Well that wasn't very good now was it... I know its not quite over, and we may potentially bring in a new defender (but only because Raylor and Perch were injured), I know we've managed to hang onto our bigger names and I know we have been known to spend in January as well, but trying to argue that this window has been a success is like claiming you're on a diet 'cause one of the older lads stole half your chips at lunchtime (raw nerve...don't even go there)! So what happened? Why have we missed out on our targets? Here's a few thoughts: Initial Bids? At the talk in Pardew laughed about the club offering an initial £7m for Carroll. Lets say you're selling a car you've overpaid for (£35k), and the same prick who sold it to you comes up and offers you (£7k) a year later - no matter what he did from that point onwards, you'd feel like telling him to **** off. The same can be said for a lot of our other transfer targets, it seems we know how much the player is worth, how much we are willing to pay, but then offer half or even quater of that to initially test the waters...People are going to think you're wasting their time AND be suspicious of selling at too low a price, we're buying Millionaire footballers, not haggling over a set of fake ****ing Ray-Bans! Returning To The Same Clubs? We've got a reputation now, everyone knows we have been doing well in the transfer market, when we come in for a player, owners automatically wonder how good a deal we're going to get. Owner's who've already seen their star player leave for pittance and then looked on in envy as said player's value sky rockets must ****ing hate us...So why return to the same club? FC Twente lost Tiote for £3.5m, why would they want to sell us De Jong, Lille were still bitter about selling Cabaye for £4.5m, we'd be the last club they want to sell Debuchy to...As for Liverpool, its like the ****ing punchline in a poor joke! Sticking Rigidly To '5 Year Plan'? Our 5 year plan is great on paper. Last season, our 5 year plan was great on the pitch, 4 years ago, our 5 year plan was a ****ing disaster. Buying young players for a small amount of cash and selling them on for a profit makes sense, seeing their stock rise while they help our club to improve makes sense, getting the best out of them in their formative years makes sense - but sticking so rigidly to this format can appear like cutting your nose off to spite your face....We refuse to overpay for players, that's fair enough, but do we always have to get a bargain? Is it so wrong to pay what the player is actually worth? Is buying a player for £5m and selling him for £5m a few years later such a disaster? I know its too easy for the fans to shout, "just pay the extra million" but if we continue to pick up injuries at the rate we currently are, it'll be a lot more than a million we miss out on when the injuries start affecting our results and a million will appear to be a ****ing bargain if we drop out of the European qualification spots, LC, EL and FA Cup! Maybe I'm being a bit negative, maybe the true victory IS in holding onto our star players, at the end of the day, we've been a small squad for the past 3 years and its worked out OK, we've got the same starting 11 that finished 5th last season, it could be enough - but this is a pivotal season, if we drop out of europe, we have lost a massive bargaining chip in holding onto those players...Its a risk, I'd rather we weren't taking!
It's gotten to the point where we're just gonna have to start playing the game like everyone else and paying good money for good players. I personally think our squad is good, but we need a CB and a fullback bringing in.
IF the top dogs stay we are a match for anyone fully fit bar the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, however a few injuries and we are ****ed and could easily get turned over, for example one player Taylor is injuried so we need to buy a replacement. How can one injury result in that
Cracking thread and some very good points. I would not call this window a success or a faliure but it does feel a bit like a missed opportunity to improve on last year. We have basically replaced old heads with young, less expensive players. Anita is the only one who I would consider a first team player that has come in and i cant see him starting unless we go to a 4-3-3. Having said that if we get Pieters in today for 6-8M and don't lose anyone i would be happy with our buisness over all.
I agree. Why do we always have to seek a bargain...There are always times where the need is greater than other times. As for your point on returning to the same club, I don't think that's an issue. I think that's on a case-by-case basis.
I would be happy if we signed a full back and kept our players.... At this moment if santon or simpson gets injured we are screwed
Anita can play at FB, although I've no idea how good he is. I think he was most likely bought to cover those positions as well as CM, otherwise his signing was is a bit strange. We already had a fair amount of midfielders and he didn't come cheap. I guess the club is gambling that we won't suffer any serious injuries this season, and that Senegal won't qualify for the ACON. Let's hope they're right. Mind you, we still have Nile Ranger and Xisco on the books....
Why do we need to always look to buy bargains easy MA`s world revolves around them buy in cheap sell on for moderate profit. No ambition to move the club forward, and there are good players on our radar that ARE NOT overpriced. I can only see Anita as the 1 signing who could go straight into the starting eleven. State of affairs is pretty crap really considering we finished 5th. The younger fringe players might well struggle in Europe once we start playing decent teams.
Been off the grid for 8 hours, now arrived in south France (on a scouting mission for Pards ) I take it I've missed nothing on the toon transfer front?
Looking at what some of the other, supposedly lesser clubs are doing with transfers at the moment is making me really depressed. Where is the ambition ? I do not support or propose paying silly fees or wages for has been journeymen players, but why is it so repulsive to pay what they are worth for players we have been tracking for ages ? We cannot expect to buy every player we would want for next to nothing, we will unearth more super signings as we go along, courtesy of Carr, but we also will need to pay a fair price for proven players aswell. It is so frustrating to miss out on those players we had been linked with and even worse to see some of them going to rival clubs. Will we do something today before the window closes ? Probably not, but l like most loyal and optimistic fans still live in hope. Come on Ashley show some resolve and ambition please!!!!!
No you have not missed anything as of yet. There is a brief mention of Van Der Wiel on the BBC transfer day feed but it is also reported he has agreed terms with PSG
Agree with this. The last couple of press conferences I've seen Pardew do, he's not seemed quite as jovial as usual and a tad hacked off (to me anyway ...). Can't help but wonder if he's as frustrated as some fans in that some good players we were strongly linked with have fallen through the net. It will be brilliant if we keep all our key players, because I didn't really expect that, but I did expect more first team players to come in, and from that point of view, if nothing on that front changes before 11pm, it all feels a bit of a let down.
We're probably going with another half-assed bid at the closure and say "we tried" like the bryan ruiz incident
How did I know some **** would say this? The occasions where I've ever mentioned spending cash, at least one person assumes I think we should go and spend ridiculous amounts. **** off if you're just gonna be like that.
This. I wish they'd just come out and say "we couldn't get these players on the cheap, so we're not bothering".
Agreed. But I would be slightly happy if I saw nothing more about us on SSN today. I don't want to see anyone leave.
