donaldstott

Unless you mean Messi and Ronaldo that is simply not true..

I haven't seen too many John Wayne films but by god he was a spectacularly bad actor. The casting process must have been; can ride a horse - tick, can string a sentence together that is semi comprehensible - tick. You've got the job John!!

I watched the John Wayne version of True Grit. It's nice to see that they've kept it so close to the original..

We've got a babysitting grandma this weekend, so we are making the most of it. Take the littleun to little kickers in the morning then off to the Ledbury for lunch (http://www.theworlds50best.com/awards/1-50-winners/the-ledbury), tickets for Cirque D'Soliel at the Albert Hall tomorrow night, hotel near Bond Street. Cracking!!

I wouldn't bother with the dry slope. It is naff all like a real slope and if you fall on that it hurts. I would book 5 days lessons and have a couple of days to yourself afterwards. Invariably the lessons end at 3.30 so you should get an hour to yourself at the end of each day as well. Forget any ideas of being Franz Klammer by the end of the week.

Where do i say that? The point I am making is that in order for the current board to match the tremendous ambition of the previous board they'd have to spend the equivalent of an entire year's turnover on a single player. THAT is how much football has changed, something you refuse to accept. you're knocking the signing of Shearer, aren't you ? Please tell me how many clubs are bankrolled, as well as ManU and their global appeal. Then tell me how many were bankrolled during the period 1992-2007, then tell me what exactly that has to do with NUFC sinking to the ambitions of the likes of West Brom, Blackburn, Stoke etc etc selling their best players, and operating a sell and replace policy rather than a build and improve policy ? i'm certainly not knocking the signing of Shearer, i'm just saying breaking the transfer record now isn't realistic. To break the transfer record then did not mean an entire year's turnover, now it does. I assume by bankrolled you mean 'living beyond their means', in which case now there is only really chelsea and man city. Between 92-2007 there were many, ourselves, Leeds, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Middlesbrough are the examples that spring to mind. There is a pattern there isn't there - it wasn't sustainable. To a certain extent the Halls/Shepherd broke the mould, they saw that with a relatively small outlay they could climb the league very quickly. They spent in the region of £5million to go from bottom of div 2 (as was) to the top 3 of the premier league. If you think that could happen today you are even more batshit than i thought. Please make up your mind re:Stoke by the way two pages ago they 'backed their manager'.

Where do i say that? The point I am making is that in order for the current board to match the tremendous ambition of the previous board they'd have to spend the equivalent of an entire year's turnover on a single player. THAT is how much football has changed, something you refuse to accept.

rubbish. Fred wasn't the manager or the owner by the way, and if he had been the manager, then qualifying for europe more than any club bar 4 in 15 years isn't too bad It means he bought Bellamy, Robert, Speed, Dyer, Hamman, Solano, Given, Woodgate, Jenas, etc etc etc ......match that then Mikey baby You are right Leazes it is rubbish. I've had time to reflect and Shearer would probably cost £80million. Of course spending our entire turnover by breaking the world transfer record is exactly the kind of thing Mike Ashley should be doing. Quite how we would pay his wages who knows, I guess we could re-mortgage the stadium.. again.

It is ludicrous to compare the two periods. Shearer today would cost 50million, sir les probably 25million, each would want 150k a week. our turnover is only circa 90million quid. Football has changed to compare transfer strategies is pointless. It amuses me that you keep on mentioning stoke as backing their manager, if it's a choice between crouch or ba or tiote or palacios I know who I'd pick. FFS would choose crouch and palacios by the way!

Zog - Asked to leave Bassong - Asked to leave Enrique - Was running down his contract and wanted to leave Nolan - Wanted more money and a long term deal which he didn't warrant. Barton - Clearly a disruptive influence and slated his boss Carroll - Asked to leave (allegedly) I'd argue that having six unhappy players in the squad wouldn't help us at all. Success isn't solely about the fees you pay and the contracts you offer. As I said elsewhere I don't think I've ever seen a happier group of players since 93-95. As has been stated elsewhere, the scouting of player has improved to incorporate 'off the field' and that's been an undoubted success.

Spot on, Ashley's change of attitude coincides with the anti-Ashley demos. When he could no longer have a pint in the big market and treat it as a play thing, he realised that in order to get any value out of the club he'd have to start treating the club like a business and everything changed. It wasn't the effect that the demos intended, but its not a bad result.

It's difficult to argue with much in that article.

This last week has been the first time I've engaged "the argument" that frankly plagues the forum. I was under the misapprehension that perhaps I could make a difference. No-one is going to change his mind, the best we can hope for is that it might be kept in a single thread.

minus Krul, if current rumours are to be believed ? Then what ? Interesting example, a player who cost us nothing, yet adequately replaced a player sold for £6m. That must mean he's no good right? it's pointless talking to people like you. People who regularly point out the gaping chasm in your argument? I admire your tenacity to stick to the same tried and tested lines in the face of such a tsunami of factual information that contradicts them. Every successful football club (bar those owned by sugar daddy sheikhs and russian oligarchs) are run like businesses. Arsenal have been doing it for years and have consistently achieved CL status. At times they've received bids too good to turn down - occasionally because the player wants the move (see Fabregas, Cole, Nasri) or sometimes because they were selling them at the peak of their value before a inevitable slide in form (see Henry, Viera, Overmars and Petit). What all of these players have in common is that Arsenal made profits on those players, a fraction of which went back in to player recruitment, the rest to pay for operational costs, wages and I dare say shareholder dividends. Where FFS went wrong is that he didn't recoup any real value from his assets. So we consistently bought players at the height of their potential worth and sold them for next to nothing or actually nothing (see Robert, Speed, Martins, Owen, Cort, Dyer). Unless you see players as assets you will always have to find extra revenue to fund new players, and eventually the well will run dry and those wonderful Champions League nights that we all loved will NEVER return. FMA, for all his faults, has managed to get the club back in a financial position where Europe is back as a possibility. Good points, well made but sadly wasted on Leazes sadly, it appears that, like so many people, you and the post you quote are cherry picking the last year or so and totally ignoring the first 13 years of the previous regime as if they never happened. Even worse is that if your man ever matches even the last couple of years of his predecessors, you will be pissing your pants with excitement, in your armchair too, such is the lowering of expectations that you have encompassed and accepted. The club has been transported back to the70's and 80's in terms of expectations under Mike Ashley. If you witnessed this period, its easy enough to see, if you didn't then be told by someone who did. Leazes, I know this has been said a million times before, but football has moved on, even since the days of SJH and FFS. It is not possible to compete for the league and/or the champions league by out spending people like we used to. Look how much it took for Chelsea and Man City to compete at the top of the league. You're talking hundreds of millions of pounds. We simply don't make enough money as a club and we're not lucky enough to be backed by a sovereign state. The only way we can compete is to follow the Arsenal model (as outlined above) and for my money that's the direction we are heading in.

minus Krul, if current rumours are to be believed ? Then what ? Interesting example, a player who cost us nothing, yet adequately replaced a player sold for £6m. That must mean he's no good right? it's pointless talking to people like you. People who regularly point out the gaping chasm in your argument? I admire your tenacity to stick to the same tried and tested lines in the face of such a tsunami of factual information that contradicts them. Every successful football club (bar those owned by sugar daddy sheikhs and russian oligarchs) are run like businesses. Arsenal have been doing it for years and have consistently achieved CL status. At times they've received bids too good to turn down - occasionally because the player wants the move (see Fabregas, Cole, Nasri) or sometimes because they were selling them at the peak of their value before a inevitable slide in form (see Henry, Viera, Overmars and Petit). What all of these players have in common is that Arsenal made profits on those players, a fraction of which went back in to player recruitment, the rest to pay for operational costs, wages and I dare say shareholder dividends. Where FFS went wrong is that he didn't recoup any real value from his assets. So we consistently bought players at the height of their potential worth and sold them for next to nothing or actually nothing (see Robert, Speed, Martins, Owen, Cort, Dyer). Unless you see players as assets you will always have to find extra revenue to fund new players, and eventually the well will run dry and those wonderful Champions League nights that we all loved will NEVER return. FMA, for all his faults, has managed to get the club back in a financial position where Europe is back as a possibility.

minus Krul, if current rumours are to be believed ? Then what ? Interesting example, a player who cost us nothing, yet adequately replaced a player sold for £6m. That must mean he's no good right?

nowt to do with signing a new number 9, my position is clear, for anyone with half a brain. Its because we are selling our best players and not backing the manager, in his wishes and with the money, in the way a big progressive club ought to do. The players sold are all being more than adequately replaced, and the manager just signed a player he says he's been tracking for 2 years. These are just sound bites that you're coming out with. They aren't true. Your stance on the £35m is a bit ridiculous - if we can improve the squad for less than that figure, that is a good thing. Other clubs are actually envious of our ability to keep picking up these bargains, and yet you can't see it because the numbers don't add up to 35. It's such a stupid argument. I made a post or two on Newcastle Online 3 or 4 years ago saying I thought Pardew was a good manager with a good future [look for it and bump it if you don't believe me] so I would def back his judgements, that isn't to say every judgement he makes is correct though, because nobody in the world has ever got every decision like this right, not even Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Expecting the entire fee to be recycled back to the manager is not a stupid argument at all, it is what big clubs do, and it is what you as a supporter of a supposed big club, should be expecting and demanding. It's not though is it. Arsenal haven't spent the money they got for Fabregas and Nasri, going further back they didn't replace Petit and Overmars with players costing anything like that money. Did they spend £25m on a replacement for Henry? Did they spend identical money to replace Ashley Cole or Kolo Toure? Man U (which you still haven't addresses properly) didn't replace Ronaldo and Tevez with players that cost anything like £100m. These are big clubs run like businesses. Buying expensive and selling cheap is what we've done in the past and in any business anywhere in the world that means one thing - going bust. What is stopping you accepting that?

My point is that they haven't reinvested the entire £100m in new players. They don't need to as long as the players are adequately replaced. Caroll, Barton and Nolan have been more than adequately replaced.

Just like man united did with the money they got for ronaldo and tevez? Selling club?

Very kind of them. Maybe we could get a second class single for heskey as a thank you.

Get in there. Brave boy taking the nine, hopefully a sign of the confidence he brings.

Made by BMB advertising agency, it's awesome.

Double Demba!!!

typical, generalisation that ignores the facts...what joke. Cherry picking one player is as much a nonsense as getting carried away by winning a few games. Get a life and sort yourself out. Accepting mediocrity is the name of your game. The club does not have a bright future as portrayed by the opening poster of this thread. If you or anyone thinks I'm going to say differently when I don't believe it can think again. You are wrong, just like people have been wrong for ages now. I'd like to fill the squad with quality footballers who get into the top spots, raise the profile of the club again and attempt to challenge the other top teams, especially those who we should not be selling our best players to, and will not be done by a "sell, replace and pocket the cash" policy, and I fail to see what the label "problematic, overpaid scousers" has to do with anything whatsoever. What a foolish statement to make. I'm not cherry picking. You mentioned three players Carroll, Nolan and Barton. £35m for Carroll is a ludicrous amount of money and has helped get the club back on an even keel. In Demba Ba we have a player who offers much more than Carroll. Whilst the, albeit aborted, attempt to get Maiga through the door shows that we want to add/improve to the strikers at the club. The other two are the "problematic, overpaid scousers". Neither warranted the contracts they requested, neither has been missed. In fact letting them go has led to the strongest dressing room we've had at any point since 94/5. The best football clubs build teams who work for each other, not merely 11 players who expect success to come to them simply because they are on a good wedge. Look at the Man U side over the years - The likes of O'Shea, Park, Wes Brown, Nicky Butt and Phil Neville won dozens of medals because they knew the value of a tight dressing room and they were prepared to work for the team, not because of outstanding ability, massive transfer fees or high wages. The team we have now is stronger than the sum of its parts. This is the reason we are where we are.

Not to mention the fact that there is a limit on the squad size and I, for one, would rather fill the squad with keen hungry youngsters than bitter, problematic overpaid scousers.