that is. I'm not getting a blonde mohican.

What a fucking ring piece Birtles is.

Their Uni teams are filling up with Europeans on scholarships as well. I've toured there and the only team that we lost to in 14 games (including the state champions) had 7 ghanaians trialing for them. We finished fourth in the City schools league. They have a long way to go to catch up to even our outdated grass roots football.

I guarantee most people who sit near me would give it to 'Stevie T' therefore it's the last thing we should do. Leadership has nothing to do with shouting "c'mon lads" and pointing occasionally at a random, unspecified area. My first reaction would be Cabaye given his experience and position but I quite like your Ben Arfa argument. He could, in theory, lead the team in the sense of driving the rest on by example. Ronaldo does it, Maradona did it and neither of them seem like obvious choices on the face of it. Also when has Ben Arfa's attitude been questioned when playing for us? I think it's too easy an argument to make and its not accurate imo.

?

We could just be signing a squad player... that sounds like the sort of sensible thing we normally do.

Fair play but I think he'd be less inclined, given his notorious lifestyle, if he was earning a third of what he could in Madrid or London.

Yeah it's fairly common for Brazilian teams to use third party help. Neymar is 'only' on 55 grand a week directly from Santos but it's supplemented by Nike among others which is presumably how they've managed to keep him so long. The problem for Brazilian clubs is, despite the growth of their economy and the popularity of their football, they're getting fucked over by debt combined with 10% + interest rates.

Eh? Edit: Doesn't matter I hadnt read the rest of the thread yet. You got enough fires to fight.

Eerily similar to what I did and aye it was shite.

Nicked

Just got back. That was shit. Don't understand why we compromised Cisse for Shola in terms of formation, I hope that's not a long term plan. Also didn't understand taking off Obertan who was one of our most threatening players throughout the game. Then again we were missing 5/6 first teamers against a strong Everton team. I feel like everyone around the club needs a boost to get back on track. The ref was wank as well now I come to think of it, never a freekick from where I was for their first. Also, if anyone watched on TV, was it a pen when shola went down in the box?

We don't even disagree really.

Right well obviously if you're going to be pedantic then clearly it's possible, well done for pointing that out. The reality is that If Ba says 'I'm only signing a contract with a 7.5mill release clause' then there's little chance of us negotiating otherwise. i

Why wouldn't they then? Also how could you possibly know that? You think it would have been possible.

I think the fact that 'he' obviously demanded a release clause makes 'his' intentions/ motivations pretty clear.