Obviously horse **** rumours as its off now. Apparently was arshavin. Do you think the board & Pardew would have agreed to this, obviously if true?
Yeah but all I said was sometimes you need to pay good money for some players, meaning that if we see players that the scouts and the manager think could really improve our side, and would sign for the right wages, then why not be willing to maybe spend the cash for him? I wasn't saying we should spend above our means, and go mental. You shouldn't have just made assumptions like that. And it's annoying how many times I've said something about maybe spending a bit more or being a bit less strict with our cash, and someone going over the top and saying something like "And what? Be like Liverpool and spend ridiculous amounts on players". It's annoying how we seem to be going for cheap options or nothing. We're in a good financial position now, the team is doing well, I don't see why we can't just spend that little bit more if the scouts have spotted the talent in him. Like Cisse. He wasn't cheap, but it's not about cheap, it's about bang for buck. I don't see why we could have taken this mentality to the summer transfer window. I know we can't afford to spend 8-10m on several players, but we could at least show a bit more ambition.
To be fair we should have paid the extra money for Debuchy, but for example should we have paid the asking price for Carroll, no. Got to be the right player and price.
To be fair, that's more or less what they have said. You mightnot like it, but they're being pretty up front about it
Got to agree with this. We do have the money. We could really use a right back. Debuchy wanted to come. At some point, you cross the line from being prudent to being bloody minded.
Agreed, but we know that the only reason we'd pay around 15m for him is because we sold him for more than double that just over 18 months ago. But I personally was always more interested in defenders. Imagine if Carroll was our final signing this summer? People would have been crying, saying "wtf are we signing Carroll for, we should spend the money on defenders", then that would probably make a lot of people hate Carroll more.
Sorry cannot agree with this, being careful is one thing, but if this is the best we are going to do, then l think we are going backwards. You cannot stand still and call it progression. We will get caught out as the season progresses, we knew where the weakness lay in the squad and have failed miserably to do anything constructive about it. That's not being careful, it's reckless. We are not expecting £20/30 million pound transfers, just prem quality players at reasonable prices. These deals are happening out there right now, but not for us, why not ? Have we looked at any loan deals, except for AC, which was never realistic. Don't forget how grateful we all should be that Ashley has not sold anyone off, but why should we praise him for that? He should not be looking to cash in on our players, end of!
We were never going to progress on last season. As great as it was, we over achieved. We can't compete with clubs financially unfortunately. For Mike Ashley, the financial benefits of finishing 6th-8th can't be that different to finishing 12th. A massive financial injection for the sake of say 5th place isn't worth it. Our progress will be a slow steady one, as long as we keep our manager, blueprint and spine of the team. all our players have their price, if an offer comes in that is significantly more than our valuation of them, it will be accepted. That is our policy, like it or loathe it. My main frustration is not going that extra 2-3mil for players like Debuchy or Luuk De Jong. Our business isn't going to be as under the radar as it was 1-2 years ago, we need to realise that. Clubs and agents will see us coming and see what we are up to a mile off. A cheap versatile defender and that Gutedi(?) from man city on loan is what I'm hoping for, just can't see it happening.
I don't tend to post on the Sundrland board so you won't be able to. Don't worry about it though, it's the thought that counts.
We actually have as much money to spend as anyone outside the top 4 and Chelsea. We could have easily afforded Debuchy. De Jong, at £16 million or whateer he went for, would have been silly money in my book, as was Jordan Rhodes for £8 million. They are both players who have looked good in weak leagues, who you hope can make the big step up but many (Michale Chopra, Beckford) can't. I can see the argument for not spending large sums on players who are not nearly as good as we already have, but surely there is a decent back up CB out there, and of course Mr Debuchy.
Well put JWAG. For me, we should have paid the extra 800,000 for MD..simples. Some players are wirth that little bit more. The savings on wages should cover that.
There's just many layers of questions here that, for me anyway, only lead to one answer. The talk of how much we have to spend - only Chelsea and City have richer owners. In terms of income, I believe we're 7th in England, somewhere around 14th in Europe. Our wage bill is among the lowest, our net profit among the highest. We have increased our pool of players by one at an overall revenue profit (wages down significantly) to the business. Finishing 5th seems to mean absolutely nothing, yet Spurs - who finished essentially in the same place except didn't benefit from the additional home match in the Europa League - can afford milllons upon millions for Lloris, Sigurdson, Adebayor, Moutinho, Vertonghen. Yes, they sold Modric, but didn't we sell Carroll/Enrique/Nolan for an awful lot more? It doesn't add up. To me, it much more resembles a statement to the market. It says "look at us, look at our business model - profitable business can be had, we nurture young, buy cheap, sell high, get a seat a the top table, roll up, roll up - FOOTBALL CLUB FOR SALE."
