Matt Ritchie is back in his hat

In total agreement here. The bloke oozes work rate and scares the life out of defenders.
He's a proven PL player and quite rightly so.

 

U

The way I look at our squad is this is our championship squad and with one goal to get back up hence why we bought the likes of Hanley and Murphy who both had vital experience in this level.
Next season will be a completely different line up imo but I do think Ritchie will be part of that.

 

Really? We need about 8 premiership players and that's way above our budget mate

I think Rafa will go once he's got us promoted and we'll get relegated

 

Says who ?? Ashley has spent the cash in the last 2 summer windows and will again.
Rafa would have only signed if he had assurances on what he has to spend when we went up its not like us going up would have been a surprise to Ashley

 

Says me mate Ashley will get pissed off he's not getting bids in transfer windows , rafa will undoubtedly at some point get a better offer and we will certainly go tits up .

It's pretty standard I'm not sure why people question this .

We need more than 35 to 50 million mate we need about 150 million in today's prices Ashley hasn't spent more it's all relative

 

We don't necessarily need x amount or y amount. We just need the players. It just depends on the situations of the players we are after and if they are on long contracts that we have to buy out or not. Players will be sold to bring in cash on top of what we have in the bank and maybe Ashley will float a couple of transfers on the back of PL income which will come in later in the season (I don't think he will ever put in his own cash). We'll make it work although we'll be buying players for survival rather than a title tilt. Rafa would only walk if Ashley breaks his word or one of Man Utd, Man City or Liverpool or maybe Arsenal offer him a job, which I doubt they will. The most likely way things will go wrong is Ashley thinking he knows best again and ****ing things up. Other than that, I think we'll get promoted and stay up under Rafa.

 

we will have to agree to disagree I'm afraid mate because we're light years behind even clubs like West Brom and stoke these days

 

And he's back!

 

True, next season is about survival and nothing more, however I do expect us to move on from there in the following seasons.
I hate Ashley but apart from appointing mclaren he has backed the club in the last 2 seasons, this window is looking skinny but it's a hard call as why spent big on someone who will only marginally make us stronger rather than spend big in the summer.

 

One little cold and...

 

Sorry but I'll be proved right once again, so let's just cement this comment in our memories and move on[/QUOTE]

 

[/QUOTE]
I totally agree with your comment. I worry we won't do enough in the transfer market and come back down again and this time Rafa won't be here to bring us back.

 

I totally agree with your comment. I worry we won't do enough in the transfer market and come back down again and this time Rafa won't be here to bring us back.[/QUOTE]

Congratulations it's impossible to go downhill from here mate

 

Congratulations it's impossible to go downhill from here mate[/QUOTE]

Erm.....Sunderland?

 

Erm.....Sunderland?[/QUOTE]

The depths I'm discussing are depths within reality though

 

Yep

 

So you are saying Rafa will leave next season and then we'll be relegated next season? Are you willing to stake your reputation on this like this other clown?

 

I think I simply agreed currently we are quite some way behind Stoke and West Brom - we are. I assume we will do something about it in the summer.

 

Oh right, because he was agreeing to disagree about how Rafa would leave because of a better job offer and then we would be relegated next season. He thinks this will happen.

 

He's way ahead of you in The Prediction Challenge Cup so he must be right. Of course you may be ahead in the League but until Nev gets those results up I have to go with Chaos.
I think if we do go up, next year will be a true test of Ashley's wishes for the club. There is a danger of reading too much into what happened this Summer. What he did was the obvious move to try and protect his investment. Question is will he just be satisfied with getting there or will he try and push on if he does. Think if he makes the right noises and makes cash available Rafa will stay. He is probably pretty well paid and the ultimate thrill for a manager must be in building something successful.