The Kraken

As ever pap, I do enjoy your prose.

To be honest I'd have to take my time to decide between Astori with a blindfold on and Hooiveld without one....

Dammit. I'd just had a think about it and changed mine to agree with you.

Nonsense my dear Bear. The forum is often a gathering of wonderful minds and a sharing of boundless opinion.

I would if he could have a couple of days of training. Any less and probably not. As he is so massively better than anything we have already, I'd be willing to give a little more leeway. Unless its done tomorrow I'd suggest (if it gets done at all) he won't be in for Villa.

Nah, you're talking b*llocks now pap. A debate is where you exchange ideas, go into it with an open mind and on some occasions allow your opinions to be altered (or even reversed). I'll wager that Alpine has never, ever admitted he is wrong about anything (he has been countless times of course, with some absolutely fabulous whoppers that he still somehow sticks by). In fact on another post yesterday when I called him up on his negative predictions for Saints upcoming matches, where he had predicted 1 draw and 5 defeats (we actually had 3 wins 2 draws 1 defeat) he even tried to lie and deny his idiocy, saying that his prediction had been pretty good. Don't get me wrong, its trolling and WUMmery of the highest degree, but please don't try and call it debate. It isn't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to call for bannings and wouldn't in this case either. In fact I've said before that I enjoy having Alpine around as he's exactly the kind of ignorant and illogical buffoon you need to have around to laugh at their sheer bloody minded stupidity and keyboard thumping anger.

I'll defer. My maths have been up the spout all day. I just figured 2M net at 50% tax is (very roughly) 4M gross, and before NI is around 4.5M euros per annum. Christ knows if that's right. I hope not, anyway. I used to be good at maths. Top set at school, passed my GCSE a year early, did it at A Level. Where did it all go wrong?

MLG, I'm disappointed with you my boy. I thought you had learnt from those thieves at the other end of the M27. Unlike them, this football club pays National Insurance contributions. Net pay is 2m euros per year; before tax 4m euros. NI is 12%. Total gross pay is therefore probably around 4.5M euros per year, or 86,538 euros per week. Which is around £72,000 per week. Yikes.

Its got to be the boy Lambert for me, Jeff.

Sorry did I say week? I clearly meant day. Or hour. Or something. Sod this, my brain hurts. I'm going to play 5 a side.

Indeed. Gaston was so honest he went public with exactly how much he is on! Good lad; if you've got it, flaunt it.

I'd hardly say its the norm. Average wages for the Premier League last year were still less than £25K per week. This is way more than double that. Gaston's deal was £2M per week net plus a £1M signing bonus. Or, to put it another way, in his first year his contract was worth close to £100K per year. A figure that Cortese himself said he wouldn't consider paying unless we had a 50k stadium. Gaston is on (and Astori is apparently being offered) a contract that put s a buyout on them at their purchase price if we go down. If the others on teh books don't have relegation clauses (they surely must have) then relegation could be a crippler.

Yep, sounds like we could be being used as a leverage for a deal closer to home. £2M net a year is an enormous wage for a club our size. Same as Gaston too. That worries me; so much for living within our means.

This season, photographed in the Echo at least twice that I've seen (sat behind Cortese).

Apart from them being photographed still turning up to matches? Or are you not including that?

Not really, no. Rodriguez was bought in the summer, and the more I hear about it the more I'm sure it was as a direct replacement for Lambert. Such was the priority placed on his signature. Lambert was being offered around for transfer out of the club in the summer, and from what I hear it got fairly close to him going. He still hasn't got the contract he wants, and I'm absolutely sure he won't be here next season if things stay as they are right now. I'm not dismissing Rodriguez; I'm saying he's not turned out as the signing he was intended to be. And he certainly hasn't turned out to be the signing we needed for this season IMO.

Sturridge is a classic example of a young British talent who came up through a big club, got a move to another big club and failed to push on. I feel we don't even know his true ability level; at Bolton on loan he was a goal machine (8 goals in 12) but he simply hasn't done it at Chelsea. I actually can't see what role is in store for him at Liverpool. There's talk of Suarez playing more wide as he used to used in Holland, but Suarez is on fire right now and Rodgers would surely be stupid to do anything to quash that momentum. Rodgers is already saying that Sturridge is "nowhere near fit" (which is slightly bizarre in itself, he shouldn't be too far away) so I guess he'll build up his fitness and we'll see from there. I find it a slightly odd signing, but only in that I don't know where he'll play. But he's not a winger, he's a centre forward and as you say I think he'll get limited opportunities to actually play there.

You're such a bully.

I'm done here. But congratulations, you've completed your aim of being the centre of attention pantomime villain yet again. Keep on trolling, troll.

Troll.

Its not abuse, just pointing something out to Dig Dig. I wasn't even talking directly to your trolling self. Troll.

You know you're conversing with a moron when he uses Dalek as a back-up. That's the point you bail from it; its like trying to reason with a small child.

I wouldn't say you're clueless, Rog. Just thoroughly over-protective of a good player.

Its an entirely fair point. We all know the ambitions of the chairman, and its not to scratch around the relegation zone. The ambition is to be a top ten Premier League club, and you have to ask if Rickie Lambert (as great as he has been for us) is the man to take us there. I don't think he's quite there, although he's clearly proved he is of Premier League quality. And saying that, I'd love it if he'd stay with us come what may, as there would surely be a role for him if not starting every week. But sadly I don't see it, I think he'll be gone in the summer. Rodriguez was supposed to be the replacement this summer but that hasn't worked out, so next time we'll have to get it spot on.