angelman

Really?? What about all the "board know my intentions"? That to me is NOT how you do things and comes across as incredibly arrogant. Not surprised as most contracted players seem to have forgotten their place and behave as they want and expecting to get what they want. Life, and I know football is its own microcosm or so they think, doesn't work like that.

I do find the whole thing very interesting. But what I can't understand is what the Premier League is doing? If there is a European Super League (ESL), then wouldn't that mean that those that run the PL would have a severely diminished product, and they aren't likely to be running the ESL. They might have a finger in the ESL pie, but that would be less than what they currently have with the PL. So we have a situation where the Big 6 + Everton have basically made the top 7 a closed shop. The gap between them and us will get more and more as they make ever more money until it really will be meaningless to have the league in the format that it is currently in. To be honest, I already feel that it has reached that point, but it will just get worse and worse. So Charles Greeen's comments might well be prophetic, although hugely arrogant and ignoring the fact that it is smaller clubs that have allowed the big boys to get big. I do think it fairly inevitable that there will be a ESL to the detriment of football in all countries. As I don't support Man Utd or Real Madrid, I have little interest in seeing them play each other every year in a league. Having said that, football is an entertainment business. You do not have to have the highest standard of football to be entertained. Much more entertaining if teams are equally matched, so maybe an ESL won't be the worst thing in the world. As the article says, and as I have been banging on about, I really can't see the point of joining a competition that you have no chance of winning. What is the point of being an established mid table teams? Is it only so that you can get the rewards and watch the top 6 swan into town with all their foreign players? How often have supporters said that they would rather be in the Championship? While that might not be strictly true, I think that we all understand the sentiment. They/us can win the Championship. I guess you can say that we won the PL (section 2) last season. Wow - that's great. But as I say, I really can't understand what the PL is doing. They seem to be becoming architects of their own downfall.

Hate all this #YNWA. Seems you can put that after any old bollicks and the Scoucers cream themselves.

Ooooh monkey, are you teasing us? I'm off on holiday tomorrow, and fully expect that by the time I come back in a week, that the club will have been bought and that we will have someone like Ronaldo playing for us.

ITV are only interested in the CL and the teams who compete in it (well, that is for the time being).

I'm happy on the whole with Boruc (except for his pïss poor kicking) as long as he doesn't monkey about on the ball. He is a known quantity, has been excellent value for money and is a good keeper of definite PL standard. Forster is expensive. What about the other options. Kelvin seems to be not up to it. Gazza, well, having spent £2.5m on him shouldn't he really be challenging for 1st spot? As he isn't, why keep him?

I think that they might be when Bony goes, if they are not already. However they should get a good price for him (£12-16 or more?) but it's a question of how to spend it, as we well know.

^ think that that is how I see it as well.

There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Again, he and the press fail to address why we haven't been able to keep them all. They can sit in their ivory towers and think that all is well in football, or rather they can ignore it, but for the rest of us, we have to face reality. I wonder what he would say to the introduction of a Europe/world wide wage cap of £10,000 a week?

From the Spuds sight re: Poch Interesting bit from JWP talking about the new Koeman training regime "....we feel a lot fresher going into the games which is more positive for us".

For me, depending if Arsenal can get that special one or maybe two players, top 3 is Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal.. Then 4th I see a battle between Liverpool and United. Then battle for 6th is Spurs, Everton (and us )

Who said the club was losing momentum and ambition? All I ever heard from the board were that things were going to continue as was and that there was money to strengthen. There was a lot of stuff printed in the press that this and that had changed, but had they? Tell me what changed? Selling an 18yo for £30m - that was always on the cards and Pochettino knew/agreed this? Selling Lambert - reports that he was off to WHU last January so no real change there? We offered Pochettino the same amount that he is earning at Spurs - so what was different there? Hell they all bunked off before they even knew who the next manager was going to be. Or is the real difference the wages that we can offer the players? OK it was something like 59% of revenue. If Spurs spend 59% of revenue on wages then I guess that triples the amount that we offer. So really, the only thing that has changed is the wages that the players feel they can get and that is how it started. There are so many excuses flyiung around - half the team loved the Chairman, half the team loved the manager but it looks like those same people didn't love the wage they were being paid.

I sincerely hope, now that the board or Ralphy has laid down his cards, that the club sticks to its guns, not just for our sake, but for the sake of 12 other football clubs in the PL. The power is in the contract. If you are contracted to a club, and if one party doesn't agree with the other, the contract takes precedence. End of, no argument. Full stop! The things that have to be looked at is morale in the club and opportunity cost on keeping someone who isn't going to play. The former, well, who knows what the players left behind are thinking? They may agree that this has been one big **** take or they may agree with MS. The latter, well hopefully we can afford to take a stance and cut our nose off to spite our face. But £25m or whatever it is, is £25m. Now from MS's point of view, I am not sure he has come out publicly and said why he wants to leave. If it is the Euro16 and playing European club football, then Arsenal would be the place to go. Spurs might well find themselves out of it, and I expect they will be finsihing either 6th or 7th this season. Then what? If it is to follow Pochettino then fair enough and I am sure that his wages will double, but not only are his other excuses bogus, but it is a little naive as well as hugely disrespectful having not worked with Koeman at all. But hey, he will be on double the money with a manager he knows, so he'll be fine with that. Now if the club want to play hard ball, Morgan is not going to Euro 2016 as he won't get a game in the next 2 years. The power is with the contract that he signed and I do so hope that one day a club will stand up to the players and make them realise that a contract is a contract. There are two ways of looking at it....we paid £1.3m for him so no great loss, or we can get £25m for selling him.

I sincerely hope, now that the board or Ralphy has laid down his cards, that the club sticks to its guns, not just for our sake, but for the sake of 12 other football clubs in the PL. The power is in the contract. If you are contracted to a club, and if one party doesn't agree with the other, the contract takes precedence. End of, no argument. Full stop! The things that have to be looked at is morale in the club and opportunity cost on keeping someone who isn't going to play. The former, well, who knows what the players left behind are thinking? They may agree that this has been one big **** take or they may agree with MS. The latter, well hopefully we can afford to take a stance and cut our nose off to spite our face. But £25m or whatever it is, is £25m. Now from MS's point of view, I am not sure he has come out publicly and said why he wants to leave. If it is the Euro16 and playing European club football, then Arsenal would be the place to go. Spurs might well find themselves out of it, and I expect they will be finsihing either 6th or 7th this season. Then what? If it is to follow Pochettino then fair enough and I am sure that his wages will double, but not only are his other excuses bogus, but it is a little naive as well as hugely disrespectful having not worked with Koeman at all. Now if the club want to play hard ball, Morgan is not going to Euro 2016 as he won't get a game in the next 2 years. The power is with the contract that he signed and I do so hope that one day a club will stand up to the players and make them realise that a contract is a contract. There are two ways of looking at it....we paid £1.3m for him so no great loss, or we can get £25m for selling him.

No point banning or suing. You sue a news organisation at your own peril. Start with the BBC, and then the rest (probably heading the queue would be the Mail) start ripping you a new one.

Come on, we all know in life people come out with all sort of spurious excuses to make themselves look better. No one thinks disloyalty and greed are traits to be admired, so its far easier to turn the blame on another party. Clubs rarely act petulantly and run to the press blabbing, so they are an easy target, especially as the press put players on pedestals to sell stories, but never a board of directors. That is seemingly only a retrospective view on Cortese. When he was in situ, I can't recall the press loving him. Maybe he is the second coming??

The article seems (could be there as I just skimmed) to ignore the way some players have behaved. It is interesting to see that there are a plethora of articles now coming out talking about player behavior and contracts.

I do like being able to listen to the manager (a) speaking English (although it didn't bother me that MP didn't) and (b) be smiling and enthusiastic when being interviewed (I always thought it a shame that MP came across as being a bit aloof).

Yes but the media love in with Liverpool will never say that they massively over paid (to me by about £10m but what do I know) for 1 of our players, and over paid for another. They will focus on the £4m they paid for Lambert, which I believe doesn't include add ons. Same with United. The press seem to do nothing but Liverpool/United stories (positive) along with the negative ones about us. I just wonder when they are done with the Schadenfreude whether they will look at things properly and leave us alone.

Don't they stay with local families?

While it might be true, isn't the article based on supposition and one side of the story? I would have thought that if you wanted to write a balanced article that maybe Smith could have asked the club for their input.

The thing that people might not take into account is that he isn't just here by himself, he has his brother and the respective families to take into account. They could all settle down here for a good number of years if they so wished and things went well with the club. But then, there's not much security in football management (as WGS said, being sacked from being a manger isn't like being sacked in real life!)

There was an interview with a Dutch journo who said that Koeman took the captaincy away from him, and that de Vrij quite possibly never forgave him for that and wouldn't want to sign for him.

Wish they'd hurry up - I'm going on hols and the wife will kill me if I am on the mobile the whole time.