Rayvin

So true... It is what it is. Just gotta keep trying

Yep - and to be honest I'm not sure. I live on the Quayside currently and I wouldn't really mind just buying one of the apartments there; in the £150-170k territory though, which is about £30k beyond me currently and therefore not really worth thinking about. On the other hand, I was looking at some new builds in Fawdon which are about £100-120k, which seems like a more sensible option; just further out though. I also understand Ouseburn is being redeveloped for houses, but I'm not sure I can wait that long. I'm not sure in fairness, my partner is currently part time while she completes a course of her own and until she's back up to full time we're unlikely to be able to do anything.

Where does he spend his money? For what it's worth, I don't live at home. Most of my money goes on rent and bills. And the car.

I thought we had to make sure Cisse left for us to get De Jong... For fucks sake, we all know what's going to happen.

Yep - I can't use pictures of real people as avatars, it doesn't feel right to me. I'm also just a nerd I don't actually play it these days, it's more of a tribute to my younger days.

Thanks, man I reckon maybe in the next 3-5 years. We'll get there someday.

A damning indictment. Still, at least you made something..! Wish I'd done it.

Yep, well, I don't. Despite being responsible for a small business with several million in turnover, I can't afford a house. Such are the times we live in! Most of my money has gone on studying around my work to be honest. It's supposed to be worth it some day... (so they tell me). But fair enough, I guess if I did then I'd probably take an interest. Don't mind me CT, just one of today's disenfranchised and bitter (not so) young people

There's some right 'middle age' topics on here, mind.

Dude, that sucks. Typical timing as well...commiserations.

Lightning seed guy. Although I honestly didn't understand most of that..!

That's genuinely a bit morbid. Imagine if you were shipwrecked or something and this boat sailed into view. You climbed on board and were near instantaneously eaten alive by rabid, cannibal rats. ... That boat should be fucking sunk dammit!

Nothing like a good conspiracy.

Which means Carlton Cole scored it. Which is actually worse.

Yeah I thought that might disprove the theory actually, but he's been awful for Liverpool.

That is not a bad shout... could be. Next season of course, but could be. We could be next year's Everton.

Not sure about that, he apparently wanted to go to Liverpool for that exact reason. But Chelsea offered more, it's not like Basel were going to take Liverpool's £9-10m over Chelsea's £11m+add ons.

Yeah I'm certain Salah is a good player. It's just the way they do it though, Liverpool scouted him for three months and Chelsea get wind of it before asking to be kept up to date on the progress of the deal. Then Liverpool put in an offer and Chelsea just jump in and take him, right at the last minute. EDIT - which also renders all the time, money and effort that Liverpool have spent working out if this guy is right for the team, how to integrate him etc, utterly wasted. And thus prevents them finding as good a replacement in time.

True enough, but for me that only makes the strategy even more sound. He knew immediately that he didn't want Mata but got a replacement in and was able to hurt Spurs in the process. It was just the way it happened that looked like it was snideness to me.

Swooped in on Willian - now Salah. Preventing Spurs and Liverpool reinforcing (no other reason, surely) Loaning out Lukaku has meant Everton are strong enough to be a pain to, again, Spurs and Liverpool, but not strong enough to be up with Chelsea. Wenger's claim about Mata. Does look like transfer strategy in action.

Exactly. Fucking genius to be honest. This is presumably what happens when your squad gets as big as Chelsea's but you have more and more money to spend. You keep buying players to deprive your rivals and bolster teams who can't hurt you.

He said this last year too I think, after all of our strengthening. Basically, teams that played Man Utd for the second time in the season before the window are not playing the same team as the ones who play them later. Man U strengthen and become a bigger challenge for those that follow. I'm not saying it's a good argument, but he's basically saying that Chelsea are using the transfer window to tactically reinforce other teams in order to improve their chances of taking points of Arsenal/City. Hence his comment about the deal not going through until after Chelsea played Man U.

Apparently we bid for Salah - admittedly this is a guy posting on RAWK but he seems well informed and they had a big song and dance about him posting. He's basically ripping into Liverpool for being gazumped by Chelsea, but interesting that we bid at all. Now we were following Salah closely since October, we sent a lot of scouts to Basel games, began negotiating in November and his agent met with Ayre in the West Ham game to discuss terms with them. We had a verbal agreement with Basel regarding everything and we quickly became Salah's favoured destination as he saw us as a club where he can grow, get a lot of 1st team action and become a world class player. I don't know what happened between Salah's agent and Ayre, but the impression that the club got from that meeting was that, in reality there is no way Salah is going to leave for anyone bar Liverpool and/or there are no real offers on the table for Basel bar us. When we got to sending Basel our opening offer, it was a laughable offer well below what was verbally agreed upon, think of Wenger 40 million plus one pound bid, this was even more laughable. Basel raised their as a result of being pissed off. We tried to up our offer but it was again well below what was previously agreed upon and Basel didn't want to lower their demands as they sensed that we were wasting their time. They even began courting other clubs that Salah is available. Milan & Inter thought that Basel's original demands were too high for them, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg & Monchengladbach were ready to pay but Salah didn't want to go to Germany. Basel tried to claim that Atletico was interested but it was a bluff by all accounts, however a host of other clubs wanted to be kept updated on the deal one of whom was Chelsea. Since we saw that Salah didn't want to go to the Bundesliga and with no other club offering Basel any offer, we assumed he'll stay there till the summer and we can re-open negotiations, but Newcastle offered Basel a good first offer and now him coming to us in the summer was in doubt if Basel & Newcastle agree a fee. That's why we came back with a much more improved offer, almost what was verbally agreed upon before the window even started. Salah's personal demands were also agreed previously so there was no problems with him & his agent, just us agreeing some minor details with Basel. Chelsea, who were updated on the deal, at last asked about his availability and Basel asked about 8 million more than what we were offering (they tried to fleece Chelsea and I'm sorry last night I got confused cause I misunderstood my source as telling me Chelsea offered 8 million more, which isn't true) but Chelsea really offered a couple of million more than us but with a lot of add ons that favour Basel heavily, we didn't even hesitate and backed off, not even matching their deal.

I love how he's not even joking