hypochondriac

Rubbish.

Although still a million times better than ours.

Also some ex players get free tickets in hospitality. I know because I get to use them occasionally (and he charges me twenty quid the bastard).

The mayor who has just left office is an absolutely smashing bloke and completely down to earth. If he gets a free ticket then I'm pleased for him.

His obituary tweet made me lol

Let me know though as I'm off on holiday at the weekend.

He is a bit overly dramatic on twitter.

To be fair last year we did get a photo of jay rod at a local hotel.

Yeah I know but my suspicion is that we have a higher percentage of players who have turned us down than your average Premiership club. Based on what went on last summer and this as well as journo comments etc.

It sort of makes me wish we built more slowly instead of trying to jump ahead too soon. IMO what we need are players slightly better than what we currently have in key positions to give us a shout for europe this year or next. Once we are there we will find it easier to attract the big names.

IMO Astori is proven quality certainly in comparison to Lovren. I highly doubt that we chose Lovren over Astori.

I respectfully disagree!

I'll buy for 50.

Fair enough. We aren't going to agree on everything. The thing about player judgements is that it is subjective.

Neither are you now you don't barge around looking for a fight anymore. You also make reasonable points on occasion which is nice.

I suppose you have to weigh up how costly it would be to lose the target simply for not paying the agent the going rate. From what Nixon is saying it appears that we are not budging and that we are not getting any of our targets as a consequence. Can you put an apostrophe in your location by the way, it's quite annoying.

Indeed

I'll judge it now and then reappraise things in September thanks very much. As always at this time of year, it is possible to do both.

I'm not sure about that. NC sticking to his guns in this case doesn't appear to have any upside to me as a fan but it has quite a few downsides.

As I said it is up for debate. He certainly wasn't the proven quality that we have been linked with this year.

Exactly and IMO that appears to be the crux of our problem.

From the accounts I have read, Lovren was fourth choice centre back and had a very poor season last year making the most amount of mistakes for a CB just ahead of Jos. I'm sure he will be a step up from the likes of Jos but he isn't an undisputed top class signing like some of the others we have been linked with.

Still young and unproven IMO. I accept that is up for debate though.

Hmm. The evidence doesn't really bear that view out thus far. Obviously still time to change though.

Both Lovren and Ramirez had question marks over them. Quite a few of the players we have been linked with are a step up from these two and that was the market I was referring to.