angelman

This is all madness. Guess it makes up for his paltry £10m a year wage.

Did I read somewhere that the signing on fee for Pogba is 25m (€ or £ I don't know, but fairly immaterial really!)?

With Poch, it was Gallagher. Since Poch he couldn't get in the squad with RK, and was sent out on loan where he couldn't get into the MK Dons team on a regular basis. Squad x24, started x 11, subbed in x7, 90 mins x2, on bench x11, goals x0, assists x2. Not great reading. In the games that he played, MKD scored 9 goals. That includes 4 in the first game of the season (where he had both assists). He was on the pitch in 2 other matches when MKD scored - a last min sub vs Cardiff and a 15 min appearance vs Forest. In the games he didn't play, they scored 10. So a striker who doesn't score goals in a team that can't score.

Sockpuppets would be my guess. One has stumped up a fiver, the other not. Glasgow?

They got it from here.... https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/premierleague/1456116/swansea-star-andre-ayew-is-shock-chelsea-target-as-new-blues-boss-antonio-conte-rules-out-buying-big-money-strikers/ as did http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/530656/Andre-Ayew-Swansea-Chelsea-transfer-news-gossip I find it all so boring that one publication writes up a story, and then all the others grab it. Can't they write their own ******s or are all these publications now so dire that they have to fill their pages with articles from competitors?

http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/17/chelsea-eye-surprise-transfer-move-for-andre-ayew-6012029/

To summarise, I’m basically playing Devil’s Advocate with the following Qs, 1 - Would you be happy with the perception of the club being that of an academy club? 2 - Would you accept an attitude of almost positive discrimination towards youth to achieve this? 3 - Looking at the depth chart for 16/17, where do you think we need to improve and/or add depth? (the answer of which will obviously depend heavily on your answers to 1 and 2) 4 - Do you see any academy players having breakthrough years? If so, who? 1. Absolutely. I guess though it rather depends how you view footie and what you want from it. Those supporters of clubs who could/can win PL and feature heavily in CL year in year out, probably just want to spend spend spend. That's not us. The sad thing about the PL is that there is little incentive to grow your own players. I think even one of the bods on talkSport talked about it with reference to managers like Guardiola, Mourinhon, Conte, Koeman, who have absolutely no interest in bringing kids through. I hope we are going to be different as it also for some reason brings the players closer to the fans. Not players arriving for the pay check. Without wanting to be revisionist, I always said that the one down side of Koeman's results was the lack of academy players. It was fantastic watching the kids under MP and I would love that to happen again, so long as they were able. It seems such a shame that so many clubs just buy in finished articles and don't want to do the hard work and create gems. Man Utd might be better than some as they have one or two that often appear but will Mourinho continue that? Arsenal often buy in when fairly developed. Chelsea and Man City - what's the point of their academies? Spending hundreds and hundreds of millions doesn't exactly leave much room for developing players. 2. No. I think that a happy balance is more than realistic, but has to based on merit. 3. Need to improve/add depth? I think it has to be naturally done, cream rising to the top etc. I guess that the academy could recruit differently with more polished players, but that is rather buying in success rather than working at it and creating success. Hooking up with another club (Walsall was mentioned?) would be good to give rising academy players a chance to get good game time under their belt and could separate the wheat from the chaff. 4. No idea!! Reed, Hesketh, Gallagher, Olomola? More a hope that these could, rather than thinking they could as I'm really not sure how good they are. Is Clasie much better than Reed? Gallagher - I hope for but suspect maybe not yet. He's the same height as Pelle, so could if he upped his game offer us something very useful. Hesketh has talent, but I suspect he might not be ready this year. Olomoloa seems to be ever improving, but again, can he make the step up?

DWP, or whoever gives them out, can't really be seen to be bending the rules for football players given the current political climate, can it?

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/neven-subotic-middlesbrough-fcs-double-11615168 Does anyone know the rules for appeal? It seems Boro are resigned to fail on the initial application (as per the bits I put), but the article states....But they are confident they will win on the point based first stage of the appeal process. He is coming from a category one league and will be among Boro’s top earners so ticks the boxes in the process. They are also confident Uruguay playmaker Ramirez will get a new permit on appeal.

Uruguay ranked 12th Copa America - of the 7 games in the last 2 years, played 3, not in squad 1, injured 3 WCQ - of the 6 games, played 0, injured 0 WC - of the 4 games, played 2, on the bench in 2 (so not sure if that counts) Friendlies don't count, not that that would have made a difference, so I can't see how he is going to meet the criteria for a work permit as he is way short of the 75% mark.

Don't be silly. The board don't know what they are doing!

OK - I get the Redmond/Juanmi one. But the others. I thought Romeu replaced Morgan principally because both he and Wanyama were here at the same time. However, I can see the hard man enforced role is similar. But Hoj replacing Morgan - wasn't Clasie supposed to do that? Is Clasie going to be a 1st team regular or squad player?

Agree, but you are taking the replacements into account as well. But having said that, it was nice to have "the replacements" there as it added depth to the squad. But give it time, which I know is running out. There seems little point just going out and sending £15m odd on any old player who might not be up to the job.

One could say that Mané was JRod's replacement when he was out injured. As for the other 2 influential players, it has been done. Austin is Pelle's replacement. Which leaves Wanyama - maybe the Danish kid is seen as his. Of course people will bring up injuries.

Being polite - you worry too much. Maybe, but do you think that the standard of opposition is beneath us? Or would you prefer we cancel that and do a last minute tour of L1 teams? Maybe you think it easy to organise these things at short notice. Still trying to be polite, this is complete horse shît. Why would we see or hear from him? His job is to manage the players. If you can't build excitement or anticipation without having your hand held, that is more a reflection on yourself. Certainly the content of your posts say an awful lot about you. While I have no doubt, as you say, that recruitment is more difficult, would you prefer us to do it the West Ham Way? Announce everything on twitter? We have never really been overt about our transfer business, so why do you expect it to be any different now? No we don't. Still trying to be polite, the situation as you see things rarely has any semblance to reality.

I asked my 9yo whether he would like to sit or stand, and having never stood at a match, said that he would prefer to sit (in Kingsland with me). Found that rather sad that a generation have not experienced the terraces. I've got to the age where I prefer to sit, but I am very pro safe standing. Now, last season, I bought some tickets behind the goals in Northam when NUFC returned their allocation. He loved it and I think he would def be up for standing. I think that you can get anything from 40% - 80% more people in. If that is the case, I would expect the ticket prices to reflect that. It would be hugely popular. As already mentioned, people already stand (although that is strictly forbidden in the Kingsland, and I often get told by over officious stewards to sit down as I perch on the back of my seat (as I at the back with the TV gantry behind me I don't get in the way of anyone)) and it is a fact (apparently) that safe standing is much much safer than people standing in all seaters. I would make half the Northam standing (allowing both home and away to stand), and maybe a quarter or less of the Chapel to do the same. Why do we have safe standing anyway? The reason seemingly is Hillsborough and the Taylor Report, but that was down to **** poor stewardship and there have been tens/hundreds of thousands of games where there was no problem. But the real reason was hooliganism. Is that still relevant now?

Witsel to Inter Wijnaldum to Liverpool Are Everton going to get any of their targets?

Silly OP. You say that there is little to nothing the club can do, and then say you don't want a discussion about money.

it is sad but predictable. it happened with us with a modicum of success, the only difference is that LCFC had CL this season. I suspect that the reasoning behind a move is that while Chelsea don't have it this season, they will for the remaining 4 seasons of the 5 year contract, while LCFC won't be there again. While I don't like to see it happening to LCFC, there is a part of me that says "welcome to the club" as it was lonely being the only one that "couldn't keep" their players

Ah politics. Wouldn't it be better on another part of the forum? Most people seem to think that there are nothing but misguided opinions, so really, this worthy thread is doomed to descend into pointless bickering.

Seen some great ones from EFC. Stones goes for £50m and they come and get VVD for £30m. Some how me thinks not!

JWP is going to score a hat full.

I suspect that that might be the case, maybe up to £25-30k. Maybe he saw the streets paved with gold and wanted £50-60k a week.

I guess though that that Liverpool fan was right in that they can let others take the chance and pay 3 times what they could have paid. However, that isn't a terribly good business model, not least as there is no guarantee that the player will be successful with them after having paid the inflated fee. It's fine to do with a player or two, but not all of them!